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<p>This was our experience also.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse – I can’t really comment on the schools you mention, but my d. did have large lecture classes at Barnard & Columbia that had TA’s doing recitations and grading papers. I know in one case she found the professor’s lectures extremely boring and I think she would have skipped the lecture and just done the reading if attendance hadn’t been mandatory. But that’s also the class I was thinking of where a TA marked a paper down in a way my d. took issue with – she went to see the prof, and not only did he change the grade to an A, he also complimented my d on the quality of her writing. In another large class the prof was better but the material extremely difficult – my d. very much valued the recitations, even though she sometimes found the TA’s explanations confusing and at odds with what she thought the prof had said. Again… she went to the prof during office hours to get clarification. </p>
<p>It may be that some students will do better in a small class setting, but generally TA’s are used to supplement the prof, and in a large lecture class, the value is supposed to be in listening to what the prof has to say. And at top colleges, some of the profs are luminaries in their fields. </p>
<p>My son started out at a small LAC with uniformly small classes, all taught seminar-style… and learned that’s not all its cracked up to be either. </p>
<p>I do think that top colleges do offer a qualitatively better education, but that doesn’t mean people should take on unreasonable debt for it. </p>
<p>On the other hand, I don’t think all kids at the elite colleges take advantage of what is available. My d. has friends who graduated with B averages and joked around about how they didn’t bother doing the reading for most of their classes; on the other hand one of her roommates had a double major in 2 very disparate fields with an incredibly steep courseload -she was pre-med and totally amazing in what she had done and what she aspired to do. So her parents were probably getting more than their money’s worth, whatever they were paying.</p>
<p>I’ve rarely encountered a TA only taught class. So when I say TAs, I mean that they are under the auspices of a professor who usually stands in front of the class to lecture. Questions, discussions, sometimes even assignmets occur at the recitations which are usually small group led by the TA. I’ve never had an UG TA and neither have my kids. UGs are often peer tutors if someone needed extra help in a subject, but I’ve never had one leading a recitation section. In many ways, they may be preferable to TAs that are not as familiar with the way the course is being taught at that particular school. I have not been impressed with the training of TAs. At many research universities, teaching the lower grades is a low priority. Professors, I know, and I know many, many of them highly acclaimed by their students’ ratings, have even told me that in a research setting, other things do have a priority. </p>
<p>Yeah, me too, Calmom. I’m paying $30 for a $50 bottle of wine, when I really can only afford the $20. Taste just too high for the pocketbook.</p>
<p>The assumption that a freshman majoring in women’s studies is going to have a lower income than a freshman engineering major really bugs me. I know plenty of engineering majors who switched to subjects like creative writing and psychology by sophomore year. And there are companies who would hire a women’s studies major at a good salary.</p>
<p>I know a 2010 graduate who majored in history and just started a well-paying job on Wall Street. I know CS majors who can’t find a job.</p>
<p>Your major does not always determine your salary. And because of that, I don’t think it’s right to suggest that humanities/liberal arts majors should go to inexpensive schools and take out no loans and only science majors can go to pricy schools and take out loans. Sorry, life is too unpredictable to make rules like that. Heck, for all we know this particular student started NYU as an engineering student and switched to women’s studies.</p>
<p>However, no one should take out the level of loans that she did. This level of loan is absurd for everyone.</p>
<p>Perhaps every student should be required to complete a worksheet in which they research the monthly income of various professions, cost of housing, insurance, etc., and monthly loan payments. Maybe this worksheet should be part of the college application – or part of FAFSA.</p>
<p>My daughter is very frugal, but has led a pretty charmed life. Last week, when she was looking for a summer sublet in an expensive city, I told her the formula for how much one should pay for housing based on one’s income (roughly, a week’s pay = one month’s rent). I then did the math for her, and showed her that one of the places she was looking at would need an annual income of $50,000. I could see her mind spinning – she was shocked. No one had ever made it this crystal clear to her. </p>
<p>Finally, just because the subject of this NY Times story made one extremely stupid decision, I think it’s wrong to assume that she owns an iPad and is living it up. With a rent of $750 in San Francisco, I’ll bet she shares a one-bedroom apartment with at least one, possibly two other people.</p>
<p>I think undergrad TA’s are more common at LAC’s, where there typically are no available grad students to fill the spots, but profs still might want help with grading papers or handling small section discussion classes or recitations. Even at LAC’s, introductory courses may be a large lecture format – though the definition of “large” is a little different
(I’d note that Barnard is a little strange in that respect, because of the Columbia affiliation. It’s too complicated to explain all the details here.)</p>
<p>My d’s foreign language classes were taught entirely by grad students, some of whom also happened to be native speakers. So it wasn’t entirely a bad thing.</p>
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That is exactly why I think the student should base the amount of loans on their current earning capacity, not their hope for a future earning capacity. Any person capable of attending college ought to be able to earn $20K, whether or not they finish their degree – so $20K in loans is reasonable. $30-$35K is probably reasonable for someone with strong technical skills – again, because they will probably be able to get a job paying in that range whether or not they finish their intended degree. (I go by the total loans=amount of first year salary rule of thumb, with the assumption that monthly loan payment will be roughly 10-15% of the total amount borrowed)</p>
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No, $750 would be the typical cost of renting her own room in a shared apartment or flat, in a modest but not horrible neighborhood. In SF it is very typical for young people to live in railroad flats with 4 or 5 bedrooms, plus they commonly will convert a dining room to use as a bedroom.</p>
<p>That’s their story and they’re sticking to it.</p>
<p>I think young adults only “need” 60% to 70% of the number of beds they tell their parents they need.</p>
<p>^ I’m a young adult. Right now I’m couch-crashing in a friend’s apartment. My landlord will finally let me move into my new apartment in 4 days; still no bed. I’m going to have a mattress on the floor. During the day I can lean the mattress against the wall for more room (NYC apartment). We’re letting someone sub-let in our “living room” to lower costs. 
