Comments on: Salary Breakeven for Private vs. Public College Graduates

By: Jason @ MyMoneyMinute

Jason @ MyMoneyMinute — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 22:12:40 +0000

I agree with the general sentiment here. I went to law school. If you’re not graduating from a Top 20 school and/or not in law review (top 5-10%), you are pretty much grouped together, and have no shot at working at the prestigious firms for the big bucks.

You have to find jobs at medium/small firms, learn your trade (and the business) from there, and hope your vastly inflated student loans won’t sink you in the meantime =)

By: Patrick

Patrick — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 15:14:55 +0000

I used to work at a local research laboratory during and right after college and made a decent salary. I graduated from the University of Maryland ( a public university ) and paid in state tuition. Soon after I started working there, a guy just graduating from Harvard with an Engineering degree started making the same amount of money as I was. I have no clue what his grades were, but the laboratory had some fairly strict standards on gpa requirements to work there. I probably paid about 1/10 the amount he did, but ended up at the same job.

By: Eric N.

Eric N. — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 05:32:07 +0000

If only that were true for in-state Californians now that our “budget” has passed. At the rate we’re going, there won’t be any cost difference whatsoever between Berkeley and Stanford in the future. The horror.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 03:06:43 +0000

A lot of the top 20 public schools have high tuition for out of state students but very affordable tuition rates for in-state students. Going to a state institution when you’re outside of the state often costs as much as private.

I’ll gladly pay for beer if the education were free.

By: Modder

Modder — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 02:51:31 +0000

Yes, there are Top 20 public schools but if I am not mistaken their tuition rates for grad school in particular are often on par with the private schools (more true for biz, law, less for engineering).

I am just amazed at the growth rates of tuition costs. Kind of feels like a big bubble. Not sure if the bubble bursting will result in plummeting tuition rates or just many, many grads who never really break even on tuition, which in turn will lead to dropping enrollment and then dropping tuition rates….

I went to undergrad back home in Europe. Total tuition bill: $0. Only cost was room, board & beer. Guess where I will be sending my kids

By: Beth

Beth — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:51:45 +0000

That’s interesting. I’ve never come across that in Canada. I was in the top of my class in grad school, but I’ve never had an employer ask about my marks. What got me a job was my internship experience.

By: Jim

Jim — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:50:34 +0000

Modder makes good points. I think that “top 20″ may be the key in certain situations like business school or law school at the high end firms. But the key words are “top 20″ not “public” versus “private”. There are public schools in many top 20 lists.

By: Beth

Beth — Tue, 24 Feb 2009 00:48:06 +0000

Up here, if you have a university degree rather than a college diploma, you’ll get paid more and advance faster in your career. Mind you, “college” up here means a very different thing then down in the States.

By: Modder

Modder — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 23:48:51 +0000

I went to a top school, so I can speak from experience.

Jim: Everyone in my company was at the top end of their class either in undergrad or in grad school. If you progress down the career path and stay in the company, your salary grows much faster than it would in a regular job. So in my case, yes – being in the top % of the class has a lasting effect.

Dave: Scholarships are quite common for undergrad, but very rare in b-school etc. In fact my grad school dean would say that they could easily afford scholarships but as a policy refused to hand them out to make sure graduates are motivated to succeed. And he was right – my grad school loans were in the range that Jim mentions for med school and I paid them off in 3 or 4 years.

By: james at poorMD.com

james at poorMD.com — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 22:40:08 +0000

As a medical resident and having a brother who recent started medical school, I can tell you that besides the student debt burden, it makes no difference whether you go public or private.

I have buddies who went to Yale or Harvard Med and I had buddies who went to their State Medical Schools. We were all good students who got into good residencies. The only difference is my Yale buddies can brag about their diploma and the extra $80,000 worth of tuition it cost them.

By: Dave

Dave — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 21:49:02 +0000

I think you hit on a great point – when I was looking at grad schools (MBA), I did a comparison to cost of the school vs. starting salaries. Basically if you weren’t going to a top 10 or 15 school, your starting average salary was $65-75K. It didn’t matter if it was a private or public school, so I chose the school that was most conveneint for me to get to after work. If you can make it into a top level school, you will definitely come out with a much higher starting salary.

One other point – most top level schools (Harvard, Yale) have huge scholarship endowments so lots of people who matriculate there don’t pay anywhere near the “advertized cost” that you see – just another wrench to throw into the works…

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:10:56 +0000

Excellent point, I think the top % of each class is treated differently than the balance of the class. However, I wonder how much that matters after 3 years? 5 years? I bet it’s impossible to gauge though because the top 5% of each class is going to be the best of the best, you can’t go four years and “fake” being good if you truly aren’t good so it’s not like someone will sneak into a firm and end up sucking.

By: Modder

Modder — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:07:29 +0000

Couple of thoughts:

Firms that pay Very High Salaries (i-banks, consulting, PE etc) usually hire from the top 5% of people across the top 20 schools or so.

So if you think you have the chops for a career like that you need to be in the top 20 AND be in the top 5% of your class. If you can’t make that cut – might as well go to a state school.

This is also true for grad school (b-school, law school etc). However, for folks who went to the top 20, the top 80% of the class still make a Very Nice Living that easily pays for the grad school costs. If you can’t go to a top 50 school – might as well not bother spending any serious $. You have to be very lucky to make that money back within a reasonable amount of time. Go to night school and have your employer cover the tuition. Its a “all or nothing” game.

Med school is a different animal – highly regulated / artificial. Jim’s logic above applies nicely.

By: saladdin

saladdin — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 19:07:09 +0000

The job is the key. In my area, someone who graduates from the local community college in 2 years can be a RN making 60k a year.

Here that makes you “rich”.

saladdin

By: Jim

Jim — Mon, 23 Feb 2009 18:56:43 +0000

That is also true, the opportunity cost of that time. You also start getting into demand, there are fewer Dr. because it takes so much more education – most people won’t want to do it because it takes so long (even if they are intellectually capable).