Paying for college $75K

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

My VT CS grad has multiple offers and his first job was a result of an internship with a starting salary at a cyber security company of 110k. He’s one year in and his first stock options have just vested.

I’m very glad he was sensible and went to a state school. Can’t imagine MIT would have yielded better results. Absolutely no ROI in paying 200k more for an undergrad.

Just FYI, my recent MIT graduate got a first year package of $650k fresh out of college. Not saying, it applies to every MIT graduates but there were a handful of them who got a similar package the same year.

Yeah, it does not apply to all MIT grads. I'm assuming a large part of that package is "options". Absolutely no way a recent grad got a salary of $650k or anywhere near that.

Guaranteed cash bonus. No stock options for trading firms.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

My VT CS grad has multiple offers and his first job was a result of an internship with a starting salary at a cyber security company of 110k. He’s one year in and his first stock options have just vested.

I’m very glad he was sensible and went to a state school. Can’t imagine MIT would have yielded better results. Absolutely no ROI in paying 200k more for an undergrad.

Just FYI, my recent MIT graduate got a first year package of $650k fresh out of college. Not saying, it applies to every MIT graduates but there were a handful of them who got a similar package the same year.

Doing what? I highly doubt that he got that.

Quantitative research for a quant trading firm/hedge fund. Think about firms like Citadel, Jane Street, Hudson River Trading.

Sell out. What a waste.

Sure if you say so.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

My VT CS grad has multiple offers and his first job was a result of an internship with a starting salary at a cyber security company of 110k. He’s one year in and his first stock options have just vested.

I’m very glad he was sensible and went to a state school. Can’t imagine MIT would have yielded better results. Absolutely no ROI in paying 200k more for an undergrad.

Just FYI, my recent MIT graduate got a first year package of $650k fresh out of college. Not saying, it applies to every MIT graduates but there were a handful of them who got a similar package the same year.

Doing what? I highly doubt that he got that.

Quantitative research for a quant trading firm/hedge fund. Think about firms like Citadel, Jane Street, Hudson River Trading.

Sell out. What a waste.

Somebody is jealous!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don't do that. 3X $75k invested and your child will never have to work again after 35. They'd rather have that and a state school degree than working til retirement.

A lot of 18 yr olds cannot understand the impact of $150K student loans.

I ran the numbers with my DC and showed them how long it would take to repay the $150K assuming a $140k job. They don't understand how taxes work; they see $140K, and think big money, but then you show them how much they will deduct in taxes, and they realize just how much their take home really is. Then you show them the repayment schedule, and how that will impact their ability to save to buy a house.

Run the real numbers with your kids.

A lot of kids understand it, but they also look at starting and mid career salaries at various universities and compare them. Somewhere like Emory may be much more expensive, but their grads are earning a lot more than Radford grads at every stage of their careers

They understand it conceptually, but not in reality. Most grads even from a lot of top tier colleges aren't making more than $150K their first few years out of school.

The average salary of an undergrad from Emory doesn't break $100k.

https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/georgia/emory-university/salaries/

An undergrad degree in CS from UMD will make slightly more on average than an Emory grad in CS -- $81K vs $79k, respectively

https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/maryland/university-of-maryland-college-park/salaries/

A CS degree will cost around $130K at UMD vs $300K.

That is a bad ROI. No smart person would choose Emory in that situation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don't do that. 3X $75k invested and your child will never have to work again after 35. They'd rather have that and a state school degree than working til retirement.

A lot of 18 yr olds cannot understand the impact of $150K student loans.

I ran the numbers with my DC and showed them how long it would take to repay the $150K assuming a $140k job. They don't understand how taxes work; they see $140K, and think big money, but then you show them how much they will deduct in taxes, and they realize just how much their take home really is. Then you show them the repayment schedule, and how that will impact their ability to save to buy a house.

Run the real numbers with your kids.

A lot of kids understand it, but they also look at starting and mid career salaries at various universities and compare them. Somewhere like Emory may be much more expensive, but their grads are earning a lot more than Radford grads at every stage of their careers

They understand it conceptually, but not in reality. Most grads even from a lot of top tier colleges aren't making more than $150K their first few years out of school.

