Is an education worth the debt?

[aaronjw]

Interesting collection of stories here: http://money.cnn.com/galleries/2011/news/economy/1106/gallery.student_debt/index.html

 

 

Yes these stories are from Americans and they typically have much higher costs than in Canada but the question still remains.

I

Ask yourself this: if you dont get into meds will you be able to find a good job that you can live off of while paying down debt in your field of study?

[CharmingHedgehog]

It is only worth it if I can get a job within 12 months of graduation, and get paid enough that I can pay off my debt incurred in 3 years

[FinalShowtime]

Education is not only about money. You only live once and can only learn a finite amount of things during your life time. Therefore, debt is one thing, but if you are someone passionate about your field of study, maybe this debt is worth it.

 

I would prefer dying with enormous debt and knowing everything than being billionaire and knowing nothing.

[dentopia11]

Education is not only about money. You only live once and can only learn a finite amount of things during your life time. Therefore, debt is one thing, but if you are someone passionate about your field of study, maybe this debt is worth it.

 

I would prefer dying with enormous debt and knowing everything than being billionaire and knowing nothing.

 

and leaving your kids to take care of all your debt?..or the tax payer?

[AndreaM]

I think one of the most important things is to understand how debt will affect you, before it happens, and to have a plan to minimize that amount of debt.

 

You don't have to end up with huge student loans from an undergrad degree, but you do have to make sacrifices to do so. You may have to live with your parents or other relatives while you go to school, so that you don't need to pay living costs. You may need to take a year off to work or do co-op placements or work part time while in school. You may need to be creative about finding bursaries and scholarships. Knowing where you are spending your money and having a budget is also important. Even with those things students may need to get some loans, but they won't be nearly as large and will be much more manageable to pay back.

[rmorelan]

and leaving your kids to take care of all your debt?..or the tax payer?

 

Well he/she may prefer it but that isn't a choice on the menu after all - and having someone knowing "everything" is probably worth whatever debt society would bear - must be summer I am waxing philosophical today

 

I had this arguement with my Economics prof who was trying to argue it made no sense for me to go into medicine on economic terms. I told him he simple forgot one of the most important economic rule - preferences are not logical and are outside of the field of his study. You cannot challenge someone's belief that education is worth more than the dollar value of the gained income. You simple have to accept it as fact and factor that in to your equations, and not get trapped in the math.

[aaronjw]

Well he/she may prefer it but that isn't a choice on the menu after all - and having someone knowing "everything" is probably worth whatever debt society would bear - must be summer I waxing philosophical today

 

I had this arguement with my Economics prof who was trying to argue it made no sense for me to go into medicine on economic terms. I told him he simple forgot one of the most important economic rule - preferences are not logical and are outside of the field of his study. You cannot challenge someone's belief that education is worth more than the dollar value of the gained income. You simple have to accept it as fact and factor that in to your equations, and not get trapped in the math.

 

Why did he hold that position of not going into medicine due to economics?

[rmorelan]

as a side note this article does tell us why we have to be very careful in making sure our education system does not evolve into something like the US. This going to sound corny but education in Canada is one of our most valuable assests - people ROUTINELY here really can start with nothing and work themselves up to a good life. In the US they have to make a big story about every time that happens it seems. Here it happens all the time.

 

but we do have to watch things - tuition costs are rising in key areas and people that should have opportunities to do things are often turned away. In medicine that seems to be happen - fewer people from lower socoeconomic backgrounds are applying and getting in. In the end that actually harms the health care system directly.

[rmorelan]

Why did he hold that position of not going into medicine due to economics?

 

Well I am a computer programmer so I already had a career and a measure of success. If you factor in the loss of income by going to school and loss of income over residency and the paying off the loan with interest, and the risk of actually failing out of med school or realizing that I hate the new career (it does happen) over the one I already enjoyed and the increase in my income as my software engineering/senior management career develops and return on the investments I would have been able to buy over the course of things, the increase in income but with an increased marginal tax rate at the upper range, and the loss of time that I could spend enjoying other things in life it makes a pretty compelling arguement not to go into medicine. The break even point stretches uncomfortably far away

[aaronjw]

Education is not only about money. You only live once and can only learn a finite amount of things during your life time. Therefore, debt is one thing, but if you are someone passionate about your field of study, maybe this debt is worth it.

