How does one pay for a MFE?

[Saidice]

So the more I've been reading, the more I wonder; how does one pay for a MFE?

President Obama has claimed to have been an ally to college students, but with the absence of federally subsidized loans for graduate students, I don't see it!

Does one take out private loans? I know the federal + loan is only like 20k, and @ a school like UCB the degree is like 100k!

Any input is appreciated

 

[jondan]

majority of MFE students are international students and they may come from rich families in China/India, they usually have sponsorship from parents, other may have work for a few years and save up the fee, fresh graduate local students can get study loan from banks

 

[Andy Nguyen]

"Rich students from China" is not the whole picture. A lot of family take out their life saving or take huge loan to send their child to America to study. This is a sad reminder of this reality.
It costs relatively little to apply to many programs and worry about the tuition later when you get admitted. Schools do not require proof of financial statements for applications, only when you get admitted.
Financing MFE degree is more of a domestic students' dilemma than oversea students who can pay full price.

 

[Jose T]

Unsubsidized loans from the federal government cover the entire cost of attendance (for in-state students) at my state university (Rutgers) and I understand it is the same at some other public universities.

Note that unsubsidized means that the interest on your loans is not paid for you while you are a student. While this is certainly nice, you're not likely to be spending a whole lot of years in a mfe and the loans from the federal government have favorable interest rates (and fixed rates).

If you have confidence that the degree is going to help you earn you a reasonable wage (i.e. not necessarily a Wall Street wage), you should be able to make the minimum payments against your loans (and you may not want to make more than minimum payments because the terms of a federal loan are generally more favorable than any other debt you might have, e.g. credit card debt or house debt, and/or you may be able to reasonably expect to make an annualized return from investing in equities that exceeds your fixed income interest rate).

Pricey programs would require at least me personally to take private loans (e.g. Sallie Mae) to attend. I didn't end up doing this, though there's evidence that the prestige is a good investment.

From a point of view of social equity, I'm not a fan of the President, but the federal government doesn't have enough money to send everyone even to an undergraduate education and there's evidence that its pushing of loans has created buyers remorse among many. It's questionable whether it would be sensible for the government therefore to subsidize the education of grad students who don't tend to be coming from the ranks of the poor but rather the middle class or upper middle class.

 

[Saidice]

Great post. Thanks so much!

 

[JDawg]

Graduate PLUS student loans aren't capped

 

[Jose T]

No problem.

I should have wrote that the federal loans would cover the entire cost of *tuition*, not the cost of attendance.

 

[gradaplicant]

To speak for myself I am going to the M.Fin at MIT-Sloan this coming summer. The MIT Federal Credit Union is a bank affiliated with MIT and will finance studies of up to 170.000 USD. The interest on this private loan will be around 6-7%.

 

[gradaplicant]

To speak for myself I am going to the M.Fin at MIT-Sloan this coming summer. The MIT Federal Credit Union is a bank affiliated with MIT and will finance studies of up to 170.000 USD. The interest on this private loan will be around 6-7%.

Ken, what do you disagree with?