Southern California Institute of Architecture (SCI-Arc)
Pratt Institute
University of Southern California (USC)
Tulane University
University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA)
Temple University
University of Oregon
Cranbrook Academy of Art
New York Institute of Technology (NYIT)
Kansas State University
Reminder: DO NOT incur six figures of debt for an architecture degree
Don't incur any debt, if you can.
That would mean rewriting the licensing laws / regulation requirements to have an experienced path to licensure.
Too late.
GO back to the legislation and re-do it or if your licensing board adopts by administrative rules the education and experience requirements then get the licensing board to amend the administrative rule. Only problem is we all know the real intent of these barriers to entry as you know.
sacrilege! as i approach licensure i now think it should be way harder to become licensed.
not that the idp/ are process is too easy, its ridiculous, but i think arch. school is too easy. in my experience the design classes are too important vs everything else. Seems like the only reason people leave arch school is if they want to do something else more, don't like the hours, or some other voluntary reason. no one fails out
Oh, plenty of people fail out. We had something called portfolio review. You stood before a committee and they reviewed your work, in the middle of 3rd year. As Heidi would say, either you're in, or you're AUT! People who were in, went back to studio. Those who were out, were encouraged to pursue an environmental design degree (4 year) and were not permitted to sign up for 5th year thesis studio or classes.
We had a similar process during 4th year to determine whether or not we got into 5th year.
Shuellmi,
Sure but the issue isn't architecture school is easy or hard. There is a lot of other problems but frankly they are just getting ridiculously more expensive because the increase in cost doesn't necessarily go to the professors but insurance companies and the overpaid administration and a tad bit of misuse of funds,
The main issue over the life of an intern and architect is the student loan payments often consumes on the order of 25% of their income. That is bad when your income is typically in the $35K level and that is what alot of people get paid in this profession for 10 years straight before getting any real step up in pay. It might be increased by a few percent each year to adjust for inflation but not much because they don't get a jump from $35K to say $55K in 2-3 years.
In 3 years, they might get up to $41-42K but that is just inflation adjustment on pay. That doesn't make paying off the loans noticeably easier and they are neck deep in these payments.
We have other issues with the education, though.
@shuellmi
Interesting observation. I think a big part of what makes this true is that the drop out rate is very high, so many of the people who might have failed out have left before it was too late. I knew a lot of people who left because it was too much for them, but I also know a number who were horrible students and designers who still managed to graduate (but not with good grades)
It's a mix.
With that said, I think it is fairly easy to do poorly, but like most majors it has become hard to actually fail, because ... well schools don't like paying students to leave. Some schools are different though.
If you believe, as many do, that a period of massive inflation is on the near horizon incurring six figures of debt for school might be a perfectly smart decision as long as you are ahead of the inflation and you aren't paying tuition fees that are also inflated. Paying back debt in inflated dollars against the old dollar value is the stuff dreams are made of.
To Haruki's point....was on this plane once and told this American Chemical Engineer that I had taken out all my loans to travel the world and I felt bad about the debt I would have to repay.....he said - in 20 years your monthly payment will be like paying for a gallon of milk thanks to inflation.
Except student loans incur interest at a rate that far exceeds the rate of inflation.
Financially illiterate architects, ladies and gentlemen!
not if you got loans prior to 2005.
historically illiterate architects, ladies and gentlemen!
also, by the time your house double in value, which it will in 20 years, you can just refinance pay any of the loans off that you may have and cover kids while you're at it.
$1million dollars is standard middle class worth these days, that sounds like a lot, but it's about the same as $100k around 40 years ago....inflation!
This thread is about architects enrolling in school in 2015.
While we're at it, please explain how an architect buried in student debt is going to pay for a house. I'm genuinely curious.
Some of us got post 2005 loans. Not exactly that friendly and you can't just file bankruptcy to skirt it either.
Remember there is that little fact that the 2% is gaining more and more control of all the money there is. This is because our pay stagnates like it has for the past 30 years. Interns were paid $15/hr 30 years ago and they still largely paid about that much. Consider that fact that IDP intern entry level pay will be minimum wage in about 10 years give or take.
Are you getting any improvement in life? Doubt it.
