Why Americans take huge loans to study at a prestigious university: a teacher's opinion

Why Americans, who can study for free at a less popular university, are willing to take huge loans to get into a prestigious university, says the author of the blog "America through the eyes of a teacher" on Yandex Zen.

On the one hand, you can study for a bachelor's degree for free, but at an unknown and not prestigious university, and on the other, you would, of course, want to study at a prestigious university, but will his parents be able to pull it off? The solution to this question is not at all unambiguous, as it might seem at first glance: study where it is free. Not really ...

Alumni relations

Last spring, when our 12th graders had to make the final decision about which university to go to, one of my students shared his thoughts.

The Indiana State (i.e. state-funded) Institute accepted him with almost a full scholarship, and Cornell accepted it too, but with such little financial help that in four years of study, my student's debt would have reached $ 150.

There is such a thing as alumni relations, which are dealt with by entire departments in American universities. I remember how in 1996, as a freshman, I returned to my school for the alumni meeting in February, right after the session. Almost all of my former classmates came to this meeting. On this connection, our school with the graduates ended. We met ourselves later, but without the participation of the school. It's the same in institutions.

Connecting universities with alumni in the United States. What for?

In the US, on the other hand, I regularly receive news from all three universities in which I once studied. The most organized in this regard is the one where I studied for a bachelor's degree. Every five years I am invited to an alumni meeting to communicate with my classmates and those alumni who graduated from an educational institution 10 years ago, 15, 20 and so on at intervals of five years, right up to the 1940s, if there is any one graduate of that year and he is able to come to our meeting. Grandfathers and grandmothers may be 100 years old already, but they are just happy to meet graduates.

At first I thought it was all just sentimentality, but in fact - not at all. Graduates help their institute financially. Even I, working as a simple school teacher, cannot help but respond to requests for help.

In 2013, my wife and I drove to my 5th graduation anniversary, where we attended a collection of all issues at intervals of 1973 years and heard how the issue, it seems, 10, grossed $ XNUMX million in one year alone.

On the subject: Personal experience: I entered one of the best universities in the USA and studied for free

However, financial assistance is not the most important thing in relations with graduates. They can always ignore requests for help, they say, I finished my studies and my ties with you also ended. How can a university be made so that graduates help more actively?

Here's how. The alumni network is exactly what my student was thinking of a student loan to study at Cornell University for. Private universities have a much stronger alumni network than public universities and are actually worth a lot.

Alumni network and employment

Here's one example from my personal experience. When I was in graduate school, my first year passed under the banner of corporate finance and investment banking. It was 2006, and it seemed that all my acquaintances were either already working or were going to work for some bank or consulting firm. And I was carried along the same current. The first (of two) year of study was coming to an end, and I started looking for a bank or company where I could get an internship in the summer of 2007. I passed the first round of interviews with Deutsche Bank, but I failed the second round. And then I remembered ...

... about the network of my college graduates (that is, the university in American style). Anyone from the street will not go there. You need a password that only the graduate has. I enter the password and start searching for graduates by field of activity. In my case, finance and banking. A lot of people appear who occupy different positions in their companies, from ordinary employees to managers, and we are all united by the fact that we studied in the same institution, we love and remember it, and are ready to help each other.

Whoever I write, regardless of the situation of a particular person, the answer is always overwhelming, as if we are real relatives who have received a long-awaited opportunity to help each other. Most likely, a sense of exclusivity plays a huge role here. My university accepts about 15 percent of those who apply there, so the cohesion of those few enrolled is increasing.

On the subject: Personal experience: how to enter a master's or graduate school in the USA

So, with the help of a network of graduates from my university, I got an internship at a large Russian oil company, where one of my classmates had been working for several years. The work experience was simply amazing, but the urge to teach overpowered, and for the entire second (and final) year of my master's degree, I already studied only history and philosophy with an eye to working as a teacher in private schools. And again, not without the help of the alumni network.

Knowing how many doors have opened for me thanks to graduates like me, I honestly want to help my university with at least something, so that graduates will continue to help each other. Therefore, when I hear about the astronomical numbers of student loans, I always assume that this is an investment in the future, in which it will be much easier to find a job and build a good career. Of course, this is if you are smart about choosing an educational institution.

But there are other reasons that make school graduates go into debt for tens and hundreds of thousands of dollars just to get into a particular university. First, socialization, that is, the ability to hang out. Secondly, conformism: everyone went to university, and I went there too. I'm afraid that most of the current student loans went just for these needs, after which you will have to pay off, most likely, until the end of your life.

I almost forgot: thirdly, they go after knowledge, but, you yourself know, knowledge can also be obtained from books, the Internet or from communicating with smart people.

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