Middle class families - Are you willing to take on a ton of debt for a top college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

My husband has a graduate degree from Columbia. No, we would not pay those prices for undergrad. Would not be worth it.

Columbia might be a ticket-puncher in the Northeast, but out of the area, like we are now, it's just, "nice."

if you are so advanced over there in california, perhaps you could start something like DCUM?

[Anonymous]

Of course not. I am a legal secretary. I have a two yr degree from community college. I sit next to another legal secretary who has a four year degree from Cornell. I earn $3k a year more than she does.

[Anonymous]

Hell no.

[Anonymous]

I am on a FB page for parents of my kid's incoming freshman class and I'm dumbfounded at comments such as, "When do we hear about our loans?" and "When do we apply for our loans?" We knew going into this process how much we had saved and how much we were able to pay out of pocket, and how much debt we were willing to take on (zero).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My husband has a graduate degree from Columbia. No, we would not pay those prices for undergrad. Would not be worth it.

Columbia might be a ticket-puncher in the Northeast, but out of the area, like we are now, it's just, "nice."

Absolutely. I thought Columbia was like Pepperdine. California here. We don't care about any big east names here, though.

Really? Take a look at the profiles of associates at the best venture capital firms or top law firms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I would not pick columbia and the debt. I can't think of any real world benefit other than bragging rights because you think the name sounds more impressive

$280k debt can ruin your life.

Yup. It also means his parents can't help him for grad school. This kid will have seriously constrained options with debt like that. Columbia is a great school in a thousand ways, but not worth all that debt.

The whole setting up Jr for grad school is a stupid internet mom meme. A doctor or t14 lawyer can easily pay off their loans. A masters inc. MBA can be paid by employer.

Jr will get better job offers and into a better grad program if they have a more prestigious bachelors. That's how the world works.

Not a stupid internet mom meme - I wrote the comment and I actually know more about student debt than you can imagine (for professional reasons).

1) you don't get to be a tier 1 lawyer with middling grades, even out of Columbia and the median earnings out of law school are well-under $100k per year. 2) Yeah, sure. You might get your MBA paid for. But that's an MBA - most of them don't get their degrees from Harvard and you would be surprised how many are paying their own way. 3) What if your kid wants to be a pediatrician, or a bench scientist or a social worker? People outside of your cul-de-sac take out debt to do these things and struggle to repay it.

You have a LOT more options coming from the bottom half of Columbia undergrad than from the bottom half of UVA. I got a top tier i-banking analyst program and had grades well into the bottom half of my class at HYP.

As for the "save it for grad school" trope, read the grad school admissions boards sometimes. It's a lot harder to get into a top tier MBA or PhD program when you're not coming from a top 10 undergrad school.

Of course. But I was at Columbia with some kids who were struggling to make ends meet. It has a negative effect on your grades. Seriously. If this kid needs to work too many hours to pull this off, it will be very hard to take advantage all the things that Columbia can offer and the finances will increase the probability the kid is in the bottom half of the class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My husband has a graduate degree from Columbia. No, we would not pay those prices for undergrad. Would not be worth it.

Columbia might be a ticket-puncher in the Northeast, but out of the area, like we are now, it's just, "nice."

Absolutely. I thought Columbia was like Pepperdine. California here. We don't care about any big east names here, though.

Really? Take a look at the profiles of associates at the best venture capital firms or top law firms.

Exactly, look.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My husband has a graduate degree from Columbia. No, we would not pay those prices for undergrad. Would not be worth it.

Columbia might be a ticket-puncher in the Northeast, but out of the area, like we are now, it's just, "nice."

if you are so advanced over there in california, perhaps you could start something like DCUM?

Why? Are you going to block California?

[Anonymous]

I just looked up all of the US-based partners at Boston Consulting Group. These are the undergraduate institutions:

University of Michigan (3)
Florida State
Vanderbilt
Cooper Union
Whitman College
Princeton
Duke (4)
Dartmouth (3)
Indian Institute of Technology
MIT
Georgia Tech
Williams College
University of Pennsylvania
Yale
McMaster University
Indiana University
UNC Chapel Hill
Stanford
Chisholm Insitute of Technology

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Could someone define "middle class" please. The term is so vague and almost everyone thinks they're middle class.

On DCUM, "middle class" seems to correspond with what most Americans would refer to as "upper middle class." These are typically people with HHI's of $200K, and up. By comparison, the median household income in the US is around $50-60K. Clearly, paying $50K/year for college, per child, is not realistic for people the latter demographic. Smart "lower middle class" kids tend to end up at state flagships. Smart UMC/rich kids go to elite privates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My husband has a graduate degree from Columbia. No, we would not pay those prices for undergrad. Would not be worth it.

Columbia might be a ticket-puncher in the Northeast, but out of the area, like we are now, it's just, "nice."

Absolutely. I thought Columbia was like Pepperdine. California here. We don't care about any big east names here, though.

Really? Take a look at the profiles of associates at the best venture capital firms or top law firms.

Exactly, look.

You'd have almost the same list if you compared current hires to their dad's college education.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You went into I-banking? Did you come middle class background?

UMC from a public school.

That is unsurprising. No doubt your parent or parents friend knew about navigating finance or legal worlds. My kids parents would have though Goldman Sachs was a fancy bag store.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You went into I-banking? Did you come middle class background?

UMC from a public school.

That is unsurprising. No doubt your parent or parents friend knew about navigating finance or legal worlds. My kids parents would have though Goldman Sachs was a fancy bag store.

Haha, no idea how kid got into their -- but my parents had no idea. And honestly, I will have to phone a friend to help my kids get into I-banking b/c I still have no idea.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

My husband has a graduate degree from Columbia. No, we would not pay those prices for undergrad. Would not be worth it.

Columbia might be a ticket-puncher in the Northeast, but out of the area, like we are now, it's just, "nice."

Absolutely. I thought Columbia was like Pepperdine. California here. We don't care about any big east names here, though.

Really? Take a look at the profiles of associates at the best venture capital firms or top law firms.

Exactly, look.

Done. Here's the undergraduate schools attended by every associate at Kirkland and Ellis DC:
Arizona State University (2)
Barnard College
Birmingham-Southern College
Boston University (2)
Brigham Young University (2)
Clemson University
College of William and Mary (3)
Columbia University
Cornell University (2)
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Dickinson College
Duke University (3)
Emory University
Georgetown University (7)
George Washington University (7)
Gettysburg College
Harvard University (4)
Haverford College
Idaho State University
Johns Hopkins University
Louisiana State University
Loyola University of Chicago
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Ohio Wesleyan University
Princeton University (2)
Stanford University (4)
UC-Berkeley
UC-Davis
UC-Irvine
UCLA (2)
University of Arizona
University of Central Florida
University of Chicago
University of Delaware
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
University of Michigan
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania (2)
University of South Carolina
University of Vermont
University of Virginia (3)
University of Washington
Vanderbilt University
Wake Forest University
Washington and Lee University
Yale University (5)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I am really LOLing at all the VA boosters who think UVA is on par with Columbia.

Ask yourself this. If you had the money and the kid got into both schools, which would you recommend? Columbia is the kind of school that comes with a wealth of connections and opens doors to elite society in the Northeast.

UVA can't give you that except maybe in VA.

You know not of what you speak. You just sound plain ignorant pp.