Is Stevens Finance worth it for 6-figure debt - Help this mom of a high schooler please!!!
Hi Everyone,
I know I'm not your usual post here as a mom of a high schooler wanting to go into Sales / Trading on Wall Street - but please, need your help.
My son was just accepted Early Decision to Stevens undergrad to the finance program. Got no aid @85k a year. We can cover $50k/year with what we've saved and can pay out of pocket yearly.
Our son would likely have to take out 35k loan annually to cover the balance -which is $140k over 4 years, not including interest. My husband and I advise him not to do this - we are professionals who grew up blue collar and spent many years hustling, saving and paying for MBA/Law degrees to have a better situation than our parents.
IS THIS amount worth it for a Finance major with concentration in Quant for Sales/Trading coming out of Stevens???
His other option is Pace - we'd have to pay nothing more than what we've already saved with the aid he got. Seton Hall is also an option although would still be paying quite a bit.
Awaiting Sacred Heart, Quinnapiac, Fairfield, URI, UDel, Marist, U of San Diego. Again, we know these are not Target schools, but is Stevens worth this kind of debt? Does he really have a better chance at a future on Wall Street?
All comments and help are welcome. Your honestly is appreciated. THANK YOU!!!
Don’t do this. I work in the industry and honestly didn’t even know what Stevens was. Unless they are able to get into a target school for quant, I.e. MIT, CMU, Harvard, Princeton et al. then there is no reason to take on that kind of debt. Send them to the best school you can reasonably afford and have them study computer science/math/stats. Finance as a major is a total waste of time and severely limits your options if they decide they don’t like it. If they are interested in the quantity side of sales/trading/quant trading then they are infinitely better off studying any of the above majors or even better a combination thereof.
Thank you so much for taking the time to respond! :)
Reality check-the loan is your's, not your son's, as undergrads can't get loans that high. No one should be taking on debt to attend Steven's.
Also, it would be in your interest to encourage further career exploration. A very small number of math superstars from elite schools become quants. There are other jobs for the rest of us.
Thank you!
no it is not worth it. better off going to state school (for example Rutgers)
I'm sensing a theme here in the responses...thank you and others for commenting!
Rutgers Business School -> road to wall street program and LIBOR. Tuition is $13,000 a year instate.
It is not worth it to go to stevens, they have a quant finance program but it does not place particularly well into quant or sales and trading. I would recommend your son go to either rutgers (Major in some combo of Math/CS/Finance), or Baruch College (They have a major called financial engineering). He will have as good a shot for much less of the price. You could also consider sending him to a cheap school where he works his butt off and then transfer to great target school for finance after one or two years... reduces the cost load by a handsome amount.
Thank you so much for this information, I appreciate all of you for taking time out of your busy days/eves to respond to me.
People speak highly of Stevens in the real world but I can’t think of anyone I’ve ran into in Wall Street that comes from there. I’ve met plenty of sharp hustlers from Fordham, Baruch, Rutgers along the way though. IMO, if he still wants to work on WS in 2-4 years then proximity to nyc and the right mindset is far more important than any perceived premium of Steven’s over say, a Baruch or others. I can’t speak to Paces placement. The other schools u mentioned are fine schools and I imagine have a better “college experience” than Pace. Also something important to consider alongside cost
Stevens campus has an incredible view of Manhattan. And I'm certain they use that view as a marketing tool to trick people's minds into associating the school with their Wall Street career goals.
Don't fall for it. It won't help. From a non-target, what he needs is grades and hustle. And if he falls short the first time, he'll benefit from having less debt because it will give him the flexibility to accept XYZ job that maybe provides a better stepping stone to the street than having to settle for the highest salary at expense of everything else.
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