Hi trying to get the sense of how to advise our younger daughter. NYU has always been her first choice - she was accepted! (so happy for her!!) but with no merit aid of any kind (does not qualify for need-based aid). It also looks like tuition and fees have gone up substantially this year from ~ 62 K to ~71K per year (major jump!). We have a good amount of the money in a 529 plan, but she also hopes to go to grad school (potentially PHD pursuing academia Philosophy). We can afford to pay though it’s more than we ever envisioned and will be a stretch.
She got into the honors program at Temple and based on her high school stats, received merit aid totaling full tuition for all 4 years plus to 4K summer stipends. She is open to going there and loves the grittiness of Philadelphia - she really is an urban bohemian type. The thought is she could than use her 529 $ for grad schools.
Other schools in the mix UVM, UNH, Northeastern - she got good merit aid at each of these schools but UVM and UNH probably out because not urban enough. NU remains a possibility.
One other thing - she does like her own down time and time just to be…she spends that time studying and learning but likes to do it on her own terms.
Would appreciate any thoughts or insights. Thanks!
$300k vs almost free? This wouldn’t even be a hard decision at our house, even if that 529 plan was huge. If she likes Temple, go there. NYU isn’t going anywhere. If she hate Temple, she can transfer.
If she can’t get a fully funded PhD to study philosophy, the universe is telling her that she won’t make it in academia. So that problem is solved. Kids with parent funded doctorates are an uneasy combination.
I think this is a tougher decision than it appears at first glance. However you slice it, Temple is not the same kind of school as NYU. What are the programs like at each? How did she come up with that list of schools as they don’t seem like the go-to schools for a philosophy major. Does NU have a good philosophy department? With merit, that might be her best bet.
Did you tell her that money would be a factor or was it that she could go wherever she got in? Does she (or you) have to take loans?
As someone said above, a Philosophy PhD should be funded by the institution. That may be easier to do if coming from NYU than from Temple honors.
My advice would be to look carefully at the schools that are in between NYU and Temple in terms of both cost and ranking. Not that ranking is all that meaningful, but I would think there may be a difference in the type of students attracted to NYU, ranked in the 30s and Temple in the 120s.
If academia is the route your D wants to pursue, I’d bite the bullet and pay for NYU. Academics consider the academic rigor/strength of the program from which one graduates, especially when considering which PHd students to fund. Agree with @mom2and --if you can’t get institutional funding for a graduate program in philosophy, don’t go.
Not only is the cost of attending NYU greater, but NYC is a much, much more expensive city to live in. She can find off-campus housing (often in an actual house) for less than the price of a dorm room in Philly. She can spend some of her savings on the occasional “Fast Bus” to NYC and LivingSocial/Groupon deals for hotel rooms in the city.Some Temple students actually commute to internships in Manhattan once a week. I have a son at Temple, and I think both the university and its city are grossly underrated.
She will probably change her mind at least once about her major in the next few years. Take Temple and money. NYU undergrad is not worth anywhere near $70,000+ per annum.
You’re assuming NYU undergrad is as rigorous as their graduate departments across the board.
I know for a fact that’s not true based on my own tours of campus, friends who taught there, and friends/colleagues who attended undergrad and grad school there. One of the common things I kept hearing from the latter two groups is how there’s a stark difference between the quality of academic rigor/strength and average quality of students from the grad/professional schools and their undergrad counterparts with the possible exception of Tisch and Stern.
This goes for all academic PhD programs and not only for financial reasons. With few exceptions, getting funding from department and/or outside grants is also a signifier of one’s academic merit and future potential as a scholar for academic hiring committees if one intends to go on the tenure track for an academic career.
Getting no funding from a PhD program one is admitted to is essentially a “soft rejection” as it shows the department extending the no-funded offer doesn’t see the applicant as having enough academic potential/promise to be worth risking one’s funds and reputation by providing departmentally funded support.
Worse, being full pay for one’s PhD is viewed by many academic hiring committees and academics as a sign the full-pay PhD student is an academic dilettante who was admitted because he/she is wealthy and/or foolhardy enough to agree to fully pay for his/her PhD rather than wisely walking away from the unfunded admission offer.
