<p>
[quote]
That's what money translates into. Freedom.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>disagree. money is the cog that turns a vicious cycle.</p>
<p>In one sense, that's what I was saying. I.e., not having to worry about money = freedom. Maybe I should have been clearer.</p>
<p>
[quote]
but Harvard is probably the most financially generous school in the country and is very thorough in assessing need
[/quote]
but it is highly unlikely that Harvard and MIT's packages would come out $25k/yr different. If MIT has them paying $25k on $50k income without other info that implies fairly substantial assets ... and Harvard would see that same overall economic picture.</p>
<p>Which leads to this thought ... so if I have $5 million in assets (dream world) and then my wife and I quit our jobs when our kids are seniors ... do they get to go to Harvard, Stanford, and Princeton for free (because our income = 0)? That can't be ... those programs must also review asset levels (or I'd guess they will within a year or two)</p>
<p>Okay, I'm going to do something that doesn't happen very often on CC. I apologize. I should not have included race in this discussion.</p>
<p>"Affirmitive Action is just one of many perversions of liberal policy that we have to live with."</p>
<p>Even though I apologize for connecting this statement with financial aid, I still think it's true. I think most liberal policy makes sense, but AA is one of several exceptions...because it doesn't actually promote equality the way most liberal policy does. </p>
<p>But this isn't really relevant to this thread, and I don't want this to degenerate into another one of THOSE threads, so let's just leave it alone.</p>
<p>
[quote]
What if you just want to be a university professor, and also want not to have to worry about debt all through graduate school and your early career? Then it seems a full ride is very valuable.
[/quote]
Well, again, here I am not sure. The notions of 'professorial poverty' are, I think, vastly overblown. The fact is, many tenured university profs can make tremendous amounts of money if they really want to. This is especially true when you're talking about professors in engineering, the natural sciences, math, computer science, economics, political science, sociology, and (especially) business administration. </p>
<p>How? Simple. Side consulting work. Many tenured profs in the disciplines I named above have extraordinarily lucrative side consulting businesses. I think most people on this forum have simply no idea how much money companies are willing to pay for consulting work. Either that, or they will serve on the Boards of Directors of technology companies or venture capital firms or hedge funds. The point is, most tenured profs of strong schools in technical disciplines can make obscene amounts of money through their side work. If they don't do it, it's because they don't WANT to do it.</p>
<p>Consider this quote that I wrote in another discussion form. </p>
<p>*Allow for me to quote for you some snippets from the book "High Stakes, No Prisoners" by Charles Ferguson. Charles Ferguson got his PhD from MIT, becoming a noted expert on high-tech trade policy, and was making about half-a-million dollars a year (in 1991 money) in business consulting work for the US semiconductor industry. He then founded Vermeer Technologies and then sold it to Microsoft for about a half billion dollars. The Vermeer division is now known as Microsoft FrontPage. His book is about how he started his company as well as a parallel history of Netscape and the dotcom boom, and his opinions of them. However, it is these following observations that I find relevant to this discussion: </p>
<p>"The chief economists of the FCC and the Justice Department's Antitrust Division are usually senior economists who serve at Justice during a two-year academic leave. In the 1990's, three of Justice's chief economists were Rich Gilbert, Carl Shapiro, and Daniel Rubinfeld...All three are professors at UC Berkeley...All three also [were principals] of the Law and Economics Consulting Group, or LECG. </p>
<p>LECG is the largest corporate antitrust consulting firm in the United
States, with revenues of more than $50 million...Rich Gilbert was a founder of LECG...his LECG stock is now worth more than $30 million. After his government service, Carl Shapiro formed his own antitrust consulting firm with Michael Katz, another Berkeley professor who had just been the chief economist of the FCC. Their firm, the Tilden Group, was recently acquired by the other large corporate antitrust consulting firm, Charles River Associates. Katz and another Berkeley professor, Glenn Woroch, runs a research project, the Consortium for Research on Telecommunications policy, which is funded almost entirely by the Ameritech foundation. Woroch also consults for BellSouth. Daniel Rubinfeld...owned more than $6 million in LECG stock... </p>
<p>MIT's Jerry Hausman...has received millions of dollars from the
telecommunications industry for regulatory consulting and expert
testimony...NYU's William Baumol, another famous economist and a past president of the American Economic Association, has a ...consulting version of his curriculum vita containing a fifty-page supplement listing his expert witness engagements, for which he is paid more than one thousand dollars per hour..." - p.346-347, High Stakes No Prisoners. </p>
<p>Ferguson is not the only one to observe this trait. Take a gander at the CV's of any of the tenured profs of science, engineering, business, or economics at any half-decent school, and you will notice that many, probably most of them, have their own successful technology consulting business on their side, or they have themselves founded their own startups, or they are