 

I would prefer dying with enormous debt and knowing everything than being billionaire and knowing nothing.

 

Easy position to hold when you dont have kids, a wife, mortgage, car payments and mounting debt that you can't get out from because of high interest and all the other things taking up your money.

[aaronjw]

Well I am a computer programmer so I already had a career and a measure of success. If you factor in the loss of income by going to school and loss of income over residency and the paying off the loan with interest, and the risk of actually failing out of med school or realizing that I hate the new career (it does happen) over the one I already enjoyed and the increase in my income as my software engineering/senior management career develops and return on the investments I would have been able to buy over the course of things, the increase in income but with an increased marginal tax rate at the upper range, and the loss of time that I could spend enjoying other things in life it makes a pretty compelling arguement not to go into medicine. The break even point stretches uncomfortably far away

 

Makes perfect sense as i am in the same position you could say except for the fact i have to go back for a second undergrad. Great career money wise, semi enjoyed what i was doing and could continue to do it despite it not really something i was passionate about.

 

Now i'll be lucky enough i suppose that i wont go into debt the second time around for my education and that includes med school if i get in but the number of people i know coming out of school with semi high debt and i know they'll have troubles paying it off in the field for which they went to school for.

[dentopia11]

yay..im not the only one then...phew...

i have been working away at a great career with great salary but leaving for an expensive academic pursuit...

 

however, i plan to ensure that I am able to pay off all my debt asap...i wouldnt want to gain knowledge at the expense of my kids (let alone the taxpayer) having to pay back for my curiosity...

[rmorelan]

yay..im not the only one then...phew...

i have been working away at a great career with great salary but leaving for an expensive academic pursuit...

 

however, i plan to ensure that I am able to pay off all my debt asap...i wouldnt want to gain knowledge at the expense of my kids (let alone the taxpayer) having to pay back for my curiosity...

 

No not the only one, not by a long shot

[apache]

my dad's really really old and said he plans on selling the house when i start working to pay off my debt and at that point i'd have the income to supplement his pension income etc. and support him etc. otherwise i'd just use my loc to pay off my gov student loans and just file for full bankruptcy at this point.

 

education in canada isn't too bad, minus what dental schools cost, which is ridiculously expensive and daunting... i'm considering switching from med to dent right now as i realized i'd have a very realistic chance of getting in and it's the first time i ever had to consider debt to reward ratio as i can afford to attend dental school, but barely (alberta raised their loan ceiling for med and dent, yay!), frugally, and working in summer to cut it in order to live half decently.

 

in the states, yeah, i would never go to university, id take up a trade (i've always thought being an electrician would be cool and a little easier physically) and take out philosophy books from the public library... if you're in a ba or bsc you can learn almost everything your taught out of a book... i use to show up to office hours of profs whose classes i wasnt enrolled with them to ask them questions about what they thought of stuff i was reading that was related to their class, most didn't seem to mind since no on else showed up anytime other than right before the exam.

 

yay..im not the only one then...phew...

i have been working away at a great career with great salary but leaving for an expensive academic pursuit...

 

however, i plan to ensure that I am able to pay off all my debt asap...i wouldnt want to gain knowledge at the expense of my kids (let alone the taxpayer) having to pay back for my curiosity...

[rmorelan]

my dad's really really old and said he plans on selling the house when i start working to pay off my debt and at that point i'd have the income to supplement his pension income etc. and support him etc. otherwise i'd just use my loc to pay off my gov student loans and just file for full bankruptcy at this point.

 

education in canada isn't too bad, minus what dental schools cost, which is ridiculously expensive and daunting... i'm considering switching from med to dent right now as i realized i'd have a very realistic chance of getting in and it's the first time i ever had to consider debt to reward ratio as i can afford to attend dental school, but barely (alberta raised their loan ceiling for med and dent, yay!), frugally, and working in summer to cut it in order to live half decently.

