Mired in debt, was the education worth it?

Parent Cafe
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<p>*As a first generation immigrant, my father put 3 of his kids through top tier schools by having 3 mortgages on his house, and us shopping at salvation army. Dartmouth financial aid told my dad that maybe my sister didn’t belong there because of his income and they didn’t want to give her more aid.</p>

<p>My father, as a financial responsible adult, decided he was willing finance our education, and he has paid back every dime. He even managed to have a decent nest egg. We also help him out financially now to make his life better because of what he did for us. *</p>

<p>Good for your dad! :)</p>

<p>However, at the rates these schools are charging now, he may have had a harder time doing so since the costs have FAR, FAR, FAR outstripped inflation. Three kids going thru privates now would cost about $700k.</p>

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<p>Mom2 - today my father may have decided that HE couldn’t afford it, and we may have gone to less expensive schools or schools that offered us full ride. The point is that my father was able to make the decision that made financial sense to him. I wouldn’t want a college to decide whether we were financially able to afford the tuition. </p>

<p>Other other hand, if my father made the same money, inflation adjusted, we probably could have been eligible for a lot more FA at those top tier schools. Back then Dartmouth didn’t guarantee to meet 100% needs.</p>

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<p>IMO, Citi was only doing what is is chartered to do by Congress – make loans. These types of loans reflect the fact that student loan debt is not dischargeable through bankruptcy. (Yes, I understand that there are public policy reasons why this is so, but such laws have unintended consequences.) If it was dischargeable in bk, I would be willing to guess that banks like Citi would think long and hard about giving away corporate assets to a teenager who has no visible means of paying it back.</p>

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Totally agree with this. NYU was the most deceptive of any school DD was accepted to regarding the financial awards. DD was so excited when she go their acceptance and financial “package”. We had told her that she could not attend there if the merit awards were not sufficient. She decided to try anyhow knowing that she might not be able to go. They sent this great letter about the wonderful aid package. It took me, with my Masters degree in business, to show her how to read the letter and understand that it was all loans, and only $750 in merit aid. They were the only ones that worded the letters in such a deceitful way to make the loans sound like grants. .</p>

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<p>Good for you. I’m just amazed what organizations do with their money (or the money of others). Filmmakers come and go with a extremely low success rate. Those that are successful also come from paths different than attending film school. So, that there are groups funding six figure effort for such a track record is astonishing to me. Go figure.</p>

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<p>It’s quite easy to strike-out the personal data and load up the letter to the Internet so we can see exactly what you are talking about. </p>

<p>I’ve taken my shots at NYU over the years when I felt they deserved them, but reading claims that the school deceptively presents loans as if they were grants is a very STRONG and troubling accusation I would want to see credible evidence of. It seems outrageous.</p>

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<p>OK, it’s a little weird that people are jumping from “NYU financial aid officers should have better advised this family” to “omg schools can’t reject kids 'cause they can’t pay” (though, lol, they ironically already do this to some extent). </p>

<p>Anyway, I don’t believe the latter is what anyone is saying or implying when they say NYU needs to take some responsibility. </p>

<p>Instead, they are saying NYU needs to COUNSEL. From the article, the family seemed blindsided, the fin aid officers seemed to say “it’s not my problem.” It is the finaid officers’ problem, and they should not have said, “Here’s where you can get more loans.” They should have said, “40K in debt is already a lot of money. Here’s how much it’s going to cost you per month to pay back that, and then here’s how much 60K is gonna cost you. Will you have that kinda money as a humanities grad? Probably not. Here are some transfer options in which your credits will go towards your degree at a less expensive school. We can’t advise you to take out more loans.” At the very LEAST, they need to cut the deceptive language crap and be way more straight-talking, even if they are too selfish to take a more informative role.</p>

<p>Dartmouth didn’t REJECT that sister a previous poster references, they did what a responsible fin aid office should have - told the sister that it seemed like the money was tight, and told her it didn’t seem to be the place for her, looking at the students who had gone before. She was lucky the Dad was clearly a living-on-a-shoestring genius ;). Others do not have parents who are so smart or responsible, and they need the FIN AID office, for heavens sake, to help them out, if anyone is going to help them.</p>

<p>As other posters have said, other schools are starting to catch on and start to better inform parents and students of the financial realities of attending. There’s been article after article on NYU, so it honestly seems like NYU is doing a worse job at this than other schools. Colleges are nonprofits - they’re not supposed to be like a slimy used car dealer. We can expect the worst, but we must insist on better.</p>

