<p>Actually, I’m a guy. I’m going to go into finance. I don’t know what I want to do after college. IB would be awesome, but it’s not like it’s easy to get those jobs. I love Michigan- it’s where I have wanted to go my whole life. I’ve never been to Alabama. Hmom5-I respect your opinions-what would you do?</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Oops. I don’t know why I thought your were a girl. :)</p>
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<p>so, you’re not interested in anyone else’s opinion?</p>
<p>I am. But hmom didn’t really elaborate. Also, it sounds like she’s pretty high up in the business world.</p>
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<p>This is not only not true, but as someone who has been in finance in a firm that pays incredibly well and is sought after by young business school grads for 3 decades (but only hires from a few schools), I’d have to call it exceptionally poor advice.</p>
<p>If your ambitions are big and you think you can excel at Ross, I’d go there. You’ll find that prudent risk will be a big part of a successful career in finance. If you get a job on The Street, you will make multiples of what a typical Bama business grad will make mid career in a few years and the loan will seem like nothing. That was my personal experience and that of many of my employees.</p>
<p>Do understand, I’m a risk taker, and career wise, it has served me well. Others will sleep better with no debt and by taking fewer risks. You need to decide what you’re comfortable with.</p>
<p>There’s no hurry to make a decision now. You don’t need to decide for a few months :)</p>
<p>1) You can go to Bama for undergrad and have no debt</p>
<p>2) You can go to Bama for undergrad, then UMich for grad school (have grad school debt - $100+k?).</p>
<p>3) You can go to Bama for 2 years, then transfer to UMich for $50k in debt</p>
<p>4) You can go to UMich for all 4 years of undergrad for $100k in debt.</p>
<p>5) You can do #3 or #4 and also go to grad school and have either about $150+k in debt or $200+k in debt (depending on how much UMich charges for MBA)</p>
<p>But, whatever you ultimately choose (and there’s no rush now 
), only you will have to live with your decision. It’s not like you can come back here in 6 years and say, “It’s your fault I have this huge debt,” or “It’s your fault I didn’t go to UMich for undergrad,” or whatever. :)</p>
<p>Do you have the ability to come to UA for Capstone Honors Day in January (did you get an invite) or at any other time for a visit to the Business school?</p>
<p>Will you be getting any financial support AT ALL from your parents during your college career? I don’t just mean for “school stuff” but for cell phone, insurance, clothing, etc?</p>
<p>It’s extremely hard to transfer into Ross. I think only 5 kids total did it last year. I do not want to do that. Also, I will probably not pay for my MBA. Hopefully my company will do that for me.</p>
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<p>Like the AP fact checking a Sarah Palin book.</p>
<p>Try this article on for size…</p>
<p>[USATODAY.com</a> - Wanted: CEO, no Ivy required](<a href=“http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-06-cover-ceos_x.htm]USATODAY.com”>http://www.usatoday.com/news/nation/2005-04-06-cover-ceos_x.htm)</p>
<p>^^^^</p>
<p>When looking thru Business Week, it looks like all the MBA starting salaries are right around 6 figures (plus or minus a few grand)</p>
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<p>JRT…
That would be nice if a company paid for your MBA! Yeah! My H’s company pays for Wharton MBA and others. :)</p>
<p>Well, you still have time to make your decision. :)</p>
<p>Do you have the ability to visit UA?</p>
<p>I probably will sometime after Christmas. I just feel like UM will open a lot of doors Alabama won’t. I’m sure I could get a good job out of Alabama, but I don’t want to live there. A lot of Ross grads go to Chicago, which I love.</p>
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<p>You have a keen understanding of the world of finance. Why give kids advice when you have zero knowledge of the arena this young man is telling us he wants to enter? A blanket statement like “it’s the better business decision”? What is that based on?</p>
<p>jrt…</p>
<p>Are you certain that you want to major in business?</p>
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<p>Well God bless you too. I know it’s shocking that people will disagree. </p>
<p>As best I can tell, this student was asking for opinions on whether or not to take out 50-100K+ in debt for a degree from Michigan vs a free ride at Alabama. 9 times out of 10, the student is going to be far better off graduating with a degree and no debt, rather than a degree and 50-100K+ in debt.</p>