serving on the Boards of Directors for such companies. Either that, or they
are partners/principals in venture-capital firms or hedge funds. Jim
Simons, for example, founded the super-successful hedge fund Renaissance
Technologies while he was still a math professor. He reportedly earned
$670 million in just the year 2004 alone. </p>
<p><a href="http://bubbler.net/5A-notes/521601/559660/%5B/url%5D">http://bubbler.net/5A-notes/521601/559660/</a> </p>
<p>And then of course there are those who decide to drop out of their doctoral
programs just because they come up with an idea that they want to
commercialize. PageRank used to be a Stanford computer-science doctoral research project. The 2 grad-students who were working on it decided that they would like to try to commercialize it. We now know it as ...Google. Those 2 founders, Brin and Page, are worth about $10 billion each. Yang and Filo - same thing happened to them, they decided to take something they were working on as Stanford doctoral students and commercialize it, and we now know their project as Yahoo. There are a number of hedge funds that were started by doctoral students in computer science or economics or business administration who found a ideas that were so good that they decided to drop out to commercialize that hedge fund. *</p>
<p>Here's another example I wrote in that other forum.</p>
<p>...* Right now, most enterprises hire management consulting firms like McKinsey, BCG, and Bain to tell them how they should run their businesses. These consulting engagements last a few months long and cost easily in the 7-8 figure range. However, B-school profs know even more than consultants do about a particular subject. To give you an example, let's say that you, as a CEO of a company, want to develop a strong technology strategy. You have a choice. You can either hire McKinsey. These McKinsey consultants are probably going to have read the works of Michael Cusumano, a widely respected technology strategy professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management. Or, you can bring in Michael Cusumano
himself. McKinsey is going to charge you millions, probably tens of
millions, for an engagement that will last you several months. So how much do you think it is going to cost you to get Professor Cusumano? </p>
<p>Furthermore, it's not like he will have to quit MIT to join you. Like I
said, professors have lots of time off that they can choose to use as they wish. He can do it during the summer when he has time off. Or during his sabbatical year. Or, even more likely, you can offer to put him on retainer where he consults part time for you for a few hours a week as an ongoing engagement. Everybody wins. You get equivalent or better consulting expertise than what you would get from McKinsey. He gets paid extremely well. </p>
<p>Or think of yourself as a startup company with a promising idea trying to make it big. How do you attract attention from potential investors, from potential partners, and so forth? One tried-and-true strategy is to convince some B-school profs to become directors or principals of your company. However, to do that, you will have to give them a chunk of ownership, or a big fat salary, or both. For example, if you want to bring in Cusumano onto the Board of Directors of your company, you better believe
that he is going to want to be paid handsomely for the privilege. On the other hand, it is obviously a big boon for you to be able to boast that you have a guy like Cusumano on your leadership team. That fact alone might convince potential investors to provide you with more capital. </p>
<p>Lest you think I am just blowing smoke here, take a look at what Cusumano says on his own web site: </p>
<p>"[Cusumano] has consulted for more than 50 major companies around the world, including Alcatel, AOL, AT&T, Business Objects, Cisco, Ericsson, Fiat, Ford, Fujitsu, General Electric, Fidelity, Verizon, Hitachi, i2 Technologies,IBM, Intel, Lucent, Motorola, NASA, NEC, Nokia, Nortel, Robert Bosch, Schlumberger, Siemens, Texas Instruments, and Toshiba. He has been a director of NuMega Technologies (sold to Compuware in 1998 for $150 million) and Infinium Software (sold to SSA Global Technologies in 2002 for $105 million), as well as other private and public software companies. He is currently a director of Patni Computer Systems (software outsourcing, based in India, NYSE PTI) and Coral Networks (synchronization and security software). He has been an advisor to numerous startup companies, including NetNumina Solutions (now part of Keane, Inc.), firstRain (wireless and web services software), H-5 Technologies (digital search technology), and Sigma Technology Group PLC (early stage ventures). " </p>
<p><a href="http://web.mit.edu/cusumano/www/%5B/url%5D">http://web.mit.edu/cusumano/www/</a> </p>
<p>I think we can all conclude from that that Cusumano is an extremely wealthy man. Not from his MIT salary, obviously, but rather from all of that side work he has been doing. Be honest. How much do you think Cisco paid Cusumano for his consulting services? ...</p>
<p>But let's face it. He would never have gotten that side work if he wasn't a MIT professor. In that sense, Cusumano's professorial work is something of a 'loss-leader'. It's really an advertisement to the world of his knowledge. </p>
<p>Cusumano is far from the only one. Michael Porter (i.e. "Mr. Strategy")
was so successful from his side-consulting that he founded the Monitor Group, the super-successful management consulting company.