 

in the states, yeah, i would never go to university, id take up a trade (i've always thought being an electrician would be cool and a little easier physically) and take out philosophy books from the public library... if you're in a ba or bsc you can learn almost everything your taught out of a book... i use to show up to office hours of profs whose classes i wasnt enrolled with them to ask them questions about what they thought of stuff i was reading that was related to their class, most didn't seem to mind since no on else showed up anytime other than right before the exam.

 

 

Bankruptcy won't wipe everything out though post med school though - if you are a doctor you will be unable to prove to the court that you will be unable to pay off your loans. as you simple will have an income that is too high. You have to fight for bankruptcy and creditors have the right to oppose you.

 

Still all this debit maybe covering up an important point. At the current times paying off your student loans is quite easy as a doctor

[Jochi1543]

I've read about this issue on a few websites, it seems to be the discussion du jour, one that I find quite interesting. Did you hear about the guy who sued his law school because he ended up being unable to find a job as a lawyer?

 

I agree in that it's more of an American problem, but like rmorelan mentioned, no one's to say that our educational costs won't soar in the decades to come. I definitely think that in the US, bachelor's degrees have become basically worthless. I think part of the problem lies in the fact that practically anyone who has some money can get a bachelor's degree. For education to remain valuable, you have to make sure that having a degree actually makes a statement about the degree holder's level of intelligence and discipline. If education is going to be financially affordable to almost everyone, you have to make sure schooling is actually HARD. If you can get into some no-name university with 60s and coast through some no-name program taught by grad students with a bunch of C- to receive a BA/BSc, then of course degrees will lose their value.

 

Then there's also the issue of on-the-job training. For so many jobs, it doesn't really matter what you learned in school - they just want to know that you are intelligent enough to be trained what to do. So in the end, the jobs held by BSc/BA grads end up pretty similar to the jobs held by people with Master's degrees. I have a friend who works for the city government in their planning department, and for a while, she considered getting a Master's in urban planning. But then she realized her coworkers with advanced degrees were doing practically the same thing for maybe $8,000/yr more. Why lose 2 years' worth of income, at a cost of around $80,000 - let's assume tuition would be covered by her job - to make $8,000/yr more? It'd take her a decade to simply make up the cost of attending a Master's program. Employers just don't know what to make of advanced degrees and how to put these skills to use, so they don't reward them adequately. And then there's the prospect of looking "overqualified" when you are looking for a new job.

[NLengr]

but we do have to watch things - tuition costs are rising in key areas and people that should have opportunities to do things are often turned away. In medicine that seems to be happen - fewer people from lower socoeconomic backgrounds are applying and getting in. In the end that actually harms the health care system directly.

 

I have never seen good proof that it's a tuition/money problem. Medicine is fundable as long as you can get in. Same with university.

 

The problem probably lies much earlier in development and the advantages higher economic status kids have when developing. IMHO anyway.

[apache]

problem is i'm not too keen on medicine, i feel trapped in it by my debt, so filing for bankruptcy would be for now, when i really don't have too nice of an income. on the other hand, the fact that i'm probably going to be applying to dentistry after i did the math and realized i could afford it as long as i work this year while applying for admission next year and in first two summers of dental school means i'll probably not file for any sort of bankruptcy because i need every last bit of my line of credit to pay for school as dents like 3.5 times more expensive than med.

 

Bankruptcy won't wipe everything out though post med school though - if you are a doctor you will be unable to prove to the court that you will be unable to pay off your loans. as you simple will have an income that is too high. You have to fight for bankruptcy and creditors have the right to oppose you.

 

Still all this debit maybe covering up an important point. At the current times paying off your student loans is quite easy as a doctor

[Jochi1543]

I have never seen good proof that it's a tuition/money problem. Medicine is fundable as long as you can get in. Same with university.

 

The problem probably lies much earlier in development and the advantages higher economic status kids have when developing. IMHO anyway.

 

I agree with you. Not to take this thread off course, but I bet you that if you could get into med right out of high school, we'd have way more low SES students in medicine. Getting a 4-yr degree is definitely a barrier, especially when you consider what a gamble it is to get into med. No one can guarantee that you can actually graduate with a 3.7+ and do well on the MCAT, so unless you can afford to take the risk, it's a major deterrent for financially limited individuals.

[apache]

agreed, 100 percent.

