Student Loans Based on Emotion

LOL I would recommend that this degree include a minor in something more useful, like basket weaving.

 

She is poor because she chooses to be. Coming out of NYU with a degree, she could have landed a job paying 60-70k a year. She wanted to go to San Francisco and work for a photographer, that is why she is broke. She obviously had several hundred dollars to blow on that foot long tattoo on her upper left arm, so I don't feel to bad for her.
What she majored in are the typical offerings at liberal arts schools. Look at the Ivies or any of the other highly selective liberal arts colleges and the majors they offer. These kids aren't majoring in finance (unless they are at Penn) and they still get jobs on Wall Street.

Unless you want to be an engineer or an accountant, I honestly don't think what you major in in undergrad makes a bit of difference, especially at a top tier school (which NYU is).

 

More on Cortney Munna’s Student Loan Tale (Cortney Munna, Bucks: Making the Most of Your Money blog, The New York Times, June 1, 2010)

 

I can't believe that someone with a degree in Religious Studies, top tier or not, could land an authentic "job on wall street". There are too many people out there with relevant degrees fighting for the same job. Do you have data to back that up?

 

Not to add fuel to the fire (well, maybe a little), I went to a website (FinAid | Calculators | Loan Calculator) that has a student loan calculator and plugged in the loan amount of $ 97,000. Based on the assumptions of an interest rate of 6.8% and a payback period of 10 years, this young lady would need to pay back $1,116.28 a month, every month for those 10 years. After the 10 year period, she will have paid a total of $36,953.46 in interest for this loan. It goes on further to say that it is estimated that she will need an annual salary of at least $133,953.60 to be able to afford to repay this loan. The site gives the rationale as to why, which I will not get into here. The point that I am getting at is that more people really should look at the reality of what they are getting into after receiving a degree. When I decided to return to school and finish up my bachelor's degree, I estimated it would cost somewhere around $15 to 20K. It wound up costing right at $17K so I was O.K. with that amount as it will be about $ 200 a month to pay off the loan. People who go to college with a carte blanche attitude toward the cost will usually wind up regretting it later when the bills come in.

 

Thanks for posting this. This is what should concern people (including me) when researching a degree path. It's amazing how quick I was to apply for student loans because it's a program I have my heart set on. Maybe I should look at alternate degrees that re less expensive.

I paid for both my TESC degrees out of pocket but it's simply not possible with a masters. Again thanks for posting this. It gives me even more to consider now.

 

This is partly why I chose AMU for my History degree. I'm doing it mainly for self growth, not to get a job in academia so the name didn't matter too much. The quality of the education and making sure it taught me new things was the main consideration and AMU has not disappointed. In addition, it's only $11K for a MA degree which I think is a great price.

 

To those who don't want to eat out anymore I would like to point out that burger king has a quarter pound double cheese for $1, and the new $1 sausage muffin rip-off actually has egg on it, unlike McDonald's dollar product. You and your newly liberated family can thank me later for all the high class eating out you will be doing thanks to this post.

 

I can point to three of my friends with bachelors degrees in psychology, political science and sociology from Washington & Lee, Duke and Penn respectively, that all landed jobs at big firms on Wall Street straight out of undergrad. I'm sure they could point me to co-workers with similar backgrounds, but no, I don't have any scientific study to back up my claim.