Undergrad vs Grad School debt

Paying for College
1

<p>I would appreciate any insights regarding financial aid for graduate degrees in the liberal arts. For those who may not get a teaching or research fellowship, is financial aid primarily need-based? Does financial assistance end up being primarily in the form of loans?</p>

<p>The question behind the question: We are trying to assess the amount of undergraduate debt that is "reasonable" if the student plans to earn a Ph.d. in a field where there may not be a lot of fellowships or grants. </p>

<p>Any thoughts or experiences? Thanks!</p>

2

<p>for teaching most FA is in the terms of loans. However there are loan forgiveness programs for teachers willing to teach in underserved areas. My sister is a 2nd year teacher who gets 3500/year for 4 years toward her student loans for teaching in a underserved area in NYC</p>

3

<p>Well, now there are not really grants for grad school. There are certain things you can try your best to obtain, but they are mainly academics based. Then, if you luck out with the things which are academic based, you would be looking at loans.
However, there is now a Parent Plus Loan for grad students, but you have to be somewhat young for that and whatnot.</p>

<p>That being said, it really depends on the discipline and need with regards to teaching. For example, I know darned sure that for English you can try to get in on teaching. It is really not that hard, you just have to know the names of who runs the student teaching area and then you can luck into teaching English 101. There are classes, at some Universities, which one can take in order to get in on teaching. </p>

<p>Furthermore, there may be more fellowships out there than you think. Try your best to look these things up. Again, and I only know of this for English, there are academic requirements for these things. But, depending on what you study, you can try your best to luck into this kid of stuff. </p>

<p>Basically, you have to try really hard to make a nice list of Universities which have nice research opps. You have to really try hard at that, because you never know where things might lead. For example, the University of Tulsa is darned near famous in Liberal Arts circles for giving grad students research opps from the break, you know what I mean. </p>

<p>If you child is truly dead set on this. Then you folks need to get a little dialogue going where you learn of the likes and dislikes and then start networking and joining societies and working hard to see what is out there.</p>

<p>For example, I do lit./Theology. And for grad school and for my PHD I will only be doing lit. I know, with all of my heart, that I love the 17th Century as well as the long 18th Century of British lit. So, I have already joined societies to see what is out there. All us Liberal Arts majors always have to figure out exactly what we like academically and start working things hard. </p>

<p>I wish I knew the major?!:)</p>

<p><a href="http://www.petersons.com/gradchannel/file.asp?id=1080&sponsor=1&path=gr.pfs.overview%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.petersons.com/gradchannel/file.asp?id=1080&sponsor=1&path=gr.pfs.overview&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.studybeans.com/gre/financial_aid.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.studybeans.com/gre/financial_aid.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p><a href="http://www.gradschooltips.com/payingforschool.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.gradschooltips.com/payingforschool.htm&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Some PhDs are more likely to be funded than others. Math and sciences do get the $$. English and humanties , not as much $$ and you have a lot of people vying for a small pot of $$ Unless she can get into HYP.</p>

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<p>Our specific situation is this: My kid is thinking of majoring in linguistics as an undergraduate at our local, state school. Our university is not ranked highly for its linguistics program and grad school most likely will be someplace else.</p>

<p>Option A is for our kid to return to the highly-ranked, CC top liberal arts college and accumulate approx. $20K in debt. Option B is to go to the local university -- good, but not great -- and live on-campus in the dorms and graduate debt-free. Option C is to go to the local university and live at home, saving money for grad school (which most likely will be elsewhere).</p>

<p>We anticipate graduation from the undergrad program at age 22. Insofar as I understand financial aid, our family income/assets would no longer be a factor at age 24 -- at least for undergraduate programs. I don't know whether the same applies to grad school -- and if it does and aid is primarily need-based, does it end up being mostly in loans versus grants. I just don't see linguistics programs being that well-funded and I can't imagine there being a lot of grants available. (And Sybbie, I'm afraid our kid is not HYP material, especially coming from a less-than-stellar college and less-than-stellar linguistics program.)</p>

6

<p>
[quote]
as I understand financial aid, our family income/assets would no longer be a factor at age 24 -- at least for undergraduate programs.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Your income assets will no longer be a factor once she completes her bachelors. If this happens at 22. that is when she will be an independent student.</p>

<p>You never know. If she plans on going into a PhD program no matter where she ends up, she will still have to have a great gpa, she will still have to take the GREs and score well and it will still be in her best interest to get some research under her belt. So don't be so quick to knock her out of the box. My brother in law did his PhD at Princeton coming from a tier 3 school so hang in there because if it is what she really wants she will work to get it. </p>

<p>Hey never put her down or don't believe that she can't do it- there are so many people who will line up to ding her and she will prove them wrong.</p>

<p>Here is a link for MA phd programs in linguistics. It will give her a jumping off point to do research. Hope this helps</p>

<p><a href="http://www.gradschools.com/programs/linguistics.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.gradschools.com/programs/linguistics.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

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<p>Thank you all for the info, and special thanks to merlinjones and sybbie for the links!</p>

8

<p>Please remember, boxmaker, that there are Societies out there which your child can join now for linguistics. You have to look up the theorist and whatnot, like Lacan has a little Society which one can join. </p>

<p>For example, I am a student member of the John Donne as well as the John Milton Society. As soon as I earn my BS and take my GRE's, I am immediately going to be working on calls for papers. You have to figure out what you like, and join up on things now- because you never know where that might lead.</p>

<p>And please also remember that sometimes the quality of the faculty is just as important-if not more so- as the name as the University with regards to Humanities based majors. </p>

<p>And lastly, with Linguistics, do not rule out trying to study up on ESL. There is a lot going on throughout our whole country with ESL and you never know if you might get in on some teaching opps with having some linguistic based ESL studies under your belt.</p>

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<p>Merlinjones, thank you for such wonderful ideas!</p>