The average salary of an undergrad from Emory doesn't break $100k.

https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/georgia/emory-university/salaries/

An undergrad degree in CS from UMD will make slightly more on average than an Emory grad in CS -- $81K vs $79k, respectively

https://www.collegesimply.com/colleges/maryland/university-of-maryland-college-park/salaries/

A CS degree will cost around $130K at UMD vs $300K.

That is a bad ROI. No smart person would choose Emory in that situation.

Yes, a CS degree at a flagship is a great ROI. That same degree at Radford makes 56k

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

My VT CS grad has multiple offers and his first job was a result of an internship with a starting salary at a cyber security company of 110k. He’s one year in and his first stock options have just vested.

I’m very glad he was sensible and went to a state school. Can’t imagine MIT would have yielded better results. Absolutely no ROI in paying 200k more for an undergrad.

Just FYI, my recent MIT graduate got a first year package of $650k fresh out of college. Not saying, it applies to every MIT graduates but there were a handful of them who got a similar package the same year.

Doing what? I highly doubt that he got that.

Quantitative research for a quant trading firm/hedge fund. Think about firms like Citadel, Jane Street, Hudson River Trading.

Sell out. What a waste.

Somebody is jealous!

I don't think it is jealousy to be upset that our best and brightest are going into careers that contribute nothing to society, rather than engineering or science of health or something that could possibly improve peoples lives in some way.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

My VT CS grad has multiple offers and his first job was a result of an internship with a starting salary at a cyber security company of 110k. He’s one year in and his first stock options have just vested.

I’m very glad he was sensible and went to a state school. Can’t imagine MIT would have yielded better results. Absolutely no ROI in paying 200k more for an undergrad.

Just FYI, my recent MIT graduate got a first year package of $650k fresh out of college. Not saying, it applies to every MIT graduates but there were a handful of them who got a similar package the same year.

Doing what? I highly doubt that he got that.

Quantitative research for a quant trading firm/hedge fund. Think about firms like Citadel, Jane Street, Hudson River Trading.

Sell out. What a waste.

Somebody is jealous!

I don't think it is jealousy to be upset that our best and brightest are going into careers that contribute nothing to society, rather than engineering or science of health or something that could possibly improve peoples lives in some way.

That's your very own and biased view based on your very lack of understanding of how the world or economy works. I guess should shut down all of these stock markets to make you happy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Be smart and don’t overspend. Very few students are full pay at 70-80k a years. It’s less than 2% of students with that type of bill to pay. That is a luxury good.

You have 75k, add in 27k for Fed loans (I wouldn’t go above that with high interest private loans). Add in some more for cash flow. Maybe you can swing 40k a year.

That means go state school or only look at private schools with generous merit (they exist, there are lots that will get your cost from the 75k list price closer to 40k).

At the T25 schools, most are more than 50% pay the full weight.

At NYU & USC a lot of “full-pay” students are there on significant amounts of Parent Plus Loans.

Those people are obviously not the brightest then. No school is worth taking out PPL

If my kid got into MIT, I'm taking out parent pluses

If your kid got into MIT, then they are likely doing STEM, and where they go does not matter that much, it's what they do while they attend school and afterwards. If you have to take $200K in PPL to put them thru MIT it financially isn't worth it. Your kid can go to VAtech or UMPCP or any other number of excellent private schools with excellent stem programs that are affordable to you. MIT grads work alongside grads from other schools and make the same thing.
STEM especially, it DOES NOT matter where you go. A CS degree is a CS degree, a Mech Eng degree is a Mech Eng degree for undergrad. No company hires just from the elite universities---they hire from a wide variety of places.

That's totally false. Like someone else mentioned, where you go to college is a good indication of your intelligence, drive and work ethics. Maybe you can always get a job these days where you graduate from. But even for CS, not all jobs are equal (in terms of earning potential and otherwise). For example, OpenAI currently pays $550k+ for fresh graduates, but recruits mainly from top engineering schools (MIT, Stanford). I'm talking about money here only because people have been bragging about making a lot of money out of mid-tier colleges.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

My VT CS grad has multiple offers and his first job was a result of an internship with a starting salary at a cyber security company of 110k. He’s one year in and his first stock options have just vested.

