How much is too much Grad student loan debt? Boston vs UIC Public Health

July 22, 2013 1:36 PM

So I have a question. I am a MPH student and I have found my ideal school. It has awesome faculty who seem really passionate about their work and are focused on helping students succeed. The career services department is also very strong. I want to attend this school because I feel like the professors care, and that they will help me get a really great job after graduation and that career services will also help me leverage my new skill set into a good paying job. I cannot express how great everyone at the school has been to me thus far. I have felt not only welcomed, but that they really want me to attend the school and program. The problem is that this is a private school and VERY expensive.

There is a scholarship that I have applied for which would make the school doable for me. However, I will not find out if I am a recipient of the scholarship (1 of 4 spots) until 8/15. Initially, I thought, if I did not receive the scholarship that I would just attend UIC, it is much cheaper and I live in Chicago already. My dilemma is, should I go to a school that I am not excited about because it is cheaper? The moneywise part of me is saying “Do what is least expensive, you are just getting a degree”. But my experiences with UIC have been horrible, to say the least. The profs seem to not really care about students, and it is more about getting you through. I have asked repeatedly for stats on graduates getting jobs and have received nothing. In addition, UIC has 1 career services staff member whereas BU has 3 and BU has a whole program on career development. In addition, BU has a Leadership concentration. Also, UIC states, albeit not in writing, that on average new grads make 40K, whereas BU has $54K in writing. I am afraid that if I go to UIC that I will regret my decision. However, is it wise to take on so much debt just to go to the school that I want to go to? If I was straight out of undergrad (I’m 29) and had no real debt (I have cc debt) than I would not be so concerned, but unfortunately that is not my situation. I am currently working and living paycheck to paycheck- which I hate. So, I am going to grad school to not only work in the field that I am passionate about, but to better my financial situation.

So I guess my question is, am I right? Am I just getting a degree, should I try not to make this too big of a deal, in terms of the UIC red flags. Or, should I not be short sighted and look at the larger picture? Are there other intangibles that I need to consider? Such as networking with professors, leadership experience and strong career development that in the long run will set me up for a great return on investment on my student loans?

Also, are there any nifty financial planning calculators out there that you might recommend? I know that there is an income based repayment plan- so that is good. And, that there is a loan forgiveness program as well. Therefore, I pay loans for 10 years (if I work in gov't or nonprofit) and after 10 years the remainder of the debt is forgiven. As I understand it, with the income based repayment plan they take out 15% of your income. So, if I am lucky enough to make 54k that is $8,100 a year, and that would make the total loan amount $81k for 10 years? I am looking at the math correctly? This is the advice I found online in the extend section: Thanks! No one in my family has gone to grad school and they are drowning in debt, so I am trying not be too fear based and don't really know who to turn to for such advice.

Rough rule of thumb, don’t take on more in total education debt than you think you are going to earn on average annually during your first 10 years after graduating (from college or grad school). In plain English, if you think you’ll make $50,000 a year, don’t take out more than $50,000 in loans. The logic behind this is that if it takes you more than 10 years of paying 10% of your income a year in student loan repayments, it’s going to be tough to meet your other financial obligations

posted by TRUELOTUS to Education (14 answers total)

Have you interacted with the professors in your department at UIC or was this your undergrad program specifically? If you don't like the department, you won't get that much out of the program. So it's a waste of time and money.

I'm all for getting through with as little debt as possible. Can you get a stipend for TA-ing classes? How about Work/Study? Can you work part time to bring in extra money? Have you applied for a lot of scholarships? Here's a site that lists some options. No law says you have to stop at one application.

Are any family members working at places that give scholarships? The Phone Company does, my current employer does. A thousand here, five-hundred there, it adds up. In a good way.

Exhaust other options for money, and don't just stop at one scholarship. You can make this happen, you just have to be willing to apply A LOT!
posted by Ruthless Bunny at 1:47 PM on July 22, 2013

Personally, I wouldn't take out any money for grad school in this environment unless you had a job lined up when you matriculate. That is, unless you have actually taken the time to build relations now that will land you a job (and maintain them in school), I wouldn't take out any money. You're taking yourself out of the workforce for what, two years, going into significant debt, and have no real assurance of coming out with a viable career on the other side.

Also, keep in mind that, if you assume BU grads generally end up working in Boston, and UIC probably end up working in Chicago, the cost of living is an important factor. According to this cost of living calculator, $40K in Chicago is actually more money than $54K in Boston.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 1:52 PM on July 22, 2013 [3 favorites]

How much debt would you need to take on for this degree and how much do you expect to earn once you have it?

