MaxwellAlum
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Posts posted by MaxwellAlum
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20 minutes ago, aslabchu said:
I wouldn't bet on it being around in the 12-ish years you'd need. Republicans are already taking shots at it.
Not just Republicans. Policymakers on both sides of the aisle are right to consider changing a program that currently provides the largest benefits to higher earners.
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2017 will be the first year anyone receives forgiveness through PSLF. Some of us have begun tracking our PSLF qualifying payments by submitting an employment certification form showing we are working for a public service organization. Doing so transfers your loans to FedLoan Servicing, the official PSLF servicer. Additionally, FedLoan will send you a written confirmations of your qualifying payments every time you certify your qualifying employment (recommended annually). In my experience, Fedloan is very slow in tracking payments you made previously with other servicers, and it does sometimes take a bit of wrangling to make sure they get it right. But it is not horrible.
I am currently having my PSLF payments tracked by FedLoan. I am also making payments through Pay As You Earn (similar to income-based repayment), which keeps my monthly payments low based on my income, and maximizes the amount of forgiveness I would get. Doing so has been great, as it allows me to actually save money for retirement instead of throwing it all into my loans. There is always a risk that Congress will eliminate PSLF and not grandfather people like me in. In that case, I'll have to keep making payments, but at least I'll still have my retirement fund.
For folks applying for grad school right now, I will caution that both Democrats and Republicans have proposed significantly limiting (up to $57k total) or eliminating PSLF altogether. While they might grandfather folks like me in, if you are applying to grad school now you might find the program gone by the time you graduate.
Another item to consider is that a lot of employers that you might want to work for don't qualify for PSLF, such as government contractors and consulting firms as well as international organizations such as the UN and the World Bank. You may think now you definitely want to work in government. However, it very well may be that the dream job you get offered is with a contractor, and in that case you are out of luck with PSLF.
Finally, I'd be very cautious about taking on six-figure debt. I know people who do, and their $500 monthly payments don't even cover the interest that accrues on the loans every month. As such, their balance is growing over time despite all of the money they are throwing at it. If they don't get forgiveness through PSLF, they will need to wait to get forgiveness after 25 years through the income-based repayment/pay as you earn programs. In that case (unlike PSLF), the amount forgiven is taxed as income. Imagine having to file a tax return with $100,000 additional income - that's a big hit (though I suppose you can take out a loan to pay the taxes).
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I am an alum of the Maxwell School's MPA program. My experience has been that Maxwell has a wonderful alumni network, and I felt that the teaching was excellent. I currently work in the Washington, DC region, which is the most common place that alumni go, so that may impact my perception of the alumni network. There were several international students when I was a student there, and they seem to be doing well (the ones I know of are working at UN/World Bank agencies abroad - some in their home countries). In terms of brand name/prestige, it's certainly not as well known as Harvard, Columbia or Princeton, unless the organization has Maxwell alums working there already - there are a lot of us out there, so this is not unlikely. And in my experience, Maxwell alums like to help each other out :-)
I know very little about Indiana's program other than it is ranked highly, so I'm afraid I can't really compare them.
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It's all about what you're willing to pay. When I received an offer from a school that would have cost $120k to attend over two years, the acceptance letter offering $10k per year in funding I received felt like a rejection. Accepted or not, I was not going to be able to attend based on my willingness to pay. That said, wherever you do go it's not like you'll be an outcast or viewed as inferior because of you are not funded. Lots of people do it, but the impact on them is financial, not academic or social.
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I have been where you are (I was working in an admin position in a nonprofit with no growth opportunities before going to Syracuse), and grad school absolutely helped me get on track. I don't think it would help you much to wait to go to grad school. Unless you find a dream position, waiting will just mean you are older when you are out of grad school but still generally applying for entry level positions.
