The other day NPR ran a story about a school that offered ownership scholarships. Ownership in that rather than charging you upfront for your education they would either lay claim to 5% of your earnings for 20 years or be given a stake in your business. Of those who have already graduated do you think this deal would have been good or bad for you?
My quick thought is that it is a great idea. Because the school only gets paid if you do well it has an incentive to help you after graduation.
It's a great idea because you can get a free education, then make your living in another country where they won't be able to come and collect on your debt.
The other day NPR ran a story about a school that offered ownership scholarships. Ownership in that rather than charging you upfront for your education they would either lay claim to 5% of your earnings for 20 years or be given a stake in your business. Of those who have already graduated do you think this deal would have been good or bad for you?
My quick thought is that it is a great idea. Because the school only gets paid if you do well it has an incentive to help you after graduation.
Yes and no... 5% of my earnings for 20 years after I graduated actually is significantly more than what I'm paying in student loans (still have 8 years to go on those). However, if you do as Scott says and leave the country it may work. Likewise if you go into a relatively low paying profession that still requires some sort of college degree like teaching. In that case, you may come out ahead.
There are a lot more in-place protections for student loans at the moment. That said, if you wanted to get a medical degree just to volunteer your services to non-profits... that would work out quite handily.
Immediately volunteering for a non-profit is pretty much impossible when you come out of med school these days; most doctors pretty much live paycheck to paycheck after their residencies are up, the debt is so severe. Also, most medical non-profits that don't pay their docs (Doctors Without Borders, etc.) don't really have the moneys to foot the average cost of educating a medical student ($250k+, just for tuition). Also, they would never be so stupid to go based on "5% of nothing," considering that a good anaesthesiologist can pull down $500k in a year after five years of hard work.
Don't get me wrong, undergrad debts are really bad, but med school debts border on fucking apocalyptic.
Well the point here would be that you would not have any normal "debt". You wouldn't have to make any payments. If you made $20k/year washing dishes post degree, you would still pay 5%. It's always 5%. How does that not work extremely well for that situation?
Edit: As a side effect, it occurs to me now that this might overly value already high-value programs (doctors, lawyers, business, and engineers) since they have the most potential to make large incomes to collect on. While the system favors things like teachers, it encourages the return-on-investment to favor the already favored professions. Maybe that's not a change at all I guess, so that could be moot.
Well the point here would be that you would not have any normal "debt". You wouldn't have to make any payments. If you made $20k/year washing dishes post degree, you would still pay 5%. It's always 5%. How does that not work extremely well for that situation?
The ratio of debt to income is way too skewed. Even if you work NFP for five years afterwards, as soon as you move up a bracket into the next level of salary for a doctor, you'll end up paying ~150% of what your education was worth. Fuck that.
Also, ownership in a business? Right, because most individuals want to sell their souls for eight years (twelve, if we include undergrad) to an all-draining behemoth of education and work that sees them get four hours of sleep nightly for the last four years of that just to watch someone take a cut of their profits when they graduate. And effectively, an ownership slice means they are collecting forever.
I'd never do an ownership scholarship. I'll pay someone what they're owned, plus the interest. But the fruits of my labor, my actual business and products? No. That's mine.
It's a great idea because you can get a free education, then make your living in another country where they won't be able to come and collect on your debt.
Just go abroad and default. Lots of people do that.
I guess I view this from an entirely different dynamic. I'm not attempting to maximize my welfare. I just don't want to be impoverished by the circumstances. Extra money beyond my needs is worth relatively less per dollar to me. And having the freedom to say "fuck it, I want to wash dishes" is more valuable to me than that money after a certain point.
There are stipulations in the contract. For starters you have to sell yourself to the admissions board to get the deal and if you break the deal (flunk out, don't start or abandon your business) you are held liable for the full tuition cost. There was no mention of windfall success or cataclysmic business failure.
Yes and no... 5% of my earnings for 20 years after I graduated actually is significantly more than what I'm paying in student loans (still have 8 years to go on those).
I think it largely depends on the field you intend to go into and also the number of other scholarships you have. Right now I'm currently paying about 5% of my monthly income in student loans, but it's only going to last 7 more years, and it's only that high because I'm still not making a full wage.
That said, I also know a lot of people who are paying a huge amount of their paychecks in paying off student loans, like in the 20-30% range. I bet they would've liked to have had this option before they started.
Yes and no... 5% of my earnings for 20 years after I graduated actually is significantly more than what I'm paying in student loans (still have 8 years to go on those).
I think it largely depends on the field you intend to go into and also the number of other scholarships you have. Right now I'm currently paying about 5% of my monthly income in student loans, but it's only going to last 7 more years, and it's only that high because I'm still not making a full wage.
