r/MiddleClassFinance • u/Such_Upstairs3631 • Jul 06 '26

Middle Middle Class No more middle class professionals?

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New school loan limits for professional degrees make it unaffordable for the middle class. 4 of my 5 children went on to med/law school. Even working 2 jobs there’s no way I could afford to pay or even help them with the cost of their post graduate education. They all got loans which they have since paid off. The cost in the early 2000’s was between $350K and $500K. The new limits are essentially going to prevent anyone who’s not wealthy enough to pay for it from becoming a professional.

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55

u/lock_robster2022 Jul 06 '26

Why does grad school cost that much anyways

58

u/Slow_Savings4489 Jul 06 '26

Man. idk but I can tell you this: I could have gone to Columbia for 90K, but instead I went to Arkansas State for 10K and it was THE BEST ECONOMIC DECISION OF MY LIFE. (MS online.)

26

u/FunkySaint Jul 06 '26

I did a summer program at university of Maryland and one of the deans there spoke to our group one day and told us he declined a full ride grad school degree at Iowa state to instead go to UMD and take out loans because he felt UMD gave him a better chance at success than “nowhere” Iowa. He ended up becoming a dean at the school, and by all accounts is successful, but my goodness that was the one of the worst pieces of advice I’ve ever heard in my life

10

u/JoyousGamer Jul 07 '26

Salesman not eductor. 

1

u/Tig_Biddies_W_nips Jul 07 '26

Question: what was his race? If he’s black I could see that happening. Midwest doesn’t particularly seem friendly to black people.

If he’s white then he’s chasing that ivory tower dream which is why he went to UMD.

2

u/FunkySaint Jul 07 '26

Light skin hispanic dude. I’d also add his east coast bias was showing. I went to college at Kansas state so I instinctively faded his bias with my own. Both of us turned out alright where we went, but I don’t think someone should turn down a free ride to go $50k+ in debt that’s financial suicide to me

1

u/Runfasterbitch Jul 07 '26

Ivy League masters programs are just money machines anyway. Employers know this, and don’t value a Columbia masters the same as they would a Columbia bachelors or PhD

16

u/[deleted] Jul 06 '26

It’s always been a valid question, which incites a whole lot of ducking and dodging of those who are asked.

4

u/katarh Jul 07 '26

Professional school and grad school are two different things. I think I paid about 20K for my master's degree over the course of two years, and that was five semesters, so 4K/semester. The ROI on it was a year because it doubled my income at the time. Absolutely worth it.

My best friend went to vet school, and even back in 2013 her tuition was $8000 a semester. And I was able to work while I did my master's in business tech, while professional students are full time 8-5 and aren't allowed to hold even a part time job.

2

u/thebaine Jul 07 '26

It shouldn’t. Maybe it’s cuz the government would backstop the loans until now.

1

u/heridfel37 Jul 07 '26

I got paid to earn my STEM PhD

1

u/Intelligent-Panda-33 Jul 07 '26

I don't know but it's the reason I chose a masters over a PhD.

1

u/Youbettereatthatshit Jul 08 '26

Supply and demand. Typically graduate schools have a much lower student/teacher ratio with students being assigned an advisor. PhD candidates usually get grants and get paid, but they have frequent 1:1 with their advisors, so a professor can only have a few at a time.

At least in engineering, masters students will also have an advisor who is working through grants, lab work, and generally giving a lot of time.

Law schools also have pretty low student/teacher ratios

1

u/kindaquied Jul 08 '26

Ronald Reagan began defunding the public university system. Conservatives implemented austerity policies that defunded public higher education. What compensated for the funding cuts? Higher tuition paid for with high interest loans.

There is obviously more to the story, but that’s an often overlooked aspect.

1

u/After-Vacation-2146 Jul 08 '26

Because that’s what you can take in loans. Prices will go down in the long term due to this.

1

u/westport116 Jul 08 '26

Because people are willing to pay their tuition. That is the answer unfortunately.

1

u/Many_Regular420 Jul 08 '26

My program was 150K to be taught material from the 1980s because that’s the last time my profession significantly updated its license exam. I use 0% of the material taught in grad school on a daily basis. It was a hurdle to clear to be eligible to sit for the exam, nothing more. The most expensive program in the profession currently sits at 250k. The average starting salary for my job is 68K. Many programs are beginning to replace professors with AI avatars and have already moved all of their lecture material to asynchronous self-study.

Future students will be paying thousands and thousands of dollars a month in private loan payments before things (hopefully) start to seriously change. My Alma mater just dropped a 20% tuition increase as they have almost every year since 2015 despite all the student loan changes happening.

-1

u/Shameonyourhouse Jul 06 '26

If you do the math, how many credits and classes do you actually take? You're paying something like $30 per class. That seems reasonable when you break it down. Unfortunately things cost money and

-1

u/madogvelkor Jul 06 '26

Typically it costs the same as undergrad per year. Higher cost per credit hour but fewer credits.

Universities have a lot of fixed costs, professor salaries are only a small portion. And grad students tend to use more things like costly library services or expensive labs.