If she goes into a PhD program in Philosophy, she won't be paying tuition. Legitimate PhD programs in academic subjects like that are "funded"; not only do the students not pay tuition, but they generally receive some kind of stipend to cover living expenses. The stipends don't always stretch to cover everything you would like them to, but there are very few costs in a Philosophy PhD program that you could use a 529 plan to pay.
Have you visited Temple? It's one thing to "love the grittiness of Philadelphia" -- I certainly do -- and still another to love it from the Temple campus, which is pretty much right in the middle of the grittiest part. It couldn't feel more different than NYU. NYU feels like the center of the world, completely intermingled with one of the most vibrant, hippest neighborhoods on the planet. Temple is in the Philadelphia equivalent of the South Bronx; walk a few blocks beyond the campus boundary in any direction, and it feels like someplace where a war was fought recently and the refugees haven't returned yet. Except for the drug dealers, of course.
Lots of good things are happening at Temple. It has done an admirable job of making its campus safe and secure, and it has been successfully promoting private redevelopment, especially in the half mile or so that separates its southern edge from the northern edge of the city’s main business district. (What I wrote above is tantalizingly close to not being true if you walk south, and I expect in a couple of years it really won’t be true in that direction.) A lot of new stuff has been built, and lots more is being planned. It is also attracting more students like yours, i.e., academically minded students, and people who will be interested in living in dorms for a few years, not commuter students, providing a lot more life to the campus on evenings and weekends.
As you might expect, Temple is very well served by public transportation. If you don’t want to live on campus (and eventually almost all students don’t), there are lots of places to live other than the thin fringe of student rentals that separate the Temple campus from some truly challenged neighborhoods. It’s easy to work a part-time job or internship in Center City. Philadelphia is nowhere near as exciting (or as rich) as New York, but it’s a great place for college students. There is plenty for them to do even on a limited budget, and they are much more appreciated than in wealthier cities.
Temple is pretty vibrant academically. Like any public university, it has a much broader range of students than most private universities do. Twenty years ago, it was de facto open admissions and completely dominated by Philadelphia residents; today it is meaningfully selective, and a majority of its students do not come from Philadelphia (although I believe a majority still comes from Philadelphia and not-very-far-from-Philadelphia). The Philadelphia students are probably good news, though, because they include people like the valedictorian/president of my son's high school class, a prospective engineer who would have been competitive at any college in the country, but who chose Temple honors because of the full-tuition scholarship he received and because it let him be close to his immigrant family. Plenty of students who would be admitted to Penn State's main campus if they applied choose Temple because they prefer to be in Philadelphia rather than the middle of nowhere. The quality of students in the Temple Honors program is probably equivalent to the quality of students at NYU, if not somewhat better.
Faculty quality at NYU is clearly meaningfully better, on average, than at Temple, and the graduate programs (so therefore the TAs) are much stronger.
If your daughter is studying something like philosophy (i.e., not engineering, physical therapy, accounting, or even film school) her classes will get un-crowded quickly.
Depending on price, you may want to take another look at UVM. I have had a number of relatives who went there, including one who has worked in the administration there for the past 15 years or so. They all loved it, and several (not just the administrator) settled permanently in Burlington. It's not anything like New York or Philly, but it's a pretty happening place, not the middle of nowhere.
It is way too early in her life to assume that she is going to complete a university-funded philosophy PhD., The vast majority of graduate and professional programs offer little unearned aid to students, except for those programs that they know no one would study without large amounts of funding (such as philosophy).
If she wants an academic career, where you went to grad school will matter more than your undergrad college.
Having 529 money in the bank for whatever future graduate study she decides to complete will be a major plus in life. Also, the offer of Temple to provide funding for summer programs will also be a major plus - she can do exciting educational things instead of grunt summer jobs.
She can always transfer to an expensive school later if she doesn’t like Temple. The main benefit of starting your education as a freshman at an expensive school is because that is the time when you can receive merit aid. However, in the case of NYU, that is not a factor.
Besides, NYU shows no respect or consideration for the finances of families. They keep drastically increasing prices, and waste millions on condos and second homes for their top staff. That means they are unlikely to feel any need to moderate tuition and housing cost increases in the future.