That said, I also know a lot of people who are paying a huge amount of their paychecks in paying off student loans, like in the 20-30% range. I bet they would've liked to have had this option before they started.
Exactly. It all depends on the field you go into and so on. I'm lucky that I'm paying under 5% of my monthly income on my loans, but some others may not be so lucky.
Mr Giodano (super chill guy who helps make the whole process less scary) and Mr. Montegue (who takes everything way to seriously) are making me choose which colleges I want to go to. This is pretty difficult for me, who doesn't know what he wants out of most anything, but finds it very therapeutic to make a map of places he does and doesn't want to go (domestically, that is; I'll go just about anywhere within the first and second world overseas) and why. Green areas mean preferred over yellow areas, red areas mean out of the question (unless there's some awesome financial aid I could get, which is unlikely since I'm a white man with no background in sports). Beyond that, all I know is that I want to study either music or foreign languages, and the college should have a pretty good history dept. because I'm sure I'll be taking plenty of history electives.
In terms of where I will be able to get into, I can boast my panelist/event leader status, I'll have done 50 hrs of charity work by the time I graduate (it's a BLS requirement), and I'm almost certain I'll have the Ward Fellowship under my belt, since there's only 50-someodd applicants (turns out it's only open to Latin students), and having seen who my competitors are I'm a shoe-in. My GPA isn't so great, though. I'm confident I can get it up to a 2.3-ish by the end of the year, but I doubt I could get it even as high as a 3.0, and my SAT score is predicted to be a little under 1200 (on the 1600 scale).
I hate this process, and it scares me shitless. I need help, but all the resources that school gives me are designed for overachievers staying within a 100-mile radius of Boston. Forum, can you help me?
I think you're prematurely wiping out too much space as "Too close to Boston" - Rochester is still 8-9 hours away by car, which is still relatively prohibitive except for special occasions.
I'm afraid I can't help too much because I mostly looked at schools which might be out of your GPA range (although that Ward Fellowship will help). I'd primarily consider big state schools - they're cheaper and tend to have good departments relative to their admissions criteria.
There are a number of good UC schools, and I'd also take a look at a few Big 10s - Penn State, Michigan, Ohio State (although I will be contractually obligated to hate your guts if you go to Ohio State), UIUC, and some other big schools - UNC perhaps.
I'm one of those who stayed within the 100-mile radius of Boston, so I'm not sure how useful I'd be. However, I would probably add South Carolina to the red states you'd want to avoid. Plenty of backwater baptists there too as well as tons of fucking racists according to my sister-in-law, who lived there for a couple of years when her Navy husband was stationed in Charleston. If you do North Carolina, you probably want to go to somewhere in the Research Triangle Park area if you want to avoid more backwater baptists and such. Fortunately, UNC, Duke, and NC State are all in the RTP area. Austin, TX is also seconded by a co-worker of mine, who is originally from Texas and went to UT Austin. In fact, he said that despite being a Texas native, Austin's the only place in that state he can stand.
Finally, I'd hit the library and look for the US News and World Report college rankings issue. They'd at least give you some idea about how good the colleges you'd be considering are in the departments you're looking at.
There's not much good about it, but if you want to move way the fuck out into the middle of Missouri you get one free friend and there's like three colleges in this 100k population town.
I think you're prematurely wiping out too much space as "Too close to Boston" - Rochester is still 8-9 hours away by car, which is still relatively prohibitive except for special occasions.
It's not just a physical distance thing, it's also cultural distance. I want to go somewhere that won't be populated by the same up-tight, hurried, arm chair liberal, slacktivist north easterners. Sure, if I went to up-state New York or Pennsylvania I would be far away from all the individuals I know, but the archetypes and common features would be too similar to the ones I know now.
I'm one of those who stayed within the 100-mile radius of Boston, so I'm not sure how useful I'd be. However, I would probably add South Carolina to the red states you'd want to avoid. Plenty of backwater baptists there too as well as tons of fucking racists according to my sister-in-law, who lived there for a couple of years when her Navy husband was stationed in Charleston. If you do North Carolina, you probably want to go to somewhere in the Research Triangle Park area if you want to avoid more backwater baptists and such. Fortunately, UNC, Duke, and NC State are all in the RTP area.
Dully noted, though SC has a significantly higher average education than 'Bama and Mississippi, so I'm still keeping it above them. And, yeah, staying around RTP was the idea.
As an aside, I'm adding two levels of "do not want," mild and extreme. TX, SC, OK, and MD have been downgraded to mild do not want. NM and AK have been added to the "do not want" list as milds, the former because there doesn't seem to be much there and the latter because I haven't forgotten the Little Rock Nine.
