Rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 where 1 is a great employee and 10 is "getting licensed and striking out ASAP".

If your answer is less than 9.5, it's not worth it.

If you want to own your own firm than putting a ton of debt upon yourself that will be ~4x your starting salary as soon as you get out of the gates is probably not the best way to go about it.   Your early years working are also pivotal to setting up investments for the long term.  You could always call the school and tell them you'd love to accept but can't without some form of scholarship.  You may get a surprising response...

no.  including cost of living you're looking at over 100k for a degree that will realistically take longer than a decade to pay off.   in an ideal situation you'll be starting at 60k/year pre tax (this is upper 25% for licensure-path design staff)--this looks like ~48-50k post tax, depending on where you live.  paying 20% of your take home to student loans for a decade means that you won't have a down payment for a house, you won't be able to buy into a firm, you won't be able to make any investments....you'll be a wage slave.  

it makes much better financial sense to attend the school that will result in you graduating with the least amount of debt.   sci arc is good but not GSD or Yale good, and even those schools are not worth 100k in debt.

Ain't really worth it, imo.

What's "worth it" to one person might be unthinkable to someone else. We all lead different lives with different circumstances. 

Looking back, it would have been nice to reduce the cost of my education, but it wasn't the end of the world. I graduated with around 100k in debt. I was worried that the payments would cripple me, but they didn't. They have always been manageable, between 550-650 per month, which works well with my salary. Not perfect, but certainly not as bad as some might suggest. The payments haven't stopped me from buying a home, saving for retirement, living in the city I love, having emergency savings accounts, paying for a wedding or travelling. 

Paying as little as you can is always ideal, but if going the state school route doesn't get you excited, then don't exclude your dream school simply because of the cost. It's smart to set limits on what you are comfortable spending, but do it based off of numbers, not a gut feeling. 

I put this out there knowing people are going to criticise and judge me and my decision-making. But at the end of the day, it was the right decision for me. I know things doesn't work out well for everyone that takes on large student loans, but it does make sense for some.

Do you currently have a recognized architecture degree that will allow you to sit for the test?  If yes, then what will you gain from another degree?

Schools are concerned with their yield which is the average real tuition times the number of students. The "real" tuition being the sticker price less the "scholarship" discount. Private schools feel they have to keep the sticker price high to maintain the aura of exclusivity but are now, in this environment, having to discount heavily to actually fill the seats. I would say there is an excellent chance they will offer you a discount if you ask. Personally, I would go to good state school where I qualified for in-state tuition. The above poster will likely, with interest, pay $200,000 before the debt is payed off.

I agree with the other posters that mentioned trying to negotiate with the school. Also, look into the opportunities for graduate assistanships and research fellowships. They tend to be really competitive for a few slots but if you go into it with the goal of networking with professors in the first year / semester you might gain one. They tend to come with a tuition waiver and small stipend. Of course, it's risky.

Well the whole point of me getting an M.Arch was to own my own firm after getting licensed. I don't want to develop someone else's design the rest of my career.

Sounds like you have an attitude problem - therefore do yourself and everyone else a favor and stay in production - learn to be a good workhorse first

whats wrong with that?  most everyone is a good soldier for awhile before going out on their own

Black_Orchid, I'll amend my statement and say that no architecture degree is worth $100K. Happy?

While I don't agree with most of @Black_Orchid, I agree that you should reach out and try to negotiate a better financial package.  The worst thing that'll happen is they say no, and you're back to where you started.

Throwing money an an overpriced school is not an investment, it is throwing money away and putting your financial future at serious risk.

"you are investing in yourself"

Ha!

...and how many thousand or indebted drafters also share credentials with your cherry-picked list?

 Tadao Ando - None

John Pawson - The Architectural Association of London. (for a few months)

FLW - did not complete high school

These are not serious architects?

Well, Tadao is still practicing, I believe, and John Pawson is working on some very high profile buildings in London, much to the dismay of RIBA.

It sounds like you drank the kool-aide and now you , or your spouse, have to cough up the $500 every month. For $6,000 a year you, and your spouse, could visit every noteworthy building on the planet several times over in the time it will take you to pay off the loan. Your student loan albatross is not worth it at all from my perspective.

@Chase  I'd encourage you to apply to the GSD, simply because they can be quite generous with aid and it could very well become a good financial option for you.  Likewise, UCLA's suprastudio is an outstanding program to consider.  Not a knock on SciArc, which is a good program. but the cost/quality equation doesn't make sense, especially when there are similar quality educations to be had for less money.  

there used to be a yearly school admission commiseration thread here.... i got the idea that admission is possible w/o great grades provided you can tell a compelling story with your portfolio/experience.  Admission is still a crap shoot as there just aren't a lot of spots, but some schools are much larger than others.  Harvard is actually a pretty large school, others are tiny in comparison.

