"Recent film program graduates of Columbia University who took out federal student loans had a median debt of $181,000. Yet two years after earning their master’s degrees, half of the borrowers were making less than $30,000 a year....
Lured by the aura of degrees from top-flight institutions, many master’s students at universities across the U.S. took on debt beyond what their pay would support, the Journal analysis of federal data on borrowers found. At Columbia, such students graduated from programs including history, social work and architecture.....
The power of legacy branding lets prestigious universities say, in effect, that their degrees are worth whatever they charge..."
Miles Jaffe
Jul 9, 21 1:36 pm
Columbia's President Lee Bollinger made $2,211,069 in 2017.
RJ87
Jul 9, 21 1:50 pm
I took a tour of Columbia with a professor of mine from undergrad who did his undergrad there. On the subway after the tour I was just making small talk and asked him if he thought it was something worth considering. He made the comment that he's never understood why anyone with an architecture undergrad would go to a school that didn't reward them for it. That comment always resonated with me and as a result I only applied to schools with an accelerated masters program.
I think the only way the longer programs make sense is if you're not paying for them yourself via scholarship.
proto
Jul 9, 21 6:54 pm
This stings as it's true -- I did 3yrs there after a bs(arch). I don't think it's worthless in any way, quite the opposite. But is it worth the premium? [of both tuition & cost of living in nyc as a student?] I go back & forth on that. It's paid off now for me. The education was excellent, as were the people I met. But...as my kid is going into his junior year in HS, we are not encouraging name brand education at all (as I was when I was at that age). He needs to demonstrate excellence & get a full ride if he wants premium branding. Part of this is we just aren't in that income bracket but mostly it's a greater pragmatism & more skeptical eye on what higher ed is worth. We are encouraging a lot of introspection on what the kid wants to get out of higher education.
atelier nobody
Jul 9, 21 1:58 pm
If I had known then what I know now, I would never have taken on any student debt, for any degree, ever.
RJ87
Jul 9, 21 2:02 pm
The fact that the average graduate has 32k in student loans is crazy. The compound interest on that is nuts. Not even mentioning the interest.
natematt
Jul 9, 21 9:36 pm
Most architecture students wish they had 32k in loans....
bofillintheblank
Jul 9, 21 3:07 pm
On a reddit thread about this article there's one GSAAP grad that says they're 350K in the hole making 20k. Can't put a price on that.
lower.case.yao
Jul 9, 21 5:20 pm
The GSAPP facilities are frankly disappointing, and coupled with large class sizes and last year combined with larger msaad classes, makes the situation even worse. People are not getting their money’s worth.
tduds
Jul 9, 21 6:24 pm
Academia is broken.
SneakyPete
Jul 9, 21 6:34 pm
Every time I look at my family's school debt burden I can't come to any other conclusion.
Miles Jaffe
Jul 9, 21 7:29 pm
The entire system is broken, in every aspect. Not just education.
tduds
Jul 9, 21 8:32 pm
Let's not zoom out too far.
sameolddoctor
Jul 10, 21 1:33 am
Not all academia, only the "fancy" schools that do not teach shit but charge an arm and a leg. Architecture as a profession does not need a super expensive degree for some BS avant garde thinking that one would never be able to practice. These dumb schools need to be shuttered.
monosierra
Jul 10, 21 12:50 pm
Its a mix of a professional and a cultural business. Cultural businesses are very much winner takes all, attracting a lot of folks who want a shot at stardom at a huge risk.
square.
Jul 13, 21 4:29 pm
alot this stems from the fact state governments, thanks to federal austerity, have shifted budgets away from higher ed institutions, causing state school tuition to increase. this isn't the sole reason intuitions like columbia are charging so much, but when the "lesser" programs increase the cost of their programs, it only gives these elite intuitions more permission to do the same.
midlander
Jul 10, 21 4:32 am
this was a great read, first for the schadenfreude and second for the part where the university offered to hire students to walk the presidents dogs to help offset their tuition costs. (taken out of context, but whatever...)
tbh i imagine in 20-30 years having a degree from one of these 'prestigious' institutions will be seen as far less valuable, because despite the excellent academics, you have to question the judgement of anyone who would borrow $300,000 for an MFA in film studies or such. The degree will mark you as a sucker.
midlander
Jul 10, 21 4:34 am
missing image above
flatroof
Jul 10, 21 11:56 am
They should go into the film equivalent of retail/TI: pornos.
RJ87
Jul 13, 21 4:10 pm
A lot of money to be made in retail & pornos. My lack of exercise & love of carbs really pigeon holes me into retail though.
trimtab28
Jul 13, 21 7:53 pm
To be fair, the article was primarily talking about arts and humanities grads. Architectural education is costly, and relative to the amount of work you put in in school and the office it doesn't pay. But most of us when I graduated were starting around the low to mid 60s, which tbh is a pretty standard professional salary. And knowing what people in other professions make- I do have friends with law school debt capping out at $70k/year after graduation because they work for small offices or government since the field is oversaturated.
Higher ed in general is a rip off though, and it is sinful what these places will charge for any degree. And architecture salaries in general should reflect the hours we put in and nature of the work, but that's a separate discussion from schooling. I'd just say avoid taking out more than $40k for the degree and ignore the bells and whistles, since a degree from a fancy school only gets you so much. The people in the WSJ article just seemed dumb and extreme cases. If you limit your debt and don't work at a starchitect slave mill, architecture actually is a pretty comfortable profession financially. Certainly don't envy most people, barring maybe the rich kids who went to Ivies and got jobs in finance. But then again, none of them really seem to like their jobs.