Speaking as a member of FRCF West, many of us are down near Los Angeles: Me, Omnutia, Dromoro, Alex Leavitt, and (eventually) Churba.
Really, though, you should choose your school based on how likely it is to facilitate you doing what you want to do in life. I wanted to host a radio show where people could call in and ask questions about computers, so I decided to either go to RIT and get a degree in computer science or go to CSU Northridge, which was cheaper and had robust radio/journalism/EMM programs. I decided on the CSU.
If you were to do music, what kind of thing would you be interested in? Performance? Composition? Industry/business? I guess Berklee can be thrown out since it's in Boston, but I can recommend you some schools in California to look at if you let me know what you're interested in.
Also, what foreign languages? Just out of curiosity.
This might go against the "get the hell out of Boson/New England" tatic you have going on but I wouldn't count out going to community college for a year or two to help you figure shit out. It helped me a bunch and saved me from digging a 40 grand hole.
If you were to do music, what kind of thing would you be interested in? Performance? Composition? Industry/business? I guess Berklee can be thrown out since it's in Boston, but I can recommend you some schools in California to look at if you let me know what you're interested in.
Listen to this guy. He knows his stuff when it comes to music.
If you were to do music, what kind of thing would you be interested in? Performance? Composition? Industry/business? I guess Berklee can be thrown out since it's in Boston, but I can recommend you some schools in California to look at if you let me know what you're interested in.
Also, what foreign languages? Just out of curiosity.
My brain says that I don't know enough about what each of those programs entails to make a proper judgement, but my gut says composition so I'm going to say that.
I'd be most interested in learning Arabic since that's a very valuable language that relatively few Americans speak, but I'd like to know a little bit of everything useful.
This might go against the "get the hell out of Boson/New England" tatic you have going on but I wouldn't count out going to community college for a year or two to help you figure shit out. It helped me a bunch and saved me from digging a 40 grand hole.
The BLS admins would treat that as a stain on their record. I'm strongly considering it.
A couple of things. First if you have particular career path (or path range) in mind look for the schools that can get you there, and apply to all of them that fit your other requirements. The college board website actually has some decent resources for looking up schools by major. US News and world reports does a decent job of listing good schools, but don't pay attention to specific numbers.
Second don't judge a school by it's local area. Colleges tend to be their own little microcosms of society and are not necessarily like their areas. this is especially true for large or prestigious schools that draw from around the country/world. Similarly to this I would suggest avoiding ruling out large areas because of what you think the area is like. Actually see what the school is like. For example the nearest university to me Rice has a population that in no way reflects the average for Texas and is close but still more liberal on average than Houston itself.
Third when you find schools that have the right general requirements send some emails to their recruiting departments (or go through your school). Their job is to talk to you and sell their school. They're good but biased sources. Also see if you can talk to other people who went to or are going there.
Second don't judge a school by it's local area. Colleges tend to be their own little microcosms of society and are not necessarily like their areas. this is especially true for large or prestigious schools that draw from around the country/world. Similarly to this I would suggest avoiding ruling out large areas because of what you think the area is like. Actually see what the school is like. For example the nearest university to me Rice has a population that in no way reflects the average for Texas and is close but still more liberal on average than Houston itself.
But I don't want to live in a school, I want to live in a place and attend school there. I want to move somewhere and do the things that are there to do, not hole myself up in academia and stick to the academia things.
Many schools have a subreddit. Try to find the ones of schools you are interested in and make a thread asking about the school.
Second don't judge a school by it's local area. Colleges tend to be their own little microcosms of society and are not necessarily like their areas. this is especially true for large or prestigious schools that draw from around the country/world. Similarly to this I would suggest avoiding ruling out large areas because of what you think the area is like. Actually see what the school is like. For example the nearest university to me Rice has a population that in no way reflects the average for Texas and is close but still more liberal on average than Houston itself.
But I don't want to live in a school, I want to live in a place and attend school there. I want to move somewhere and do the things that are there to do, not hole myself up in academia and stick to the academia things.
It's not really hiding in academia. It's that unless you only go to school to take classes, and live off campus. For those years a lot of your social circles are going to be dictated more by the people at your school than not. It's a matter of who is going to be around the most in many ways. Also pretty much every college unless it in a major city is in a bubble. Colleges tend to create college towns where the demographics tend to be different than the surroundings.
Many schools have a subreddit. Try to find the ones of schools you are interested in and make a thread asking about the school.
Don't make a new thread - search first. /r/rit gets questions like this all the time, and most people are sick of seeing threads like that every week, so they get downvoted and ignored almost immediately.