 

Did you hear about the guy who sued his law school because he ended up being unable to find a job as a lawyer?

 

I agree in that it's more of an American problem, but like rmorelan mentioned, no one's to say that our educational costs won't soar in the decades to come. I definitely think that in the US, bachelor's degrees have become basically worthless. I think part of the problem lies in the fact that practically anyone who has some money can get a bachelor's degree. For education to remain valuable, you have to make sure that having a degree actually makes a statement about the degree holder's level of intelligence and discipline. If education is going to be financially affordable to almost everyone, you have to make sure schooling is actually HARD. If you can get into some no-name university with 60s and coast through some no-name program taught by grad students with a bunch of C- to receive a BA/BSc, then of course degrees will lose their value.

[aaronjw]

 

I agree in that it's more of an American problem, but like rmorelan mentioned, no one's to say that our educational costs won't soar in the decades to come. I definitely think that in the US, bachelor's degrees have become basically worthless. I think part of the problem lies in the fact that practically anyone who has some money can get a bachelor's degree. For education to remain valuable, you have to make sure that having a degree actually makes a statement about the degree holder's level of intelligence and discipline. If education is going to be financially affordable to almost everyone, you have to make sure schooling is actually HARD. If you can get into some no-name university with 60s and coast through some no-name program taught by grad students with a bunch of C- to receive a BA/BSc, then of course degrees will lose their value.

 

 

The challenge here is that marks in the real world don't mean jack. I've never been asked for transcripts as part of the hiring process and i've never asked for transcripts when i was doing the hiring. 51% vs 95%, to the majority of employers out there it's all the same. We don't care. What we do care about is your ability to think critically, problem solve and communicate well. Just because you went to college or University doesn't actually mean a person can do those things. So how do we make marks mean something when employers don't even care?

[FinalShowtime]

Easy position to hold when you dont have kids, a wife, mortgage, car payments and mounting debt that you can't get out from because of high interest and all the other things taking up your money.

 

I totally understand that this is not easy. But I think that putting money in higher education is rewarding in the sense that you might not become rich but you will make sufficient money in a field to be able to repay your debt in the years following your degree and rewarding in the sense that you learned about something you are passionate about which is surely more valuable than money itself.

[rmorelan]

problem is i'm not too keen on medicine, i feel trapped in it by my debt, so filing for bankruptcy would be for now, when i really don't have too nice of an income. on the other hand, the fact that i'm probably going to be applying to dentistry after i did the math and realized i could afford it as long as i work this year while applying for admission next year and in first two summers of dental school means i'll probably not file for any sort of bankruptcy because i need every last bit of my line of credit to pay for school as dents like 3.5 times more expensive than med.

 

3.5 times more expensive than meds? Wow that is a lot - where does that come from? Next year at Western the med tuition is 19474, and it looks like dents is about 27000. I would guess(?) living expenses are the same etc. Is there some other huge expense there or somethign else that I am missing?

 

If there is that is kind of scary

[phosgenic]

Ask yourself this: if you dont get into meds will you be able to find a good job that you can live off of while paying down debt in your field of study?

 

That's why I went into kin... a great stepping stone to a number of stimulating, fruitful, and reasonably profitable careers. I read all of the stories about UofT life sci grads having their souls sucked right out of them for 4 years and then end up as overqualified Starbucks barista's or mcd*cks shift supervisors... those stories may or may not be true... either way... every kin grad that I know loved their program and are quite satisfied with their career (which in most cases wasn't medicine).

[aaronjw]

That's why I went into kin... a great stepping stone to a number of stimulating, fruitful, and reasonably profitable careers. I read all of the stories about UofT life sci grads having their souls sucked right out of them for 4 years and then end up as overqualified Starbucks barista's or mcd*cks shift supervisors... those stories may or may not be true... either way... every kin grad that I know loved their program and are quite satisfied with their career (which in most cases wasn't medicine).

 

That's one reason i choose to do this new UG in kinesiology as well. A field that's interesting to me, inline with my passion/hobby and good research opportunities in cutting edge areas.

 

One thing i'll likely have to accept with Kin is i'll likely not ever make salaries in the 150K+ range again and i'm ok with that as long as im happy with wjat i am doing.