Nico Corr

Thanks for the lecture, but 
1. I'm referencing RuPaul. I know POC doesn't just mean black.
2. What does race have to do with whether or not OP can attend SAIS part time?
I'm sure I just misunderstood, but jfc you trolls need to gtfo with this holier than thou bullshit

Could OP have meant Point of Contact when they said POC? Seems likely. 

Could OP have meant Point of Contact when they said POC? Seems likely. 

Given what you've written about what you want to do, I would strongly recommend you go for the security studies program. Its grads do quite well in that field and it will set you apart and 'brand you' as a security person, which can be quite helpful. Just try to be realistic about your career prospects. If you go in without military experience and lacking a security clearance you're going to struggle. The clearance backlog at this point is at 1.5 years or longer (in other words, pretty much entirely broken)  and the few government agencies that are even hiring are pretty much exclusively hiring veterans. 
Also - your gut is spot-on in terms of avoiding a regional program. Just don't do it.

I work for a small municipal government in the DC area as well, and can confirm it gets you a lot closer to the "action" so to speak. Whether the work has put me in a better position to get scholarships I can't say given that my academic and career interests are not closely aligned to my actual work experience. 
 

@3eyes I applied for a Masters. And to be frank I think it's pretty weird to follow around everyone who has mentioned applying to American asking them to decline their offer, as you seem to be doing. This is a big decision for me and I'll take the time I need to make sure I'm making the right one. 

@elmo_says Perhaps unsurprisingly, it's a lot easier to make it anywhere if you come from money.
My issue with you is that you're perpetuating the mindset that gets people suckered into these programs in the first place. You dispel the notion that these programs are exclusive and what you need to succeed only to replace it with another similar one - actually, what you need for success is to be a "rich international type" with a PhD in engineering from MIT. (As an aside, I will never forgive you for that phrasing. As someone who works in development, you purport to help developing countries and then you turn around and disparage the very people coming from those countries, often(!) at great personal cost, to participate in that work and make sure that not just your imperialist perspective gets heard - how dare you). This is unhelpful for two reasons: because few people can will themselves into becoming a rich international type with a PhD in engineering from MIT, and also because it's bullshit.
More people are funded in these programs than you think, not only via internal scholarships, but via external scholarships or by their government or employer. The money is out there and you can get it. It is good practice to get it now, because the public sector, if we come down to brass tacks, is fully about convincing different groups of people to give you money to do socially important things. The scheme for getting money is simple and the same for everyone: 
Get your hard stats in order Have work experience that you can make relevant (NB: this is an exercise in storytelling, not an exercise in asking Daddy to get you a position at State) Pay attention to fit: know what you can offer a program Apply widely Negotiate And if you don't get money, here's what you can do to build a successful policy career without a degree in public policy. I'll start with the other degrees you can get, but the rest of the list is more interesting and arguably more impactful.
Get a degree in something else: business, area studies, economics, etc. The specific MPA/MPP title does not matter in 99% of cases. Get a degree somewhere else: Canada, Europe, Asia. The network at the top policy schools does help, but I also meet a lot of people who are tired of the cookie-cutter SAIS grads and want to hire people from new perspectives and experiences. GET A JOB. Get a job in the Parks and Rec department of Pawnee, Indiana. Get a job in the Kafkaesque government of your tiny third world state. Get a job at Goldman. Get a job at a tiny nonprofit. It's bullshit that you need to live in DC and work at State or the World Bank in order to do anything in this field. State and the World Bank are where impact goes to die. The real work and learning happens on the ground, often among people without advanced degrees but with lots of enthusiasm. I meet so many people in their late 20s-early 30s who are considered top in their field who graduated Podunk State and started their careers as low-level bureaucrats in flyover country. Most of them got their advanced degrees 6-8 years out of college; some don't even have them.  Do your own thing. You don't need a degree to start a small business or an after-school activity for low-income children. You already know what your community needs, and I bet you're smart enough to figure out how to help them get it. This knowledge is more valuable - including to employers - than whatever Dani Rodrik will lecture at you for 2 years at Harvard. Do something other than policy for a few years. Lots of people come in from other backgrounds in business, health, engineering, whatever.  Meet people. For my part, I am continually amazed at how many people in my dog-eat-dog callous and jaded field have taken their time, effort, and not infrequently money to help me out for nothing in return (although gratitude is a nice touch). So many busy and important people want to mentor and guide you (sometimes pay you) - but you do need to reach out. Most people get broken by this field eventually but few forget why they're even in this thing, and if you're a promising young person who has something to offer, they get really excited. There is such an incredible variety of policy careers and policy backgrounds. You don't need to be a rich international type to be in policy, and you don't need to follow a single prescribed path. If you're a young person with a bachelor's level education and some idea of how to position your perspective within the context of the field, you have so many opportunities to work, travel, and make an impact. It's a shame to chain yourself to a DC office job straight out of college.