<p>Why would you say otherwise?</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I agree. Especially since the OP isn’t set on a business degree. He’s also considering pre-med. If he goes pre-med than it’s totally a “no-brainer”.</p>
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<p>Disagreeing is fine, but you told a kid interested in finance that going to a school which does not get recruited for top jobs in finance was the right “business decision” and I’m just wondering what you based that statement on. And the one about 9 out of 10 being better off going to the lesser school with no debt.</p>
<p>$100K is a rounding error in a decent year to someone with a successful finance career. If the student wanted to be a teacher, nurse, engineer or journalist, you might be correct.</p>
<p>This board tends to be totally risk adverse. The OP, as a high school student, is knowledgeable about the fact that school matters in his chosen career. That tells me he’s on top of things. So while it’s great for him to hear all sorts of opinions, any stated with confidence and statistics should have a basis in fact and knowledge at least as deep as his.</p>
<p>Here’s a stat I know to be true: 75% plus of those getting top finance jobs today come from the same few schools. Can you get them from other schools? Sure, if you beat big odds or have great connections.</p>
<p>Alabama is now in the business of “buying” top students. I truly wonder what the return for most of them will turn out to be. For a lot of kids in many careers, saving $50-$100K won’t turn out to be the best business decision. If it was, why would any of us be paying for top private colleges? I’m paying for three right now, and I’m pretty confident it will be the best investment for the careers of my kids as it was for mine.</p>
<p>I am usually quite averse to debt. I know I would hesitate for that kind of debt. But I happen to know first-hand from the person to whom I referred (the Ross MBA who would have no problem paying off this kind of debt in months) that his firm does not look at grads from a school like Alabama. (And you may think that they are missing some fine candidates but it has worked for them for years.) So it’s very important for this student to zero in on his goals and to figure out if that will really be his choice. Is it possible to get some $ to decrease the cost of Ross? Could his parents contribute? Could he defer for a year and work? Could he come up with a plan to decrease some expenses (work on campus, plan on becoming an RA)? </p>
<p>Visit both schools but really think about what you want.</p>
<p>Just a note…you can APPLY to become an RA, but there is no guarantee you will get a job. So PLANNING on becoming an RA to reduce costs does hold its risks.</p>
<p>I have to say…if finances are a compelling issue, look at the school(s) that will meet financial needs.</p>
<p>BUT as mentioned earlier…there are MANY business programs BETWEEN 'Bama and UMich. What about Bentley, for example.</p>
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<p>I don’t think you realize that for almost any profession, as long as you go to a good school you’ll be fine. There are VERY few professions that require Ivy or similar undergrad diplomas. Bama graduates get into ranked med schools, law schools, and OMG business schools. If you think that they don’t become successful, then you have no idea of what’s going on here. I realize that some people think that if you’re not on Wall Street or similar that you can’t make a fab living. That is not true. BTW…the richest people, don’t work for others, they work for themselves and then their money works for them.</p>
<p>Actually, I often wonder WHY people spend more than necessary for their educations. I’ve wrote this before, but I’ll write it again. I come from a large family of modest means. We went to UCs and Cal States for undergrad (I’m a UCI grad.). My H’s family went to pricey privates (including ivies), except for my H who went to Big 10 schools. His siblings all had huge student loans. My family didn’t. Guess what! My H and my siblings all make a ton more money than my H’s siblings do. It’s not even CLOSE!!! My oldest brother has an Emmy award and has been nominated for 2 others for his television media advancements (I won’t say more because you could google the info and the pic of him holding his Emmy will pop up). He and 2 of my other brothers hold about 100 patents. My in-laws haven’t done ANYTHING spectacular, so what did their pricey educations buy them? They could have gone to Purdue or IU for peanuts.</p>
<p>Oh…and…my friend’s son who graduated in May from Bama, got accepted to an Ivy med school along with 3 of his other choices (he did get rejected by some odd lower-tier med school - weird), but my sister-in-law’s D, who also graduated in May from a pricey private got REJECTED from all of her med schools. My in-laws still haven’t learned. LOL</p>
