generation limbo: 20-somethings today, debt, unemployment, the questionable value of a college education

nothing is comparable to NYU in France though, b/c NYU is silly; grandes ecoles are like the Ivies for sure, though, but Ivies >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> NYU

well the big thing is you just can't compare the two because for the most part they don't discriminate by college degree in the same manner we do - the large majority of people go to a university and they don't really measure prestige a us news-esque way (w/ the exception of the grandes ecoles). it's like if we had nothing but public schools and the ivy league, and all the public schools were basically considered equally good.

that's true, but my point was just that the large # of students doesn't entail getting a shitty education

I've never suggested that! and also think everyone should go to massive public schools. but when half a million people are in cuny, a cuny degree has less signaling power in nyc.

I mean I'm arguing that there are reasons why going to nyu actually can 'be worth it' for certain situations, it's still an objectively evil institution

yeah & I'm just questioning the value of that signaling power, when a beemer, AS WELL YOU KNOW being a Beemer owner yourself, has significant signaling power as well

yeah I basically agree on this, I think I just go further in that there are a lot of NYUs out there

w/o the celebrity faculty or downtown manhattan

Tell me more about NYU. I thought it had a pretty top-notch reputation (although I just looked at their music faculty list and it was significantly less impressive than I expected.) This makes it sound like it's pretty highly ranked: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_University#Rankings . It placed in the top 50 on the Times Higher Education list.

How would you rate it next to SUNY Buffalo? (When I was there, I had the sense that people thought we were no NYU.)

well it's sorta the same story as GWU in that above article...on the faculty level as euler said, sorta bought itself into prominence in a lot of fields. it has very good professional schools.

it is in nyc so lots of people want to go. it also has the highest total quantity of student debt for a non-profit school, like a billion dollars iirc, because it has v. shitty financial aid.

in most senses it is 'a better school' but there are lots of people who should probably go to suny buffalo

yeah upthread a while back there was some discussion of NYU and I looked up some numbers and its average % of demonstrated student financial need met by financial aid (grants + work-study + subsidized loan approvals) was 70%. Compared to 90-100% of demonstrated need met for all the other places I looked up (so like some pseudorandom sampling of SLACs, flagship publics, and private unis).

which is to say a student from a family that can exactly afford their FAFSA-calculated EFC every year, including maxed subsidized loans, attending NYU could easily find themselves taking on $10,000 or more in private debt over four years that they'd avoid at NYU's putative peer institutions. The situation is more dramatic for students financing a private college education almost entirely through private debt.

(that is in addition to the roughly $24,000 max subsidized student loans over four years)

It occurs to me that during the endless college-application counseling and preparation I was provided with during high school, the topic of debt probably never got brought up.

It sort of seems like there is this hole that middle-class families can fall into in the financial aid landscape where if you are from a family that has a high-ish annual income but your parents haven't been saving for your education or aren't interested in paying for it, the EFC can way overshoot what your family is actually able and willing to pay. Whereas if your parents' household income is closer to 35 than 95 (eyeballing here), plenty of private institutions will be able to cover like 75%+ of your tuition in grants, and if it's like in the 200+ range then you are a full pay student and likely nobody involved is blinking an eye.

I recall there was some publicity attached to Harvard announcing some years ago up front that families making up to I think $60,000 would get a full grant aid package from Harvard. Just as another angle on the weirdness of the market.

xp - yeah when i was applying to colleges the actual cost of attending was never, ever discussed by anyone. like you went to the 'best' school that you got into end of story.

I went to the least prestigious school that I got into and it was awesome.

everything silby's said otm

another quirk: a lot of the reason my efc was super low was that my parents were divorced

I'm curious if my high school just had zero college counseling (despite being loaded with AP classes and now a IB school - I graduated with 21 possible AP credits IIRC and was nowhere close to having the most) or if I just missed out on it via fucking off a lot.
kinda lucked out - I got into a private liberal arts college planning to get a poli sci degree, but had zero idea how to navigate financial aid so I probably saved myself $100k in debt for what would have turned into a history degree

It sort of seems like there is this hole that middle-class families can fall into in the financial aid landscape where if you are from a family that has a high-ish annual income but your parents haven't been saving for your education or aren't interested in paying for it, the EFC can way overshoot what your family is actually able and willing to pay.

a lot of families in the 95 zone could ~game the system~ by getting divorced, no joke xp

EFC also pounds working students in the ass, if you can't jump through the hoops to prove absolute independence 50% of your income is expected to go toward school IIRC (until you're 24-25)

http://media.mmgdailies.topscms.com/images/5b/3f/9999f14e43b58037de3c1fa6668d.jpg

The university belongs to us, those who teach, learn, research, council, clean, and create community. Together we can and do make the university work.