I’m very glad he was sensible and went to a state school. Can’t imagine MIT would have yielded better results. Absolutely no ROI in paying 200k more for an undergrad.

Just FYI, my recent MIT graduate got a first year package of $650k fresh out of college. Not saying, it applies to every MIT graduates but there were a handful of them who got a similar package the same year.

Doing what? I highly doubt that he got that.

Quantitative research for a quant trading firm/hedge fund. Think about firms like Citadel, Jane Street, Hudson River Trading.

Sell out. What a waste.

Somebody is jealous!

I don't think it is jealousy to be upset that our best and brightest are going into careers that contribute nothing to society, rather than engineering or science of health or something that could possibly improve peoples lives in some way.

That's your very own and biased view based on your very lack of understanding of how the world or economy works. I guess should shut down all of these stock markets to make you happy.

As an economist, I know exactly how the world works. And if you think high frequency trading does anything to improve the world, you are very much mistaken.

[Anonymous]

OP, does your child have other options or is it this college or nowhere? Will there will be a good ROI on the degree/school? If yes, I would have him take the max loans he can in his name and work and contribute like others have suggested. I would not drain your savings, unless you have significant 401k savings beyond the 75k you reference? Do you have other children? Without knowing your expenses, I would think that you could bankroll 50k out of your income, as people reference doing this for private school all the time, and it’s just for 3 years. That leaves you with 25k…a little from savings, student loans and kid works to pay for the rest?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

I have the whole picture. No firm takes 50% of the students in a specific major at a T10 school. Very few firms only hire from T20 schools. Kids at VaTech/UMD/GMU all get jobs at FAANG. And not everyone wants to work there. Go to a "non-MIT" school in CS and you will still get an amazing job, and it might even be FAANG except you didn't go into major debt to do so. If not, you will still have a great job. Not sure why everyone is so obsessed with working at the "top firms" immediately, or ever really.

Where you go for undergrad can make a difference when you apply to graduate programs. Not saying they need to go to MIT but something to keep in mind, not everyone is done after 4 years.

And go look at MIT/CalTech/Berkley/CMU/other T25 schools and see where their PHD candidates went to undergrad. Many come from smaller, much lesser known schools. In fact, you can shine in undergrad, many advantages to being top dog at a school of 5-8K, you can do research with the profs as undergrads, they truly get to know you so can write amazing recommendations. Yes, many come from T25 schools, but only about 50%. And that is to be expected because the nature of a kid who got into a T25 school is that they are driven, hard working and almost always achieve their goals. But plenty of kids from other schools go to T25 for grad school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

I have the whole picture. No firm takes 50% of the students in a specific major at a T10 school. Very few firms only hire from T20 schools. Kids at VaTech/UMD/GMU all get jobs at FAANG. And not everyone wants to work there. Go to a "non-MIT" school in CS and you will still get an amazing job, and it might even be FAANG except you didn't go into major debt to do so. If not, you will still have a great job. Not sure why everyone is so obsessed with working at the "top firms" immediately, or ever really.

Where you go for undergrad can make a difference when you apply to graduate programs. Not saying they need to go to MIT but something to keep in mind, not everyone is done after 4 years.

And go look at MIT/CalTech/Berkley/CMU/other T25 schools and see where their PHD candidates went to undergrad. Many come from smaller, much lesser known schools. In fact, you can shine in undergrad, many advantages to being top dog at a school of 5-8K, you can do research with the profs as undergrads, they truly get to know you so can write amazing recommendations. Yes, many come from T25 schools, but only about 50%. And that is to be expected because the nature of a kid who got into a T25 school is that they are driven, hard working and almost always achieve their goals. But plenty of kids from other schools go to T25 for grad school.

Are you someone who considers SLACs lesser known? T25 + state flagship + SLACs + international will make up most of the candidates. I don’t think you’ll see many PhD candidates at MIT coming out of the fourth best public in a given state

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

I have the whole picture. No firm takes 50% of the students in a specific major at a T10 school. Very few firms only hire from T20 schools. Kids at VaTech/UMD/GMU all get jobs at FAANG. And not everyone wants to work there. Go to a "non-MIT" school in CS and you will still get an amazing job, and it might even be FAANG except you didn't go into major debt to do so. If not, you will still have a great job. Not sure why everyone is so obsessed with working at the "top firms" immediately, or ever really.

