<p>I’ll take a stab at it:</p>
<p>Some of the colleges that will be screwed are on the “Colleges That Change Lives” list. </p>
<p>On a currently running thread, Ursinus is listed as still having openings in this fall’s freshman class. Very small LAC, in Pennsylvania, $52,000/year.</p>
<p>This is yellow journalism. If you read far enough down in the article, you learn that only 3% of graduates have $100,000 debt or more. Yet just reading the headline and the first paragraphs, you could be excused for concluding that hordes of kids (and their families) are making those kinds of horribly misguided decisions.</p>
<p>I also would not be too quick to point the finger specifically at ONU (which I’m not sure I’d ever heard of before this article). Lots of colleges encourage students to take on way too much debt - including some of the most prestigious schools in the country. Sort of reminds me of real estate and mortgage peddlers before the Big Crash. “Don’t worry, you’ll graduate and be showered with offers of big buck jobs” = “Don’t worry, your house will appreciate and you can sell it and roll over the profits into another one.”</p>
<p>Ursinus:</p>
<p>“The college is independent in character and has a growing $100,000,000 endowment.”</p>
<p>[Quick</a> Facts About Ursinus College](<a href=“http://www.ursinus.edu/netcommunity/page.aspx?pid=418]Quick”>http://www.ursinus.edu/netcommunity/page.aspx?pid=418)</p>
<p>Don’t know about the debt.</p>
<p>Gonna take a blind stab and say Widener is one of them.</p>
<p>The school is like $35k+ a year for tuition alone, isn’t very good academically, located in Chester (which is a ****-hole), and allures unsuspecting high schoolers by advertising it’s a private university so it must be amazing.</p>
<p>* Lots of colleges encourage students to take on way too much debt - including some of the most prestigious schools in the country*</p>
<p>I’m not sure that “lots of colleges” do this. Yes, NYU seems to be guilty of this, but what other top schools are encouraging lots of debt? In fact, many of the top schools are eliminating debt from their FA packages which then enables students to use their Stafford amounts towards EFC…which is often a big help to families that are about $5k short towards paying the “family contribution.” </p>
<p>I can imagine that some of these lesser known privates resort to these “follow your dream” smoke and mirror tactics otherwise they’d not get enough students. </p>
<p>'The girl with the $120k debt now has to move home with mom and dad. Yes, that will likely make things easier. But, what if she doesn’t find good employment in the Hometown? What if all the good paying Marketing jobs are 100+ miles away. I know that many think that moving home is the safety net, but the job offer may be in another region/state.</p>
<p>This girl’s parents are both employed. Dad is a paramedic and mom is a pre-school teacher. While they may not seem high income, together their income is probably quite nice. Moreover, I don’t know any paramedics/firemen who don’t also have some kind of job “on the side”. It sounds like the parents contributed little/nothing for their child’s education. That seems to be the heart of the matter. The parents couldn’t pay their share, so they skipped over their embarrassment by signing huge loans.</p>
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<p>But as you well know from hanging out on the FA forum, there are lots of higher-income families whose kids get into very high-prestige universities who either can’t or won’t pay anything close to the gap amount - and then the kid comes onto the forum, “Where can I find a co-signer so I can borrow $30,000 a year to attend [fill in name of school]?”</p>
<p>My dad flat out refused to pay for any school that would cost more than about $20,000 a year. The loans at a $60,000 a year university weren’t worth it with grad school. I consider my self lucky because my mom is naive in this area and of I had a less intelligent dad, i would probably find myself attending Cornell this fall, taking on $120,000 in debt after graduating, which degree isn’t really better where I’m going on a big scholarship to rensselaer. And graduating with no debt.</p>
<p>My classmates aren’t so lucky or well planned. My 2 friends who are going to Harvard will be in about $90,000 in debt after graduating and another friend going to Williams will be in the same boat. Good thing my dad is a guidance counselor!</p>
<p>The author of the study used data from guidestar.org. You have to subscribe to get access, and there’s a cost, so I’m not going to pursue it. Anyway, then you have to take a look at the IRS 990 forms, separate out the different types of assets, look at long-term debt…it’s not something that’s easy to guess at. </p>
<p>Would this be a worthwhile exercise for a parent to carry out, as a way of checking into the stability of a school? Don’t know. I might for schools located in the geographical areas that the study author identifies as especially at risk…but he also says that there are schools all over the place that have inadequate capital. </p>
