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Undergraduate BS in journalism, pursuing an MS in outdoor recreation with a focus on park interpretation.

Wow, this thread is full of win and lulz. I start a thesis-option MS in a month and work for the government as a part of a student-to-career program. My advising professor is highly interested in my research ideas and, in fact, I'm the only new student he's funding this year. In my discipline (natural resources/heritage interpretation), every professor I've met has spent years working as a professional in the field before returning to teach it. You need to be very careful about generalizing academia-vs.-real-world, because whatever divide there once was is crumbling as we speak - just ask all the Ph.D holders who can't find tenure-track jobs.

I think it's pretty important. My freshman/sophomore years were stretched out over a number of years at a community college, and only a zillion major courses kept my GPA barely above 3.0. I didn't do so hot in junior/senior either... until I realized that I was killing any hope of graduate school and pulled a 3.81, Dean's List performance in my final semester that resulted in an "academic turnaround" LoR from the director of the journalism school. Ended up getting accepted virtually everywhere I applied.

My undergraduate degree is in journalism, and I'll be starting a master's program in outdoor recreation at Indiana University this fall. They may seem like completely different fields, but my specific specialty will be natural resources interpretation, which is a field directed at creating meaningful experiences for park/historic site visitors, by helping them understand the significance and meaning of the site's resources. That's a long and complex way of saying, park interpreters create communications tools (both person-to-person and mass media) that inform, educate, enlighten and entertain visitors. With journalism jobs being few and far between these days, I accepted a communications-based internship with a federal land management agency last fall. That experience exposed me to working as a park ranger/interpreter, and led to a federal job program that was contingent on pursuing a graduate degree. I developed a research pitch that leveraged my extensive new media journalism experience, proposing to study the potential uses of social and mobile media platforms for parks. Then I pounded the electronic pavement, contacting professors at a number of schools and applying only where I received expressions of interest from faculty members. I ended up being accepted at 7 out of 8 schools I applied to, and after a visit trip to the most promising candidates, was offered varying levels of funding at three of them. I accepted a fully-funded research assistantship at IU's Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Studies.

I pretty much had the reverse of bhikhaari. Horrible quant (540), excellent verbal (800). Accepted and funded at several schools for a master's program in natural resources.

I'll be joining the Department of Recreation, Park and Tourism Studies this fall, pursuing an MS in outdoor recreation. Visited Bloomington and fell in love with the town, plus my prof is great and secured full funding with a TAship. Looking forward to this fall!

If you have to cover the entire cost of a graduate program with loans, and it's not law or medical school, you pretty much shouldn't do it. You'll be saddling yourself with enormous debt that will take a decade or more to pay off. Even borrowing $75,000 will leave you with a $900-per-month student loan bill. Those payments are due regardless of whether you get the awesome $80,000-per-year job or whether you're stuck as a Starbucks barista. It's a cash cow for the school and a way to drive students into penury.

It's not, unless you listen to USNWR's bullshit rankings. By the Carnegie Classification, it's a RU/VH (Research University/Very High Research Activity).

jblsmith, if you don't want advice, why did you start this thread? Did you really expect everyone to just say "Oh yeah, borrowing a cumulative total of $200,000 for college is a brilliant idea, go for it?" If you want real advice from real graduate students/applicants, don't get all pissy when that advice isn't what you want to hear. On the other hand, if you want validation, go ask Stuart Smalley.

Anyone else heading up to Orono? I've been accepted and funded for a master's program in Forest Resources.

Within academia, nobody cares about "Tier 3" or whatever USNWR calls anything. If you want to take out six-figure loans for a Ph.D program on top of the six-figure undergraduate debt you're already carrying, knock yourself out. I just hope everything goes perfectly as you planned - otherwise, you're in for a world of hurt when those loan bills start coming due.

None of the programs I've been admitted to have asked for deposits.

That language is usually just to cover the department's butt in case of a serious program change - a budget cut, etc. Not an insubstantial risk in this day and age. If they contractually promised, unconditionally, "five years of funding" and suddenly saw their budget cut by 1/3, they'd be in some serious trouble. And of course, "student performance" is a standard clause - you're not going to get funded if you're about to flunk out.