I doubt that - since when do TA’s teach in place of professors? In most colleges TA’s teach in addition to professors.</p>
<p>I go to NYU. All my classes meet at least 3 times a week in 1 hour 15 min increments. Twice a week we have Lecture with the Professor, one day we have Recitation with a TA to review or practice problems. Most science classes have a 3hr - 4hr Lab component as well, with a Professor in Lab and TA’s to assist. The TA’s are always PhD students or occasionally Post-docs.</p>
<p>I wrote:
<a href=“I%20go%20by%20the%20total%20loans=amount%20of%20first%20year%20salary%20rule%20of%20thumb,%20with%20the%20assumption%20that%20monthly%20loan%20payment%20will%20be%20roughly%2010-15%%20of%20the%20total%20amount%20borrowed”>quote</a>
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<p>I meant that the monthly is roughly 1-1.5% of the total amount – that is if a student owes $20,000, their payment each month will be somewhere between $200-$250, depending on interest rate.</p>
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<p>BigG – if you are referring to my post, I am very familiar with the rental market in SF. When my daughter was sharing a bedroom in apartment in SF she was paying $400, but that apartment was at the foot of Nob Hill – just down the block from the Fairmont Hotel. </p>
<p>Typically the rooms are rented from strangers, via Craigslist listings - so generally the new tenant wants their own space. The Victorian flats ten to have separate enclosed dining rooms as well as living rooms – hence the incentive to simply stick a wardrobe in the room and use it as a bedroom.</p>
<p>I’ve said it before, but one of my most interesting, well-taught, personalized, and well-constructed classes in college was taught entirely by a grad student (and I had a lot of good professors, so this wasn’t a best of the worst scenario). Anecdotal data to be sure, but because condemning the idea of grad students as instructors with NO data seems to be par for the course here, it’ll do. Also, as someone who was an undergrad TA (and generally got pretty strong evals), it’s a bit insulting that you dismiss the value of an TA as less than zero just right out of hand.</p>
<p>Paying top dollar for a TA education isn’t worth it. Ever. Take a class before you form opinions about it.</p>
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<p>I’m confused, cpt. If you and your kids have never experienced a TA, why/how can you diss them? More importantly, how can you comment on their training, or lack thereof?</p>
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Once again, at which colleges do only TA’s teach classes? In every college I’ve heard of they teach recitation sections in addition to lectures taught by professors. I’ve never heard of TA’s replacing professors. I don’t understand how having Professors + TA’s is worse than only Professors personally.</p>
<p>TA’s are PhD students; they’re more educated than the teachers we had in Kindergarten - 12th grade generally, and in my experience more knowledgable (In HS most science teachers didn’t have science degrees, but studied “science education”).</p>
<p>I know in some colleges, Grad students are required to serve as TA’s which I think is unfortunate. I imagine that in colleges where TA’s are compensated and choose the job rather than have it forced on them, maybe they do a better job?</p>
<p>Not all majors are worth 4 years of tuition. Choose wisely.</p>
<p>I don’t think the issue of use of TA’s really has much bearing on quality of education; its a common practice at all research universities, partly because the graduate students are present on campus. Since this is a thread about college costs and debt, I do think its important to point out that TA’s are used as a cost-effective way of providing support to undergrads in small class settings such as labs, discussion groups, and recitations. </p>
<p>My own feeling is that larger universities provide much more in terms of available resources and options for study for undergraduate students, with the tradeoff being the large lecture format for many classes, particularly at the introductory level. </p>
<p>And that this has nothing whatsoever to do with the issue of how much debt is reasonable to pay for a college education. Which I think is actually a fairly easy question: when I was a youngster and signed my first note for a car loan, it was pretty easy for me to connect up the question of “what can I afford” with “how much car can I buy.” I think both parents and students would be better off if they approached all borrowing by looking at the looking at the monthly payment as a starting point. Can I afford $300/month? $400/month? $600/month? An 18 year old might need some help with the budgeting – but that’s where parents come in.</p>
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I think that’s exactly the type of parental advice that I’m referring to above … but in fairness, I don’t know anyone in my family who has come even close to meeting that formula. Maybe that’s because we all live in areas where housing costs are high, but I think my kids would be lucky if they could keep those costs to 40% of their net take home or less.</p>
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No offense, but where do you live?!</p>
<p>Let’s say a college kid works 30 hours/week over the summer and makes $10/hour. Where are you going to find an apartment for $300/month in NYC, Boston, Philly, or any big city?! No offense, but I think your advice might only work in small towns/suburbs.</p>
<p>I’m shopping for the cheapest place I can find in Manhattan/Brooklyn close to my college. It’s coming to $1000-$1300/month per person in rent/utilities/bills and this is for a very small apartment with roommates. And I don’t make $1300/week in case you’re wondering. :)</p>
<p>Springreen – you probably don’t want to hear this, but my daughter is in New York, recently graduate from college – and basically her friends live in Harlem or areas of Brooklyn like Bed-Stuy. There is no way that you are going to find anything on the Lower East Side.</p>
<p>I’ve had multiple classes taught exclusively by TA’s. If you want to pay 1500 a class to be taught by a graduate student, be my guest.</p>