jchig

I am reading these posts to help my children with their grad school financing plans, and I would just like to reply with some life experience for you potential social work grads. I am a licensed clinical social worker with a private counseling practice--the money is not bad but not as good as 20 years ago, before managed care in the health field. You will make a decent income, but probably not enough to justify such huge loans. It will affect your quality of life, which will become more important as you have a family and want to spend on other things than past loans. You may have to become very creative with your funding pursuits. Do not put all your eggs in a few baskets--the name of your school, at least in this field, is not nearly as important as what you know and what you can do, and that will come with your experience--internships, jobs, etc. Some lesser-known programs offer work-study, where you can work full-time and go to school in the evenings. That is where I earned my MSW from the University of Georgia, while working in Altanta. Some schools need students enough to help you out. You can always supplement your learning through conferences, externships, training programs that your work may send you to--so just find the most reasonable way to fund grad school and get that degree. Good luck to all of you pursuing your dreams!

Your numbers sure sound better than what I've worked out--I hope you're right. Thanks for the reply! Good luck with your program!

Thanks! No worries at all about "taking it the wrong way" I absolutely want to get more sleep at night and not worry about him. I am hoping that I don't know something about this school that is worth this financial stress, which is why I logged on. I do get anxious when I hear folks talking about $100K, as if it's a lot of money. In this day and time, especially if you have a family, it still isn't enough to pay such high loan amounts, and still buy a house, etc. And he will ultimately do what he wants to do anyway--but it is very hard to know of the financial struggle ahead of him. I will be campaigning for all of you in this fix, that Obama does work to lower that interest rate on loans and perhaps come up with creative funding solutions for education for all of you.

Thanks for asking--the total will be $140K for two years, in addition to his financee's debt of about $50K for her degrees. There is no aid from Harvard; yet he has been led to believe the alumni connections from Harvard are worth this debt. That is my question to him--how can this debt be anything other than crushing, unless you can generate a salary of $300K or above? He is not interested in grad school anywhere else. I am trying to comprehend what type of life he will have with this debt and wonder if anyone believes it is manageable. For my part, having done grad school 30 years ago, with student interest rate of 3%, I am outraged at our country that students who want an education are taken advantage of in their desperation to find good jobs. I will be voting for those candidates who are truly committed to solving this student loan crisis--it is far worse than the mortgage crisis, because you cannot simply bankrupt and let go of these loans. From my perspective, I don't know how you students are managing this, but for my son's sake, I am hoping to be wrong.

I just read all the helpful replies regarding the decision--the Harvard quandry--concerning the financial issue. My son has been accepted to the MPP program and is overjoyed. However, we cannot help him financially and he plans to apply for $70K in student loans for two years to complete this program. I cannot sleep at night, worried about how he will feed himself and his family with this amount of student debt (his finance also has student debt). This debt will go on for most of his lifetime, and how does one buy a house, feed a family, and purchase cars and other basics with trying to repay a loan with 6.8% interest? His father and I make a decent income but could never afford the equivalent of two mortgage payments. Is there a Kennedy alum who could talk about how does this work--does anyone take out this amount of debt and still live a decent life? He has no designs to be rich--just wants to live a decent life and very public sector-oriented. I am the only one "raining on his parade" but I am very scared for him. Any advice? Thanks! Worried mom