David Yoffie is another highly successful strategy professor. When he's not teaching at Harvard Business School, he serves on the Board of Directors of several companies, including Intel and Charles Schwab. He's obviously not hurting for money. </p>
<p><a href="http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/bios/bod_dbyoffie.htm%5B/url%5D">http://www.intel.com/pressroom/kits/bios/bod_dbyoffie.htm</a> </p>
<p>The point is, every tenured B-school prof at any decent school can make a very very good living from side-businesses. For those who don't, it's because they choose not to. If you're a B-school prof, there are PLENTY of companies who are willing to pay you obscene amounts of money to pick your brain. You are not hurting for money as a B-school prof. Trust me. *</p>
<p>So now, Ben, you may be saying "yeah, sakky, but that's just business school, it has nothing to do with math, which is what I want to do". Au contraire. Many business school profs are THEMSELVES mathematicians, at least by training. This is particularly true of the Sloan School, which prides itself on quantitative rigor, but is also true of many other business schools. Furthermore, you don't have to be part of the faculty of a business school in order to get highly lucrative consulting work. Many of the top hedge funds and investment banks obtain consulting from top physics and mathematics professors. Like I said before, Jim Simons was a former math professor before starting his own hedge fund, becoming a billionaire in the process. </p>
<p>
[quote]
In other words, your argument has a huge hole. Yes, I could go make a very big paycheck and cover $120k worth of debt in two years. At the cost of sacrificing the intellectual ambition that took me to college in the first place. In fact, that's the very problem with taking on lots of debt; it becomes important to make more money to cover your past obligations, even if the job you take is nowhere near your dream job. So lots of people take lucrative jobs that they don't really have a passion for.</p>
<p>A full ride allows you to dream freely and take a smaller paycheck if it means pursuing what you love, without being saddled with tons of debt. That's what money translates into. Freedom.</p>
<p>Maybe it's difficult for you to contemplate that a lucrative i-banking or engineering career isn't the only thing a college education is good for.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, it's not that I think a lucrative career is the only thing a college education is good for, but a simple observation that a lot of people think they are 'poorer' than they really are. I'm not asking you to stop dreaming freely, but simply to see that there is a lot of money you can make if you really want to make it. I'm sure that a lot of profs take on side consulting engagements that they don't totally enjoy, but they do it because they don't totally hate it and it pays unbelievably well. </p>
<p>My real point is that, to be perfectly honest, 120k really isn't that much money, and can be EASILY wiped out with a single consulting engagement as a prof. My other, related, point is that a lot of PhD candidates simply don't seem to understand just how much money they could be making in private consulting. I'm not asking you to give up your dream. I'm not asking you to not pursue your intellectual ambition I'm talking about something you can do on the side to make very good money, while still simultaneously pursuing whatever it is that you really want to pursue.</p>
<p>So, really, what these scholarships really offer somebody like you, Ben Golub, or molliebatamit or any other high-powered scholars in the technical disciplines, is the ability to avoid having to doing some side consulting work.I say that because I have no doubt that people like you will finish your PhD's and will become tenured profs in at least a no-name school (it's hard to become a tenured prof at a famous school, but there are a LOT of no-name schools out there). Hence, what a 120k scholarship gives you is the ability to avoid having to do side consulting work. Nothing more, nothing less. In that context, I would say that having that scholarship truly isn't that big of a deal. I'm not saying that it's completely inconsequential, but compared to the kind of money you could make if you wanted to make it? It's not that big of a deal. Like I said, a lot of profs are millionaires many times over.</p>
<p>
[quote]
most tenured profs of strong schools in technical disciplines can make obscene amounts of money through their side work. If they don't do it, it's because they don't WANT to do it.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>First, it takes a while to become a tenured prof.</p>
<p>Second, you demonstrate an impressive capacity to continue to miss the point. Please try hard to understand: I know there are many ways to make money, if you want to, after shelling out a lot of an education. With considerable investment of effort, it is quite feasible to quickly pay off all your debt.</p>
