Average Graduate Indebtness (NY schools VS Other Schools)

[bk9iq]

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According to MSAR, a graduate from Temple University would have about 201K in debts. The Cost of attendance there is about 73K per year (according to MSAR). At the same time, Weil Cornell's students have average indebtedness of 110K even though the estimated cost of attendance is about the same (73K) according to MSAR!
How is that possible? Does Cornell offer more scholarships that make up for that difference or it is just that Cornell students come from more affluent families and they do not take as much loans as Temple students??
I expected the exact opposite since living in NYC is far more expensive than Philly !! However, most NY schools on MSAR show that the average student indebtedness does not exceed the 150K !!
Any ideas how?

 

[Doctor Strange]

Cornell gotz teh monies.

 

[Tots]

According to MSAR, a graduate from Temple University would have about 201K in debts. The Cost of attendance there is about 73K per year (according to MSAR). At the same time, Weil Cornell's students have average indebtedness of 110K even though the estimated cost of attendance is about the same (73K) according to MSAR!
How is that possible? Does Cornell offer more scholarships that make up for that difference or it is just that Cornell students come from more affluent families and they do not take as much loans as Temple students??
I expected the exact opposite since living in NYC is far more expensive than Philly !! However, most NY schools on MSAR show that the average student indebtedness does not exceed the 150K !!
Any ideas how?

Cornell probably has more need and merit aid. Cornell(and MSSM and Columbia?) also has subsidized housing that makes living in NYC not ridiculously terrible. That is my best guess.

 

[nysegop]

Cost of living will be higher in NY

 

[MedPR]

Scholarships brah.

Cost of living will be higher in NY

Yup that explains why the PA school has a higher indebtedness than the NY school..

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[Mako555]

the average level of debt is not really a useful measure for choosing schools. There are just way too many factors that affect it. It all comes down to tuition, scholarships, cost of living, maybe some low-interest loans, etc...

when you have multiple acceptances and financial aid decisions is the only time it is really possible to compare costs directly.

 

[bk9iq]

the average level of debt is not really a useful measure for choosing schools. There are just way too many factors that affect it. It all comes down to tuition, scholarships, cost of living, maybe some low-interest loans, etc...

when you have multiple acceptances and financial aid decisions is the only time it is really possible to compare costs directly.

When do most financial aid decisions come out usually?? In May or later?

 

[galaxyx]

Cornell and a lot of other top private schools have a unit loan concept. Basically, they decide on an amount of debt that's reasonable and any "need" beyond that is provided for with grants/scholarships. This keeps the debt down for people with actual need, but not necessarily for those with parents with money that won't help out.

 

[bk9iq]

Cornell and a lot of other top private schools have a unit loan concept. Basically, they decide on an amount of debt that's reasonable and any "need" beyond that is provided for with grants/scholarships. This keeps the debt down for people with actual need, but not necessarily for those with parents with money that won't help out.

Thanks all

 

[sazerac]

Averages are less useful than medians when analyzing data that is skewed or bimodal like student debt. There are likely a lot of students with zero debt or minimal debt (remember four years ago med students could borrow $8500 per year interest-free) and this affects the averages. It even affects the averages of only the students who carry debt.

Knowing the median student debt of only those students who carry debt, or knowing the average debt of only those students who borrowed more than $68,000 (= $8,500 x 8 years of college) would be a far more useful number.

 

[futureczar]

Averages are less useful than medians when analyzing data that is skewed or bimodal like student debt. There are likely a lot of students with zero debt or minimal debt (remember four years ago med students could borrow $8500 per year interest-free) and this affects the averages. It even affects the averages of only the students who carry debt.

Knowing the median student debt of only those students who carry debt, or knowing the average debt of only those students who borrowed more than $68,000 (= $8,500 x 8 years of college) would be a far more useful number.

I might be mistaken but I think I remember reading that average debt for medical school graduates does not include students who have zero debt.

 

[MedPR]

I might be mistaken but I think I remember reading that average debt for medical school graduates does not include students who have zero debt.

Why wouldn't it?