The high school graduate burger flipper with no college will have more money to spend as they please than you would after you spent all those years to get a bachelors and even a masters degree.
How is that a pleasant thought?
Alternative,
The answer is they don't. The great idea is that architects won't own homes. They would just make them out of balsa and basswood for themselves and homes are for the rest.
^I worked in the food industry for a year, it was the most thankless and mind-numbing job. I made less than 1/3 of what I do now, and even with loans it would have been less than half.
Admitedly yes, with huge raises in the minimum wage it seems that the gap will close, but at this point in time I'd much rather be where I am.
Alternative think outside the box. Get a job while in school. Borrow more than you need. Put the extra say 20-30k in stocks or mutual funds or savings if you are more conservative....for at least 1-2 years let it sit. Then go apply for a house loan. Technically you can't do that with federal loans so take a few private ones out.
Just LOL at this "advice." Mutual funds and ETFs-- even the best performing ones-- don't come CLOSE to gains that would match the federal borrowing rate (7.8%). To say nothing about your private loan idea.
Go spew your bs in another thread. Don't try to convince impressionable young people to commit financial suicide.
Regardless of what inflation may do, if you have to borrow money it still makes more sense to get a degree in something with better pay prospects. Whether you pay cash or borrow, it makes no sense to spend six figures to enter a broken profession.
Do not do what olaf just suggested.
If you think 100,000 in debt is bad enough, watch your 20-30K in the stock market turn into 10K.
Then tell us how bad it is.
I agree though, six figures for a March is crazy. It will take most people the rest of their lives in architecture to pay this off. You will be forced to leave architecture at some point, once you realize that you have no social future. (wife, kids, home etc) If these things mean nothing to you, then sure, go all in for the $100,000 plus, otherwise pick another school. any other school that will offer the same or equal education for a lot less.
Just my two cents.
take loans...get degree...leave country.....
^^Olaf
If $1 million is middle class, there is NO middle class anymore.
According to the UN, $2200 puts you in the wealthiest half of the planet.
http://www.un.org/esa/ffd/events/Invitation%20-%20FFDO%20-%20Household%20Wealth.pdf
According to Forbes:
But this comparison of wealth desn’t show us quite what Mr. Goldberg thinks it does. If you’ve no debts and have $10 in your pocket you have more wealth than 25% of Americans. More than that 25% of Americans have collectively that is.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/timworstall/2011/12/14/six-waltons-have-more-wealth-than-the-bottom-30-of-americans/
Exactly jeromsS. And I did exactly what I said but did stocks and made 7-10k in one year while in school (50%). Sure I pay hefty student loans now but I also own a house and some other real estate etc.....not saying it's a great solution but I bought a House and therefore I answered Alternatives question on how to do so with massive loans.
How did you buy the house in the first place... prior career that paid well?
Just pick random stocks and hope that you're lucky gambling debt in the stock market! If the stocks dive, oopsies!
Then, when you've paid off your house that you financed with all of that cash GAMBLING on the market, take out ANOTHER mortgage to pay for your kids' school expenses! No worry that you're on the hook for more loan payments into retirement! Who cares that if you miss a payment, the bank will foreclose on your house?
What matters is that you're CREATIVE!
Bootstraps, kids!
Calm down. Last year my brother wanted to make some money in stocks I advised and we got him to 150% gains in 6 months, then I got busy and he did to and we broke even.............Richard PAY attention read my first post. My career has always been architecture and before that in high school I made at the most $8.50 an hour so I only had enough funds to apply to one university, I believe that qualifies as poor.........and stocks aren't random, they are shares of a company made up of human beings, it's not rocket science.
I take that back I made $6 an hour in high school.......what I did is what the banks did and that's why the market collapsed essentially. Using debt to leverage more debt. Besides the obvious - Donald Trump, there are many fancy pants developers who appear to be loaded but in reality are very CREATIVE when it comes to financing.........look if you expect an architecture to take care of you because you graduated - yes don't incur any debt, this is not for you.
In short - you will not beat the system. You can either deny it altogether and live outside it or you can play it at risk of either major successes or failures. So I am agreeing with Alternatives,don't incur debt if you don't have your game plan down and game face on,especially if you chose Architecture. System = Game.
Olaf, you're an Idiot!