For your first question, I don't think it's at all necessary to go to an elite school to get a good position, although if you want to work in consulting a big name school is definitely an advantage. I would check out the employment reports for the programs you're interested in - here's the one for the University of Maryland: https://www.publicpolicy.umd.edu/career-services/current-students/job-and-internship-resources/internship-and-employment-report
In terms of your second question, a few thoughts come to mind. First, a surprising number of us at Syracuse entered the program with the intention of pursuing a career in IR (many of us did a dual degree program in public administration and international relations), but eventually took jobs in local government, often to be close to family. Your interests and personal preferences may change as you start taking classes and later on considering different positions. Second (but related), MPA/MPP programs often have an international track, but IR programs don't have domestic policy tracks, so the MPA/MPP is going to be a little more flexible. An IR program may have a bit of an advantage in terms of giving you better connections for an IR career, but I am not sure it is worth the losing the flexibility of the MPA/MPP.
For your third question, going international is a bit of a risk. If you go to a U.S. school, odds are even if it is not Harvard, prospective employers will at least be aware it is a legitimate institution. Personally, I don't feel that a foreign degree is as valuable as a U.S. degree if you want to work for U.S.-based employers, unless it is a school with a lot of name-recognition like LSE (definitely not tuition-free). I could absolutely be wrong about that.
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19 hours ago, Ben414 said:
It's disappointing I couldn't find this information anywhere on schools' websites, because this is very helpful and I'm sure plenty others would agree. Thank you.
I'm glad this was helpful. I do want to emphasize that the quant you do learn in an MPP can be very helpful even if you are not running regressions in your job. At the very least, those classes will give you the basis to understand if other people's analyses are valid. One thing you absolutely will find in the public sector is a lot of people throwing around phrases/words like "statistically significant" and "correlation" without fully understanding what those things mean, and you may very well find yourself in a position where you need to call them out on that (or at least gently correct them).
- ajak568 and xXIDaShizIXx
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On December 24, 2015 at 1:28 PM, Ben414 said:
Thanks for the clarification. I'm sure positions as a program officer, policy advisor, director of government relations, operations manager, etc. wouldn't, but there are some that I'm not sure about. I'm not sure what level of math I would need for the positions similar to the following (I don't imagine you will know the answer to all of these, but if you know some I'd appreciate the help):
- Policy Analyst for a nonprofit or government
- Research Analyst for a nonprofit or government
- Analyst for the CBO or GAO
It depends a bit on the specific job, but I agree with the previous poster that for many jobs in the three categories you listed, algebra and statistics is fine. I am a government policy analyst and I definitely don't need calculus. For the GAO, my understanding is they have similar requirements (nothing more advanced than algebra and stats), but you could look through their reports to see whether they do things that require more advsnced math, to see how you can make yourself more competitive. For CBO my impression is that they do hire economists to make a lot of their projections, and I'd expect those need P.h.D level math and economics coursework, but they also hire budget analysts for whom a standard MPP is fine. From my perspective, having more math can't hurt and could come in handy, but it is not a requirement for most jobs in the field.
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Absolutely some schools are going to use calculus in some of their classes/tracks, but unless they require that level of math as part of admission to the program or track, you'll most likely find that most of your fellow students do not have much of a calculus background. I'm quite certain that Harvard's MPP program, for example, does not require knowledge of calculus for admission, but that it does for the MPA/ID program. People I know who attended Harvard for the MPP neither entered or left with calculus. MPP/MPA programs are different from Ph.D. programs in that they are typically preparing you to mainly be a consumer of empirical research and less so a producer. Certainly some people will go from an MPP to a very quant-focused role, and those people will often have sought out the quant-heavy courses. But there are many, many public sector-related jobs in which you will never run a regression yourself, and many people do not attend MPP programs with the goal of getting a quant-heavy job. Ph.D. programs are preparing people to enter academia, where the ability to produce empirical research is essential.
