[robomartin]

I know someone attending Olin. She will graduate with $300,000 in student loans and a degree good for a median salary of $85K. In my mind this is financial slavery.

A small percentage of a small percentage of graduates might succeed in business. This does not mean they will be wealthy. Some? Maybe. All? Not likely. Which means most will face a lifetime of paying on outrageous student debt that might prevent them from such things as buying a home and saving for retirement. Thirty years of financial slavery isn't a good way to go through life.

I simply can't reconcile this reality with the article.

[tostie]

Perhaps this is a different Olin school? (There are a number of universities with Olin schools or colleges on them.) The current cost of attending Olin before factoring in the half-tuition scholarship is $71,825 (see http://www.olin.edu/admission/costs/cost-of-attendance/). After including the half-tuition scholarship, which all students receive, costs drop to $47,525 per year. I'm not sure where an extra $100K in student loans would be coming from. Additionally, Olin provides need-based aid for those who qualify.

[rebootthesystem]

$50K for six years = You walk away with a $300K Masters which entitles you to a median salary of somewhere around $80K a year. Even if you go for a Bachelors (a mistake if you ask me) you'd walk away with $200K in debt, which is just as insane given the lower earning potential.

Payments are approximately as follows:

Pay it off in 20 years: $2,100 per month

Pay it off in 30 years: $1,800 per month

This means you'll pay somewhere around $504K to $648K.

If your gross pay is $100K per year that means that, in very rough terms, in California, your effective take-home pay is about $64K per year or $5,333 per month.

Out of that you need to take $2,000 every month for 20 to 30 years and pay your student loan.

That leaves you with $3,333/mo to live.

Median rent for a one bedroom apartment in Los Angeles is $2,000/mo.

You are down to $1,333.

It is nearly impossible to live without a car in a place like Los Angeles. Buy a crappy car and pay for car, gas and insurance. That will easily set you back $500 a month.

Now we are down to $833.

Food, say, about $400 a month.

Down to $433.

Utilities, well, let's say $250/mo to be kind.

Down to $183.

I am not accounting for buying clothes, toilet paper, toothpaste, furniture an occasional outing, etc.

Forget travel. Forget investing. Forget saving.

If you need health insurance you are screwed.

And that, right there, is a formula for financial slavery and pain for decades.

It also means you will almost never buy a house (in CA) unless you get married and your spouse does not come in with massive student loan debt like you. You might want to eliminate all your social interactions at Olin or risk marrying someone with $200K to $300K in debt, just like you.

Not zeroing in on Olin here. We have lots of universities that cost in the range of $40K to $60K a year. In Olin's case the article says that about 3% of the roughly 75 graduates every year become entrepreneurs (not necessarily successful). This means that fully 72 graduates do not. And they get out of there with what can only be described as massive unmanageable debt.

Certain degree programs, such as Mechanical Engineering, simply don't have high earning potential. Someone graduating with $300K in debt and one of these degrees in hand is starting life with a formula for suffering. There are plenty of reasonably priced schools that could cut the cost of these degrees in half and even less.

From my perspective, going to a place like Olin is a terrible mistake. It does not guarantee financial success. The only thing it guarantees is financial hardship. It's an example of how demented things have become due to just how easy it is to get student loans.