PoIH, I don’t know if this paints the full picture or the specifics of your example. I have compared my situation - engineering degree from a country’s top univ overseas with annual expenses of about $300-$400 ('75) with my S who’s a sophomore in the US at a great university for $50K+, surprisingly in the same majors. If I compare the two of us, while I was far better than him in book work, the amount of usefulness to industry that his education has provided is orders of magnitude more.<br>
While it is unlikely he would have qualified to attend my alma, I would have strongly discouraged him from doing so even if he could for this reason.</p>
<p>Further, my education was heavily subsidized by society for questionable returns, whereas his is not by the taxpayers which is fair considering what my earnings have been, and his earning potential is compared to that of the general population. Based on the kinds of internship offers he and his classmates have received, the $200+ will be a great investment if he keeps his nose clean.</p>
<p>Education debt is a different issue that I’m not qualified to comment on because we’re fortunate not to have any firsthand experience, but I still feel that comp sci/engg education at a top US univ is worth the sticker price for a student who has the talent and interest without any help from the taxpayer or alums. As far as lack of hiring of NCGs in the US, in the right field this is simply not true, even in this economy. I have a contact in the west coast in a well known tech company who has tons of open slots where there aren’t enough qualified applicants in the US.</p>
<p>calmom: I’m pretty sure that her award was exactly the same because our official FAFSA, which you can’t submit until after January 1st, was exactly the same as the estimated FAFSA we submitted with her application. Salaried positions allow that kind of accuracy. No matter what you choose to call the over-all package, all the constituent parts are clearly labeled and I still do not see how anyone could not know that the Perkins, Stafford, and PLUS loans are loans. Sorry. Just my opinion.</p>
<p>Clarification of post #159 above (my posting of the example financial aid award is hard to read – here it is laid out in more clear fashion) :</p>
<p>Here’s an example of an award letter from my d’s college:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You’ll note no mention of the PLUS loan – the figure that NYU characterizes as an “award” of a “suggested PLUS loan” would show up under the “Parent Resources” or “Remaining Need” category.</p>
<p>CASmom, I am very famliar with NYU financial aid practices. They do not promise to meet full need, and they use the FAFSA to determine aid eligibility, not to set the level of grant. They determine grant level by a tiered system, essentially awarding very generous award to students at the very top of their applicant pool (about 5%), and then giving various levels of awards based on where the student stands in terms of desirability. So a student with a 0 EFC and a student with a $20K EFC may both be offered the same package with a $10K college grant. </p>
<p>And every year there are students who are misled by NYU’s packaging. I follow the financial aid threads on CC – that is actually was my primary motivation for being on this board. I also follow NYU threads in the spring when the awards come out - partly in an effort to set these students straight. </p>
<p>Typically the student will be elated because they say their need was fully met by NYU – then post their award only to have someone point out that their parents are required to come up with $25K for PLUS loan. Often it turns out that the students have low-income parents who could in no way afford that amount. </p>
<p>Of course I am sure that there are many smart adults who recognize from the start that they can’t manage the loan in the package. But deceptive practices are bad not because they fool smart people, but because they mislead unsophisticated people, and because of the psychological impact of how things are presented. So you have a situation where an unsophisticated parent and their child are left thinking that they have been given a very generous award based on packaging. They sign onto the loan because they think that is what a full-need award looks like – that is, they assume (mistakenly) that they would see something similar from other colleges, and that a $20K or $30K loan is just the way things are done.</p>
<p>You can see in the first post that the kid was excited because he thought he had a generous award in hand, even though there was more than $20K in PLUS loans. (He put in a smiley to show how delighted he was). Another parent and I weighed in – I had noticed that he had a full PELL grant as well as an FSEOG grant, which are federal grants for low-income students – so that was a red flag for me. (Kids who qualify for those sorts of grants generally don’t have parents who can afford to take on a lot of debt). </p>
<p>So we explained the situation to that poster, and he seemed to understand what it was all going to cost him – though he is also unclear on the concept that “work study” means he has to get a job to earn the money rather than being given the dollar amount up front. </p>
<p>Now maybe that particular applicant actually has some sort of outside resources (such as a noncustodial parent with money) that means he’s in a better position than his Pell-eligibility would indicate. </p>
<p>But when I talk about “deceptive” – that’s what I mean. I mean the low-income applicant who still thinks he has been given $20K more in “financial aid” than he actually has, because he doesn’t understand the loan system.</p>
<p>Fair enough. You are likely correct that in hard times your alma mater is more important than in times of more plentiful employment. </p>
<p>Like I said, good luck and I’m sure you’ll eventually work your way in to the technical workforce. And once you have a few years experience, I’m sure you’re aware that your where you graduated from won’t matter as much as it does trying to get your foot in the door.</p>
<p>Same situation here DD is in the same major at MIT as that of mine. She is much more prepared than I was when I went to college and she would have easily qualified for my alma back home. </p>
<p>It is true that my college education is no where near what she is getting at MIT and it is privilege to attend such a university. We don’t mind DD being a full pay as it is better to be in a position to afford such an education than qualify for a need based FA.
But not all universities are MIT and not all educations can be considered worth the $200K tag price. In the context of OP’s question it is important to point out the discrepancy between the cost of education wrt to everything else in the country.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In this economy if a tech company says it has tons of open slots where there aren’t enough qualified applicants in US then they are blatantly lying.
It is just an eye wash to enable offshore hiring. I know a lots of companies who have freeze on hiring in the silicon valley but are hiring in India/China.