That's my story. 
I finished my Fulbright and decided to come back home and try to make an impact in my state. About 8 years of policy work later (with some international experience in between) I'm towards the upper end of the $70 - $100k range...in the U.S. South...doing the work I've always wanted to do. I've been able to do some really high level stuff and really put myself out there in ways I would never be able to do so in a D.C. or New York, but I'm definitely not some savant or anything. Just really went after what I wanted. The most important of advice to anyone though is work. You'd be surprised how you can have any job be exactly what you need it to be in the long run.
The stuff isn't rocket science, yet some of the most brilliant people I know struggle with all of this. Folks who are much smarter than myself, yet I've been able to get through all levels of education without having to take out a single loan. Ever. I'll be able to go to HKS without having to take out a cent in loans. In fact, I didn't even have to pay the dang deposit nor application fee. It's not to big myself up at all. I don't have some secret formula. I just have good experiences and the right background, which I crafted over time and very strategically. I guess I put all that stuff together in a cohesive enough manner with my application. You can too, though! Probably better than I can. Just trust the process.
So to more directly answer the original question. No, taking out all that money to pursue this particular type of education is not worth it and never will be. I believe you can always find the right school who will give you the right money. I encourage you to reevaluate your approach to this process, whether it be the testing (I didn't study much for the GRE and was going to really concentrate on retaking if I didn't get in), essays (I told stories that wrapped around both my work and what I envision being able to do), and coaching up my recommenders (make sure you don't duplicate your resume and help them dig deep).
I encourage you all to simply not rush any of this. It will work out to your benefit if you don't.

Unrelated Elliott question... does anyone have an exact number for tuition? On the website it's by credit and there's no total cost. I've calculated to around $35/36,000 but I want to be certain that's correct as I'm comparing offers.

It doesn't hurt to reach out to SUNY and request funding. I have discussed this a few times with people on this board, and many have had success calling up the admissions officers at schools and giving them some iteration of: "Your program is my top choice, but It would be really hard for me to attend without funding. How can we make this work?".
Of course every field is different, but from what I have heard from IR, Public Policy, Poli Sci and Anthropology Majors, this is something that can be done.

I imagine not to the same extent as the government, but I'll let someone from the private sector answer that question.

Maybe this is a silly question, but what is a normal/"appropriate" amount of debt? My napkin math says that even with fully-funded tuition and a decent housing stipend, I'll still need about $13,000 a year to live on in a major city. Is ~$30,000 an "ok" amount of debt?

I've been in my field (marketing automation / marketing analytics / customer database management) for nearly a decade and have found it to be fairly lucrative and in demand, but have always been interested in someday working as an analyst for one of the agencies in the intelligence community (NSA, NGA, CIA, DIA).    I applied to SAIS and Elliott this cycle and got into both, but got no funding from either. I'll also note that I've applied to both schools several years ago, but turned both down since I wasn't completely certain on how I'd use the degree.    Given the lack of funding, I'm planning to enroll in Elliott since it'd allow me to continue at my current job, which would enable me to pay for school virtually out of pocket. After graduating with nearly $90k in undergrad and spending most of my 20s repaying student loans (only 8k left!), I REALLY don't want to take on more debt, especially given that post-grad Fed salaries start around GS-9. My goal with grad school is to apply for summer internships at one of the agencies after my second year and hopefully land a job as a Fed after my third year. If all else fails and I don't get a federal or contractor job, I plan to go back into my current field...not ideal, but also not terrible either. I'm fully aware that I'd be taking a significant pay cut by switching careers, but figure that's just the reality of making a career change.    Does my plan seem at all sensible? Any other recommendations on getting an analyst job with an intelligence agency without joining the military? 