I know nothing about MPH, but if the salary you get with the degree is $54,000 I would do something else with your time. That's not an especially large salary and hardly justifies incurring debt.
posted by dfriedman at 2:15 PM on July 22, 2013

I can't tell you whether the Boston program is the right way to go, but I can tell you that your misgivings about UIC's professional graduate degrees are well-founded (I am a graduate). Run screaming. FWIW, I know one person who graduated from the MPH program and she does not work in that field.
posted by ndg at 2:15 PM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: I wanted to respond before I am off the computer for the day and someone who asked a question came back.
Thanks, NDG. Two of the coordinators at UIC are UIC-MPH grads, and I ask myself, so they are working for the school because they graduated from the program and could not find a job in the field...hmmm, not a good sign. And, if the profs don't have time for me now, when they are suppose to be wooing you to go to the school, are they going to be a good contact to help me with job leads.

DMan:I know 54k is not a lot of $. But, that is what the starting out salary is, and the only way to break into the field is with a MPH. I would like to think I would be making 100k within 10 years,

Oh man, I don't even what to type out the loan amount, so I will whisper it $122! Yikes!

Thanks for the love Rbunny :)
posted by TRUELOTUS at 2:31 PM on July 22, 2013

Go to BU. you'll get more out of it.
posted by superfille at 2:34 PM on July 22, 2013

Oh man, I don't even what to type out the loan amount, so I will whisper it $122! Yikes!

Punt. Without a scholarship, BU is a program for people who have some other source of tuition (parents, savings, some other scholarships, etc.).$122,000 in debt isn't worth it, if only because that level of debt could possibly be used in some other way to acquire a job with better prospects.

The lower salaries of UIC grads may well be because they get jobs locally in the greater Chicago area where salaries are lower than they are in Boston and the rest of the northeast.
posted by deanc at 2:40 PM on July 22, 2013

Look at this calculator, which will tell you not only the amount that you will have to pay in tuition, but also how much you will have to pay in interest. Now add to that the amount of money that you will have to borrow in order to survive in Boston. And chunk the interest onto that. Then divide that by 30, the number of years that you'll have to pay it off. Then divide that number by 12 in order to get your montly payment.
(To get through grad school in the early oughties, I borrowed less than half of what you did to get through, with an interest rate of 3%. My monthly loan payment is roughly $400.)
So now look at the jobs that you want to have, and ask yourself- will the job I get cover my loan payment? What will I have to give up month after month to make that payment? Funding your retirement? Saving for kid's college? Will this school be worth it in 15 years, when you are burnt out and desperately in need of a Hawaiian vacation?
posted by pickypicky at 3:04 PM on July 22, 2013 [2 favorites]

Oh man, I don't even what to type out the loan amount, so I will whisper it $122! Yikes!

Just to put it in perspective, as I happened to mention on the Blue today, that's about the amount of debt I graduated from law school with after three years of classes. At the time, I had job lined up after school, and ended paying something like $1500 every month on my loans (nearly all of which was interest, so after 5 years I was literally just a couple hundred dollars less in debt on that $120K than I was when I graduated).

It's a truly colossal amount of debt that you can't get rid of except by paying it down. A $54K salary doesn't make much of a nibble at that. And keep in mind that you'll likely be accruing interest while you're in school, so by the time you start repaying, it may be even more.

That is definitely too much grad school debt.
posted by Admiral Haddock at 3:04 PM on July 22, 2013 [4 favorites]

I went to grad school at BU (Charles River Campus, "CRC", not Med Campus, though) and have worked at BMC (the hospital with which BUMC/BU School of Public Health is affiliated).

My experiences:

- BU's reported average starting salaries are (or at least were) based on only those recent grads who choose to self-report, not on all grads. So the $54K might be artificially high.

- BU Career Services were generally not helpful to me. To make a gross simplification, Career Services was very interested in recommending fonts for resumes and helping grads choose between competing high-$$, high-prestige job offers. These were not terribly useful services for me, since my problem was resume content and not being at the top of my class. I have no experience with Med Campus Career Services, but I wouldn't put too much stock in CRC or BU-wide career services.

- I thought about pursuing an MPH while I was working at BMC but was talked out of it by the feedback I got from my colleagues there, which was that an MPH wasn't worth much as a standalone degree. MD+MPH, sure; or years of in-field experience +MPH, but otherwise it seemed like the MPH didn't add so much, at least as of a few years ago.

- My friend who pursued a standalone MPH (at BU) did so as a BU employee. If I recall correctly, many/most of the MPH classes are in the evening and pretty amenable to taking after business hours, and BU has a pretty good tuition remission policy.

- Make sure you understand the payment and forgiveness options for public/federal vs. private loans. I was under the impression that Income Based Repayment (where you pay as a percentage of your income) and Public Service Loan Forgiveness (where unpaid debt is forgiven after 10 years of qualifying payments) were options for federal loans only, but I could certainly be wrong about that.

Anyway, I am repaying my loans on IBR myself (many years out of school, still making less than that "starting" salary I read so much into as a student).

If I had it to do over again I would not make such favorable assumptions as I did then - I encourage you to ask tough questions and look at all the possibilities, not just the optimistic ones. Good luck.
posted by Signed Sealed Delivered at 4:50 PM on July 22, 2013

Have you looked at any of the online programs? Several completely legit schools (including JHU, UNC, and Berkeley) offer online programs with really minimal in-person requirements. That way you could at least keep working and minimize the debt you take on.
posted by charmcityblues at 4:55 PM on July 22, 2013

I advised MA students in a different field at an expensive private school and it's never worth the money with the economy the way it is and with student loans structured the way they are. Universities offer masters programs to turn a profit. Usually the departments get to keep a huge chunk of the money so they take a good number of paying students.

