<p>I think that’s simply because high school students are understandably naive about career development and paths to employment. They don’t have a clue as to how to get a job on Wall Street, so going to the right school seems like the appropriate choice – but of course the reality is that while Wall Street firms do indeed hire many graduates of Stern – the converse is not true: attending Stern is no guarantee of a Wall Street job. Hiring is of course very competitive, and for every Stern grad who lands the position they covet, there are undoubtedly several others who apply and interview but don’t get offered the jobs they would like. The main advantage that NYU offers over many other schools is location – its physical proximity to Wall Street allows some students to take part-time internships during the school years. And, of course, there are probably many others who want those internships but can’t get them, and end up doing something else. </p>
<p>As Blossom noted, other NYC schools would offer similar opportunities – but I think a more important consideration for OP is that there are plenty of jobs to be had in the finance industry outside Wall Street – if finance is truly what interests the OP. UCLA would offer opportunities of its own. But opportunities are not guarantees. </p>
<p>I recently described a finance job in detail to a college senior who is looking for my advice on “launching”. He agreed with me that the job I described is EXACTLY what he wants to be doing 10 years from now. And he was shocked that the job I described was based in Sacramento, CA or Albany NY or Columbus OH, i.e. a job with the state treasury function working on bond financing, infrastructure planning and capital allocation, revenue projections, etc.</p>
<p>And this is a kid majoring in “business” who really has no clue about what actual “business” people do except at Hedge funds or on Wall Street (believe me, if you are making underwriting decisions for a large or populous state, you are more powerful than any bond dealer at a bank).</p>
<p>No, State employees don’t make a zillion dollars a year, but they don’t need to live in Scarsdale or Montclair or other high rent neighborhoods to get to work.</p>
<p>But my point is that Stern is a fine place to study finance, along with a few dozen other fine places to study finance, and I don’t believe that ANY of these schools are worth taking on astronomical debt if the point is to get to Wall Street.</p>
<p>@jarjarbinks23 Yes, I promise. I am not saying Stern is not a good school – it definitely is, but it is hardly the only way to WS (just as finance is not the only major). Just of the top of my head, our current analysts from the last couple years are from Georgetown, Middlebury, Princeton, Brown, Johns Hopkins, UPenn, Bowdoin, Haverford, UChicago, U of Michigan, Miami (Ohio), Cornell, Ohio State, etc… we have portfolio managers from all of the above, plus Harvard, UVA, Delaware, Boston College, William & Mary, Rutgers, UCLA, Villanova, Yale and even GASP…state schools (I know there are state schools already on this list – I am making a point). </p>
<p>I have worked in finance for 15+ years in all the “best” banks…and I went to a state school (and not even a top one). You will be fine if you don’t go to Stern…I promise.</p>
<p>@blossom, well, Stern is certainly as good as all the other Street targets (definitely more than 1-2 of them out there; more like 2 dozen of them), so it’s as much of a finance powerhouse as they are (and pretty much the only school that isn’t an Ivy/Ivy-equivalent/near-Ivy that is, in fact).</p>
<p>Stern also does better than those various other NY schools that you named at front office Street placement (doesn’t mean it’s actually worth taking on a ton of debt for, however).</p>
<p>As an aside, yes, state treasuries and various other government agencies are quite powerful (though that’s more of a tragedy than anything, but I digress).</p>
<p>Merely disputing your assertion that “Stern is not a powerhouse of Wall Street”. If Stern isn’t, pretty much no school (besides maybe Wharton) is.</p>
<p>Ok jar jar, that’s why you didn’t get money from NYU. You are being very naive how aid works esp at Nyu. You don’t have to hope about fafsa, the answer is crystal. You will get no more aid. The forms you submitted to Nyu already contain the FAfsa data and extra data Nyu uses. The fafsa adds nothing. They already know you don’t qualify for a Pell grant. Filing FAFSA will mean you can get a student loan of 5,500 freshman year. And the giant plus loan. At 6 something percent.</p>
<p>Tldr; they already have all your financial info and made an aid determination. They want your family to suck it up.</p>
<p>I don’t think you are going to let you family hang out to dry and tie up their credit. I know you have been making a few posts so you know the answer already. Pull the trigger and cut them loose.</p>
<p>The top finance students at Stern, Fordham, SUNY Binghamton will do well in Wall Street hiring (in years when Wall Street is hiring lots of analysts, which of course none of us can predict right now since the OP is still in HS). A strong Econ or Applied Math student will do just as well if not better in Wall Street hiring if he/she is at Columbia, Princeton, MIT, U Chicago, etc. A middle of the road finance student from Stern has prospects which are no better or worse than a kid graduating from a dozen or so “peer institutions” to NYU.</p>
<p>So by my logic, taking on a boat load of debt to attend NYU, thinking that it is a “powerhouse” of Wall Street hiring is a mistake on several levels. A- because most HS kids really don’t know what folks on “wall street” do all day. They may not like it, they may not be good at it, etc. B- because most HS kids change their majors and occupational focus at least once and often more, so locking in a vocational goal to justify the debt seems illogical to me. C- Nobody takes on this level of debt because there are no more affordable options. They take it on under the misguided notion that you HAVE to study finance to get to Wall Street (not true) and that therefore, they need to evaluate a small number of colleges which offer finance in order to get there.</p>