<p>But what you don't want to see is that this still comes AT A COST. The money ISN'T FREE. You have to spend time doing things you MIGHT NOT WANT TO DO. (For many academics, pure academic research is a lot more fun than consulting work.) Is this so hard to grasp? The value of a free education is that you will never have to worry about the choice between living with debt and looking for ways to make a lot of cash. You have more freedom to do exactly what you want because money doesn't constrain you as much as it would with a lot of debt.</p>
<p>It seems to me we're on different wavelengths. You seem to think, "if you can make back the money, great! what's the problem?". You seem not to realize that chasing big cash might be unpleasant for some people, and avoiding that issue through a free college education is very valuable for some people. Please try hard to meditate on this for a while and see if it sinks in.</p>
<p>Edit: I finished reading the rest of the book you wrote above just now. Your estimates are wayyy off. If you are brilliantly successful, you will be a tenured prof 12 years after you graduate college. By that time, your $120k of debt will be over $250k. You don't make back $250k in a "single" consulting engament unless by that you mean a year of pretty solid work. and more realistically two years. Time in which you could be writing more excellent papers, teaching your students, and spending time with your family. Two years in your academic prime = small potatoes? Sorry, not for me.</p>
<p>
[quote]
First, it takes a while to become a tenured prof.</p>
<p>Second, you demonstrate an impressive capacity to continue to miss the point. Please try hard to understand: I know there are many ways to make money, if you want to, after shelling out a lot of an education. With considerable investment of effort, it is quite feasible to quickly pay off all your debt.</p>
<p>But what you don't want to see is that this still comes AT A COST. The money ISN'T FREE. You have to spend time doing things you MIGHT NOT WANT TO DO. (For many academics, pure academic research is a lot more fun than consulting work.) Is this so hard to grasp? The value of a free education is that you will never have to worry about the choice between living with debt and looking for ways to make a lot of cash. You have more freedom to do exactly what you want because money doesn't constrain you as much as it would with a lot of debt.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>No, I think YOU are the one who is continuing to miss the point. The point is, 120K is really not THAT much money. We're not talking about millions of dollars here. If that was what the scholarship were going to pay you, then I would agree with you.</p>
<p>Nobody is saying that money is free. Nobody is saying that you won't have to do things that you don't have to do. But the point is, for people like you, you won't have to do things you don't like for VERY LONG, particularly, once you really do finish your PhD. </p>
<p>Look, the point is, everybody has to do things in life that they don't want to do. That's life. I don't like to wash the dishes. But I do it anyway. Nobody gets to go through life by never doing anything that they never like to do, ever. </p>
<p>The key is then how much do you dislike to do certain things, and how long do you have to do those things? For people who will become tenured profs in technical disciplines, is not THAT big of a deal. If they really want to do it, they can do it, and in not a long period of time. </p>
<p>It seems to me that you place FAR too much value on always being able to avoid ever having to do anything you don't like. Well, if that's really your attitude, then you I agree that you may find it quite difficult indeed to become a tenured prof. Going through the tenure process involves lots of things that nobody really likes.</p>
<p>Bottom line. For people like you, for people like molliebatmit, who I am convinced will go on to achieve great things, 120k is nowhere near to being enough money for which you ought to change your life. I say that not because I'm callous about money, but rather because I see that it's really not that hard for people like you in the future to make large amounts of money in a short period of time if you really want to.</p>
<p>See edit in above post about the period of time. Maybe 2-ish years of your life isn't worth much to you, but it's a pretty big deal for some people.</p>
<p>It is all about relative values on time. I just think you drastically underestimate how much your time is worth to you if you're a promising academic and have big academic ambitions.</p>
<p>I agree that lots of time is wasted on administrative nonsense, but that's not a good reason to lose more valuable time paying back debts from 10 years ago. (sakky's logic: someday, someone might steal $100 from you; hence, you ought to throw money to the wind ASAP!)</p>
<p>And again, it's not about 2-ish years of your life. One single summer consulting gig as a tenured prof would easily wipe out 120k, and almost certainly a lot more than that.</p>
