Reply to $80k In Debt Worth It for Ivy Undergrad?

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[quote=Anonymous]OP, can you get a mediator (possibly a sympathetic friend or family member) to negotiate with your parents?

Would you be willing to stick it out for three more semesters if you didn't have to burden yourself with $80k in loans?

I do think a Columbia degree is valuable. It means something to people who are trying to sort through a mountain of applicants.

A friend is an admin for a federal judge. She throws out all the resumes that come in from every law school except Harvard, Yale and Stanford. I've told her she's missing some great people, but she says the pile is so huge that she has to draw the line somewhere.

It's too much work for employers to try to find the great person with a degree from a state school when they have applicants who've been pre-screened by an Ivy League college. It's unpleasant and stupid, but that's life, OP.

Please ignore the horrible trolls on this thread!! Some people have nothing to do but be mean.

You're clearly smart, and if you've got a good therapist, hang in there! See if you can work your way through this and not throw away the degree you've worked so hard for. I know you're not doing what YOU want, but that doesn't mean that what you're doing is not valuable, and that it may become useful to you some day.

But if your mental health is suffering, you need to take care of that first and foremost. I graduated from an Ivy while suffering from pretty serious depression. I got mostly As because I love to study, but I didn't do as well as I could have done if I hadn't been so depressed. But even now, years later, people are VERY impressed by my Ivy degree.

Any way you can find to stick with it, OP, will be worth it in the long run, even though you're very unhappy right now. Three semesters is not that long, even though it seems like forever to you now.

New York City is a fantastic place to live!! There is so, so, so much to love there! I joined TDF and saw amazing Broadway and dance shows for $20 or less when I lived there after I finished college. Get outside and enjoy the city, do the best you can to finish your classes, get your degree and GO! Do what you want to do!!

A negotiator might be able to talk sense into your parents if they fear losing the bragging rights to having a daughter graduate from an Ivy. Shame them if you have to! Public humiliation might get them to sign the checks. Lie to them if you must. Say you're getting a degree in data management or something like that, even if you're studying sociology. Un-sign the FERPA (if you've signed it), and don't let them see your grades.

Desperate times demand desperate measures. Don't give up on yourself, OP. You will find many people in your life who will love you for being yourself, who will value thing things you value about yourself, who will share your interests and dreams. My parents were pretty sub-par, but I survived and thrived once I got some therapy and realized that their disapproval of me didn't make me less valuable. All you need is one supporter, and you can keep going and become independent.

As far as your $80k question, only you can decide that. If you go to grad school, you can delay paying the loan back for a number of years. Most PhD programs are free (the good ones), so you could delay for a long time. You'd have to find a field you love, and get accepted, which requires vigilance and perseverance.

Try to find a negotiator to help you. Your parents have paid thus far. Someone might be able to convince them to keep paying to get you that coveted degree. [/quote]

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