<p>DE Shaw is hiring kids with strong mathematical ability who have majored in over a dozen different fields (not just finance). Bridgewater, JP Morgan, Goldman- none of these institutions think that “finance” is the holy grail. </p>
<p>The idea that Stern is the only or the best path to Wall Street is not supported by facts. So I’m back to “as good as” re: Stern vs. some other, likely cheaper options.</p>
<p>The facts I have seen show that Stern places better in to front office IBanking than those other NY colleges that you named in all environments. Stern’s peers aren’t Fordham and Binghamton.</p>
<p>Agree, however, that investment banking is a fool’s game for most.</p>
<p>Also, DE Shaw, Bridgewater, etc. are quant trading shops. A world away from IB (and I would not work at Bridgewater, but that’s besides the point).</p>
<p>No, Stern is not the only way to Wall Street and may not be worth the debt, but let’s not pretend that you can just as easily get to point A from school B as from school C. I find your previous post very ironic since weren’t you saying this exact same thing I just did in numerous previous posts?</p>
<p>Purple- where we seem to differ is whether an Early Decision Plus Loan is a viable option for a kid whose parents cannot afford to write the check for NYU. Which ironically enough is the subject of this thread.</p>
<p>Whether or not you would work at Bridgewater or not (and I don’t recall the OP saying he wanted a job as in I-banker; he wants a job “on Wall Street”) is entirely irrelevant. Wall Street encompasses the entire Capital Markets system in the US whether or not the institution has its offices on the physical “Wall Street”. There is more to the I-banking world than becoming an I-banker.</p>
<p>But the fact remains- Stern is a fine program for someone who can afford it. It is not worth an albatross of debt for a high school kid who believes that it is the best and only path to “Wall Street”. And someone who wants a job in finance can surely run some basic numbers and realize that in fact, NYU would be a terrible investment.</p>
<p>If he ends up with a 2.8 in finance from Stern, his prospects for the front office are in fact, much worse, than if he’d gone somewhere else.</p>
<p>Glad you won’t work at Bridgewater. They’ll be thrilled to hear that.</p>
<p>@blossom, how do you know that we differ on whether a Plus loan is a viable option? As far as I can tell, I haven’t expressed an opinion one way or the other on whether a Plus loan is viable for the OP.</p>
<p>It is what it is. Finding <em>a</em> job hasn’t been terribly difficult for undergrad b-school grads in recent years, however. $60K isn’t terribly high for NYC.</p>
<p>Well…this could very well be you issue with regards to need based aid. Very often, deductions allowed by the IRS for tax purposes are NOT permitted for financial aid purposes…and are added back in as income.</p>
<p>It is very likely that NYU determined that your income was far above $50,000 a year.</p>
<p>FYI, for what it’s worth, if you are a CA resident, I’d try for the UC’s if I were you. Haas is just as much a Street target as Stern and the UC’s would cost roughly half as much for CA residents.</p>
<p>“Average” isn’t very helpful – “median” would at least give you a halfway point. </p>
<p>Simple math – let’s say that 1 student has a starting salary of $90K and 2 students have salaries of $48.6K. What’s the “average” – it’s that $62.4 “average” you are looking at. Or how about, one student gets $100K, and one can only find a job that pays $30K - if the remaining student gets $57.2K – same average. </p>
<p>So where do you end up? No way to tell, but my point is that a few very high end salaries can easily skew the “average” upward. </p>
<p>You absolutely can NOT take out debt based on hopes of the job you might get. Instead, think about what you are are fairly certain that you are likely to get, with or without the Stern degree. If you or your parents take out loans for you to attend Stern and you run into academic difficulties and graduate with a low GPA, the debt will be there but the employment prospects won’t be so great. If you attend Stern for 2 years and then run out of money and can’t pay for year 3 & 4, you’ll have to transfer somewhere else, and you might find yourself with a degree from a no-name university and 2 years of Stern-level debt. </p>
<p>Keep in mind that NYU and other expensive private schools are filled with many rich kids (whose parents can easily pay full tuition), and many of them get high paying jobs when they graduate through their family connections – that also pushes the averages up, but in a way that has no relevance to the experience of students who need to borrow the bulk of their tuition money. </p>
<p>I’ve never trusted those stats anyway. NYU is fairly well-regarded so I don’t think that going there is a bad move, but I feel like with other schools they can game them by having students report that stuff to them voluntarily after graduation. The folks who couldn’t find jobs, or couldn’t find good jobs, might not bother responding to the survey six months after leaving.</p>
<p>I guess it really does matter what you really want though and what you’re comfortable with. NYU isn’t a bad school, no one is saying that. It just isn’t as vital to your success as some might think; it’s definitely not worth $80000 in debt. Even if you did have the starting salary that they mention, paying off those student loans would be a burden unless your parents helped you out a lot, and I’m not sure that a young person trying to make it in the finance sector really wants to be tied down with that if it’s not actually necessary. </p>
<p>(Although now that I think about it, the PLUS loans would be on your parents, not on you personally, so maybe it’s not a problem for them. I personally would never agree to take on a loan like that for college under any circumstances whatsoever – it’s a bad idea for me – but if your parents are OK with that then that’s the bottom line.)</p>