<p>You say that it will take you a while to become a tenured prof. I agree. But so what? That's not the way that financial investments are supposed to be seen. </p>
<p>Look, Ben Golub, I'm fairly certain that a guy like you could make millions off your side consulting work as a tenured prof, if you want to make it. So, really, that puts that 120k in perspective.</p>
<p>Again, I really think you're severely underestimating just how much earning potential you will have.</p>
<p>Can you find me a shred of hard evidence about how long it takes a pure mathematics professor to make $250k (the minimal amount the debt will become by the time you have tenure)? Also, you seem to be assuming all professors are business school professors. Please be advised this assumption is actually incorrect.</p>
<p>Please. Go try hard. Sniff around. I know profs and have pretty hard numbers, and it takes a lot more time than the day or two you seem to think.</p>
<p>P.S. I do appreciate the flattery.</p>
<p>Huh? 250k? I presume that you are using inflation and interest. Well, if that's the case, then I would point out that consulting rates will also go up by at least the rate of inflation, and in fact, probably a lot more than that, consider the increasing demand for technical consulting in the last decade or so. </p>
<p>I also said that I never assumed that all profs are business school profs. In fact, some of the richest profs are actually economics and engineering profs. For example, many MIT engineering profs are intimately involved with the Boston venture capital community, either serving on Boards or having lucrative startup companies or technical consulting companies. It's a huge filip for a startup to say that they have an MIT prof on their Board. And you just KNOW that those profs are getting paid extremely well for the privilege. Many math profs too are also extremely well paid, particularly by the finance industry. Incidentally, this is why the investment banks and hedge funds troll around the MIT and Harvard math departments so much. </p>
<p>Nobody is saying that it's going to take a day or two. But I will put it to you this way. McKinsey will charge many millions for a short 2-3 month gig. In your case, because you're a math guy, I would tell you that many of the specialty quant consulting firms that serve the hedge funds and investment banks will also charge many millions of dollars for a short 2-3 month gig. If and when you become a highly respected math prof (which I'm sure you will), then you will probably be able to do the same. Let's face it. McKinsey and these other consulting firms are mostly filled with people who just aren't good enough to have completed an elite PhD program. If they can go around charging an arm and a leg, you should be able to too.</p>
<p>That's not to say that all math profs are rich. Far from it. But the key to me is a matter of desire. Most math profs don't make a lot of money because they don't WANT to make a lot of money. After all, once you get tenure, they just care about doing research on things they really care about. </p>
<p>So I agree with you that it is to some extent about doing what you like to do. But my central point is that it's not THAT painful for these people to make 120k. Yes, it involves taking time out to do something you may not really like to do. But it's not THAT bad. Just like I will go out and wish the dishes even though I don't really want to, because it's not THAT bad to do it. </p>
<p>As far as 120k goes (or 250k in future inflated dollars), I think that, at most, 1 year of part-time work as a tenured prof would do it. Note, you would still be a prof in your daily life. Nobody is saying that you have to give that up. So it's really a year of weekend and summer work, and I am fairly certain that you could wipe that debt out. To me, that's not that bad. </p>
<p>In fact, Ben Golub, I've read some of your writings on your website, and in particular, your economics stuff, and I would say that you're really not THAT far off from being able to do the kind of work that a big consulting company would charge millions of dollars for a 2-month enagement. The only thing that those consultancies really have on you right now is a big brand name, but once you become a tenured prof, you will have a brand name too. That ERP paper that you wrote, for example, is not far off from a project that a company like Accenture would charge a company an arm and a leg to produce. </p>
<p>So again, my point is, I think you're vastly underestimating the gold mine that you're sitting on in terms of your earning potential.</p>
<p>My ambition is probably to be an econ or b-school prof, so I just said math because I knew it would be a bit harder for you to make that argument, but you succeeded admirably. ;)</p>
<p>I agree that a lot of people overestimate the "true" amount that their college education costs. You make good points, which are quite encouraging for those who are paying that money and worry about the debt.</p>