But today this university is in crisis. The neoliberal restructuring of post-secondary education seeks to further embed market logic and corporate-style management into the academy, killing consultation, autonomy and collective decision-making. The salaries of university presidents and the ranks of administrators swell, but the people the university is supposed to serve — students — are offered assembly-line education as class sizes grow, faculty is over-worked, and teaching positions become increasingly precarious. International students and scholars seeking post-secondary or graduate education are treated as cash cows rather than as people who might contribute to both research and society. Debt-burdened students are seen as captive markets by administrators, while faculty is encouraged to leverage public funds for private research on behalf of corporate sponsors.

http://torontoedufactory.wordpress.com/

http://www.businessweek.com/articles/2012-04-19/bubble-u-dot-high-point-university

Jesus.

this is the most depressing thread on ilx

I was curious so I looked to see what Harvard's tuition is now, and HOLY FUCK

tuition costs alone are more than what the entirety of tuition, room, board and fees were when I was an undergrad

if I ever have kids, they will likely end up becoming carpenters

harvard's not even in the top 25 most expensive college either

colleges

more nyu:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/26/opinion/expand-minds-not-the-nyu-campus.html?hp

(shining iatee-bat symbol)

have u read this? http://www.salon.com/2012/04/26/will_that_starbucks_last/

I looked at that book, it didn't look particularly scholarly, there are some things he says that are not false tho

w/r/t generational tastes at least

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702303978104577364120264435092.html?mod=WSJ_hp_LEFTTopStories#

http://keepcaliforniaspromise.org/469/soon-every-faculty-member-will-have-a-personal-senior-manager

Ok I think this belongs here:

http://moneyland.time.com/2012/05/02/the-beginning-of-the-end-of-the-unpaid-internship-as-we-know-it/?iid=pf-main-lede?xid=rss-topstories&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed:%20time/topstories%20%28TIME:%20Top%20Stories%29

In August 2011, when Diana Wang began her seventh unpaid internship, this time at Harper’s Bazaar, the legendary high-end fashion magazine, she figured that her previous six internships – at a modeling agency, a PR firm, a jewelry designer, a magazine, an art gallery and a state governor’s office – had prepared her for the demands of New York’s fashion world.

“I was so determined to make this one really worth my while,” says the 28-year-old Wang, who moved from Columbus, Ohio, to New York, where she was living with her boyfriend (also working as an unpaid intern at one point) and living off of her savings. “I knew I couldn’t do anymore internships after this.”

As it turned out, Wang’s internship was just like many of the thousands of others: unrewarding in terms of both pay and marketable experience — not to mention the lack of a job offer. In fact, the only difference between her internship and most others was what happened about a month after it ended. Wang sued.

http://chronicle.com/article/From-Graduate-School-to/131795/

Top cities for new college grads 2012

happy with this, esp. #4

i love this writer and this is a thread relevant piece likely to make op crazy:
http://www.salon.com/2012/06/23/moving_home_the_new_key_to_success/

yeah I saw that. it's not really based on any real data. like yeah, 'it happens'. but the overwhelming number of white ppl who left nyc over the last decade were archie bunker outer borough types, as you can see by looking at it by neighborhood: http://www.urbanresearchmaps.org/plurality/

and looking at the national inflow/outflow, the outflow from manhattan is primarily a. florida b. northeast burbs: http://www.forbes.com/special-report/2011/migration.html

hip new yorkers moving to kansas city would make a good quiddities article, but there's not a lot of evidence that it happens enough to 'be a thing'. and the cleveland renaissance - it's downtown doubling in population over the last 20 years - well, that's 4500 people. which is great, and I'd imagine the number would be even higher if it weren't for the various constraints to downtown cleveland living - but 4500 people is a drop in the bucket even as far as the cleveland metro population goes.

'its downtown'

b. northeast burbs

my interest in the phenomenon, obv

that's been happening for 100 years tho

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-kCDOfeHs7aA/T3dkGmik04I/AAAAAAAADgo/cV6rUQTpzRw/s640/03-02_full.jpg

http://www.yaledailynews.com/news/2011/sep/30/even-artichokes-have-doubts/

basically just for this precious quote:

“I’m practical,” she says. “I’m not going to work at a non-profit for my entire life; I know that’s not possible. I’m realistic about the things that I need for a lifestyle that I’ve become accustomed to.” Though she admits she’s at least partially worried of ending up at the bank “longer than [she] sees [her]self there now,” at present she sees it as a “hugely stimulating and educational” way to spend the next few years.

fourth sentence in that article ends with an exclamation point; stopped reading.