I think @MaxwellAlum's advice is spot on. Generally, yes, $100k in loans is a horrible idea. 
If you haven't done this yet, make sure you understand what paying off 100K loans looks like every month: https://www.bankrate.com/calculators/mortgages/loan-calculator.aspx 
100K over 10 years at 5.7% interest (which i think is about average interest for Dep of Ed loans for grad students) is $1,095 a month. That is insane. That was the price of rent in my bare bones apartment in DC. It sounds like you have work experience, but for anyone reading this who has not been financially independent before, this is a TON of money. It is really hard to make this work with a public service income, and you will feel it. Even if you pay it off over a longer period of time at a lower monthly rate (~$600), it is still really expensive!
Plus, I think it is important for people to have a financial safety net and start building it when they are young. Shit happens and you need to be able to pay for it. For example, dropping your phone in a pool, your computer crashing, wanting to visiting someone you love who is sick, your apartment flooding or getting broken into (get renters insurance PLEASE), medical issues of all shapes, severities and sizes, friends getting married and having babies in distant corners of the country/world. When I had just graduated from college I didn't realize how many things of this nature would happen, but unexpected expenses are a very predictable part of life. Plus, being able to travel for fun or engage in hobbies that bring you joy is pretty sweet. 
I would also encourage you to map out what you want to do and all possible paths to it. Talk to people who took untraditional paths to the career you want. And also, constantly ask yourself why you want it, because I think we can get caught in the sparkly exterior of our career dreams without prodding a bit to see what is actually behind it. Why do you want this career? What natural skills and strengths of yours does it engage? What about the day-to-day of this job appeals to you? What larger impact does it work towards? Think beyond the field but the actual position you want within that field or organization, because this significantly alters the type of path you should take to said career goal. 

These two things are concerning. Why aren't you getting any scholarship money? These programs aren't super competitive, so as long as you're not a functional idiot, you should be able to. Take a look at the results pages for the various schools, SAIS, SIPA, HKS, etc. - people are getting 50, 60, 70k. So it's possible. Why aren't you?
Like - and stay with me until the end of the post, because this next part is going to sting - when it comes to hypercompetitive fields, be it academia or IR, if you're failing, so to say, at the first hurdle, the field is probably not for you. IR may seem glamorous, but doing something you're not built for becomes really old really quickly. Career outcomes are path-dependent, which means that, if you're starting at a disadvantage, barring some deus ex machina shit, you're going to stay at a disadvantage - and in a hypercompetitive field, that disadvantage will quickly catch up to you and leave you high and dry. 100k in debt, btw, is one hell of a disadvantage. That'll preclude you from taking most interesting entry-level jobs and will trickle down to seemingly innocuous stuff like not being able to attend networking happy hours because you have to catch the last train to Largo - stuff that cumulatively makes a big difference.
All of this isn't to say that you'll never amount to anything, but rather to say that you should avoid starting at a disadvantage. There's lots of reasons why somebody doesn't get scholarship money, and most of them are fixable. Do you lack work experience? Do you need to retake the GRE? Are you not applying widely enough? Is your application not telling a coherent narrative for what you want to do in the field and why School X is the best place to prepare yourself for it? If you don't know the answer to these questions, find out. Go on LinkedIn and set up some informational interviews with people in the field. Pick something you don't know about and learn about it, ideally by doing it. Immerse yourself in the field as a professional, not a starry-eyed child.
A note on work experience in IR: as someone who got a job in IR out of UG, don't get a job in IR out of UG. The entry-level stuff is all bureaucratic support (so, not the people who get to even touch policy with a 3 foot pole). It's a good way to learn about how the sausage is made, but that's about it. If I were to do it again, I'd get a job in something competitive, like consulting, that will teach you grit and concise analysis while also paying well and looking good on a resume, or I'd move abroad and do something crazy, e.g. start a beach bar in Trinidad, and learn from the ground up. Or work at an NGO that does fieldwork on the actual ground. You can arrive at policy from any background: I know former engineers, MDs, stock traders, artists, activists and so on who have successful careers in IR. It's all about what skills and network you can bring to the table. All this bullshit about what degree you have and where it's from and how much it cost is so fucking secondary.

So generally schools don't accept appeals after the final response deadline is passed, meaning you will have to pay the deposit of schools you want to negotiate first. Those fee range from $500 to $1000 so it is quite a commitment. For appeals, you write a letter explaining the financial situation and attach offers from other schools (especially those that come with scholarship) to negotiate, stating that from all those offers you have, this school you are appealing to is the top choice. I have successfully appealed to Elliott last year who added on $12k scholarship, but was still not enough for me to attend, so I am applying again this year. Good luck!