 

[futureczar]

Why wouldn't it?

Because its an average of debt among those who have taken on debt. Those who havent taken loans arent included in the statistic.

Someone once said it in a thread a few years back. Makes sense but I have no idea if it is true. Then again I feel like the number of people who dont take out loans, especially at schools with COA with 70k, is incredibly low.

 

[Narmerguy]

Because its an average of debt among those who have taken on debt. Those who havent taken loans arent included in the statistic.

Someone once said it in a thread a few years back. Makes sense but I have no idea if it is true. Then again I feel like the number of people who dont take out loans, especially at schools with COA with 70k, is incredibly low.

Not sure I've ever heard that one before. Doesn't mean it's not true, it would certainly be interesting. Even still, it's entirely possible that a lot of students have very low debt because of parents/scholarships, but not necessarily no debt.

 

[d12]

I might be mistaken but I think I remember reading that average debt for medical school graduates does not include students who have zero debt.

Yes, the same was explained to me in several financial aid presentations this year. But again, average indebtedness is not a very meaningfull number because of the subsidized loans that were mentioned previously. Everybody could take out these subsidized loans, regardless of parental income level. Financially speaking, it would be a poor decision to NOT take out the loans, regardless of how wealthy your parents were since the interest rate was 0% during school. It will be very interesting to see how the average indebtedness numbers change in the next couple of years now that subsidized loans have been phased out. Average indebtedness seems like a pretty good way to compare school to school on a relative basis, but I wouldn't look at it as a realistic expectation of what kind of debt you'll be carrying in 4 years.

 

[sazerac]

When I interviewed at Tufts in 2011, they specifically mentioned that they measure average indebtedness by only measuring the indebtedness of those students that actually carry debt. They also said that the average indebtedness was artificially low because of the wealthy students who only borrowed $8,500 a year in interest-free subsidized loans.

Tufts said they expected their average indebtedness to skyrocket over the next four years because the wealthy students would now start borrowing $0 instead.

Therefore, over the next few years, the average debt of graduating medical students is still a bogus number (assuming what you really want to know is how much borrowing there is amongst students who need to borrow for medical school), and the median debt figure is usually unavailable.

Meaningful, comparable numbers won't exist until 2016.

 

[MedPR]

Because its an average of debt among those who have taken on debt. Those who havent taken loans arent included in the statistic.

Someone once said it in a thread a few years back. Makes sense but I have no idea if it is true. Then again I feel like the number of people who dont take out loans, especially at schools with COA with 70k, is incredibly low.

Idk about all that.

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[notbobtrustme]

Because its an average of debt among those who have taken on debt. Those who havent taken loans arent included in the statistic.

Someone once said it in a thread a few years back. Makes sense but I have no idea if it is true. Then again I feel like the number of people who dont take out loans, especially at schools with COA with 70k, is incredibly low.

Pretty sure that's school specific if they want to report those numbers. When you see official data from the AAMC, I am almost 100% positive that it's an average of all students.

 

[somethingdeep]

Pretty sure that's school specific if they want to report those numbers. When you see official data from the AAMC, I am almost 100% positive that it's an average of all students.

IIRC, the director of admissions at Penn told us that those reported numbers do include all students, and even MD/PhDs, who have little/no debt.

 

[d12]

Pretty sure that's school specific if they want to report those numbers. When you see official data from the AAMC, I am almost 100% positive that it's an average of all students.

No, it's definitely the average of those who took out loans. This was told to me at several different financial aid presentations and here is a source from AAMC w/ the heading "Indebted Graduates":

https://www.aamc.org/download/152968/data/debtfactcard.pdf

Also, if you look at US News, the part where they list avg. indebtedness is titled "Average indebtedness of 2010 graduates who incurred medical school debt."

But again, this is all essentially meaningless b/c most people who could foot the entire bill would still take out subsidized loans since it is essentially free money. Those wealthy parents didn't get to be that way by turning down free money! That would significantly skew the data b/c you would have students with average debt loads of ~$34k who would then immediately pay the principal upon graduating before interest would accrue.