Hope everyone is doing well. I will make this very short. I got accepted to Rutgers University. They are willing to accept 12 credits from a Masters Degree I had done before in Urban Affairs. The degree program is 60 credits. The problem is, I live in New York and I would have to pay out of state tuition, which is $1,000 per credit. I need 48 credits, that puts me at 48,000 not including insurance and extra fees, plus the cost of not working as much.
I am planning to do the part time program. I am also going to lose possible income because I would only be working part time. It would take 3 years to complete the program. There is also the fact that I have to commute to the college which will take me around 1 hour and a half.
I have applied to Lehman College and Stony Brook college but, I have not completed the application yet. Here is the question: Stony Brook only accepts 3 transfer credits maximum and I don't think Lehman accepts any credits. Also Stony Brook and Lehman College are both 65 credit programs. Rutgers is 60 credits. Since I already have 12 credits in Rutgers I would actually be losing a total of 17 credits if I went to Stony Brook or Lehman.
What would be the right choice. Also I forgot to mention that when it comes to the field work in Rutgers they are willing to give me a lot of latitude. I expressed an interest in a specific place to do field work and they are going to set up field work in that place.
I have everything I need in Rutgers but, the only problem is the money and also the travel is a bit of a pain but, I could over come that.
What is the best Choice?
I could also apply for scholarships. I was also told that after my first semester I would be given scholarships but, I don't know the amount. I tried already to get the out of state tuition waived but, they said that would not be possible.
These programs are a little crazy. I am going to have 50,000 or maybe 60,000 worth of loans. I managed to do my first Masters only having 4,000 worth of debt. We all want to try and help people and the world in some way but, it is really difficult to do so. The cost of these programs is so high. I was also thinking about working in a high need area and then the government pays off your loan but, I am sure their is some competition for that. I am sure that will not be easy and maybe not even possible. I would have to research that.
I also read about the social work profession and the starting salaries are really low. When you go too "institutional evaluation" on the Rutgers website they have a section where they do student surveys. Only 50 percent of the sample group responded to the surveys. First it said they got an 85% response rate but, later it says a 49% response rate.
They employment rate is good at 97% and it lists the starting salaries for females at 47,000 and the starting rate for males at 55,000. That seems a bit high for starting salaries. (I don't know why there is a difference in starting rates for males and females, that makes no sense, especially since there are so many more females in the social work profession. NYU is a bit more broad and I think they list the starting salary rate at 42,000 per year. I think they have a 20,000 dollar range in rates.
http://socialwork.rutgers.edu/Prospective/Surveys/MSWSurveys0809.aspx
Anyway, its so hard to justify spending that much money just to make a low salary. Actually, the salary is OK in a sense if the cost of getting the degree is not so high. If I am helping people and having a positive affect on people's lives, its not really about the money. However, we all still have to live some how.
I will end by saying if you factor in the cost of the degree. Around 60,000. The cost of travel. The cost of time lost. (although I guess the time is not lost, because you are learning but, from an economic perspective the time is lost). Then you calculate the interest on the loans. The average interest on a private student loan is 11%. I will have to probably get a private loan because I don't think you can get a public loan and finance such a large amount of money. A public loan on average is 8% but, that isn't always the case. Also the average is not standard. When they talk about the average student loan they use a "Range" rather than an "exact number". If you average the range you will find it is higher than 11 percent for a private loan. Some of the ranges they use for private loans are 11% to 17.5%. The loan averages are skewed because they use normal situations for calculation. In other words they take the normal circumstance and use that for a calculation.
Anyway, its a big amount of money to owe for all these loans. Not to mention the time involved to get the LCSW. Right now I have a master of Urban Affairs. There is a website called www.socialservices.com. They hire people with BA degrees. Its a lot of think about.
The last thing i will say is that i do have a home loan of around 70,000. The interest is 6 percent. Much of my payments goes towards the interest. If I had a student loan of 10 percent. I think I would be smoked. That's a lot of cash wasted on interest.
Remember that with the rates as low as they are now, if you buy a new home and it cost 400,000 you will probably pay over one million dollars. You will be paying almost 3 times more than the value of the property. If you take a student loan and you are at around 10 percent, I would imagine that you would probably be paying 5 times the value of the loan. But I would have to research that. Either way we are taking a beating with these loans. Social Workers strive to help other people. Isn't it time that someone offered social workers some help? Especially social work students. As students we really are taking a serious beating. The schools are collecting all the money. But they use the money well, I know that Rutgers spend 32,000 to have Snooki speak at their college not too long ago. Money well spent.