I can't speak to UIC but I have never heard great things about BU especially in terms of treatment of grad students. And everywhere MA (MPH) students are at the bottom of the pecking order when you're a paying student.

Don't trust those employment/salary numbers. Career offices massage their figures to recruit students who will pay full-price for their degrees. The real figures could be anything. Boston is an uncomfortable place to live on a fixed income with any quality of life.

Really think carefully about what you don't like about UIC. Sometimes first impressions can be deceiving. Did you catch the faculty on a bad day? Or do they not share your interests? If you know they are difficult then that is a dealbreaker. If you had your heart set on BU, then maybe give UIC another look.

If you get the scholarship, attend any events they have for you and see what they have to say. You might get a different view of them during their courtship of scholarship candidates.

Then weigh it against another degree at UIC against one at another in-state school. BU shouldn't be in the equation. It is too expensive. There might be a similar degree you could do in Illinois. Urbana-Champaign has an interesting Public Affairs-type school from what I've seen. I don't know how useful an online degree is in your field. That might be a question for another week.

If you don't get the scholarship, be creative and consider all the in-state and online options. This isn't the end, this is the beginning. BU would lead you down a road of stress and debt.

Whatever you decide to do, good luck!
posted by vincele at 6:07 PM on July 22, 2013

I would like to think I would be making 100k within 10 years

This probably isn't realistic. Public health just doesn't pay that well, particularly if you don't already have a health care background. There's no info here about what you want to do with a public health degree or what you do now, both of which are pretty critical to how much money you will make with the degree.

Someone mentioned UNC's distance program, in which I am currently a student. It is a great program. I'm taking an MHA instead of a MPH, and long-term money-making prospects are generally better for MHAs - it's a business degree for health care. It makes sense for me because I'm in state - YMMV.

The critical thing here is to stop focusing on your grad school experience and think about what you will do with your degree. Do some informational interviewing, talk to people and find out what you can reasonably expect to make with the degree.
posted by jeoc at 7:56 PM on July 22, 2013

My father is a professor in a professional field where recent grads often start their careers earning six figure salaries. He worked with other faculty members to see factors led to student satisfaction and dissatisfaction. Graduating with a lot of debt, even in a field where one can feel reasonably comfortable that they will be able to pay it off without too much drama, significantly increased the likelihood that students would feel dissatisfied with their educational experience. Incidentally, students from BU in his field routinely graduate with the highest levels of debt ($200K+) which makes me wonder what is going on there.

I don't mean to downplay how nice everyone has been at BU but I think there is a relationship between how nice they are being and how expensive the school is. This is a bit of a digression but I think it's interesting that when it comes to part-time law schools, George Washington University Law School is more highly ranked than George Mason University but GMU has a lower acceptance rate. More people apply to GMU's program because it is a public university and therefore significantly less expensive than GWU. So there is less of a need for GMU to "woo" people. And I don't see if as a professor's job to get jobs for their students. They give students the training they need to be successful in the field. The full-time responsibility of most professors is research. Their secondary responsibility is teaching. Helping you get a job is maybe third.

I've looked at people's resumes (though not MPHs) and I wouldn't be excited about having an applicant with a leadership concentration. I would be way more interested in a candidate who has demonstrated leadership skills. I realize that professional school is different and I'm certainly not an MPH but I really think that a go-getter who is willing to hustle can overcome any issues presented by a mediocre career services department (and I'd put myself in that category).

Keep in mind that grad school is not like revisiting undergrad. It's less fuzzy and more about getting the training you need to get a job. Try to be strategic. What experiences do you need to put you in the best position possible to get the job you want after grad school? Are there internships that could potentially make your career? How do you get those internships? Where do you want to work in the long-term? Do you want to stay local or get out of Chicago?

The other thing with grad school is that, IMO, there are people who want to be superstars in the field and there are people who want or need letters after their names. At 29, I'm inclined to suggest that you should just get the appropriate letters after your name. Suppose you start school this year, graduate when you're 32 and put all of your money over the next 10 years towards paying off your debt. Then you're 42 with no savings. And that's assuming you get a job soon after graduation and never have any periods of unemployment. I could be wrong here but I think that most employers of MPHs are government and nonprofit, the two groups that got hurt hard during the recession.

I'm sorry if this sounds harsh but if you're not excited about this program, apply for others. There are other schools out there. Maybe focus on state schools and then see what you have to do to get in-state tuition. What if you apply for jobs at BU? Could you work on getting a job there and then taking classes? Are there any employers who pay for you to get your MPH? What about any employers with good educational benefits? If getting an MPH is your dream, focus on trying to make it work for your situation.
posted by kat518 at 6:29 AM on July 23, 2013 [1 favorite]