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WS IB pays 85K/y + sign in bonus + eventual yearly bonus. If OP dedicates himself to obtaining such a job and lives like a monk for 4-5 years he can make it.
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When someone graduates at around the age of 22, expecting him/her to “live like a monk” until around age 27 just isn’t practical for anyone who isn’t a total loner. Those are serious dating years. Many marry or are in serious relationships by age 27.
A 27 yo investment banker without college debt should still be datable.
I don’t think you should take on that much debt, if you’re both full pay and your parents can’t contribute anything. However, CourtneyThurston is providing a very one sided picture. What’s true for CS isn’t necessarily true for econ or business. I’ll concede that starting salaries at a given company for a given position aren’t likely to vary much with where you went to school. However, that assumes your school plays no role in what company hires you or what position they hire you for.
There’s significant differences in income by college. They looked at millions of IRS records. If there’s a myth, it’s that graduates from all colleges are equally successful financially.
Do you know the hours and stress of an investment banker - if you get the job? Have you ever come close to working those hours? Maybe you have, I don’t know but I’ve worked quite a few true 80+ hour weeks for portions of a year but I can’t fathom that for several years. And like the law school grads with high debt in the top jobs, you are locked in because of the debt even if you hate the job.
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about 150k with my earnings)
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Courtney…I don’t know your income, but student income has a rougher calculation.
Yale NPC had a place to indicate student income vs. parent income.
“However, CourtneyThurston is providing a very one sided picture. What’s true for CS isn’t necessarily true for econ or business.”
It’s almost as if I said, verbatim, “Mileage will vary by field, though.” :-@
80 hrs/week is not sustainable. I worked 80-90/wk for 3+ months in the summer for a particular internship, and it was awful. No amount of company-cool-factor could justify that for me, so I turned down my return offer and went somewhere else.
OP, I think you’re likely to find the same in environments expecting very high hours. So just please don’t try to justify the debt with “I’ll work extra hard” or something. Just a note 
I tremble when I realize the wonk handling my 401k funds may have so little understanding of money that they absorbed 6 figures of debt.
It’s like totaling your last 6 cars then applying for a job as a school bus driver.
I think offering any aid for a family with ~$200k income and ~$250k of assets is pretty generous. I should be so lucky as to qualify for zero aid at those schools.
I totally agree with @50N40W. Not only is the debt a bad move personally, but I’ve read on CC that some companies may not hire people with such high debt because they consider them a financial risk. What good is a degree from an elite school if nobody will hire you?
After 4 to 5 years working in Wall Street, if you are good and love he job, not money part one can fetch 500 k if you are in buy side. Personally 330k is lot of loan. If you are in wealth management side, the guy who resists money, you can make 300 k per year easily, but cost of living in SF and NY city is too high. You will pay 4K to 5 k per month to live in manhattan for 1 b apartment
I checked out the site linked above, “Ivy lie” and it does not meet the logic standard. It’s a series of ancedotal evidence of people who made poor decisions.
There is a study that shows that while ivy (and peer) graduates make more than graduates from other colleges but when normalized to compare with graduates of other schools who turned down ivy offers, the salary difference goes away. The site above does the oppositte, from the few stories I read, the graduates complaining would have likely struggled after college if they graduated elsewhere as well, albeit with less debt, the point of this thread.
At the end of the day, it’s about the ability and drive of the individual and whether they make the most of opportunities, whether in academics or careers.
Yoo-hoo…?? What happened to the OP…is he still considering Yale…or has he moved on to Stanford.
“Is it true that ivy league students have less trouble paying off their debts because they are making more money early on?”
The OP seems to have disappeared, but the answer to this question is an emphatic NO. For a student who is seriously considering law school or any other graduate school, taking on a lot of debt to go to a prestigious undergraduate program is almost always a terrible idea. Too much debt may make law school impossible.
However, we need specific numbers in order to give an informed answer.
Are you referring to the Krueger study? There’s a lot of flaws with those studies, such as assuming Stanford should only be ranked as an average school.
Yes, but I accept that all studies have flaws. I just skimmed the actual study and didn’t see where it referred to Stanford as an average school but I don’t have time right now for a deep dive. This is also a study that began in 1978 and used Barron’s rankings. 1978 rankings and 2017 rankings will differ, whether by Barrons or U.S. News.
Please share more details on flaws of the study but I agree that the student’s abilities and drive are more important than the pedigree. If a family can afford to provide the talented student with the pedigree, that is different than whether it is necessary for success.
They concluded that the Ivy advantage was greatest for economically disadvantaged students. I would say this is amplified given the generous aid provided today by some Ivy schools. However, with the advent of honor’s colleges and the access provided to both professors and research as a top undergraduate at a state school, the playing field has been leveled in preparation for graduate work at top schools.
It is a complex decision on which is the right choice. We are making the decision ourselves this month between a near full ride to a state honors program and paying for an Ivy. But, while economics matter and there is a substantial price difference in the two options, we will not be taking out loans. Needing to use debt, particularly debt in excess of $25,000 for undergrad, makes the decision more straight forward.
200k/yr to not qualify for aid is nothing to get excited about in many parts of the country.
We make 200k/yr no way can we afford more than 15k/yr per kid and that is stretching it. We have the cheapest cars you can buy literally (chevy sparks 13k lol).
Not saying we couldnt, have we chose vacations to europe during summers vs stuffing a college fund because we dont value elite college educations (our choice).
Different topic…but even if we would have dumped 10-15k a year in a 529 every summer for the last 7 years we still couldnt afford Yale lol.
$200,000 is 4 times the annual family income in this country.
I fully realize there are areas with high costs of living and the like. I live in an expensive part of the country myself.
If this student family needs to fully find his college education with loans…at Stanford or Yale or wherever…they will be taking $300,000 in loans.
That is too much in college loans for undergrad, in my opinion.
And then add law school to that?
But to each his own.
“…they will be taking $300,000 in loans. That is too much in college loans for undergrad, in my opinion.”
“too much” might be too gentle a term. “Stark raving mad” might be more accurate.
But yes, this indeed too much.
@hannuhylu I’m sorry but it really isn’t the responsibility of universities to provide financial aid for families who cannot budget on $200,000 a year. That is a very high income. When I worked in admissions, we had hundreds of students from families making less than $30K a year, so I find it hard to be very sympathetic. Then again, I was also shocked by the number of high income families that were also heavily indebted. Some had consumer debt of $100K. It was astonishing. Alas, consumer debt is never taken into consideration.
@Sportsman88 I can only speak for finance and consulting, but the Ivy League label does make a huge difference in those fields. It’s a case of almost automatically making the first cut, to battling to have your CV read. Some major companies also make it a practice of interviewing all candidates from the Ivy League colleges. I spoke to one Accenture partner who said, “you never get criticized for hiring someone from the Ivy League”. May not be fair, but it is a reality. Stanford certainly had the same effect when I was based out in California.