<p>I was accepted to the highest and lowest-ranked universities I applied to, JHU and UF, as a junior-level transfer student. Hopkins will put me in over $30,000 of debt - and that's just for my first year; since aid for transfer students is limited, it isn't looking good for my second year either. Florida, on the other hand, will cost little-to-nothing. I'm majoring in history, and realize Hopkins has a top 10 department in that field, while the only thing I've seen UF rank top 10 in is partying. Question is, is JHU worth the massive debt I'd incur?</p>
<p>Ok this is the hardest thing. Last year I would have said university is worth the investment but after hearing horror stories about debt I would say unless any university gives you a healthy financial aid package you should really think twice about going into debt. If I were you, I’d call the financial aid office at JHU and see about aid packages. If you are dead set about coming to Hopkins apply to scholarships, scholarships, scholarships. Yes UF is far inferior to Hopkins academics wise, but if you do extremely well at UF you could still find yourself at a good graduate school. I was lucky enough to graduate from JHU debt free and could focus solely on academics without the horror of debt weighing down on me.</p>
<p>For history major, it is not worth it. Seriously, your earning power will not be that high in the field of history. The student loan will be a huge burden on you.</p>
<p>Ultimately, the decision is yours. My son had a somewhat similar decision. Hopkins would have left our family about $50K in debt after four years (I could pay a substantial amount of the Estimated Family Contribution on a current basis, but either my son or I would have had to borrow the rest). </p>
<p>He received three other firm offers, all much, much better than Hopkins. </p>
<p>Hopkins had been his first choice when applying to college, He narrowed it down to a final three: Hopkins, our state flagship university, and a school up north with a better reputation than Hopkins. The state school offered a full scholarship with all the extras, the school up north offered a package where our EFC is one that I can afford without loans.</p>
<p>I met with the Hopkins financial aid people to explain that there was no way we could afford the EFC without large loans, and that their financial aid package was far more expensive than any others received. They were entirely unwilling to add a penny to his financial aid package. The young fellow with whom I met was very polite, but a little condescending when he answered my request for increased aid with the statement that he wished my son well at one of the other two schools.</p>
<p>So, my son will be heading north at the end of August. If he hadn’t selected the school up north, he would have selected the state school. Hopkins, which had been my son’s first choice to go to college, fell to a very distant third with their out-of-whack financial aid package.</p>
<p>He is going to major in a STEM field, and thus, his prospects for remunerative employment after graduation are probably pretty good, but he was entirely unwilling to go into debt for $50K to obtain a college degree. I can’t say I blame him.</p>
<p>I guess it’s relevant that I want to go to graduate school or law school, and JHU has good grad school placement. I’m not sure what the prospects would be for Hopkins undergrads who choose to get a job with just a B.A., but that’s probably unusual anyway since a majority of undergraduates go on to medical school or other grad schools.
Still unsure, but thanks for the responses.</p>
<p>PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE do not go into that kind of debt for an undergraduate degree. If you are debt-free currently, you’re looking at graduating with a history degree and $60,000 in debt. History majors do not commonly get financial aid/scholarships for grad school, so you’re looking at more debt later on. You could EASILY finish up well over 100k in debt, and then what? You’ve got a PhD in history with a job offer at Butler Community College for $40,000 per year. You’ll crumble under that debt load. </p>
<p>I know you’re young and you really, really want to attend JH. I was in a similar boat as you at 18 - with the choice to attend the state public or the expensive private with loans. I really, really want to attend the private, but my parents talked me into the public - and I am very, very grateful. Because I had no loans, I was able to buy a house a couple years after graduation, put myself through graduate school part time with no loans (paying out of pocket while working), get married, and have a couple of kids. $600+ per month (the mortgage payment on my house, as a mattter of fact) for 10+ years would have put a huge damper on that. No school is worth that kind of debt - I’m very happy now and have the same job I would have had at 5 times the cost for an undergrad degree.</p>
<p>skydivemom, I disagree with so many of your points, I don’t even know where to begin. I’d agree that the OP shouldn’t take on debt for a BA in history if he’s interested in pursuing something only in that field. and is unwilling to go to graduate school However, should he be interested in consulting (open to all majors), he would start off at 60-70k. And these positions are hardly impossible to get coming out of Hopkins. He’d have a decided advantage over UF in getting one of these positions based on the Hopkins alumni connections at these companies and the on-campus recruiting.</p>
<p>Additionally, Ph.D. positions at reputable graduate schools are all fully funded. This means the OP would have all expenses paid AND have a sizable stipend (35k a year) to pay for his/her living expenses (and any undergraduate loans). Being that Hopkins has a more renowned history faculty, he’d have an easier time getting into one of these renowned and highly competitive Ph.D. programs going to a top private.</p>
<p>Granted, tenure track positions at universities for history majors are hard to come by and extremely competitive, the OP with a Ph.D. would have a lot more opportunities. He could again work for a consulting firm, work for a think tank or another research position for far more than 40k. There’s no reason he’d be relegated to a community college teaching position for only 40k as you allude to -especially if he were to to go a top Ph.D. program. I’m at McKinsey, and we hire our fair share of history Ph.D.s from Harvard, Princeton, Columbia and other schools. I know other reputable management consulting firms do the same.</p>
<p>It’s always a touchy subject, but I never feel it’s right to tell someone to be risk adverse and go to a cheaper school just because it’s cheaper. Each person’s situation is unique. There isn’t one blanket answer. To show the differences between a state and a private degree, see this study that was recently conducted between the alumni at Hopkins and Maryland from the class of 2007 to evaluate earning potential:</p>
<p>"Kelly-Clyne, a junior majoring in political science with a minor in the Whiting School’s W.P. Carey Program in Entrepreneurship & Management, decided to apply for a PURA grant for fall 2008 to settle their friendly debate. Under the guidance of his PURA adviser, Karl Alexander, professor in the Department of Sociology, Kelly-Clyne planned to poll the classes of 1997 from Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland to compare their socioeconomic backgrounds, educational history, career paths and current financial situations to find out whether a private education gives students a leg up or whether other factors are more influential.</p>
<p>After reviewing 300 responses from an online survey sent to alumni of both schools, Kelly-Clyne found that the Johns Hopkins alumni made more money than their counterparts who graduated from the University of Maryland, and that attending a private high school didn’t appear to make a difference in determining future financial success because many of those surveyed graduated from public high schools. A likely explanation for the higher salaries, Kelly-Cline said, is that more Johns Hopkins alumni go on to earn advanced degrees than do Maryland alumni.</p>
<p>Kelly-Clyne then went beyond the simple question posed by his dad to look deeper into the data he had gathered. Beyond the question of public versus private education, the survey results suggest that the level of parental education might be a better indicator of a student’s future financial success.</p>
<p>The goal: Correlate education and earning potential</p>
<p>To determine whether more costly private higher education secured a better financial future, Lucas Kelly-Clyne surveyed JHU and University of Maryland alums.