RJ87
Jul 14, 21 10:19 am
When you consider the fact that most other professions, like law in your example, are licensed when they hit the profession it makes sense that they make a bit more starting out. There's a barrier to entry that architecture doesn't enforce by allowing unlicensed folks to remain in the profession. Thus lowering prices & wages.
randomised
Jul 14, 21 2:19 am
it’s more and more about skills and less and less about stupid pieces of paper...go where you can learn the skills that you think you need to do what you love, even if that means taking a Gerhy YouTube class or EdX whatever...I would consider people hugely in debt for an architecture degree as not the best or brightest to begin with, it would work against them in my book even if they know Deleuze front to back (if he’s still a thing)
Today in the Wall Street Journal.
"Recent film program graduates of Columbia University who took out federal student loans had a median debt of $181,000. Yet two years after earning their master’s degrees, half of the borrowers were making less than $30,000 a year....
Lured by the aura of degrees from top-flight institutions, many master’s students at universities across the U.S. took on debt beyond what their pay would support, the Journal analysis of federal data on borrowers found. At Columbia, such students graduated from programs including history, social work and architecture.....
The power of legacy branding lets prestigious universities say, in effect, that their degrees are worth whatever they charge..."
Columbia's President Lee Bollinger made $2,211,069 in 2017.
I took a tour of Columbia with a professor of mine from undergrad who did his undergrad there. On the subway after the tour I was just making small talk and asked him if he thought it was something worth considering. He made the comment that he's never understood why anyone with an architecture undergrad would go to a school that didn't reward them for it. That comment always resonated with me and as a result I only applied to schools with an accelerated masters program.
I think the only way the longer programs make sense is if you're not paying for them yourself via scholarship.
This stings as it's true -- I did 3yrs there after a bs(arch). I don't think it's worthless in any way, quite the opposite. But is it worth the premium? [of both tuition & cost of living in nyc as a student?] I go back & forth on that. It's paid off now for me. The education was excellent, as were the people I met. But...as my kid is going into his junior year in HS, we are not encouraging name brand education at all (as I was when I was at that age). He needs to demonstrate excellence & get a full ride if he wants premium branding. Part of this is we just aren't in that income bracket but mostly it's a greater pragmatism & more skeptical eye on what higher ed is worth. We are encouraging a lot of introspection on what the kid wants to get out of higher education.
If I had known then what I know now, I would never have taken on any student debt, for any degree, ever.
The fact that the average graduate has 32k in student loans is crazy. The compound interest on that is nuts. Not even mentioning the interest.
Most architecture students wish they had 32k in loans....
On a reddit thread about this article there's one GSAAP grad that says they're 350K in the hole making 20k. Can't put a price on that.
The GSAPP facilities are frankly disappointing, and coupled with large class sizes and last year combined with larger msaad classes, makes the situation even worse. People are not getting their money’s worth.
Academia is broken.
Every time I look at my family's school debt burden I can't come to any other conclusion.
The entire system is broken, in every aspect. Not just education.
Let's not zoom out too far.
Not all academia, only the "fancy" schools that do not teach shit but charge an arm and a leg. Architecture as a profession does not need a super expensive degree for some BS avant garde thinking that one would never be able to practice. These dumb schools need to be shuttered.
Its a mix of a professional and a cultural business. Cultural businesses are very much winner takes all, attracting a lot of folks who want a shot at stardom at a huge risk.
alot this stems from the fact state governments, thanks to federal austerity, have shifted budgets away from higher ed institutions, causing state school tuition to increase. this isn't the sole reason intuitions like columbia are charging so much, but when the "lesser" programs increase the cost of their programs, it only gives these elite intuitions more permission to do the same.
this was a great read, first for the schadenfreude and second for the part where the university offered to hire students to walk the presidents dogs to help offset their tuition costs. (taken out of context, but whatever...)
tbh i imagine in 20-30 years having a degree from one of these 'prestigious' institutions will be seen as far less valuable, because despite the excellent academics, you have to question the judgement of anyone who would borrow $300,000 for an MFA in film studies or such. The degree will mark you as a sucker.
missing image above
They should go into the film equivalent of retail/TI: pornos.
A lot of money to be made in retail & pornos. My lack of exercise & love of carbs really pigeon holes me into retail though.
To be fair, the article was primarily talking about arts and humanities grads. Architectural education is costly, and relative to the amount of work you put in in school and the office it doesn't pay. But most of us when I graduated were starting around the low to mid 60s, which tbh is a pretty standard professional salary. And knowing what people in other professions make- I do have friends with law school debt capping out at $70k/year after graduation because they work for small offices or government since the field is oversaturated.
Higher ed in general is a rip off though, and it is sinful what these places will charge for any degree. And architecture salaries in general should reflect the hours we put in and nature of the work, but that's a separate discussion from schooling. I'd just say avoid taking out more than $40k for the degree and ignore the bells and whistles, since a degree from a fancy school only gets you so much. The people in the WSJ article just seemed dumb and extreme cases. If you limit your debt and don't work at a starchitect slave mill, architecture actually is a pretty comfortable profession financially. Certainly don't envy most people, barring maybe the rich kids who went to Ivies and got jobs in finance. But then again, none of them really seem to like their jobs.
When you consider the fact that most other professions, like law in your example, are licensed when they hit the profession it makes sense that they make a bit more starting out. There's a barrier to entry that architecture doesn't enforce by allowing unlicensed folks to remain in the profession. Thus lowering prices & wages.
it’s more and more about skills and less and less about stupid pieces of paper...go where you can learn the skills that you think you need to do what you love, even if that means taking a Gerhy YouTube class or EdX whatever...I would consider people hugely in debt for an architecture degree as not the best or brightest to begin with, it would work against them in my book even if they know Deleuze front to back (if he’s still a thing)