It's not really hiding in academia. It's that unless you only go to school to take classes, and live off campus. For those years a lot of your social circles are going to be dictated more by the people at your school than not. It's a matter of who is going to be around the most in many ways. Also pretty much every college unless it in a major city is in a bubble. Colleges tend to create college towns where the demographics tend to be different than the surroundings.
Good to know. I'll be sure to stick to major cities.
Comments
I can tell you were never interested in med school by the very fact that you made that statement.
Don't get me wrong, undergrad debts are really bad, but med school debts border on fucking apocalyptic.
Edit: As a side effect, it occurs to me now that this might overly value already high-value programs (doctors, lawyers, business, and engineers) since they have the most potential to make large incomes to collect on. While the system favors things like teachers, it encourages the return-on-investment to favor the already favored professions. Maybe that's not a change at all I guess, so that could be moot.
Also, ownership in a business? Right, because most individuals want to sell their souls for eight years (twelve, if we include undergrad) to an all-draining behemoth of education and work that sees them get four hours of sleep nightly for the last four years of that just to watch someone take a cut of their profits when they graduate. And effectively, an ownership slice means they are collecting forever.
I'd never do an ownership scholarship. I'll pay someone what they're owned, plus the interest. But the fruits of my labor, my actual business and products? No. That's mine. Just go abroad and default. Lots of people do that.
That said, I also know a lot of people who are paying a huge amount of their paychecks in paying off student loans, like in the 20-30% range. I bet they would've liked to have had this option before they started.
Beyond that, all I know is that I want to study either music or foreign languages, and the college should have a pretty good history dept. because I'm sure I'll be taking plenty of history electives.
In terms of where I will be able to get into, I can boast my panelist/event leader status, I'll have done 50 hrs of charity work by the time I graduate (it's a BLS requirement), and I'm almost certain I'll have the Ward Fellowship under my belt, since there's only 50-someodd applicants (turns out it's only open to Latin students), and having seen who my competitors are I'm a shoe-in. My GPA isn't so great, though. I'm confident I can get it up to a 2.3-ish by the end of the year, but I doubt I could get it even as high as a 3.0, and my SAT score is predicted to be a little under 1200 (on the 1600 scale).
I hate this process, and it scares me shitless. I need help, but all the resources that school gives me are designed for overachievers staying within a 100-mile radius of Boston. Forum, can you help me?
I'm afraid I can't help too much because I mostly looked at schools which might be out of your GPA range (although that Ward Fellowship will help). I'd primarily consider big state schools - they're cheaper and tend to have good departments relative to their admissions criteria.
There are a number of good UC schools, and I'd also take a look at a few Big 10s - Penn State, Michigan, Ohio State (although I will be contractually obligated to hate your guts if you go to Ohio State), UIUC, and some other big schools - UNC perhaps.
Finally, I'd hit the library and look for the US News and World Report college rankings issue. They'd at least give you some idea about how good the colleges you'd be considering are in the departments you're looking at.
As an aside, I'm adding two levels of "do not want," mild and extreme. TX, SC, OK, and MD have been downgraded to mild do not want. NM and AK have been added to the "do not want" list as milds, the former because there doesn't seem to be much there and the latter because I haven't forgotten the Little Rock Nine.
Really, though, you should choose your school based on how likely it is to facilitate you doing what you want to do in life. I wanted to host a radio show where people could call in and ask questions about computers, so I decided to either go to RIT and get a degree in computer science or go to CSU Northridge, which was cheaper and had robust radio/journalism/EMM programs. I decided on the CSU.
Also, what foreign languages? Just out of curiosity.
I'd be most interested in learning Arabic since that's a very valuable language that relatively few Americans speak, but I'd like to know a little bit of everything useful. The BLS admins would treat that as a stain on their record. I'm strongly considering it.
First if you have particular career path (or path range) in mind look for the schools that can get you there, and apply to all of them that fit your other requirements. The college board website actually has some decent resources for looking up schools by major. US News and world reports does a decent job of listing good schools, but don't pay attention to specific numbers.
Second don't judge a school by it's local area. Colleges tend to be their own little microcosms of society and are not necessarily like their areas. this is especially true for large or prestigious schools that draw from around the country/world. Similarly to this I would suggest avoiding ruling out large areas because of what you think the area is like. Actually see what the school is like. For example the nearest university to me Rice has a population that in no way reflects the average for Texas and is close but still more liberal on average than Houston itself.
Third when you find schools that have the right general requirements send some emails to their recruiting departments (or go through your school). Their job is to talk to you and sell their school. They're good but biased sources. Also see if you can talk to other people who went to or are going there.