Salary can be as low as $32,000

http://washingtondc.craigslist.org/mld/egr/2553014450.html

What the last couple of years have thought me is that $32k is quite a fortune if managed well. 65% paycut was a blessing in disguise. Chasing the biggest paycheck is a road to unhappiness. It will fundamentally change you as a human being. All the mindless paper-shuffling and the occasional running-out-the-clock game on projects you don't give a rat's ass about will turn you into a drooling moron. Happened to me. I was so deeply committed to spending the rest of my days as a drooling moron that the financial meltdown came off as a divine intervention. 

Fun in architecture is inversely proportional to financial compensation. That's our dirty little secret. You have to be quite a creative juggler to balance your life if personal happiness is any sort of a priority.

That said, there's money to be made in this profession. Maybe not right now, but in general. It just comes with a price. 

Now, if you throw in a crippling student loan in the mix, need to start a family, vehicle ownership, buying a house, then $32k will last you till March. Eat shit till December. OR take the biggest paycheck offered. If you commit to later option, all your days will be spoken for.

Architectural profession makes zero sense to all but the financially independent or the  deeply frugal. The deeply frugal would never spend $100K+ for essentially a piece of paper (and a drinking problem). 

Transferring to something else is an option. Architecture is NOT the most creative field out there. Transferring to a cheaper school is also smart. 

Another option is to just rake up the loans and not worry about them. Don't have any intent on repaying them. The education bubble is around the corner, and (unlike overpaying for a shitty cardboard house) they can't repossess knowledge. At least not until the latest Apple patent application clears. 

"they can't repossess knowledge" -- no, but since student loans are not dischargable through bankruptcy, "they" can attach your future income, including your social security payments, in order to recover the loan principal and accrued interest.

Don't take out student loans beyond the amount you are confident you can repay.

"Don't take out student loans beyond the amount you are confident you can repay."

With all due respect, that's rotten advice given the state of things. Education is just plain unaffordable these days, and no, it's not just like cutting off your cable TV. You actually benefit from education.

I predict in 3 years student loan default will reach 20% (it was at 12% in 2010 for private institutions, 6.7% in 2006). 50% in 10 years easily. There's nothing to garnish from non-existent wages. If the OP is making a great salary after graduation, then paying off the loan will not be such an issue. Later scenario looks unlikely. Something will have to give.

The OP is best advised to claw his/her way towards ANY useful* degree. Everyone else is doing it, and sometimes minding your own business is is the worst thing to do. Tragedy of the commons etc...  

*offer probably not valid with MArch

Ah, this is helping push me to thinking the M.Eng. or the M.Sci. Info. would be better options. I really do love architecture....but I didn't realize getting in just how bad interns got paid etc. As an engineering I had 22 dollar an hour internships. I had an offer for one at 10 an hour in palm springs with no covering of travel costs (I would have basically lost more money than gained over the course of the summer.)

I honestly feel as a whole Architects need to stand up for themselves. Its a beautiful career but any employer who tries doing unpaid internships should be sent to jail....and I want to slap any student who is willing to take one of them. All it does is keep up the low wages. 

Payscales in the profession are what they are -- they're low and they're not likely to change in the near future. While the owners of firms can make decent livings and some of the bigger firms do pay fairly decent wages, the complaining you hear on Archinect (and just about any other place where architects gather) is based on a heavy dose of reality. Pay in architecture generally sucks - and it gets worse during recessions.

IMHO, accumulating $125k in student loans to obtain an architecture degree is going to be a heavy burden on you for a very long time. I can only speak for myself, but that's not something I would want to carry on my back.

125k in loans for an architecture degree. 32-45k starting salary. So possibly more than half your take home income will be going to paying your loans for the next 10-15 years. Is it worth it?

thats how much you took out for Notre Dame right?

In my opinion starting pay is not so much the current problem as it is unemployment. From the sound of things, the profession shed about 40% of its jobs in the last three years. I would guess that 25% of those people are still looking for a job in architecture. In the meantime, schools are still pumping out graduates. The competition is fierce for what few openings are out there. All that being said, if you are really worried about only making $40k fresh out of school, apply to the large corporate firms. Most will be able to match, if not well exceed, that starting salary, even for an intern. The trick will be finding an opening.

Working at the AIA, I can ell you that it does depend somewhat on location. I cannot remember exact figures, but it seems as though some cities start their interns out at 45, and others closer to 35. The reality is that many people take positions for less. Job are out there for interns that start close to 50, but as mentioned in above posts, they are very competitive. The future will likely change for the architectural community. I do believe that the architecture will change for the better. The question isn't really a matter of "if". It's a matter of "how long." It could be 5,10, or even 20 years before the field really sees the kind of extreme growth that it saw in the early 2000's, but IMO, the field will be both lucrative, and rewarding if one were to look at it over the course of 25+ years. 

The real trap is trying to find a job, and sustaining ones self. This is especially important with loans. Interest will pile up if you are out of work during the recession or making a very low wage. Thus you will face the difficulty that comes with licensure, and ultimately having any autonomy. Autonomy to some degree is correlated with salary in the field of architecture. If you have to work for someone else your whole life, your chance of a very high salary lowers (the kind often associated with successful architects) drastically lowers.

To OP, you probably can do better in another field right now and for the foreseeable future. But keep in mind that "doing better" is relative. Engineering or CS people may be in more secure, higher-paying fields than architects, but at this point that may still mean it is very difficult to get a job with great salary and benefits or to keep the job you find.

Louis Kunt, do yourself a littlfe favor and stop coming on this site to follow me from one thread to the next. If you have nothing to add to the conversation, then don't. I haven't applied to any of the schools you mentioned I've attended, nor your beloved Sci-Arc spaceship program. I did, however, attend two top ten programs with relatively little student loans and am making a fine living as an architect.

Are you upset that you graduated from a space-ship drafting school only to discover you can't find work building spaceships?

do it.  my younger bro just graduated from computer engineering and started out with his first job that pays 80K ><   I'd never even come close with a Masters degree, even after a few years ><

hee hee i got to him

Dont go crazy over those paving patterns b-boy, and loosen up that bowtie eh?
You gotta stop bringing up sci-arc... its your cheap shot

Yeah deffinitely switching, got the word, but ah....there's going to be 20 or so grad students coming out soon with over 100 k in debt.....

This will be your face in 10 years when your brother will be essentially homeless because the computing industry has hit its theoretical physical limit. We can't make electrons spin any faster and no one has figured out artificial intelligence or how to produce robots cheaply.

[Unexplainable double post.]