Photo by Will Kirk / HIPS</p>
<p>Lucas Kelly-Clyne’s project was sparked by a conversation with his father about the value of private education. Playing the role of devil’s advocate, Kelly-Clyne’s dad wondered whether it would be worth it to send Luke’s younger siblings to a private high school and university like their older brother. He wondered, Does a more expensive private education secure a better future?</p>
<p>Kelly-Clyne, a junior majoring in political science with a minor in the Whiting School’s W.P. Carey Program in Entrepreneurship & Management, decided to apply for a PURA grant for fall 2008 to settle their friendly debate. Under the guidance of his PURA adviser, Karl Alexander, professor in the Department of Sociology, Kelly-Clyne planned to poll the classes of 1997 from Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland to compare their socioeconomic backgrounds, educational history, career paths and current financial situations to find out whether a private education gives students a leg up or whether other factors are more influential.</p>
<p>After reviewing 300 responses from an online survey sent to alumni of both schools, Kelly-Clyne found that the Johns Hopkins alumni made more money than their counterparts who graduated from the University of Maryland, and that attending a private high school didn’t appear to make a difference in determining future financial success because many of those surveyed graduated from public high schools. A likely explanation for the higher salaries, Kelly-Cline said, is that more Johns Hopkins alumni go on to earn advanced degrees than do Maryland alumni.</p>
<p>Kelly-Clyne then went beyond the simple question posed by his dad to look deeper into the data he had gathered. Beyond the question of public versus private education, the survey results suggest that the level of parental education might be a better indicator of a student’s future financial success.</p>
<p>“A factor that did not change across comparisons of Johns Hopkins and the University of Maryland populations was a higher degree of JHU graduates’ parental education, no matter what the parental income level,” Kelly-Clyne said. “This may mean that JHU graduates hailed from families that looked at education in a different way than UMD graduates’ families,” he said. “JHU’s family population may have viewed college as a starting point on a long road of educational experiences rather than the final destination. Johns Hopkins may attract a population of specific students who are motivated toward extended graduate education in preparation for careers as professionals, as evidenced by very high rates of graduates who became professionals.”</p>
<p>He also looked at family income. Even if his or her household had less money, a Johns Hopkins alum is likely to earn more than a comparable student at the University of Maryland. “Johns Hopkins graduates whose parents made under $70,000 per year still proved to attend graduate school at higher rates and earn higher incomes — from their first job to their present position — than their UMD counterparts,” Kelly-Clyne said. “On the other hand, wealthier University of Maryland graduates — those whose families made over $90,000 per year or who had paid higher out-of-state tuition — still attended graduate school at lower rates and earned lower salaries.”</p>
<p>All of those factors aside, Kelly-Clyne noted that one that’s hard to quantify might carry the most weight: the power of peer influence among Johns Hopkins students, many of whom are involved in multiple extracurricular activities and academic endeavors like PURA projects, and doing them all really well.</p>
<p>“Twenty percent of JHU graduates [surveyed] currently make over $140,000 per year, while only 2 percent of UMD graduates [surveyed] make that much,” he said. “JHU parents achieved graduate education at a rate that is about 8 percent higher than UMD parents. It is unlikely that such a large income disparity is totally attributable to an 8 percent edge in parents’ graduate education,” he said. “In this case, it is not unreasonable to consider the power of peer influence. High-achieving students, whether wealthy or not, set in a school with a large number of wealthy students from highly educated families may very well channel talents in different, more profitable directions.”
— Amy Lunday"</p>
<p>[Johns</a> Hopkins Gazette | April 6, 2009](<a href=“http://www.jhu.edu/~gazette/2009/06apr09/06pura.html]Johns”>Johns Hopkins Gazette | April 6, 2009)</p>
<p>I’m so confused.</p>
<p>Try posting your dilemma on the Financial Aid board - lots more folks there with lots more opinions than those provided here.</p>