<p>This family made a mistake, but we can’t go and change the way this family or other individuals act. We CAN change the way nonprofit colleges and institutions act.</p>

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<p>I think the cost of education in US is insanely high and doesn’t relate to the salaries in the industries.
For example:

  • The top institutes in India cost around $1200 annually and average salary of their graduate is around $12000. i.e. almost 10 times the annual fees, so even if a student has to take a loan for the whole $6000 for 4 year degree it can be returned with interest from 1 year of salary.
  • While the top average salary for US graduates are at $75000 annually and the fees to attend these is $50000 annually so if a student takes the whole $200000 in loan, the $75000 won’t cover the loan even if a student won’t use a single penny for 4 years of work.</p>
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<p>We NEED to make personal finance a requirement to leave high school. It is our duty.</p>

<p>We spend our entire life trying to have enough money but we never bother to LEARN how to manage it.</p>

<p>A good teacher/program CAN help all students to understand the consequences of financial mismanagement.</p>

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<p>^^^^</p>

<p>Agreed.</p>

<p>Most high schools are requiring a semester of government and politics, the other semester should be a personal finance/economics course.</p>

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<p>POIH-
Your post explains why many in India may choose to come to the US to work, but doesnt explain why they would choose to come here to attend school- especially schools that don’t guraratee to meet 100% of need for internationals.</p>

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<p>From what I hear, getting into some of the top Indian institutions is so difficult. I am told that about 400,000-500,000 students write the entrance examination (they have their own entrance test as they find it difficult to compare the students) for the Indian Institute of Technology’s (IIT) and may be 10,000 are offered a spot (there are few of them and their total intake is about 10,000). This is even more selective than Harvard. It is mainly those students who cannot get into those institutions that try and come to the US. Those who do get in pay next to nothing for their education as pointed out POIH.</p>

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<p>That makes sense, mazewanderer, as long as those that plan to study in the US can afford it, and don’t also get mired in debt. If they choose schools that do not guarantee to meet need, who provides loans to the international students?</p>

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<p>Most people who come to America from India to go to college either come from extremely wealthy families, or come from fairly well off families (maybe not well enough to pay for tuition fully, but well enough to help out), and are absolutely doing Engineering and nothing else. India’s poor do not go to college.</p>

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<p>^^^^ If schools will not provide aid, US banks will not provide loans for non citizens, so that students have to beg, borrow (and not steal) from relatives and banks in their own country. I know students at the graduate level who came in self funded for say the first semester and then obtained assistantships or other aid. Not sure that can be done at the undergraduate level. </p>

<p>Also to note is that there is a growing rich class in India, China and other Asian countries where parents are able to afford a US education. Again this is a very small portion but even .0001% of 2 billion is about 2000 students at various US institutions.</p>

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<p>I couldn’t agree more. Someone needs to be honest with all the kids heading to college. The consequences(good and bad) of all those loans HAVE to be explained</p>

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<p>So schools offering admisison to internationals will, in many cases, expect full pay? Makes sense.</p>

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<p>Yes, even the top institutions with a lot of endowments make it clear that international admission is not need blind, while US admission is need blind. So ability to pay is consideration for international students for admission in most schools.</p>

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<p>*So schools offering admisison to internationals will, in many cases, expect full pay? Makes sense. *</p>

<p>Yes, most int’ls do have to full-pay. Only the rare ones who get accepted to certain ivies and get full FA if need is demonstrated.</p>

<p>Frankly, I think most schools, in addition to not having funds for int’ls, do not have the means to investigate “demonstrated need” from most int’ls, so they can’t even begin to assess real need.</p>

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<p>*OK, it’s a little weird that people are jumping from “NYU financial aid officers should have better advised this family” to “omg schools can’t reject kids 'cause they can’t pay” (though, lol, they ironically already do this to some extent). *</p>

<p>No, they shouldn’t reject because they can’t pay… But, NYU pointed them in the direction of the downhill slide. NYU didn’t have to do THAT.</p>

<p>I realize that FAFSA schools like NYU will have students who will look like they have real need, but once they don’t get any real aid, the money from elsewhere sometimes surfaces…such as from a grandparent, NCP, etc. So, auto rejection wouldn’t be a good plan.</p>