Hi Nico,
I hope you have heard good things from your schools both on admissions and financial aid.  I was in a similar position of wanting to pivot to an IR career after being established in a solely domestic industry, and trying to figure out how to do it with a family.
While I strongly encourage you to pursue another degree to open up the new career paths, I regret to tell you sacrifices will almost certainly need to be made.  These programs are expensive (as you obviously know), and more time consuming than you might anticipate.  My classmates who kept their jobs either had to quit or significantly scale back their work commitments as the first semester progressed.  I came in ready to treat grad school like a 10-hour per day job, and quickly learned that was not enough time to complete the reading and accompanying work.
Like you, I couldn't have my family living in a hovel eating bread and water every meal, so we needed to figure out financing.  The only solution we arrived at was to delay and save.  Instead of starting in 2015 as I would have liked, we pushed it back to 2017 and saved like crazy to soften the blow.  Since we knew we were going to move (there are no decent programs in my home area), we prepared the kids for a smaller living space.  We also incorporated cheaper food like pasta and bean soup into our routine so the kids started liking them, and our grocery bill plummeted.  It's not filet, but it isn't Ramen either.  We ate out less, bought cheaper clothes, took cheaper vacations or skipped them entirely, etc...just overall minimized expenses.  And it sucked.  Often, a lot.  But now I'm in school pursuing my dream and my family is perfectly comfortable.  And next year, I'll be working again and we can return to our previous standard of living.
Obviously, everyone's situation is different, and I know what worked for me won't work for everyone, and vice versa.  However, when considering whether to sacrifice to pursue our goals, my wife and I realized that, although we were established in our careers and a regular paycheck is a nice security blanket, we still have over 25 years of working left.  Wouldn't we rather have a rough year or two followed by 25-30 years of a satisfying career instead of 27-32 years of a mildly comfortable life?  And since we have so much of a work life remaining, does it make much of a difference if we start one year vs. a year or two later?
So while I'm sorry to deliver some bad news, I hope this was at least somewhat helpful.  Best of luck!

My take is the analysis of the "top" programs is sloppy and is really nothing more than a popularity contest. Goldgeier's tweets on the subject I think are spot on. MA hopefuls should base their decisions to attend schools based off of program fit, whether the school offers a program best suited to a candidate's career goals and of course, how much funding the school is offering. School rankings and prestige matter little especially if you intend to seek employment with a government agency or NGO as they do not seem to care where you went so long as you have all the requisite "skills". 
I was surprised to see these rankings come out as I had heard from someone that works at FP that they were taking a lot of heat from various schools who believed these rankings were hurting their brand, and there was talk of scrapping them all together.
 

Maybe not even practitioners - it's mostly academics I believe. I spoke with one of the survey respondents (who coincidentally convinced his friend to put the survey in Foreign Policy years ago). He unsurprisingly listed SIS, none of the other DC schools, and four other schools he liked. 

My take is the analysis of the "top" programs is sloppy and is really nothing more than a popularity contest. Goldgeier's tweets on the subject I think are spot on. MA hopefuls should base their decisions to attend schools based off of program fit, whether the school offers a program best suited to a candidate's career goals and of course, how much funding the school is offering. School rankings and prestige matter little especially if you intend to seek employment with a government agency or NGO as they do not seem to care where you went so long as you have all the requisite "skills". 
I was surprised to see these rankings come out as I had heard from someone that works at FP that they were taking a lot of heat from various schools who believed these rankings were hurting their brand, and there was talk of scrapping them all together.
 

Anonymity is a crazy thing. I'm sorry that happened to you, but without substantial context, your story just seems a little far fetched. 
If you went to one of the top private schools in the Northeast and a top 3 IR school, landing a private sector gig or even a position at a non-profit is not that incredibly difficult. Is getting a job in the conduct and formulation of foreign policy itself extremely hard, yeah. But being forced to go to Latin America to dodge debt is quite something. 
I have no dog in this fight--I'm not applying to the IR Masters programs, but it's a bit annoying to see stories like this written ad nauseum on this board. There's certainly some response bias for those who post their stories, so keep that in mind while reading everything you see here. 
All who are applying--keep your eyes wide open. If you want to be successful and get a good job in D.C. (or Geneva or wherever) after your degree, that process has to start while you're in undergrad or before you go to grad school. Make those connections early, they'll be invaluable later on. 

