NYU's Eggsitential Crisis

Early this week the Wall Street Journal "exposed" New York University as being THE WORST college when it comes to financial aid generosity.

The piece painted a pretty bleak picture, pointing out that, for a college with an endowment north of 1 Billion, NYU ranked 1st in the ignominious category of parent loan (PLUS) debt per family and other related areas.

The article featured a grad student, a woman, who sold her eggs in order to pay for tuition.  Twice!

(No word on whether the eggs would receive favorable legacy status once fertilized into college applicants in the indeterminate future.)

We in the college advising biz have known NYU to be, again, THE WORST, stingiest college known to mankind for years, so this article was less than a surprise.

I've witnessed parents and kids tempted -- and sometime succumbing to that temptation despite my best efforts -- to blow 80K per year for a theater education at NYU's Tisch School of the Arts.

Three of my four kiddos did or do theater...as a hobby.

They're reasonably talented, perhaps half as much as Pearl and I think.  However, as their voice teacher Janice said, "If you get into Tisch I can guarantee you ANY waitressing job in the city!"

(Her own daughter went there by the way.)

I'm singling out Tisch, but the article was more expansive.  Yet, it missed a key point:

Who Held a Gun to These Kids' Heads and Forced Them to Go to NYU?

Nobody can MAKE you attend a specific college. That's on you.

And us, as parents.  Is it too much to ask of mom or dad to put their collective feet down and tell their kids what they need - not "want" -- to hear?

How about, "'Don't rack up 150-250K in student loans that you'll never dig yourself out of!"

Or, "I will send you anywhere you want even if I have to rack up 250K in debt and never retire."

Paying full boat at any college isn't an obligation, it's a choice. 

Choose wisely.  Please.