As long as the loans are federal loans, not loans from private lenders, they're eligible for income-based repayment (IBR). So if you're a new grad just starting out at a relatively low salary, your loan payments are capped at 10% of your income (15% for loans taken prior to 2014). They accrue no interest for the first 3 years. After 3 years they do accrue interest, but it does not compound.
When I enrolled in IBR I still usually paid my original loan payment, not the reduced payment I was eligible for through IBR, but when I applied for a mortgage only the lower IBR-determined payment was counted as part of my debt load.
My income has increased steadily every year, I have a house, car, modest investments, all the normal stuff, and the loans will be paid off in the originally anticipated time frame.
Richard according to you you've never had a full time job, never been an employee of an architecture firm, you spent 11 years in community college followed by 3 in a state university but have yet to finish a bachelor degree, you're in your mid thirties and live with your parents, your "building designer" business has had no more than three clients since 2006, and you're so low income that you noted that the fine for not having health insurance doesn't apply to you.
While you're spending your days here cautioning others to stay out of debt and out of architecture school, have you ever done the math on what your failure to launch your adult life has cost you? You've lost 14 years of earning potential. If you'd borrowed 50k 10 to 14 years ago, graduated, moved somewhere with a wider job market, and made even 35k per year for 8 of those years your loans would be close to paid off and you would be an experienced professional.
Olaf,
I understand the stock part. Stock prices is a rollercoaster with the economy. It's a risk but you can mitigate risks with stocks but the key is having some stocks is relatively stable companies but they are often slow growth stock. The capital generating stocks are the fast moving stocks that grows fast but the flip issue is they can bust very quickly so a limited number of those stocks. You buy them at low and sell them while you are ahead. You don't worry about trying to get the most penny out of it. They aren't stocks you are holding loyalty with anyway. You buy it so that you sell it when it is grown some. Then you basically repeat this process to generate wealth.
It means you have to keep active attention on those stocks. The stable stocks you keep for longer term asset equity value. There is ways to make it work out and make a gain but it has to be done with strategy and intent.
Is it foolish to use the stock market? not in and of itself but how you use the stock market can be smart or foolish.
The problem I see if you are just paying off a loan with a loan but you still are in debt.
You are just changing who the bill collector is.
This thread has gotten interesting.
I'll just say that IBR is not codified by statute, but rather is implemented through treasury regulations, and could be modified by another presidential administration.
DO NOT INCUR DEBT WITH THE EXPECTATION THAT THE GOVERNMENT WILL GRANT DEBT RELIEF. IT MIGHT NOT.
Aluminate,
I never said I never had a full-time job. Running a business IS a FULL-TIME job. I run essentially two businesses Aluminate so I don't particular work full-time as an employee because I have A) a building design business (my number of clients are not disclosed by the way) but also B) Software business.
The only time I accrued student loans was the 3 years at UO because of the student housing.
In undergrad studies that is what causes most of the student loans because as you noticed, grants covers about half the costs of attendance and loans covers the other half and housing/food costs are about equal to the attendance. If you didn't notice, when I attended UO, we were well deep into the recession and oh... gee golly.... I'm a building designer... what kind of projects are exempt from licensure.. oh... the projects that suddenly are no longer being funded by the banks at that time. Banks (#1 source for financing the construction or renovation or remodel of homes) stopped issuing loans for several years. Wow! As for Obamacare, wow... I decided to get the damn health insurance. Yes, while I was attending UO, I wasn't getting much money and in fact lost more money than I gained but so be it.
The loans are only in the last 3 years. One reason for operating my business in the house in Astoria is A) cost subsidization, B) It's commercially zoned for business usage.
It is illegal to use an apartment unit for commercial use as it does not allow for such use and you would have to pay for a commercial store front space in addition to the residential space.
After all, with the house being 3 floors, it makes sense. I can use it for commercial use. If I went to Portland for example: I would have to legally shut down both my software business and my building design business because neither of them may legally be ran in an apartment. Granted, I stretched the rules like a pretzel from time to time... you have to be low key about it.
What you don't know nor were they particularly disclosed are prior earnings. I won't disclose the sum of but prior earnings more than 1 year prior to attendance at UO which was when I had financial aid reactivated after not having it after 2003. At the community college, I accumulated $0.00 debt. Classes were paid either out of scholarships or out of pocket or both.