Take a class in probability theory and calculate your odds of making it in the majors before you place a bet

The OP apparently already has an architecture degree since he talks about postponing graduate school and working on IDP hours instead.

You still haven't said what the purpose of graduate school is for you.  You really should have a clear idea of the scenario you are shooting for before you begin obsessing about particular schools.  Pick the destination first, and then decide on the airline.

I would also read about the architects who "made it" from Black_Orchid's list and if you do exactly what they did, then you will make it - anything less - forget it -

IDP can only be gained after graduate school for me. You guys have it easy.

Just throwing my two cents out there since I went this route (finished grad school about 4 years ago),

If you have an accredited B. Arch, then you will always, ALWAYS have the option to go back to school at a later date.  Those schools aren't going anywhere.  Besides, you could very easily go back to school and graduate during another recession, and that would seriously derail your career arc.

If I had to do it all over again, I would have:

A) Not graduated in 2008 with a B.Arch.  Pickin's was slim back then.

B) Have worked as long as possible at a firm that paid well (rather than a boutiqe-y little design firm that paid in "experience") and made as much as possible.  At the time, I still needed to learn about how to be a professional more than having "great design mentors."  Sometimes those two go hand in hand.  Sometimes they do not.  Too many people give advice like, "work for someone you admire."  F that.  Work for someone who will appreciate your value (which you have, by the way).  You still need to learn the basics of the profession.  You have sooo much to learn that even a job for a less than stellar designer can give you enough knowledge to build off of.

C) Save. Save. Save. 

D) Live like a college student while still very young and apply for grad schools with a handful of IDP hours already in my pocket and/or full licensure with enough money to seriously reduce the debt burden of school.

E) Then go to grad school, do the academic and emotionally satisfying thesis project that I did and graduate with a manageable (or even non-existent) debt burden.

F) Repeat Step C until I have enough equity and capital to have the financial stability to try something and possibly fail without wiping out my future.

Grad school is the reset button for your career path. If you want to be a principle/own your own firm/[insert career ambition here] then you'll likely want to go the grad school route.  It will connect you to the leaders of the industry with whom you want to align, and force you to come to a greater understanding of what the profession means and your role within it.  It will also allow you the opportunity to update your design muscles and give you some meaningful pages for your portfolio. Grad school makes sense.  6 figures of debt does not.

That money is REAL, and you need to wrap your head around the true cost.  Yes, furthering your education CAN be an investment in yourself.  But don't forget, you will be opting out of the workforce AND accumulating debt in some of your prime working years.  The payoff has to offset the initial setback in order for it to be worth it.  Download an excel spreadsheet to see what you're setting yourself up for.  I use this:

https://valwoodpark.com/Excel/Loan%20Cal_w_extra_pymt.xls

Architecture is not a profession that justifies the steep price tag, in my opinion.  You need to understand your projected starting salary, anticipated yearly raises (hint, always demand a performance review), and then figure out your monthly fixed living expenses (rent, food, electricity, phone, etc).  Get rid of the car if you can live without it.  Get your monthly living expenses down to a science, and put the rest away for your future. 

You can happily pay your $600 a month student loan bill and move on without reconsidering it, but if you truly, TRULY want to own your own firm, then you will need to manage your debts and find a way to come out ahead financially ASAP, because there is no point in going back to school just to play catch-up again for the rest of your years, is there?  That student loan bill is a ball and chain and you need to get it off of your plate as early as possible if you sincerely want to have that freedom.

I think you should head down to UT Austin. Heard they have a great program and pretty clutch food. But Really, you should do what will make you happy in the long run. Its really about you, not about what other people think. As long as you can deliver great work, it doesn't matter where you go. 

chasekinerfreeman, I live and practice in Ontario, Canada. 

Does the Pope shit in the woods?

"As for the poster who said no degree is worth $100k, have you heard of medical school? "

If you really believe that architects and doctors are on equal financial standing, you gotta be super naive, a trust fund baby or both.

I'm always surprised that such creative people (arch students) are so not creative when it comes to business and their overall careers.  Why does everyone limit their potential to the prescribed path?  Architecture school is only worth it if you are capable of applying what you learn to create value professionally, financially, and artistically.  If you are looking for a piece of paper to be your golden ticket you should save your money.  The degree itself really isn't worth all that much.  The knowledge/experience  that you gain could be worthless or valuable depending on how you use it.  

Anything over your first years salary is too much

texas toast, what is clutch food?

"clutch food"

What makes it clutch food? As opposed to this taco purse:

Not worth it,  the fact that you are even considering totally shocks me.