It is also a fact that other than the EECS dept. at MIT almost all other departments had less than 100% placement. While during the same time my alma had a 100% placement for all the departments.</p>
<p>*
“But you know something? There will be kids who still take out those big loans, believing that they will graduate into a six-figure job.”*</p>
<p>Very true. But, even the ones who think that they are going to be immediately making $50k+ have no idea that they won’t easily have a $1000 a month left over each month to go towards student loans every month year after year. </p>
<p>Many kids forget that those who start at the higher salaries are also having to live in higher-rent areas. </p>
<p>And, of course, there are many who find that they can’t find good paying jobs soon after graduation, and must accept lower paying positions.</p>
<p>It’s deceptive because a proper financial aid award does NOT include this line:</p>
<p>Suggested PLUS Loan xx,xxx xx,xxx xx,xxx
as part of “Total Awards”.</p>
<p>A PLUS loan is NOT a financial “award” – it is a federally subsidized program that is available to ALL families, regardless of need, to fill the GAP between “Total Awards” and Cost of Attendance. *</p>
<p>Very true. </p>
<p>And, since a student can’t take that out himself, it really shouldn’t even be listed in a student’s FA, except maybe as a footnote to inform that Plus loans are available to parents.</p>
<p>For everyone suggesting that high schools should teach personal finance, you should know that New York State already does this as part of its Economics course, required for all seniors to take before they can graduate. (Although its unclear, the NYU graduate profiled may have been a NYS high school graduate.)</p>
<p>As far as expecting that our public schools will effectively teach personal financial responsibility, I tend to agree with QwertyKey. Heck, our schools can barely teach algebra to most kids.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Here are selected quotes from the official core curriculum for the required course, Economics, the Enterprise System, and Finance, spelling out what SHOULD be taught.</p>
<p>Well Payfor, if a kid takes this fiancial course that includes a good discussion of the consequences of credit then they get what they deserve if they ignore the course. It would be great if the teachers can give an opinion about college debt and really highlight the potential problem in the course. However, that probably doesn’t occur.</p>
<p>Bovertine is 100% correct. I am hiring a senior position right now that requires a Engineering/CS/Math/Physics degree - 10+ yrs experience - looking through the resumes the applicant pool includes a lot of the names discussed on these threads and some not discussed because they are international schools … some of the names are: MIT, UCB/UCLA and most UCs, Stanford, SJSU, Santa Clara, Jiao Tong University-Shanghai, IIT Madras-India, National Chiao-Tung University-Taiwan, Edinburgh University-Scotland, Purdue … most have masters degrees in engineering or business. We are on the West Coast so we get a lot of international backgrounds but the competition in most engineering fields is now global. 2/3 of our employees have engineering backgrounds and come from all the “big names” but their compensation/promotion opportunities are not related to the school they attended. The hiring criteria is based on the specifics of their previous jobs, technical background, attitude and “fit” with the team. The individual we will be hiring is from the U of Missouri. After a few years in the work force it is about what value you can bring to the company, not where you went to school.</p>
<p>So, true…my family members, who also routinely hire engineers, would say the same thing.</p>
<p>Pretty shocking for those who rack up debt to attend a big name school only to find out that your peers from “lesser schools” get paid the same, or that the person who got hired over you went to a “lesser” school. </p>
<p>So, while the person who racked up big debt is seeing nearly all of what would have been discretionary income going to pay back loans, he’s seeing his peers move on with their lives buying homes, etc.</p>
<p>I don’t disagree with all the strong cautions and insistence that people learn to be fiscally responsible. </p>
<p>And I certainly agree that large undergraduate debt is very inadvisable.</p>
<p>However, there is a subtext in many of these posts that I strongly disagree with. College is not just vocational school and a job with a higher salary is not its only goal.</p>
<p>Yes, mythmom, I’d been trying to find a way to say this. What I see here is a mother who didn’t have the benefit of a degree herself, proud of her daughter who had been accepted to such a good school, allowing herself to be misled by the FA office. An 18 year old will have a very difficult time understanding the mechanics of loans and interest, mostly because she hasn’t lived long enough to really understand time yet. And she will trust the renowned institute of higher learning she attends-- she’s supposed to trust them to teach her about life.</p>
<p>Of course we’re all responsible for our own fates. But I was once a young woman whose parents didn’t understand these things–and I’m awfully glad the advice I got from my college’s financial aid office was honest and helpful to me. </p>
<p>I don’t understand the punitive attitude toward this girl. She hasn’t asked anyone to bail her out. It’s Citibank that asked for and got billions to cover the bad loans it made in the name of business. </p>
<p>And-- a really good business is honest, and trustworthy, and helpful to its clients-- that’s what makes it worth paying for its services or goods…or education.</p>
<p>Although, sadly because of the cost of college, a lot of people have to start thinking this way about any form of higher education because if they don’t they might not be able to afford to enter any sort of of post-high school education.</p>
<p>True…who can even take on the max Stafford loans without some consideration of what job is going to earn enough to pay those back and still cover living expenses?</p>
<p>I don’t understand this idea that people are “misled” when they accept student loans. You sign a loan agreement. It says “You are borrowing x-amount of money and will be required to pay it back including x-amount of interest.” Where is the misleading part of this? Are you suggesting that this NYU graduate and her mother don’t know the difference between 40 cents and $40,000? It’s ridiculous. They are victims of one thing only: their own vanity in purchasing a college education they couldn’t afford because they believed the daughter’s attendance there said something about them they wanted the world to hear.</p>