Mmmm... Maple Syrup

That makes me feel good

Their numbers for average tuition vs average salary for public vs private are worthless. They should be using average cost adjusted for financial aid. I went to one of those uber expensive private schools but guess what, I didn't have to pay nearly what the listed tuition was.

Closest to reality imo.

Yeah if I'm not mistaken Yale (and most if not all of the rest of the Ivies) covers 100% of need. I know that Penn is completely no-loan so all financial aid is in grants and there are a lot of kids that get 20-30K in grants a semester (not scholarship, just need-based)

We've got a maple syrup production class here at Paul Smith's. It's actually a pretty common source of supplemental income in rural areas in the northeast.

Also, I bet there's a lot of money to be made in the wine industry.

A lot (if not all) of the Ivys are that way. Stanford is also that way. Vandy wasn't technically that way when I went there, but I didn't have any loans and got about $45k worth of grants a year, and now they're 100% no loans. Pretty much every upper tier private school is these days.

Yay overpriced things!

1600 euros a year (+/- 2200$) for a full year of university over here. Rooms are +/- 300 euros a month (420$). And we can get 280 euros per month from the government (for free) if we finish our bachelor in 10 years.
Recent developments are making things a lot worse (3000 euros as a fee for every year you study longer then 4 years).

Are there any university students on massassi? Because how high are the debts and university tuition really?

I am. I'm only gonna be out maybe 20k after 4 years because I kept my GPA high. There's alot of ways to get aid out there if you just do things right. After this May, I'll have a BA and an AA.

I'm an undergrad. My university doesn't offer much in the way of basic funding, but I'm turning a small profit after scholarships.

What sorts of scholarships have you gotten? Likely you qualify for a large amount of merit based scholarships, but I'm always wondering how much can actually be had with the 'scholarships for tall people' or 'scholarships for red heads' variety.

I didn't have perfect grades in high school and I didn't know what I wanted to do in college so there were really no merit-based scholarships available to me. My dad makes plenty of money and my mom got a job once I graduated, so we also make too much to even come close to qualifying for any need based scholarships. My parents, between the two of them, pay for everything out of pocket. I had a job for a while that I used to pay for my living expenses and books, but it affected my school performance and also meant I had to take slightly fewer hours, extending my time in college. I figured this was hurting more than it was helping, so now it's back to being on parental-welfare.

It costs about $2500 a semester for school (in-state), plus books (i assume this is about the same everywhere, I usually end up paying about $400 and get back wildly differing amounts that I won't try to average but which always seem to be under $150 if i even sell any back) plus room and board (I live off campus and have for a couple years).

P.S. I am a white american male so I also had very few options for demographic-type scholarships. To be clear I'm not complaining, I'm sure I could have gotten some merit-based ones if I had tried harder in high school.

I pay £1800 which is probably about $2700 a year right now and that's only because I dropped out of uni the first time round. If I hadn't, it'd be free.

All of my scholarships are for merit. I don't qualify for any others because I'm very white and not a poor.

I attend SIUC, which anybody is free to google; I major in architecture, which results in a considerable amount of cash just for supplies, printing, and laser cutting for models.
I received
-one need-based grant (varies, MAP Grant, tends to disappear occasionally when the Illinois govt. goes stupid as it so frequently does),
-one need-based scholarship($1k / year, 2 years),
-one merit ($500 / semester, 4 years),
-and one scholarship that was for merit but required severe need (covers room and board for 2 years). These completely covered my costs for the first two years... but the need-and-merit 'ship (the highest value) expires end of this semester, so I get to make different living accommodations.

In addition to all this, I have a frakkin' massive set of loans (sub & unsub both) and a pretty good federal work study, which I gain by teaching piano on campus ($30/hour, about 3 1/2 hours per week).


I'm female, white, have one disabled parent, the other single and earning approximately minimum wage. Zero expected family contributions. :-/

Ain't life grand?

Oh wow... I didn't know anyone was in the area. I'll be transferring there soon, after I finish up at a near by community college.

Even if the Ivies cover most of need, do you think that all that money is being used effectively? What is the opportunity cost of devoting all that money to tuition?