A friends D went to NYU for her Masters( theater) against her parents advice. Paid for entirely with loans.
Thought the NYU degree would open doors. That was several years ago. She’s done nothing with her NYU degree. She’s working in retail. The loan payments keep on coming.
I’m not sure the above is necessarily true if we’re talking undergrad teaching, especially considering the multitude of complaints over the last two decades about the faculty…especially top faculty being much more concerned about their research/publications and grad students than undergrads at NYU.
As for TAs, having stronger academic promise/stats doesn’t necessarily meant they’ll be better TAs than at other universities…or even being adequate TAs helpful to undergrads period.
At my summer stats for econ majors course I took at Harvard, the level of TF quality in the course when it came to helpfulness for the mostly undergrad students ranged from the outstanding to abysmal.
While I was lucky in being assigned to the outstanding one*, many classmates unfortunate enough to be assigned to the abysmal ones who had serious issues with explaining things well, spoke so quickly his words were like a blur, and sometimes even lost patience in front of students ended up crowding into my section as the outstanding TA was much more helpful and explained things in a clear patient succinct manner.
He also happened to be the most experienced TF on the team as he was nearing completion of his degree whereas the abysmal TF happened to be only a couple of years in.....though his pedagogical issues went well beyond lack of experience. Part of my assessment also comes from having been an academic tutor in undergrad and having experience substitute teaching 2 community college classes with 50-70 students in each class and later finding out from my instructor friend they found my lectures to be really helpful and informative.
Teach her a life lesson about looking for value and living within your means by sending her to Temple. Why stretch financially to indulge her in NYU? You can indulge her in other ways for a lot less money at Temple, because then you can easily afford to send her on study abroad and take advantage of other opportunities like unpaid internships. You could also put the money aside for her to start life after college with later. Or you could buy a condo in Philly and remt out some rooms to other students and one for her. Etc. Don’t see the compelling need to throw money at NYU.
My D is also admitted to Temple Honors (Tyler School of Art). She did not get the full scholarship but got the Dean’s scholarship and we are in-state, so it will be pretty inexpensive for us. My best friend’s son is graduating from Temple Honors in May. He says his honors classes have been rigorous. He is the only Honors Architecture student graduating this year. He was accepted at Michigan for grad school, a very difficult architecture school to get into. TU Honors grads get into many prestigious grad schools. I see no reason at all to full pay at NYU for an undergrad philospohy degree.
My D also got the full scholarship + stipends at Temple and it is still on the table, though a less$ even than that option seems to have appeared. Have you visited? D spent a week two summers ago in a HS pre-college engineering program there, then we went a month ago for an accepted student/honors day. I was really impressed with the campus, the profs we spoke with, the students. And having the $ not only tuition covered but stipends to study abroad or do research or take an unpaid internship…that’s a great thing, even if you could afford it otherwise.
I don’t think NYU is all that…when I was in HS (in NYC) it was basically a commuter school that anyone could go to. I know things have changed but I’m not sure the quality of instruction has changed THAT much, despite them taking over the village building by building.
Temple has terrific access to the rest of the city via public transportation, and for me the neighborhood around Temple was not a big deal. Lots of working poor, lots of not-white people, not an issue for me or maybe for your D.
For me it would be a no-brainer, especially since you DO have the funds to transfer if it turns out to be a bad fit after a year.
My suggestion is to delve into Temples on line philosophy website. Read about alumni, teachers, teachers interests, additional programs etc. Find out what other undergraduates have been able to accomplish at Temple. Read about their graduate program. Apparently grad students also take courses at UPenn and Villanova. So there is some sharing between universities.
Right now I would believe all the teachers at Temple have a great deal of knowledge to share with your 18 year old that she doesn’t know already.
I believe as an Honors student she would be given extra attention and perks. This can put her in the enviable position to learn as much as she wants at a pace she wants.
I cannot imagine that they will run out of things to teach her.
Philadelphia is a vibrant city full of young students and is easy to get around. Temple is on the major north south route of the city.
With the lack of loans she can do study abroad or get involved with additional summer programs around the world.
She is being offered free education…free. Wow! How can she possibly turn that down.
So get into the website, read the whole thing! Time to get excited.