<p>We don’t even know what 600+ schools were used in the author’s study. Why is the author being so coy? </p>
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<p>We honestly don’t know. Not fair to assign blame when we don’t know the details.</p>
<p>I agree. A preschool teacher and paramedic might make very little. It’s not fair to jump to conclusions about them.</p>
<p>so if the bubble pops, wont full pay students get into the schools they want? also, wont they just take more full pay internationals?</p>
<p>there are enough full pay people to fill in every seat at top 25 schools. the rest i dont know or care, but it seems hardly a problem for the top schools who could probably fill a whole class with full pay internationals</p>
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<p>I doubt that. The article pointed out that colleges in Appalachia in general, and West Virginia in particular, had the potential to be in trouble, and here in West Virginia, no private college charges more than $22,000 for tuition and fees. I know plenty of kids who go to them who can’t even afford that. I wonder how they stay open - some have only 600 - 800 students.</p>
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<p>They could… But I highly doubt everyone of those full pay kids have the top sat scores and near perfect class rank those colleges desire for rankings and statistics as much as not having to give out substantial financial aid packages.</p>
<p>cortana431: yes, you are right. They probably don’t have the top stats. But in this “SHTF”-type scenario, the schools need self preservation over ranking. They (should) no longer care about being #1 or #5 (let’s be honest, HYPS will always be up there), but keeping themselves from going under! So they take full pay students and survive.</p>
<p>But the SHTF scenario is not likely to happen in my opinion.</p>
<p>i feel like this could happen to non top university who are poor, but universities with high fundraising power and endowments would weather it no problem…</p>
<p>harvard lost a substantial amount of $$ in the recession from its endowment and promised to improve expand its FA the year after</p>
<p>top schools have nothing to worry about, their degrees are worth the 50K+ annually…mediocre private schools SHOULD fold considering they charge the same price for their random mediocre degree as does HPYSM</p>
<p>Here are some interesting articles and charts by NYT and the Dept of Education.
[List</a> of Most Expensive Colleges and Universities - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://takingnote.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/30/the-most-expensive-colleges/]List”>List of Most Expensive Colleges and Universities - The New York Times)</p>
<p>[College</a> Affordability and Transparency Center](<a href=“http://collegecost.ed.gov/catc/]College”>http://collegecost.ed.gov/catc/)</p>
<p>On a separate note, can somebody show how tuition has increased whenever the government increases aid? I heard there’s a very strong correlation.</p>
<p>Yes, but then those institutions would need to redefine their missions which is not likely.</p>
<p>Not to mention that the full pay internationals are not just shelling out for a degree from X college or university. Part of the experience that they are seeking is interacting with their US age peers.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to sound stupid, but is this “student loan bubble” supposed to mean that a degree from an affected college would be meaningless? I can understand how the housing bubble works… but how can a degree already conferred be worthless?</p>
<p>The only colleges I can think of is California at the moment. But this is getting out of hand. Tuition continue to rises and because of our economy we have less money which is not a good equation.</p>
<p>Degrees that are already conferred are still valid even if the college goes belly-up. When that happens the college’s records are transferred to a state or regional agency that has the responsibility of maintaining them essentially in perpetuity. Even if your college has collapsed, you can still get copies of your transcripts, and your potential employers can verify your graduation date.</p>
<p>What do student loans have to do with the endowments of top schools? Not much, I would think. My school Vanderbilt has an average debt load less than the random, no-name state flagship branch university that I attended summer camp at. In fact Vandy is no loan now. Of course, the average Vanderbilt student obviously comes from a wealthier family than the student from the branch university. But in the end, Vandy definitely gets a lot less of its money from loans. Clearly, Vandy’s endowment isn’t invulnerable. But I don’t think it will really be affect by anything in student loans.</p>