<p>Still, families worry a lot about debt and incur stress as a result. Maybe we just need to send you on a speaking tour to explain that this money really isn't that big of a deal : )</p>
<p>I agree that regular people should have to worry about debt. Nobody dispute that point.</p>
<p>But my point is that people like you or mollieb are not 'regular'. You are far far better than regular. To be perfectly honest, most of the high-priced consultants out there are simply not worthy of holding your jacket. </p>
<p>I say that not because I'm trying to kiss your rear-end, but simply to say that people like you ought to understand that the business community is willing to pay ridiculous boatloads of money for people with your kind of knowlege, and people like you should be confident of that fact. Plenty of tenured profs in the technical disciplines make several times what they make from their professorial salaries from their side-work, and often times make millions. For example, I am quite convinced that any tenured prof at MIT who is in the Sloan School or the School of Engineering or the Departments of Economics, Chemistry, Biology, Physics, Mathematics, or even Poli-Sci and who isn't a millionaire or getting to that point, is because he doesn't WANT to be a millionaire. The same is true of the profs at Harvard. With the vast sums of money thrown around in Boston's high-tech corridor and in Boston's vibrant financial community, any of these profs who wants to become rich has to do not much more than say he's open to consulting work or startup work, and the money will come gushing. Startup tech companies and hedge funds will absolutely kill to be able to say that their business model has received 'endorsement' from a Harvard or MIT prof, if, for no other reason, they know they can use to squeeze more money from investors. If an endorsement translates into a million dollars more of investment, then they will surely pay very good money to get the endorsement. </p>
<p>Nobody is saying that we should be blithe about debt. However, the point is, debt has to be seen as a purely financial vehicle. Companies often times go into great debt in order to make a lot more money later. That's how business works. For people like you, while 120k is nothing to sneeze at, it's also not that huge of a burden in the grand scheme of things, and in particular when you figure in the kind of earning potential you will have later. Whether you actually choose to exercise that earning potential is a different question, but we cannot deny that it is there.</p>
<p>Hahahahaha, okay sakky, enough flattery. Mollieb and I have at least 5 years of being not-so-extravagantly-paid grad students, so we must suppress these visions of mountains of money lest they make us impatient. :-P</p>
<p>But thank you much for the discusison. You have convinced me, and I found it enlightening.</p>
<p>I think from now on, whenever I'm in some sort of argument/flame war, I am going to pull out this citation.
But my point is that people like you or mollieb are not 'regular'. You are far far better than regular. To be perfectly honest, most of the high-priced consultants out there are simply not worthy of holding your jacket.
:D</p>
<p>I have no alumni or parent connection with MIT, much less with Caltech. But through the kindness of an MIT parent whom I know, I was invited to a local meeting of MIT parents with MIT alumni (undergrad, graduate school, and B school alumni). At the meeting, it became clear that all of the MIT alumni gained so much CONFIDENCE from the experience of having gone to MIT, and being able to mention that whenever they were seeking a job, that they were way ahead of alumni of my alma mater in the job market. The current MIT undergraduate students at the meeting, in my observation, were mostly overwhelmed and not dreaming of making millions but just hoping to finish their next problem sets, but the alumni painted a rosy picture for them of their probable futures. </p>
<p>Also FWIW, I had occasion a few years ago to look up biographies of International Mathematical Olympiad team members from a country much smaller than the United States. In nearly all cases, the IMO alumni were professors of mathematics or CS in some country or another, and also business consultants or business owners, usually in high-tech or finance. It looks like a lot of academics keep one foot in the free enterprise system to allow a comfortable lifestyle with sufficient intellectual challenge.</p>
<p>Don't worry, soon MIT will also have to up the ante and increase Fin Aid to lure applicants. I'll bet Yale does it first followed by Stanford and Princeton-soon all the top schools will be doing it.</p>
<p>The harvard system can't be completly based on INCOME, can it? What if you had a 60 year old dad who RETIRED but was sitting on 20 million bucks. Still free? That'd be ridiculous.</p>
<p>Or what if you own very valuable goat? Much trouble if not take goat into account.</p>