<p>OTOH, it’s much easier for guys who went to Duke when tuition was still about $2,500 per year (no, I didn’t leave off a zero; that’s what it was in 1975) and climbed the socioeconomic ladder before middle-class wage growth flatlined to say that $100,000 isn’t a lot of money. YMMV.</p>
<p>She wants to go to finance or management. I am not sure what are the future prospects of these subjects. So I advised her to start with mechanical engineering and decide after joining duke. I am not sure how it works. Undergrad in engg and grad in finance or management. She does not know much about investment banker however she wants to be investment banker. Confused teen and equally confused dad.</p>
<ol>
<li> Every family needs to talk about how they can finance college</li>
<li> 100K is very hard to pay off</li>
<li> Some major/careers require an elite UG University, others do not. Don’t take on 150K of debt for a career that pays 50K/yr…you are dead if you do. Do go if you want a high income career that recruits only from top U’s.</li>
<li> Most students at Duke (80%) are full pay or no pay. This is typical at other top privates. The upper middle class are all at the state flagship honors program. It’s the economics of higher education.</li>
<li> It does seem odd that “need blind” universities have the least number of need students. One would expect 2% of graduating HS students to be able to pay the full COA. At Duke (and most top privates) 40-50% do not have need…</li>
</ol>
<p>Bud,</p>
<p>Can you pl explain what do you mean by “Most students at Duke (80%) are full pay or no pay.” Do you mean that 80% students at duke get full ride?</p>
<p>I’m not sure about that number, but that would mean that 80% of kids are either receiving a full-ride or absolutely no financial aid. The number is no longer readily available on the site, but 55% of Duke students received no grant aid. Slightly under 50% of students receive no financial aid at all.</p>
<p>. . . and, to augment purplecorn, historically – over the last perhaps decade – approximately 44 percent of Duke undergraduates receive aid (of one or more types).</p>
<p>Mnomno, absent your daughter having developed a strong passion for a particular field of study, IMO your advice is very sensible. An engineering degree can serve as a launching pad for many and varied careers. She will learn to think rigorously, to solve complex and difficult problems, and to design and make things. It also serves as a good background for entry level consulting and investment banking jobs. </p>
<p>The primary role of an investment bank is to connect sources of capital (pension funds, mutual funds, alternative investment funds and wealthy individuals) with users of capital (primarily corporations and governments) through the issuance, selling and trading of stocks and bonds. Investment banks also support the reshaping of industries by providing advice related to the merging, purchase and sale of companies.</p>
<p>Top, purple, it feels good to know that I am among many others who pay a lot of money out of pocket. </p>
<p>Am,
Thank you very much. Your comment “An engineering degree can serve as a launching pad for many and varied careers.” Made me feel good. I was not sure what opportunities will be available after undergrad in finance or management. That’s why I suggested her to go thru the engineering route. This way, she will be more sure to get a job if needed. Though she plans to go to grad in finance.
Thanks again</p>
<h2>*IMO for the majority in the middle of the bell curve, the prospective $100,000 would be a nominal inconvenience requiring what are minor sacrifices relative to the benefits. And for the right hand side of the bell curve the debt load would be inconsequential. *</h2>
<p>Wow. I’ve never heard of a $100k debt that is not disolved through bankruptcy as a “nominal inconvenience” or “inconsequential.” I thought I lived in a nice neighborhood but I want to live in yours!</p>
<p>If one person goes to Duke and incurs $100k in student loan debt and the other goes to UNC-CH or UVA and is debt free, who do you think will accumulate wealth faster? Education is a means to an end. It’s used for social mobility as well as the intrinsic value of being a learned individual.</p>
<p>We need to stop believing the brochures coming from the marketing departments of private universities. Duke is an amazing school but there is a price point that doesn’t make fiscal sense. Some will write checks on behalf of their children for the privilege of attending Duke. Others are not so fortunate and to use prestige as the reason to amass crippling debt while their contemporaries are not is** just bad financial advice**. Is it fair that some can take advantage of a school and others can’t because of cost? No but, that’s a socioeconomic discussion for another post.</p>
<p>And the OP is taking the debt on instead of the child which is what any parent would do. But there are choices. And taking on debt means that retirement and other investments are not being made. </p>
<p>Duke is a great school with merit and need based aid. ANY school is a terrible choice if your only option is borrowing against the next 20 years of earnings.</p>
<p>Based on OP’s #15 comment</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>OP has to pay tuition/r&b if OP’s D decides to go to private/out-of-state/in-state school anyway unless your daughter gets full ride or some scholarship. Otherwise this $100,000 debt comparison does not make sense to me.</p>
<p>My S got little scholarship/no aid from UNC CH. He needs to pay around $14,000 plus $5,000 loan. My D got financial package from Duke. The total cost was less then went to UNC CH. She also got scholarship from other public school and scholarship from ROTC but she chose Duke at the end.</p>
<p>In my opinion, high school senior is old enough to know family finance situation. The decision should be based on the understanding of whole family members.</p>
<p>Three abbreviated points follow, at least one of which is quite relevant and, as yet, is unmentioned in this important thread:</p>
<p>1) Most critically, Duke offers debt deferral and FORGIVENESS, aimed at graduates who enter public service (and certain other fields) with comparatively low compensation. I believe this is a SUPERB program, it strongly encourages alumni to use their talent and education in service to society, while it reduces/eliminates one of the most substantial constraints that might otherwise preclude service-oriented careers.</p>