- ajak568, xXIDaShizIXx and Ben414
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I also had done AP calculus in high school but could barely remember what a derivative was a couple of years out of college. I did take a mathematics for economics class before starting my MPA degree, which included some calculus, and then signed up for the more advanced section of the quantitative analysis class during my MPA program. The calculus was useful for understanding some of the statistics, but I don't think it was pivotal. I think we had maybe one exam question that involved some sort of calculus. The other sections did not use calculus at all (and I don't think they were necessarily worse for it). My understanding is that in most MPA/MPP programs, most students do not have an extensive math background - that is certainly my experience at Maxwell.
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Microeconomics is more relevant for public policy programs. You also can look into courses through the University of London International Programs, although those do typically require a proctored exam (I think they offer the exams around the world).
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12 hours ago, Ben414 said:
If you don't mind answering a few questions:
1) How many hours per week do you work on average? How often do you have to work nights or weekends?
2) What was the process like for getting your job, and what other positions were you looking at? How helpful did you find Maxwell's career services?
1. I generally work 40 hours a week. I would say I've maybe worked on weekends 3-5 times over the past year, and a couple of nights. It does depend a bit on the project and how time-sensitive it is, but for the most part I have a very reasonable work schedule (and it's flexible too!).
2. I applied for my job during my last semester at Maxwell. I was also looking at jobs in think tanks and the federal government, but I had not gotten too far into my search when I found this position, and it was very well-suited to my interests. After I applied online, I contacted a Maxwell alum who worked at the office, and was able to speak with her on the phone informally before the interview. I then had an official phone interview, followed by an in-person interview with several staff members, followed by an offer. Career services was very helpful in reviewing my resume, but the biggest help from Maxwell was from the alumni network.
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I graduated from the Maxwell School (Syracuse) three years ago from their dual masters program in public administration and international relations. I currently work as a policy analyst for the local county council (I chose to go into local government to be closer to my family). My office conducts research and evaluation projects based on a work program defined by the council each year. We are a small office, so we don't specialize in specific policy areas.
My typical day involves conducting desk research, analyzing data, and/or writing. Depending on the stage of the project or projects I'm working on, I may also spend time scheduling and conducting meetings with folks who manage programs that are relevant to my project, privately briefing members of the council on the findings of a project, or preparing and delivering presentations on completed projects to committees of the council and other community organizations.
One of the skill areas I think is becoming increasingly important in my field is data analysis, particularly using tools like R and Python. Although I can do most of the data analysis I need to do in Excel (we do mostly descriptive analysis rather than any inferential statistics or regression analysis, although understanding statistics is really important in my job), occasionally I encounter data cleaning or data analysis issues that are best addressed in other programs. My office does not have access to proprietary software like SPSS or Stata, so I have worked to teach myself a bit of R and am working on learning Python. Skills in GIS software like ArcGIS are also really important. These were not skills that were taught when I did my master's program, but I think there are efforts underway to get grad schools to start teaching them. While a lot of the jobs coming out of a public policy master's might not require knowing R, Python, or ArcGIS, these skills can definitely help you stand out in the field and I think they will become even more important in the future.
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22 hours ago, kbui said:
@MaxwellAlum Beautifully rationalized.
I think other than just purely the cost, the network and social benefits of going to a top tier university is also a significant factor for me. I went to a mid-sized college without a name outside of Minnesota, and I am ready to open up my networks so that I can help future students in my own state if they wanted to connect with leaders from different fields in different states. I know that when I was growing up, there weren't many mentors around besides academic ones who were also white and didn't look like me, so this is an issue that keeps me moving forward in my career and education.
I am ready for a bigger challenge than just working at a non-profit (which I greatly enjoy), and it seems like an expensive big name graduate school education is the key, so I'm just reasoning out if it's worth the cost if I don't get substantial fellowships. Which, from the board, it is clear that it indeed is doable if I'm ready to make the sacrifices, but it won't be the best financial decision in the short/mid/long-run.
