Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion more on "Tiger Mom"...

First rule of debt.

Debt that can't be paid back won't be paid back.

You're basically talking about SLABS, which I was interested in (from a bubble perspective) a few years ago, but which died with the bust.

http://blogs.reuters.com/great-debate/2013/03/07/student-loan-bubble-babble/

Second rule of debt: debt that can't be discharged, won't be discharged. Sure, some loans won't generate any income without asset seizures, and some won't even come with assets to seize (damned homeless people), but a significant part of the loan pool will generate income for, basically, eternity. So there's that.

I was actually talking about a classic scenario in which a loan originator keeps the loan on their own books, rather than securitizing, hedging, and debt-swapping. But yes, the parallels to the subprime housing market are significant.

YES.

It's a huge problem. I would never recommend an engineering degree over the corresponding science degree. Never.

The science programs teach broader skills-- and if you choose well, you get the hands-on components that engineering degrees generally deliver.

My DH and I are far more employable than if we had the corresponding engineering degrees. Both of us can (and have) been hired to do engineering jobs... but engineers are generally NOT employable as scientists.

For my money, the best degree is the one that can be turned into the greatest variety of different disciplines, and is RAREST. So if you have a student interested in sociology, chemistry, and math... encourage the math major, or maybe chemistry. Fine to DOUBLE major, certainly.

I also disagree that the world doesn't need "average" scientists.

It most emphatically DOES need them. Not everyone can be a superstar, but those superstars need a lot of able hands and collaborators willing to share the limelight with them. Where do those people come from, hmm? People who win Nobel Prizes and multi-million dollar grants aren't doing it by sitting alone in their offices and thinking really hard.

Re: my logic regarding undergrad institutions and not graduate ones-- this is largely a function of having a child who is fairly reserved and introverted. She would be completely lost at my DH's undergrad institution (one of the jewels of the US system-- but LARGE). I also do NOT want my daughter being taught in small classes run by graduate students and not professors. I want her professors to know who she is, and I want her to develop relationships with them. This is critical for her personally, and it trumps the eventual hypothetical problem of her outstripping the math offered. The other thing that I know (and many parents don't) is that even mostly-undergrad institutions have collaborative possibilities with larger institutions with grad programs, and that technology has made those things even easier. So if she needs to have a mentor outside the institution, she can-- and that person can work in partnership with an on-campus advisor while she works on a 4-6hr independent study elective of her own devising.

Personally, the holy grail there is a program that is TINY, but has a small graduate component at the master's level. That way, pretty high level coursework is available, but the focus is still on the undergrad majors and not on grad students bringing in grant money.

At Harvard there were two students in our department who we identified as superior. One was a girl who later won a MacArthur "genius" grant. She did not join study groups I was a part of, because she was out of our league. Discussing things with us would slow her down. (She was earnest and modest and would never say that, but she rationally chose to work alone.) I think there is a hierarchy in science, and mediocre PhDs like me could best assist the stars by taking a larger teaching load and thus freeing their time. I realized what my status in academia would be and left for greener pastures. In business there is considerable demand for moderately gifted people.

Me, too, both parts. And now I write all day at work.

I got 2 points thrown at me, but then there was this whole arms race discussion on tuition.

First, from engineering I did get a writing job. Though it took a while for me to figure out how to write. I had to write tomes on how an industry was fairing in the world.
And Bostonian, I agree that 7% inflation adjusted might be conservative but tuition increases have been increasing per decade, so I would rather be conservative in college savings account. And there is the impact of foreign universities upping the arms race. There are all these schools in mideast, China and India trying to get on the top 20 list and locals are investing research dollars in them. US schools are going to have a hard time competing with them over the next 10 years, they have very aggressive plans.

And I also am glad that I have the Canadian university option.

According to my earlier quote from the College Board, the gap between college price inflation and general inflation for private schools has been DECREASING over the last few decades (but is still positive).

Although I don't think that you went to law school because your engineering grades were poor because you didn't attend class or actually do the work.

I recently pulled my transcript to figure out whether I could escape into the medical profession. I had forgotten that I received so many C's and D's in my last four semesters.

I'm still toying with that idea.

In all seriousness, isn't a B.S. in Electrical Engineering more marketable than a B.S. in, say, Physics?

It was my general impression that you basically had to get a Ph.D. in the sciences for it to be good for employability.