My take is the analysis of the "top" programs is sloppy and is really nothing more than a popularity contest. Goldgeier's tweets on the subject I think are spot on. MA hopefuls should base their decisions to attend schools based off of program fit, whether the school offers a program best suited to a candidate's career goals and of course, how much funding the school is offering. School rankings and prestige matter little especially if you intend to seek employment with a government agency or NGO as they do not seem to care where you went so long as you have all the requisite "skills". 
I was surprised to see these rankings come out as I had heard from someone that works at FP that they were taking a lot of heat from various schools who believed these rankings were hurting their brand, and there was talk of scrapping them all together.
 

Also worth checking out are the contending companion articles: 
It’s Never Been a Better Time to Study IR by Francis Gavin of SAIS
America’s IR Schools Are Broken by Stephen Walt of HKS 
My key reflection on the rankings is to bear in mind that they are compiled from "Responses from 1,541 IR scholars at U.S. colleges and universities." A common thread through both of the accompanying essays is that traditional, academic IR is behind the eight ball to some degree when it comes to understanding and serving the modern requirements of practitioners in the field of IR. 
Given that many (most?) on this forum are interested in professional masters programs in IR/PP/PA, to ask allegedly cloistered scholars where one would get the best professional preparation for a career in IR seems a bit self-defeating. 

The former dean of AU SIS has a good thread on the rankings. 
 

Nico,
 
Been meaning to respond to your posts, but been on vacation. I can't speak to attending grad school with a family since I do not have one. I think the bigger question you need to ask yourself is why grad school and what do you want out of it. Sounds simple but it requires a lot of soul searching. You say you want to work in foreign policy, but that is a huge field. narrow it down and really think about where you want to be in 5 years from now. It is like people saying they want to work in intelligence or security or public policy. Huge fields with different career paths and outcomes.
As far as living standards, it is going to suck since you have a family. Something is going to give and it may not be pretty. There will have to be sacrifice. I went to grad school with bills and I had to cut out social life and eat PBJs for a year to save money. I did a paid internship and was very lucky that it lead to a full time job in the field I wanted.
Now for the veteran thing. It does not make a difference. I am a veteran and was unemployed 9 months when I graduated from undergrad. I majored in economics and poli sci and had the full clearance thing plus 10 years of military experience. Yet no job after undergrad. The same can happen and does happen to veterans who attend grad school thinking that all those experiences translate into tangible job skills. Guess what it does always work that way. One of my classmates graduated with a dual degree JD and MPA and still cannot get a job. Yet I am working with a lady straight from undergrad with no military experience and no clearance. She landed a govt position. One of my buddies has 10+ years military intel experience and can not get a govt job. Luck of the draw.
I read that you applied to two graduate programs. Both are very expensive and may not offer sufficient aid. Again, ask yourself what you want to do after graduate school. I know of people who graduate from the top ten schools but carried lots of debt. They now work for the government. The government does not care where you went to school or what you studied. All they want to see is that you have a degree. any type of degree. This includes intel. I work with people who have a BA in theology, BA in English, MA in History, MA in Human Resources, MA in Fine Arts. The govt did not care where they went to school or what they studied. It has not influence on promotion. All that is based on what you have accomplished, not where you went to school.
This brings me to another point about these degrees, MA IR, MA IA, MA Security Studies, etc. The programs do not prepare you or train you for a job in the security or foreign policy fields. None of them will teach you how to write an IIR or conduct a interview for someone applying for a visa or teach you how to plan for joint operations. The only place to receive such training is through the military war colleges, NIU, or military schools. No one who I work with uses IR theory to analyze anything. Mostly everything was learned on the job and the government paid for training.
You mention joining the national guard or reserve. If you are serious about working in the intel field or security, then yes you should do it to increase your chances and network. Networking is very important when it comes to contracting jobs. Contractors do not want to pay for training. They expect their workers to be trained and ready to work on day one. The guard and reserve can give you a leg up if you decide to go down the MI field. Plus there are education benefits too. Nothing wrong with joining for those reasons. Lots of people do it. Joining the military is not guaranteed to get you a civilian or government job. There are plenty of unemployed and underemployed vets to illustrate this. If you are really serious about this option, then PM me.
There are other opportunities that can pay for grad school. Robertson Fellowship and Rangel come to mind, but they are competitive. Only you can answer if now is the time to attend grad school.