If I were you, I would at least apply to non-Ivy League schools with strong public policy programs (University of Michigan, University of Chicago, Carnegie Mellon, Cornell, and of course my alma mater Syracuse University come to mind). If you are focused on IR, the Fletcher School is a good option. It looks like you are a very competitive candidate that would easily get a nice funding package from one of these programs. It may be you get that dream scholarship to SIPA. But I know that I did not fully realize how debt-averse I was until I received an offer from a great school that would have required me to take on $100,000 in loans. Suddenly, I was like, "Nope." I was glad that I gave myself multiple options and ended up with less than half of that in debt (for a dual degree!).
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I agree it's not smart to take out six-figure debt for a public policy masters. A huge reason not to is that you can still get a great job in the field without going to HKS or SIPA.
That said, to be clear, $100,000 in federal student debt, while definitely not a good idea, does not have to be financially crippling. Income-based repayment programs make loan payments on this amount of debt reasonably manageable. You will never have to pay $1,000 a month on a $40,000 salary thanks to these programs (which only apply to FEDERAL loans, and not to private student loans), although you can if you want to. The problem is that you will likely never be able to pay it off yourself. You may get forgiveness after 10 or 25 years (depending on which forgiveness programs are still available), but there is no certainty of this. In the meantime, your balance may grow if you can not cover the interest that accrues every month, and you will be taking hundreds of dollars out of your monthly income to make loan payments, for at least a decade and probably more (Public Service Loan Forgiveness is likely to be eliminated by Congress, at least for future borrowers).
Some people are able to pay off lots of debt on a modest salary by living frugally. But if you are in your late 20s already, by the time you graduate it's likely you'll want to start getting serious about saving for retirement and buying a house. On a public sector salary, it is not possible to do all of these things while also making extra payments on your student loans (and don't forget that accruing interest makes it extremely hard to make a dent on six-figure debt). So the reality is that you'll likely be making affordable, but significant payments on your loans for a very long time. If you feel that's worth it to you, it can be done, but for most people the benefits are not worth the costs.
- kbui, yellina122 and ridofme
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Based on my knowledge of people in a similar situation, I don't think this will affect your applications/aid eligibility.
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If you do want to do a master's degree, it sounds like you'd benefit more from a public relations or communications degree. Some of the big skills taught in MPPs are quantitative analysis (statistics), economic theories as they relate to policy analysis, and memo writing. There isn't a ton about communicating with the public/broader community.
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Hi folks, I would caution anyone against going to grad school right now on the assumption of receiving Public Service Loan Forgiveness. That program looks like it's on Congress's chopping block. While existing borrowers may be grandfathered in, the program is very likely to be changed or eliminated by the time anyone applying now graduates. Income-based repayment plans will still be available, but forgiveness occurs only after 25 years and it will be considered taxable income. That means if you get $100,000 of debt forgiven, you may have to pay upwards of $30k in taxes that year just on that amount. I would strongly caution against anyone taking out much more than $50k in debt for a public policy degree right now.
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I'm three years out of my MPA, and I don't think concentrations are very meaningful. Concentrations demonstrate an interest in an area, and that can help you distinguish yourself from other candidates, but you can do the same by highlighting relevant classes in your resume and/or extracurricular activities, even if a formal concentration isn't available. At the end of the day, employers are going to care the most about your work and internship experience.
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Yes - the MPA and MAIR programs are professional programs. Syracuse has more academic-focused programs within the Maxwell school, but the MPA and MAIR specifically are geared towards preparing students to work in government and other public service-related organizations. For example, at least when I was there three years ago, there was no thesis requirement for the MPA or MAIR.
I am pretty sure this is false. Maxwell seems to put a lot of emphasis on professional development. Perhaps their MPA is different but their MAIR focuses a lot on professional development, networking and internships.
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I faced the same choice 5 years ago (cost would have been the same for me though) and went with Syracuse. Syracuse is a great program, and the fact that it's one year is a huge advantage - you'll have a degree and start working one year sooner (I did a dual degree and therefore spent two years studying, which in hindsight I don't think was the best choice for me). You'll also have a huge alumni network that is a big help when applying to jobs in the private and public sectors. I will say the MPA by itself is not going to give you enough quant to do academic research (it's taught more for the practitioner level), though it's certainly a start and the great thing is, if you're not good at quant, the professors are excellent. Teaching is very clearly a high priority at Syracuse and it shows in the dedication of the professors to their students. Can't speak much to how it compares to Georgetown in that respect though.
