<p>LeCorbeau and CollegeKid, I have a couple of points to make which just may take up the whole page. :-)</p>
<p>First, debt: you say that you will live at home, make $30-50,000 and have that loan paid off in no time. Both of you think that's not a horrible amount of debt.</p>
<p>Let's assume you get a job at $40,000, right in the middle of Lecorbeau's projections. (This is a more likely salary for an econ major than one in creative writing.) Have you accounted for taxes, health care benefits, social security? You'll probably end up taking home $25,000 after all that. Still sounds like a lot of money? You'll need transportation to and from work. That'll take a chunk. Meals while you are at work. Clothes. Do you have any idea how much a suit costs? And if you're in business, you have to look good, so, while you don't have to buy an Armani suit, you can't expect to make a good impression in a polyester one picked up from TJMaxx. Just one suit won't do, either. You'll be at work five days a week. Do you expect to do anything beside work? Eat out with friends? Take vacations? Lastly, would your parents really put up with you and pay all your expenses without charging rent when you're 25-30? 35? If you're
really frugal and don't worry about saving for retirement and your own kids' college education (or for the possibility that you'll be laid off), then you might have $10,000 - 15,000 a year to use to repay loans. Oh, one more thing: interest. Even as you start to pay off the loans, they will be increasing in amount every month because of interest. Have you done the calculations?</p>
<p>Next: creative writing. I have two books of fiction published as well as numerous short stories. I went to an Ivy League school and majored in drama and creative writing. I now teach fiction writing at the undergraduate level. If I knew then what I know now, I would say that there is NO sense in majoring in creative writing. Yeah, take the courses, but a major isn't going to get you published. Only the individual stories will, and most of your learning will come from reading, not taking classes in writing. Ninety-five percent of all fiction writers do not make enough money on their writing alone to fully support themselves. They teach or have other professional jobs, so you'll need to prepare yourself that way. It's much better to have a great job and write on the side than find yourself an unemployed college grad. My daughter, who is also an aspiring writer, just figured this out for herself when it came to selecting her college for next year. The only exception I'd make here is the undergrad writing program at Princeton, which has the most famous faculty teaching undergrads exclusively and which can offer the best connections into the publishing world nationwide. (Grad schools are different animals.)</p>
<p>Prestigious colleges offer fantastic networks for the future, but you have to be savvy enough to know how to use them. I wouldn't say that those networks are worth a young adulthood of crushing debt. Besides, there are no guarantees. You see these high figure salaries for Ivy League and top LAC schools without realizing that many of those upper salaries come from the business network of well-heeled parents, not because of the degree itself. I can't tell you how many of my classmates were set up in business by their parents, either through job connections or seed money for a new business. Many received down payments for houses as graduation gifts. They had trust funds to help pay for expenses while they worked their way into higher paying positions. It goes without saying that they had no debt to begin with. This is the life of the rich, not of the average graduate. You need to separate those realities from your own situation. When you see the stats posted by, say, Bowdoin, you should realize that the high end of the spectrum is probably silver spoon money. Look to the middle and below to get a good idea. Of course, these prestigious schools do offer more acceptances into top grad schools, provided the student does well academically. </p>
<p>Remember, you'll probably want to get married and have a family by the time you're in your early thirties, maybe sooner. How can you save for your children's education if you can't pay off your own?</p>