<p>2) For am and Mnomno: An excellent undergraduate engineering education not only provides key entry level skills; certainly more important, it also creates a rigorous, disciplined and quantitative approach to analysis and problem solving that has great applicability – and proven success – in management, the law, consulting, finance and MANY other highly desirable fields. Mnomno, your daughter will do well to zealously stick with her plan, which hopefully will be highly rewarding and challenging, both at Duke and thereafter.</p>
<p>3) wherezwallace: Your latest post to this thread suggests that the debt free UVa or UNC-CH alumni will accumulate wealth more rapidly than their Duke counterparts with some undergraduate debt. I challenge that assertion for two reasons. First – financially – Duke alumni generally are paid significantly more than their Chapel Hill and Charlottesville counterparts. While this is true throughout many careers, it is particularly so in more senior and responsible positions (in fact, I have read a lot of NCSU initiated statements – I cannot validate these – that indicate that the average N C State alum is more highly compensated than the average UNC-CH graduate). Therefore, I am not at all certain that your claim is valid. Second – non-financially – wealth is important; however, happiness, satisfaction, challenges, non-fiscal rewards, and so forth are far more about non-financial matters than about money alone. I recognize that the crux of this thread focuses on undergraduate costs and return on those investments, but it would be extremely foolish to make a decision of this MAJOR, lifelong consequence based solely of money.</p>
<p>" wherezwallace: Your latest post to this thread suggests that the debt free UVa or UNC-CH alumni will accumulate wealth more rapidly than their Duke counterparts with some undergraduate debt. I challenge that assertion for two reasons"</p>
<p>LOL. OK, so two students major in X with the same marks. One went to UVA while spending nothing and the other went to Duke and now has over $100K in debt. I can assure you that the UVA student will accumulate wealth MUCH FASTER compared to the Duke student. To say otherwise is absolutely baffling. You think WAY too highly of Duke. This is obvious.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here you go…55% pay full tuition and 20% pay NO tuition based on financial aid (i.e. slightly more than 20% get a full ride if you also include athletes and merit scholarships). So, yes, the majority of matriculating students either get no aid or full aid and don’t have to pay anything.
[What</a> Price College? | Duke magazine](<a href=“Duke Mag”>Duke Mag)
<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/duke-university/1561771-duke-magazine-article-rising-cost-college.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/duke-university/1561771-duke-magazine-article-rising-cost-college.html</a></p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Only for federal loans, as loan forgiveness is a federal program open to students at all institutions, not just Duke. Students taking on substantial debt through private loans and families taking on debt through PLUS loans or home equity/HELOC loans would not qualify for such programs. If families are taking on 100k in debt, the majority of those loans are not eligible for loan forgiveness programs.</p>
<p>Snorlaz, that was my point in asking the question. TopTier believes that it’s not a fair comparison. It is. I was tempted to calculate the Net Present Value to show the difference but I don’t have the time.</p>
<p>TopTier, </p>
<p>Lets change the example to hopefully take the emotional aspect out of this discussion. </p>
<p>If a student receives a full ride to Duke, but is also admitted to Columbia or U Chicago, and has to pay $100k in student loans, the following three statements are your position:</p>
<p>1) The student should take out the loans because those schools are more “elite” than Duke based on USN or Forbes rankings.</p>
<p>2) The student will have a happier life after graduation because they attended a more prestigious undergrad school.</p>
<p>3) They will earn more money over their lifetime based on going to schools better than Duke.</p>
<p>To be consistent, I assume you agree to all three of those statements. I, of course, do not.</p>
<p>Post #56 are full of errors (rhetological fallacieis). They are: </p>
<p>Burden of Proof (“I don’t need to prove my claim – you must prove it is false”),
Guilt by Association (“Discrediting an idea or claim by associating it with an undesirable person or group”),
Undistributed Middle (“Assuming because two things share a property, that makes them the same thing”),
Red Herring (“Introducing irrelevant material to the argument to distract and lead towards a different conclusion”),
Straw Man (“Creating a distorted or simplified caricature of your opponents argument, and then arguing against that”)
Appeal to (questionable) Authority (“Claiming something is true because an questionable ‘expert’ says it is”),
and
Begging the Question (“Making a claim while leaving out one or more major contributing factors that may affect the conclusion”).</p>
<p>Uh-oh, everyone watch out! Looks like someone has taken an Intro to Philosophy class!!! LOL.</p>
<p>passsky81,</p>
<p>You forgot to include ad hominem in your description of rhetological fallacieis. </p>
<p>Oh wait. That doesn’t apply to my post, it applies to yours. </p>
<p>If you are not going to contribute to the discussion, please refrain from attempting to impress the internet with your intellect or mastery of a google search. We are engaging in an open and honest discussion about the cost and value of education.</p>
<p>TopTier was not insulting to me and I hope he didn’t feel I was insulting to him/her. You however introduced nothing more than a internet cry for attention.</p>
<p>passsky81,
You made my day. It is a great post. You talked like my d. She is in debate team.
Where,
“1) The student should take out the loans because those schools are more “elite” than Duke based on USN or Forbes rankings.”
I think top 10 are same. At least I feel so.
“2) The student will have a happier life after graduation because they attended a more prestigious undergrad school.”
There are good chance of getting a good grad (again top 10) or it will help getting a job which might not be available to other undergrads.
“3) They will earn more money over their lifetime based on going to schools better than Duke.”
They are likely get a jump start which will make a big difference in life time. </p>
<p>These are my reasons in favor of duke or top 10.</p>
<p>We might as well end this thread. OP clearly wants her D to go to Duke. I hope the debt is worth that fuzzy feeling you two get from a Duke education!</p>
<p>“Post #56 are full of errors (rhetological fallacieis). They are:”</p>
<p>is*</p>