I wanted to seek your input: I'm not sure what the best option is between the two:
Syracuse MPA Georgetown MPP
#1 #16
$55k $94k
No money awarded. No money decision yet.Well-established. Relatively new change.
1 Year 2 Year but can attempt double JD or PhD in 3-4 years.
Syracuse DC
Cheap cost of living. Center of everything politics/policy related.
Quickly back to work/life. More opportunities for work/internship /assistantships in DC.
Strong alumni network. Stronger alumni network in NV where I live and want to return to.
Prestige within civil service and public admins particularly back East. General and perceived prestige in all sectors everywhere.
More flexible and focus on state and local finance. More rigid on the quantitative skills I want to develop.My goal is flexibility of the degree and employability after graduation. I currently am in Government and Public Affairs and want to continue in that area for the foreseeable future and ultimately want to become a VP of Gov. Affairs for a private firm or start my own consutling company.
Conversely, I want to teach policy and political science courses at a Community College and ultimately a reasearch university further down the road and perhaps get into higher education leadership.
Either route depends on numerous factors: job availability and opportunity, money, personal decisions at the time so I want to be able to apply my experiences and education to different sectors.
I am pursuing an MPP or an MPA with an emphasis on the former because I want to develop the qantitative skills necessary to be able to do rigorous research in academia or for the private sector, depending upon which opportunities present themselves. Moreover, everyone in Gov. Affairs is a lawyer yet there is always a need for people who understand the economics but not enough people who possess those skills where I live.
I've asked a number of employers their gut reaction of whom they would pick all other things being equal and they've all said Georgetown except when I talk up Syracuse's rankings, program and history, than they say if they had been aware of those than they probably would pick Syracuse.
I appreciate any and all input, advice or experiences you might have to share?
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$35-50k is reasonable to me - it is not an amount so high that it's impossible to pay off in 10 years (more or less, depending on your financial situation) but IBR can help if you want to prioritize other things, without the stress of ballooning debt due to too much interest accruing. $26k would definitely be easier and you would probably not have to concern yourself with loan forgiveness, but paying $10k-$25k more if you think Duke/Heinz will meet your needs better does not sound terrible to me.
I can't speak to the relative value of the specific programs. I would definitely look closely at each program and see what classes are available in your desired specialty area / what the speciality areas of the main faculty are.
After having extended conversations with my parents, they agreed to help cover the cost of living expenses (i.e. only rent). Combined with the financial aid I'm getting from my total debt situation now looks to be around $35k-50k (assume it to be on the lower end of the spectrum, since I plan on living very conservatively). Assuming that I get a Federal or State govt. job with a starting salary in the $50k-$60k range, would you say that this is a sensible investment/tradeoff?
Sorry if I'm asking too many questions, and thanks again for feedback.
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That's definitely sound advice. That said, I'd be more than willing to go on the IBR and public service loan forgiveness programs you mentioned. I'm a former federal employee, so working in that type of environment would be the optimal outcome. Also, I'm willing to work in the private sector for consulting firms and whatnot, so I'm flexible in that regard.
Fair enough. I do think these programs are really helpful; I myself am on IBR and hoping to take advantage of loan forgiveness (and if it doesn't happen, at least I'll still have money saved for retirement). However, I see folks with six figure debt where their income-based payments don't cover the interest, so they have a choice between making higher payments or allowing their loan balance to grow significantly over 10 years. As I'm sure you know some federal agencies do provide loan repayment benefits which can be a huge help.
My sense based on people I know who graduated from a range of different schools (Harvard, Syracuse, UMD) is that a prestigious school does not equate to a higher government salary, and a lot of people from lower-ranked schools manage to get jobs at prestigious agencies. Certainly, a good network will help you get a job, no question, and I do think some private sector consulting firms prefer prestigious names. That said, I see people who went to schools that are less prestigious with the same jobs and same salaries as people who went to more prestigious schools - the only difference is lower student loan debt.