As far as my work with SRG, it was written as a contract commission. As for my number of clients, I have not disclosed them but I can tell you there were more than 3.
For the 3 years at UO, business sucked but go figure.... we were still neck deep in the shittiest recession since before WW II.
As for being an experienced professional comment... comical at that. I was in the software business long before I attended college so in that profession, yeah... I'm a professional there. However, after 2003, I was getting out of the software business after the dotcom bubble crash and other issues at a time when it was incredibly difficult to be an independent / small video game developer. I switched into building design / architecture and there are other factors as well as why I chose architecture then 2008... great recession came and made things difficult. I continued education in historic preservation and other education to develop a diverse skill set. In addition after some years into the recession, I started to revive the software video game development business in tandem with the building design business. The reason is to have additional source of income not hinged in the AEC industry when goes through cycles of boom/busts which the software business is largely immune from because they are capitalized differently from AEC. Sure both industries maybe funded by banks, software development is not funded by the same loan system and their boom / bust cycles are often not in sync with the housing sector.
Are you understanding what I am getting at.
I doubt I would be easily employable by firms because they want those with NAAB accredited degrees. It is hard to say if a firm would hire me due to my largely unconventional path.
Yes, my loans are on IBR or something like it and to an extent deferred with $0 payments for the meantime.
Put it simple: The reason I even have any loans is because the housing cost of attending a university 200 miles away.
Too far to commute daily.
Thanks for the IBR info Alternatives - that was helpful........Richard thank you for repeating everything I said by googling it, that was 1 minute of my life I won't get back......
what game(s) did you publish R?
Richard I spent another 5 minutes looking for WORK you have actually done. You appear to be heavily registered throughout the web, but no actual work posted anywhere. I don't post most of what I do but at least somethings............this appears to be your greatest documented piece of work http://www.oregon.gov/Osbeels/docs/Committees/PPC/Agenda/201313_PPC_Agenda.pdf&ved=0CDkQFjAJ&usg=AFQjCNGX72NW1AbXTjqnxQiKRs3mOIFmZQ
Sorry on phone but if you Google the following "richard w.c balkins software oregon licensure" you will see a letter from Richard to the Oregon STATE BOARD OF EXAMINERS AND ENGINEERS AND surveyors and professional practice agenda meeting from like 2013....
Added to the costs of borrowing for an architectural eduction is the deferred start of a meaningful 401k or other savings program. The student has grossly overpaid for an education, especially for the March programs, and then takes a poorly paid position. There is no way he can repay the education loans, meet other normal life expenses, and have money left over for savings. The amount of money not realized at retirement by not making investments early in his career is staggering.
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&source=web&rct=j&ei=Td0bVfPRLYKhgwSUqILwAg&url=http://www.oregon.gov/Osbeels/docs/Committees/PPC/Agenda/201313_PPC_Agenda.pdf&ved=0CB0QFjAA&usg=AFQjCNGX72NW1AbXTjqnxQiKRs3mOIFmZQ
Sorry about that, but the link should work and now I have 8 copies of that on my phone.................retirement, if you want retirement do not become an architect.
No, if you want retirement do not go into unnecessary debt. In the more easily quantifiable engineering fields no less than six public schools make a widely-regarded USNews top ten list: the University of California, Georgia Tech, University of Illinois, University of Michigan, Purdue, and the University of Texas. The two Ivy League schools that do make the list are toward the bottom. Yet we are to believe that the Ivy schools that offer architectural programs are well-deserving of their high placement and totally justified in impoverishing their students with obscene tuitions. Barnum and Bailey hucksters could take lessons from these people.
state schools still cost a lot, especially if you're not a resident of that state. you can limit the damage by making better decisions, but the only want to not fall behind is to have someone pay your way for you.
the trick is to use your education to make money. the degree isnt worth much but the education is. If you are concerned with a degree as some ticket to sucess then you should not pursue an arch degree...best to stict to law or medicine. The period following graduation is a financial sink hole. to take 100k in debt and then be an "intern" most likely forbearning loans and accumulating more debt...just a dumb arrangement...Its really hard to get ahead while following this path. Only people I know who are able to are ones without families that essentially move from city to city every 6-12 months. The current sytem of licensure sucks.
