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Grad PLUS loans can be as much as tuition. > The loan limits for Grad PLUS and Parent PLUS Loans also differ from Stafford Loans. There is no annual limit as a

Grad PLUS loans can be as much as tuition. > The loan limits for Grad PLUS and Parent PLUS Loans also differ from Stafford Loans. There is no annual limit as a set dollar amount, but students or parents may not borrow more than the total cost of attendance, less any other financial aid received.

Retric 5y ago
These aren’t available to undergraduates. Such programs can really screw people over financially, but more often it’s a question of lost earnings and interest on initial loans rather than graduate tuition on it’s own.
- mannerheim 5y ago
  Most of these horror stories you hear about students being hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt come from people who have graduate degrees in, for example, film from Columbia University.
  - Retric 5y ago
    Yes, but compound interest from deferred payments make undergrad prices more important than a 2 years masters alone. Let’s assume 40k / year at say 5% interest compounded annually. That’s ~82k for a 2 years masters which is serious money. But tack on a 4 year undergrad at 40k/year with that same 5% interest and your up to ~272k all said which means that 4 year undergrad cost ~190k. Add a gap year and things look even worse. Not that 40k and 5% are norms, but it shows how costly deferring payments is independent of graduate tuition rates.
    - mannerheim 5y ago
      Well, that's why these ultra-expensive universities have very generous financial aid packages for their undergraduate programmes (although presumably a large chunk of this aid also comes from the feds). For example, let's look at Columbia's tuition by family income: $0-30k pays on average $10,245 $30k-48k, $3,409 $48k-75k, $6,864 $75k-110k, $14,421 $110k+, $41,002 https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/columbia-university-2707/paying https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/columbia-university-270... This falls comfortably below a cap of $31k, or even $20k for students with family income below $110k. But these financial aid packages are for their undergraduates; clearly they are not so generous with their graduate students, presumably because there's no cap to how much those students can borrow. Other Ivy League universities are very similar in this respect. It seems clear from the WSJ these massive debts are just the balance that comes from graduate degrees: > Undergraduate students for years have faced ballooning loan balances. But now it is graduate students who are accruing the most onerous debt loads. Unlike undergraduate loans, the federal Grad Plus loan program has no fixed limit on how much grad students can borrow—money that can be used for tuition, fees and living expenses. > It has become the fastest-growing federal student loan program and charged interest rates as high as 7.9% in recent years. > The no-limit loans make master’s degrees a gold mine for universities, which have expanded graduate-school offerings since Congress created Grad Plus in 2005. Graduate students are for the first time on track to have borrowed as much as undergraduates in the 2020-21 academic year, federal loan data show. > “There’s always those 2 a.m. panic attacks where you’re thinking, ‘How the hell am I ever going to pay this off?’ ” said 29-year-old Zack Morrison, of New Jersey, who earned a Master of Fine Arts in film from Columbia in 2018 and praised the quality of the program. His graduate school loan balance now stands at nearly $300,000, including accrued interest. He has been earning between $30,000 and $50,000 a year from work as a Hollywood assistant and such side gigs as commercial video production and photography. > ... > “As a poor kid and a high-school dropout, there was an attraction to getting an Ivy League master’s degree,” said Mr. Clement, 41. He graduated in 2020 from Columbia, borrowing more than $360,000 in federal loans for the degree. He is casting for an independent film, he said. To pay the bills, he teaches film at a community college and runs an antique shop. The infographic here is making it clear that the debt for Patrick Clement is just from Columbia; from his website, it appears he went to the University of Kansas for his Bachelors. https://www.wsj.com/articles/financially-hobbled-for-life-the-elite-masters-degrees-that-dont-pay-off-11625752773 https://www.wsj.com/articles/financially-hobbled-for-life-th...

Retric 5y ago

These aren’t available to undergraduates. Such programs can really screw people over financially, but more often it’s a question of lost earnings and interest on initial loans rather than graduate tuition on it’s own.

mannerheim 5y ago
Most of these horror stories you hear about students being hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt come from people who have graduate degrees in, for example, film from Columbia University.
- Retric 5y ago
  Yes, but compound interest from deferred payments make undergrad prices more important than a 2 years masters alone. Let’s assume 40k / year at say 5% interest compounded annually. That’s ~82k for a 2 years masters which is serious money. But tack on a 4 year undergrad at 40k/year with that same 5% interest and your up to ~272k all said which means that 4 year undergrad cost ~190k. Add a gap year and things look even worse. Not that 40k and 5% are norms, but it shows how costly deferring payments is independent of graduate tuition rates.
  - mannerheim 5y ago
    Well, that's why these ultra-expensive universities have very generous financial aid packages for their undergraduate programmes (although presumably a large chunk of this aid also comes from the feds). For example, let's look at Columbia's tuition by family income: $0-30k pays on average $10,245 $30k-48k, $3,409 $48k-75k, $6,864 $75k-110k, $14,421 $110k+, $41,002 https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/columbia-university-2707/paying https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/columbia-university-270... This falls comfortably below a cap of $31k, or even $20k for students with family income below $110k. But these financial aid packages are for their undergraduates; clearly they are not so generous with their graduate students, presumably because there's no cap to how much those students can borrow. Other Ivy League universities are very similar in this respect. It seems clear from the WSJ these massive debts are just the balance that comes from graduate degrees: > Undergraduate students for years have faced ballooning loan balances. But now it is graduate students who are accruing the most onerous debt loads. Unlike undergraduate loans, the federal Grad Plus loan program has no fixed limit on how much grad students can borrow—money that can be used for tuition, fees and living expenses. > It has become the fastest-growing federal student loan program and charged interest rates as high as 7.9% in recent years. > The no-limit loans make master’s degrees a gold mine for universities, which have expanded graduate-school offerings since Congress created Grad Plus in 2005. Graduate students are for the first time on track to have borrowed as much as undergraduates in the 2020-21 academic year, federal loan data show. > “There’s always those 2 a.m. panic attacks where you’re thinking, ‘How the hell am I ever going to pay this off?’ ” said 29-year-old Zack Morrison, of New Jersey, who earned a Master of Fine Arts in film from Columbia in 2018 and praised the quality of the program. His graduate school loan balance now stands at nearly $300,000, including accrued interest. He has been earning between $30,000 and $50,000 a year from work as a Hollywood assistant and such side gigs as commercial video production and photography. > ... > “As a poor kid and a high-school dropout, there was an attraction to getting an Ivy League master’s degree,” said Mr. Clement, 41. He graduated in 2020 from Columbia, borrowing more than $360,000 in federal loans for the degree. He is casting for an independent film, he said. To pay the bills, he teaches film at a community college and runs an antique shop. The infographic here is making it clear that the debt for Patrick Clement is just from Columbia; from his website, it appears he went to the University of Kansas for his Bachelors. https://www.wsj.com/articles/financially-hobbled-for-life-the-elite-masters-degrees-that-dont-pay-off-11625752773 https://www.wsj.com/articles/financially-hobbled-for-life-th...