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I feel like virtually every poster in this thread has made salient points, but this still doesn't make my forthcoming decision any easier.
In my situation, I've narrowed it down to three schools:
SUNY Albany (MPA, no aid so far but it's the least expensive: $30k AT MOST for two years combined; realistically it's more like $26k)
Carnegie Mellon (MSPPM, $32k between scholarshiop and work-study)
Duke University (MPP, $25k; will see if I can barter for more funding)
It's a hard decision and I feel like there's no easy answer. On the one hand, SUNY Albany is not only significantly cheaper than the other choices, but it also has a solid reputation in both New York state (where I'm from) and the U.S. News rankings. Given these facts, and based on conversations I've had with people in the NYC and NY state civil services, my chances of landing a decent-paying job after graduation are solid (well, at least jobs within my home state).
On the other hand, with either Duke or Carnegie Mellon, you're talking about not only a (ostensibly) higher-level education, but more extensive career networking on a national level. Although there are certainly other factors that go into these calculations, it's not a stretch to say that finding a higher-paying job after graduation becomes a bit easier with that type of pedigree.
Ultimately, I realize that people who go for these degrees definitely don't do so for the money, so it probably will take a long time indeed to pay off these debts. That explains the appeal of SUNY Albany; I don't want to spend decades paying off at least ~$80k in loans. That said, it may well be the case with the other two schools that their reputations and networks make it easier to find a higher-paying job that offsets the loans, but even then it's a risky gamble at best. What are your opinions on this?
P.S. Re: my background, I'm interested in working on environmental policy issues, preferably performing policy analysis work for regulatory agencies like the EPA, Department of Energy, independent energy contractors, etc.
P.S.S. Yes, I know this post was at least somewhat vague in the details, but this really reflects my current state at the moment on the issue. Which is why I'd really appreciate any and all feedback. Thanks!
$80k in loans will accrue over $400 in interest every month. On a ten year repayment plan you would need to pay $900 a month or over $10k a year in payments, which is simply not practical on a public sector salary (Federal GS-9 jobs in DC start at around $53k these days) if you have other financial goals like saving for retirement or buying a home. What seems like a lot of money in your 20s is not that much when you get tired of living with roommates and realize that you need to start saving a substantial chunk of your salary in a retirement fund.The way to get around this is income-based repayment and public service loan forgiveness, if you are willing to commit to working in the public sector for 10 years (which is genuinely limiting) and live with the uncertainty of whether forgiveness will still be honored 10 years from now. This plan can get particularly stressful if your income-based payments don't cover the interest that accrues (or at least most of it).Having Duke or Heinz on your resume may give you a leg up for certain job opportunities, but a school's prestige does not matter nearly as much for an MPP as it does for a law degree. Having less debt will definitely give you tangible career and financial flexibility.If you have strong reasons to believe Duke or Heinz will offer significant and tangible career advantages, then it is definitely possible to make it work. However, in the absence of that, take the lower debt load at the respected state school. -
I graduated with approximately $50k in debt 3 years ago and I am doing fine. Do your research on IBR and public service loan forgiveness - these programs really help. That said, if you are looking for an amount of debt that is reasonable, I think that one way to look at it is to think about how much interest will accrue on the loan every month. That is the amount you need to pay just to keep your loan balance from going up. For some people I know, that number is $500+, which is a ton to pay in interest every month.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness Program
in Government Affairs Forum
Posted
Anyone who works in a qualifying public service organization may be eligible. This includes nonprofits, which include hospitals. So doctors, for example, can make low payments during their residency and then get their loans forgiven while they are earning $200k+.
More generally, people with large amounts of student debt, who tend to be people who went to grad school, especially private grad school, will have the largest amounts of debt forgiven. Many of these will alao have relatively high incomes (not all public servants have low salaries, certainly not compared with the general population).