One of the Worst Education Articles I've Read

[dfrecore]

OK, I'm going to say one nice thing about this article: it is a good idea to realistically consider what future employment you will have when you complete you degree, since you will have to pay off those student loans.  And, everyone should have a realistic point of view that they will be starting out on the low end of the pay scale until they've built up experience within their career field.

The only thing I really took from this article is that private colleges are way over-priced compared to public ones, but all of us in this forum are already aware of that fact.

By the way, she has written 69 articles on that site, and all of them are biased and lack real facts and information to back up what she is saying.

Yes, it's definitely smart to think through your options when you get a degree, and to be realistic about the pay.

As for private schools, yes, they're overpriced, IF you pay full price.  The only reasons to consider them; 1) with discounts and other things, they may end up being the same price as a public university, but you may actually graduate on time; 2) you get tons of scholarships and it's free; 3) you're going into a field where who you know matters as much or more than what you know, or 4) you can afford to pay with no student loans.

For many schools, middle-to-upper-middle-class kids who don't qualify for any needs-based scholarships or grants, #2 is a huge factor.  Want to go to Harvard and your family makes $65k?  It's free (tuition, fees, room and board).  How about if they make up to $150k?  Then it's somewhere between 1%-10% of your family's income.  So a family earning $100k at a 2% rate could send their kid to Harvard for $2k a year.  Total.  Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Berkeley - all have programs that are similar.  If that's not a good ROI, then I don't know what is.

So to generalize about all private schools is just silly.