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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you're asked to pay the total cost of Columbia your family is well off. If the kid got into Columbia obviously they're very bright and motivated and warrant the INVESTMENT -- this isn't a slacker comparing Tailgate State and Pepperdine.

Exactly.Unfortunately, a lot of parents who spend lavishly on vacations and clothes say they "can't pay" and "need merit aid" . I wonder how many of the "I'll pay for grad school" types are secretly hoping they won't have to.

[Anonymous]

My inclination is the same as yours OP: yes. My parents paid full sticker price for Yale and I am eternally grateful. (My parents' divorce agreement specified that they paid half each for college; my dad could pretty easily afford his half because of my step-mother (whose income made me totally ineligible for financial aid), but my mom borrowed against her 401(k).)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My inclination is the same as yours OP: yes. My parents paid full sticker price for Yale and I am eternally grateful.

Same here. So grateful that my parents valued me and my future.

[Anonymous]

^^ FWIW, they each paid 15K/year towards my law school too and I borrowed the rest. (I ended up owing not quite $10K all told). In that case, I paid for Y/S/H over taking a free ride to NYU, so it's not like I didn't have the same philosophy when it came to myself later on. I'm almost 10 years post-LS and that's all paid off. I'm grateful to my parents that I don't have college debt too, but I could have managed if I'd had to (would have spent longer in Big Law before turning Fed if necessary).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My inclination is the same as yours OP: yes. My parents paid full sticker price for Yale and I am eternally grateful.

Same here. So grateful that my parents valued me and my future.

Ah, yes. A parent who pays for UVA and is not willing to saddle themselves with six figures of debt does not value their child and his or her future.

Do you people hear yourselves?

[Anonymous]

Sorry should be not quite 100K. Big difference!

[Anonymous]

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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.

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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My inclination is the same as yours OP: yes. My parents paid full sticker price for Yale and I am eternally grateful. (My parents' divorce agreement specified that they paid half each for college; my dad could pretty easily afford his half because of my step-mother (whose income made me totally ineligible for financial aid), but my mom borrowed against her 401(k).)

By eternally grateful do you mean you paid it all back at current rates?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you're asked to pay the total cost of Columbia your family is well off. If the kid got into Columbia obviously they're very bright and motivated and warrant the INVESTMENT -- this isn't a slacker comparing Tailgate State and Pepperdine.

Exactly.Unfortunately, a lot of parents who spend lavishly on vacations and clothes say they "can't pay" and "need merit aid" . I wonder how many of the "I'll pay for grad school" types are secretly hoping they won't have to.

Haha, yes those Summer weekends st Ocean city and runs to Nationals harbour Gap outlet quickly add up to $100ks.

[Anonymous]

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

UMC from a public school.

[Anonymous]

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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 have it backwards. People from elite backgrounds and a wealth of connections attend Columbia; they don't socialize with the kids on aid who have campus jobs and can't jet out to Killington every weekend or blow wads of money in NYC.

Well I disagree about but actually those weren't the connections I was referring to anyway. It's when you go to interview for an internship or entry level job and you get to talk to Columbia grads who would rather take a chance on you then on someone from another school. It's human nature.

You DO know that this same thing happens with grads from pretty much every school (when they encounter other alumni in the workforce), right? Obviously it's not in a similar realm academically, but my sister went to penn state and pretty much every career opportunity she's gotten there's been a penn state connection - penn state is a huge school with a proud, enthusiastic alumni base and they're kind of everywhere. Having that commonality is an easy discussion point. I'm not sure your argument makes any sense.

lol how many penn state grads are at The New Yorker? Maybe one? How many Columbia grads are at those kinds of magazines?

ok, so she gets that $35K/year job at The New Yorker, has a $1000 student loan payment to pay, NY rent to pay, etc. You don't see a problem with this?

Good point. Student loans actually need to be, you know, repaid. Exactly how is a student supposed to take a job in journalism, art, publishing, etc. in a high COL city if he or she has a high three or low four figure loan payment to make every month?

Think with your heads, people.

Easy - Continue to borrow from the Bank of Mom and Dad - sounds like the pilot episode of Girls

[Anonymous]

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."

[Anonymous]

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

[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."

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

[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.

+1.

Yes it's higher ranked than uva, but the point everyone is making is that the difference is negligible enough that it does not justify the price leap.