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<p>You appear to be making your evaluation based upon information that the student did not include in his question. So you are criticizing me for not knowing what the student did not say?</p>
<p>Regardless of that, it is still wisdom for a student to go for the free ride rather than the huge debt in most cases. There is all kinds of evidence to prove that. The article I posted. The study done a few years ago showing students who were admitted to top tier schools but went to second tier schools saw the same levels of success in careers. I can name two people very close to me who rose to very high positions with no blue chip college background.</p>
<p>I also have talked to too many people about the detrimental impact of crushing debt on their lives.</p>
<p>hmom…this young man isn’t even certain that he’ll major in business. He’s also considering pre-med. </p>
<h2>That said, not everyone who wants to go into finance necessarily wants to work on Wall Street or needs to work on Wall Street to be successful (and happy). Since I’m a Calif native, I know that there are many people who think that there is a left coast and a right coast, but everything in-between, except for perhaps Chicago, is “fly over country”. These people wrongly assume that the only place to make money is in essentially 2 regions in the country. That is so wrong-headed.</h2>
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<p>So, true. Some never get out from underneath, or when they do, they are far behind their peers in assets and investments.</p>
<p>I just wanted to add to my above post…</p>
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<p>My friend’s son went to Bama on scholarship; my niece has big student loans. The rationale for these loans was that she would make “big money” as an MD. What if she never gets to be a money-making MD? Her parents sure can’t afford to help her pay for those loans that they happily co-signed. </p>
<p>See, that’s one of the problems with such loans. Sometimes the student never gets the “big career” that makes paying them back reasonable. Or, they may eventually make big money, but not during the years of loan payback. And, no one can be sure that they wouldn’t have made big money anyway by going to a less expensive school.</p>
<p>And, do we know if the OP’s parents are willing to co-sign those big loans?</p>
<p>The OP himself posted that he knows he will have more and better job options from Ross. This, simply, is true.</p>
<p>Anecdotes are great. I also come from CA where all of my sibs in a large family went to UCs. It was considered crazy when I left the state for Wharton. I’ve out earned my sibs by a huge magnitude, and they’ve all done relatively well by US standards They all want their kids to go to private colleges now. But that’s just another worthless anecdote. </p>
<p>I’m certainly not arguing for loans. I’m well aware that many take far too much in loans without much thought. It’s an overall bad situation.</p>
<p>What I am arguing is that here we have a thoughtful young man who is rightfully concerned about loans and thinking this through. He wants a career that favors top schools in the extreme. The evaluation here is different than for most.</p>
<p>When you tell the OP to not consider the loans, no one seems to be factoring in the likely large difference in career earnings. The wealthy whose parents can pay full freight for a top school will continue to get arguably the best (and certainly the highest paying) jobs in the Country. This was the case 30 years ago too when I could only identify one other person in my ‘analyst class’ (started work at a bank when I did) who had loans and not parents who fully paid their way.</p>
<p>Everyone including my parents tried to discourage my loans and my going to the bigger opportunity college. Had I followed my sibs I’m sure I would have done just fine and lived the upper middle class, corporate life styles they’re just fine having. Instead I got to work on every continent, worked with leading edge entrepreneurs all over the world. I made enough for my kids to attend the best schools from day one, to show them the world and give them lots of choice.</p>
<p>That’s what I wanted and what I set out to do like many of my peers. It was harder for us than for the normal hires from rich families, but ambition and being intelligent made it very doable. Thank goodness no one stopped me from taking what were then considered large loans. I paid them back in full three years out.</p>
<p>Again, I’m not advocating loans for all. But there are many cases it’s a sound strategy to borrow for access to a career.</p>