on the other hand, people with law degrees can become licensed immediatly after taking bar exam and make real money. Same for Med school grads aka Doctors. Architecture licensure is set up for existing architects not for the public good or new graduates. Its a system intentionally designed to create cheap labor and ensure relevance of the old farts who cant operate revit.
jla-x,
The law school biz has cratered. Recent graduates from "prestigious" law schools are walking the street looking for jobs. Law school applications are down, enrollments are down, and qualifications to get admitted have been lessened. Law school faculties are being cut back and law schools are merging and facing going out of business. Law school was the safe "out" for people who found themselves with essentially economically useless undergraduate liberal arts degrees who wanted to enter a well-paying profession. No more. A lot of graduates find themselves with upwards of $200,000 in debt and no legal job. Then they find out that virtually no employer will will hire a lawyer for anything other than legal work for fear of being sued at a later date. To wit, they have spent three years and $200,000 to make themselves less employable than they were before they started law school.
I just completed my exit counseling for my M.Arch, and after seeing the total I'm really glad I decide to stay in state instead of going with the more prestigious universities I was accepted to. Managed to get out of undergrad with just 16k in debt... not so much this time around.
I have a couple lawyers in my family. Thats simply not true. Lawyers make good money especially if they work for themselves which is really easy to do considering the very low barriers to entry. My sister makes a fortune with her firm that she started right out of school. her friend was working at a firm making 90k (3 years out of school) got canned, started working on her own, with little to zero advertisement she made about 200k in first year of being self employed. This is unheard of in architecture. Even if these cases may be rare they are still doable. It is not possible in architecture because the sytem is a burden on grads not empowerment. Then we wonder why there is so little diversity in architecture and why the only young firms are coming from europe where a degree is = to a license. Bjark would not be Bjark if he started here in the US.
Olaf,
What that letter pertains to is simple. OSBEELS was at a point in time looking at licensing of software engineering.
My point wasn't "I am against licensing of software engineering" but I was raising concerns about creating rules and policies without really thinking the stuff out and know what is software engineering and what isn't. All it would have done is push the industry out of the state because most software engineers are not trained in the engineering subjects that you find and test civil, mechanical,structural and those kinds of engineers. This is because software engineers are very different kinds of engineers and current education, experience and testing for engineers that engineers buildings, structures and certain kinds of public utility infrastructures is out of alignment with how most software engineers are educated and experience is in. It would cause more problems than it would have caused and make Oregon even more business unfriendly and they would just take the industry out of their jurisdiction.
Since the majority of software engineering is associated with what amounts to a commodity product that can be developed and disseminated without ever being in Oregon. My point was for them to pause and think things out and get an understanding of what software industry is. Honestly, the engineers on the board are smart people and knowledgeable of their respective field of engineering, it is outside their scope of knowledge and understanding and their regulation if not crafted right would be problematic. I am for licensing requirement if the work involves public health, safety and welfare where a higher standard of care is required but most issues I see that they were talking to me about is fault of P.E.s not supervising and coordinating. Most of those systems... being embedded systems is like a glorified computerized thermostat. There is the computer hardware and its interface to control things like opening a valve or closing it for example. The software engineer's work is in the firmware. They would get information from the computer hardware engineer about the computer and the P.E. The P.E. maybe involved with the general design of the system infrastructure such as the M.E. for the overall mechanical system and attributes. The EE for the electrical power system and maybe one EE is head of the computer hardware engineering. While the software engineer's job is designing, and engineering the software to a set of specifications and other criterion that is directed by the ME/EE and other P.E.s and others. The S.E. then puts his/her team together to create the firmware of software (depends whether it is held on a ROM chip or some other kind of media. Most of these embedded systems use either a ROM or a flash media. Either way, that example would only represent a narrow spectrum of what kind of work software engineers works in. Alot are involved in projects that has nothing to do with work that kind of work or any real health, safety and welfare issues such as office applications, video games, etc.
Olaf, all you had to do it cut the gibberish after the _________________.pdf
after the .pdf (file extension) is gibberish that you could have removed and the link works.
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