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

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[quote=Anonymous]OP my kids are not a success by DCUM standards, including the non-Asians.

Their father is Arab and in a state of despair.  DD once did a series of memes for him: "Your blood type is B-?  Failure runs through your veins!" "We are A-rabs, not B-rabs!"  Etc.

Here is what I would say to you if you were my child:

Graduating college with a gentleperson's C is perfectly fine.  Usually only the HR department sees your transcript and it is really just to verify you graduated.  As long as you graduate, your grade point doesn't matter at all.  It could if you pursue a higher degree, but often you can get around that with compelling life experience in between or a high GRE, MCAT, LSAT. So just make sure you do enough to pass.

More options are better than fewer options.  Keep Columbia on the table even if you loathe the idea now.

A bird in the hand is worth two on the bush, specifically in your case the 7 Sisters bush.  Envision going back to Columbia in six months, a year or a year and a half from now.  How can you re-imagine your life in NY to make it bearable? Could you find off-campus volunteer opportunities in areas that appeal to you (NYC probably has far vaster possibilities here than any other place.) Can you imagine meeting people off campus who have shared interests in these areas?  Have you visited every museum as much as you like? Maybe get a volunteer job at one? Have you seen lots of low cost plays? How about a semester abroad--other PPs have good ideas along these lines.

Columbia provides you with shortest time to degree.  And it is prestigious, so a degree from there will help you get jobs. The Seven Sisters is just a dream that is likely not attainable.  You could go the state college route, but it will take you longer to get the degree--they may not accept all your credits and state schools have chronic problems with students not being able to get into the classes they need to graduate. And it will not be free.

About the $80,000.  Okay, that's a lot and you'll have to work but it doesn't have to be in NYC and it doesn't have to be a low paying NPO that exploits its staff. Consider government work.  It pays decently enough that you could make a good dent in your loans and there are a lot of interesting things government does that would seem to align with what you want.

Think about art, environment adjacent jobs.  The daughter of a friend, for example, works for The Great Courses. Consider teaching at a low key boarding school in a more rural setting that provides teacher housing.  The pay won't be high, but with housing and often much of your food taken care of, you could make decent debt payments.  Some of them even have organic farms. Your Columbia degree (plus being Asian--diversity!) would make you very hireable. And you would meet other young teachers there likely to be kindred spirits.  Note they are often from well-off families and could provide connections, though this isn't why you should consider this.

I think you are so caught up in your I loathe Columbia paradigm that you are suffering now from a failure of imagination.  For my last cliche, life has handed you a bowl of lemons--start thinking about how to make them into lemonade.

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