Posted on 07/08/2021 1:13:21 PM PDT by karpov
Recent film program graduates of Columbia University who took out federal student loans had a median debt of $181,000.
Yet two years after earning their master’s degrees, half of the borrowers were making less than $30,000 a year.
The Columbia program offers the most extreme example of how elite universities in recent years have awarded thousands of master’s degrees that don’t provide graduates enough early career earnings to begin paying down their federal student loans, according to a Wall Street Journal analysis of Education Department data.
Recent Columbia film alumni had the highest debt compared with earnings among graduates of any major university master’s program in the U.S., the Journal found. The New York City university is among the world’s most prestigious schools, and its $11.3 billion endowment ranks it the nation’s eighth wealthiest private school.
For years, faculty, staff and students have appealed unsuccessfully to administrators to tap that wealth to aid more graduate students, according to current and former faculty and administrators, and dozens of students. Taxpayers will be on the hook for whatever is left unpaid.
Lured by the aura of degrees from top-flight institutions, many master’s students at universities across the U.S. took on debt beyond what their pay would support, the Journal analysis of federal data on borrowers found. At Columbia, such students graduated from programs including history, social work and architecture.
Columbia University President Lee Bollinger said the Education Department data in the Journal analysis can’t fully assess salary prospects because it covers only earnings and loan repayments two years after graduation. “Nevertheless,” he said, “this is not what we want it to be.”
At New York University, graduates with a master’s degree in publishing borrowed a median $116,000 and had an annual median income of $42,000 two years after the program
(Excerpt) Read more at wsj.com ...
I knew stories of people getting MBAs or Master’s degrees and still could not find work. That’s why I elected to do community college after a doing my BA.
You are not supposed to go to film school unless your parents are rich, or you get a scholarship, or preferably both.
Common sense newsflash: If you're degree doesn't substantially increase your income it's not "top-flight".
Congratulations on following your dream, honey. If I go in debt following my dream of living in a $5 million home would you be expected to have to help me out?
The solution is not to force the universities to dump their endowment fund. The solution is to teach the masses that the "top-flight" universities are a scam.
How should tuition be priced for careers with hihg level so uncertainty?
It’s easy to put a price on a dentistry degree, because you have a good idea how much that will be worth to each graduate.
For something like the film industry 95% of people don’t make it, but the 5% that do will make a lot of money.
Price it low and even more people will sign on and even fewer will succeed. Price it high and those who don’t make it have a lifetime of debt.
The Federal student loan program enables this kind of poor decision making among young people coupled with private universities’ predatory practice of offering these romper room majors to access their loan funds at no risk to themselves. The solution is to reform the student loan program to rate majors by prospective income to the total degree cost and have a sliding scale of the amount of loan a student can access and a sliding interest rate structure based on the major. Film students would be at the bottom of the scale and STEM majors at the top.
The long list of useless degrees: Any liberal Arts Master Degree.
MBA is probably useful if its from a very good school.
One guy borrowed $360,000 for a masters degree. In “film.” Whatever that means.
And now they want the taxpayers to foot the bill. Hell no.
Study geography an North Carolina. Five years after graduation, geography majors from UNC class of 1984 had a average income of five-million dollars. There were twelve geography majors that year. One of them was Michael Jordan.
Absolutely right. “Top-flight” universities are a scam. Send your kids to a good state university.
“That’s why I elected to do community college after a doing my BA.”
? AA comes before BA.
“There were twelve geography majors that year. One of them was Michael Jordan.”
How many went to class?
Agreed. But more than that. Do some career planning. Pick a career first before going to college. Then ask people who are liable to one day hire you what the career is like, what kind of training their looking for, etc.
If you ask college advisors they'll all tell you that their college is the best thing ever. But they're not the ones you want to one day hire you and pay you well. Ask advice from the people who are in the position to one day hire you for that career which colleges/degrees/majors are worth the time and money. The people already excelling in that industry know which schools train the newbies well.
That's how you pick a college and major.
Screw that..
If you have a masters in wymens studies, you are not intelligent enough to enter the workforce...
If you are not smart enough to check into potential earnings for your particular field of study, why the hell should anyone bail your stupid ass out of your own self created financial nightmare.
Let them eat cake
Film school dropouts Ray Manzarek and Jim Morrison.
Sitting at the beach Jim sang a few lines and Ray said: “You and I are going to start a rock group and make a million dollars.”
The first million dollars was just a start.
Jim took a launch out to tell his father he was quitting film school. His father was a US Navy Rear Admiral serving from 1938-1975 and Commander of the USS Bon Homme Richard.
Morrison’s dad was present at the Gulf of Tonkin incident that signaled the US getting actively into the Vietnam War.
I don’t think geography is trivial major, you have to know something. I suspect most of them wanted to become high school social studies teachers. That, or NBA super stars.
Recent film program graduates of Columbia University who took out federal student loans had a median debt of $181,000.
—
It’s like these students are carrying the equivalent of a mortgage, only there’s no paid-off house at the end of the loan payments.
The government went after all of the commercial colleges yet ignored the public and private institutions that awarded the vast majority of worthless degrees. It is a racket that took off in the ‘60s. Every one has to have a degree .... worthless courses taught by worthless ‘60s commies resulting in worthless degrees with idiot level graduates bearing the costs.
I earned a living with the MLIS. The PhD is in Philosophy, just because I wanted too.
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