Where you go for undergrad can make a difference when you apply to graduate programs. Not saying they need to go to MIT but something to keep in mind, not everyone is done after 4 years.

And go look at MIT/CalTech/Berkley/CMU/other T25 schools and see where their PHD candidates went to undergrad. Many come from smaller, much lesser known schools. In fact, you can shine in undergrad, many advantages to being top dog at a school of 5-8K, you can do research with the profs as undergrads, they truly get to know you so can write amazing recommendations. Yes, many come from T25 schools, but only about 50%. And that is to be expected because the nature of a kid who got into a T25 school is that they are driven, hard working and almost always achieve their goals. But plenty of kids from other schools go to T25 for grad school.

MIT for example: Each year they enroll ~2000 grad students. These students come from over 250 USA undergrads and over 190 foreign universities. They are not just enrolling from T25 schools

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

I have the whole picture. No firm takes 50% of the students in a specific major at a T10 school. Very few firms only hire from T20 schools. Kids at VaTech/UMD/GMU all get jobs at FAANG. And not everyone wants to work there. Go to a "non-MIT" school in CS and you will still get an amazing job, and it might even be FAANG except you didn't go into major debt to do so. If not, you will still have a great job. Not sure why everyone is so obsessed with working at the "top firms" immediately, or ever really.

Where you go for undergrad can make a difference when you apply to graduate programs. Not saying they need to go to MIT but something to keep in mind, not everyone is done after 4 years.

And go look at MIT/CalTech/Berkley/CMU/other T25 schools and see where their PHD candidates went to undergrad. Many come from smaller, much lesser known schools. In fact, you can shine in undergrad, many advantages to being top dog at a school of 5-8K, you can do research with the profs as undergrads, they truly get to know you so can write amazing recommendations. Yes, many come from T25 schools, but only about 50%. And that is to be expected because the nature of a kid who got into a T25 school is that they are driven, hard working and almost always achieve their goals. But plenty of kids from other schools go to T25 for grad school.

Are you someone who considers SLACs lesser known? T25 + state flagship + SLACs + international will make up most of the candidates. I don’t think you’ll see many PhD candidates at MIT coming out of the fourth best public in a given state

See the 12:46 comment. T25+State flagship +SLAC does not equal 250+.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The above poster doesn't have the whole picture. At some big companies hiring for lucrative positions, firms have guideposts about taking the top 50% of students at the top 10 schools, top 25 at the top 50, and take only the top of the class from the rest.

I have the whole picture. No firm takes 50% of the students in a specific major at a T10 school. Very few firms only hire from T20 schools. Kids at VaTech/UMD/GMU all get jobs at FAANG. And not everyone wants to work there. Go to a "non-MIT" school in CS and you will still get an amazing job, and it might even be FAANG except you didn't go into major debt to do so. If not, you will still have a great job. Not sure why everyone is so obsessed with working at the "top firms" immediately, or ever really.

Where you go for undergrad can make a difference when you apply to graduate programs. Not saying they need to go to MIT but something to keep in mind, not everyone is done after 4 years.

And go look at MIT/CalTech/Berkley/CMU/other T25 schools and see where their PHD candidates went to undergrad. Many come from smaller, much lesser known schools. In fact, you can shine in undergrad, many advantages to being top dog at a school of 5-8K, you can do research with the profs as undergrads, they truly get to know you so can write amazing recommendations. Yes, many come from T25 schools, but only about 50%. And that is to be expected because the nature of a kid who got into a T25 school is that they are driven, hard working and almost always achieve their goals. But plenty of kids from other schools go to T25 for grad school.

Are you someone who considers SLACs lesser known? T25 + state flagship + SLACs + international will make up most of the candidates. I don’t think you’ll see many PhD candidates at MIT coming out of the fourth best public in a given state

See the 12:46 comment. T25+State flagship +SLAC does not equal 250+.

https://mitsloan.mit.edu/phd/students/current-phd-students

Lost of international, flagship, T25, and SLAC. I didn't click on all of them, but I don't see any other category on the ones that I did click on