Oops, I meant four-figure... brainfart Starting assistant econ professor salaries are not $100k, unless you're talking about starting at Cal or Harvard or something. I wouldn't base your financial planning on the assumption that you'd get one of those jobs right out of the box. Not impossible... but obscenely competitive. Based on a quick salary database check, places like UTK and U of Hawaii start around $70k, which is still not bad. SLACs generally start even lower. I am facing a similar dilemma, between first-choice unfunded (so far) and backup, funded. I choose to think of it this way: how much money would loans cost me in the long run (add in interest...) and what is the opportunity cost of having so much debt to pay back over the next 10 to 20 years? What opportunities, vacations, whatever would I have to forgo because of how big a loan check I have to cut every month? I would dearly love to go to my dream school. I would not dearly love adding $50,000 in graduate debt to my $15,000 in undergrad debt.

If you're already $100k in debt and you're accepted without a funding guarantee, you could be looking at another $100k piled on top of that. It doesn't matter how lucrative you think the degree will be - that is an absolutely impossible debt load that will see you crushed by mid-five-figure monthly payments

Job opportunities in my field are far more limited in urban areas than rural ones. Anyone who already has close to $50,000 in student loan debt is already saddling themselves with an extreme load. Tripling it is, in my opinion, flat-out nuts. I will probably be eligible for the PSLF too, given my work for a federal agency. But what happens if that falls through? What if I have to change my plans? Given what the Republicans want to do with government, federal/non-profit jobs are perhaps the most vulnerable right now. I don't think anyone should borrow $150,000 on the assumption that they will be able to find and hold a public service job for 10 years. What if that doesn't work out? You end up paying off student loans well into middle age. I don't even want to go there. Borrowed under $17k for undergrad and the goal is zero loans for graduate. Pay it off and get out from under debt.

It is absurd to borrow close to $150,000 with the hope that you can get a bunch of it forgiven. If they can't, for whatever reason, they're stuck with an insane amount of debt. The choice of potential employers would be constrained by the need to be in a government/non-profit job to qualify, and may have to take and stay in sub-optimal positions with poor pay/advancement opportunities. Quit and go broke paying loans or stay and go nowhere? Great choice. Meanwhile, they can get a perfectly good education for way less money somewhere else. So why dig the hole?

That's a lot of ifs. Not to mention that a significant portion of those loans ($45,000) apparently will not be federal, hence will not be eligible for either IBR or forgiveness, and will have to be fully paid. If you pay IBR and don't work in a public service job, you'll be paying federal loans off for the next 25 years. Want to be in student debt until you're almost 50?

So for SIS, you would be borrowing effectively $100,000, plus your $45,000 in undergraduate debt? Your monthly payments would be around $2,000 for the next 10 years. Even if you got a $50k job out of college, fully half of your pre-tax income would be paying down debt. Totally unaffordable and not a realistic option unless you really enjoy destitution. Remember, all of that debt is nondischargeable and will follow you around the rest of your life if you don't pay it off on time. I am in a situation where I may have to skip my "dream school," too. Yes, it can be painful. But think of all the fun things you'd have to forgo over the next decade (or longer?) because you have to put such a big chunk of your income toward paying off student loans. Forget vacations, new cars, anything - you won't be able to afford them, even on a middle-class salary.

Again, are you rich? That's the only reason anyone should disregard the tuition issue. If you can afford to go wherever, do it. But I suspect, based on you asking here, that you're not. You'd be paying $600 per month for the next 10 years, or a total of $70,000 - at best. Any undergraduate debt? Pile it on top. Yale has the first forestry school in the US and is well-respected in the environmental policy/management realm.

Unless you're independently wealthy, you're talking about borrowing maybe $50,000 vs. $0, and getting paid a stipend to boot. Given that Yale is not exactly dog food as a school, you'd be well advised to take the money and run.

Your student loan debt is already on the high end of what's manageable. If you have to borrow everything for two years at SIS, what are you looking at, $70k added to that? I think you need to go with the most cost-effective option.

I was offered a $13,000 stipend for a 9-month academic year GTA appointment - or about $1,470 a month. Not going to be rich, but won't have to take out loans either. The 18-credit tuition waiver is worth about $20,500, plus 50% of insurance costs, or another $1,100. Figure $35,000 total value. As a master's student, I'm happy to have anything.

Same situation for me - "dream" schools accepted but with no funding (yet) while another school has offered me a renewable full-tuition + stipend teaching assistantship that would pretty much leave me debt-free. It's really a no-brainer - as dreamy as some of those other schools are, the nightmare of $50k in loans looms large.

I have a similar dilemma... accepted to several schools, but only funded (so far) at my second or third choice. Though it is a bit tough, there's no way I can justify turning down what is effectively a $36,000 package (value of stipend + tuition waiver + insurance) in order to borrow an equal amount of money to pursue a graduate degree. Just doesn't make financial sense.