Me again

[cleflink]

American peoples! I need your help!

How long is the average bachelor's degree in America? And would someone in marketing/business need a graduate degree as well? If yes, how long would that be?

I'm trying to figure out how much one's education would cost at an Ivy League school or equivalent.

Thanks!

Comments

[snickfic]

Standard bachelor's degree duration is four years, which is totally reasonable for someone in business. (Some of the techy degrees, like engineering, often take people an extra semester or two.)

I'm not on the business end of things at all, but I wouldn't expect most people to bother with a graduate degree until they have some business experience under their belt, at which point they might go back.

Also, for college expenses, keep in mind that a bright student might be getting a lot of scholarships (especially if they did a lot of activities in high school, like sports and leadership and stuff), and they might also be in for quite a bit of federal financial aid, both loans (to be paid back) and grants (not to be paid back), depending on how much money their parents make.

That was probably a more complicated answer than you wanted. :)

[cleflink.livejournal.com]

This is just the kind of answer I was looking for, thank you!

I need to know this for a throw-away line about how much the character isn't making good use of their x dollar degree (or is it a diploma? Here we distinguish between universities (degree) and colleges (diploma), but this is not the same in America, I don't think?). So I'm more bothered by an average dollar amount than how they paid for it.

I get the impression that no one could afford to go to school in America at all without grants and stuff - one year at Princeton costs more than my undergrad, my post grad diploma AND my Master's degree!

[snickfic]

Definitely a degree - no one here talks much about diplomas. A diploma is just the piece of paper you get at the end.

In that case, yeah, just take a year's tuition of your university of choice and multiply by four. :D

[cleflink.livejournal.com]

Awesome. That was what I was going to do to begin with, but I don't like taking things for granted when it comes to other countries. It's amazing what little things differ from place to place, as well.

Thanks, hon! ^_^

[laurathelurker.livejournal.com]

To add to what snickfic said while an MBA (Masters in Business Administration) is not necessary a lot of people do go on to get them if they are ambitious because it gives them a leg up in a competitive job market. But since you said it is a throwaway line about wasting the money on an education that is not being used if your character only went to college to get their parents of their back or please them or something like that yeah they probably would not bother past a bachelors. And definitely agree about degree not diploma that is used for high school where degree refers to college and for us the term is pretty exchangeable with university. I am not sure why but some places use college and some use university but either can be prestigious. And yes tuition's are ridiculous here especially for Ivy League places but even just regular places have gotten out of control. I have not checked any specific places but just saw on TV last night the average for private universities is almost $24,000, I think Ivies would be around $40,000 but could be more so using $120,000 would probably work as a general rule.

[cleflink.livejournal.com]

Good to know! Thank you!

This degree would have been obtained in the late 90s, so I've found a chart of annual tuition averages and used those numbers, which are lower. University tuition has gone up an awful lot in the past 20 years (it's pretty much doubled!). But you're right that all the Ivies I looked at were somewhere around 35-40k per year. YIKES!

The character actually had a good job and changed careers, so I don't know if they'd have an MBA as well or not. I get the impression, though, that MBAs are more common now than they were 15-20 years ago because the job market wasn't as suck back then.

[laurathelurker.livejournal.com]

Yeah if it was the late 90s an MBA would not be as needed because the job market was better. Like snickfic said they may have gone back after they got a job and had tuition reimbursement to further their career but might not have found it needed before. And yes tuitions are way out pacing rate of inflation and is becoming a big problem in the US.

[cleflink.livejournal.com]

Seriously, my undergrad cost me 20k. Which, granted, is lower than it would have been at some other schools, but my university has a good reputation and this number was pretty competitive at the time. Even now, we're not suffering the same kind of inflation as you seem to be.

Ah, education. *heavy sigh*

[sophie84.livejournal.com]

Ivies cost $30K-$40K/year about a decade ago (when I got out of school)... it's shot up again since then. Usually, once alumnus are out in the world and earning lots of money, they gift money to the college to aid future students. The ivies grant students money (assuming the student applied for a grant) based on family income. Then, in addition to grants, there are subsidized loans (subsidized by the federal government) with low interest rates (2.5%, but the law just changed so it's higher now). Then you can get unsubsidized loans with higher interest rates. If you didn't get the grants and scholarships, you can come out of college owing a LOT of money. But usually if an ivy college wants a particular applicant (you need excellent high school grades, great SAT scores, a good application essay, evidence of community involvement, diversity, etc to be desirable), they make sure that that applicant can afford to come. I ended up paying something like 6K/year, and built up about 20K in loans (mostly subsidized) over four years. I got my masters at a state university which never offered me the possibility of applying for a grant or a subsidized loan, so that required about 6K of unsubsidized loans/year.

I saw mention of college vs university in the conversation above. A college usually gives a degree in specific fields... a university is a collection of colleges. So, if you were to get an MBA, you would be getting it from the business college of a particular university. There are stand-alone colleges... most common are stand-alone are the liberal arts colleges and the technical colleges. So, all universities contain colleges, but not all colleges are part of a university. That's probably why we say you're getting a "college education" or you're "going to college." But you will be understood if you use "university" in the expressions instead, since the distinction isn't terribly important unless you are using the actual name of the school.

[cleflink.livejournal.com]

*nods* I've noticed that there seems to be a lot more funding available for students going to American schools than Canadian. Of course, it's the top students and the athletes who are going to get it, but I can see how that would make it possible to afford a top tier school. The numbers you're talking about after your scholarships are about standard for an undergraduate student without funding in Ontario (plus housing and books and stuff).

Colleges here are generally for trades and non-academic fields, if that's the right way to phrase that. So, my sister got her fine arts diploma from a college and I have a PR diploma from a college, but my Classical History degree comes from a university.

Thank you for the information! It is very helpful and so much more accurate than anything I could have researched by myself, I think! ^_^

[sophie84.livejournal.com]

I thought it was funny that my bachelors degree at the fancy/expensive school cost only a little more than my masters at the local public school. Except that I got worse loans at the latter. Ah, well.

Huh... I think I'd heard mention of the academic/non-academic studies difference between university and college before, but it hadn't quite registered. Interesting. Though I think that might have been in reference to England...

I was showing my Chinese foreign exchange student (I host foreign college students periodically) around the local university campus a week ago. She was shocked the school wasn't surrounded by a wall... She keeps telling me how amazing it is that anyone can wander through the campus.

[cleflink.livejournal.com]

She was shocked the school wasn't surrounded by a wall... She keeps telling me how amazing it is that anyone can wander through the campus.

It's so interesting to see the cultural differences that happen in places where you wouldn't think to look for them. My university campus was contained (not inside a wall, mind, but as a unique location that no one needed to enter unless they were going to the university) so I always find it really jarring to go to a university campus that is integrated into the city, with street lights and business people/etc. traveling through it to get to other places.

In related news, I've come to the conclusion that a university campus is the best place to hide out after you've committed a crime because everyone can look like they belong at a university. :)

[digeediva.livejournal.com]

Hope you don't mind if I toss my 2¢ into the mix.

I have a BBA (Bachelors of Business Administration) and got in the 90's. That being said, most of the folks I graduated with did not go on to get MBA's straight from their undergrads because the job market was fairly good and in some cases, if they worked for their employer for a certain amount of time, the employer would have paid for some, if not all, of their MBA. Those that did go on for it, did so for a better chance to move up into higher positions faster. Just having an MBA without work experience in their chosen field was not a guarantee that they would get a "better position".

As to the degree question, degrees are given for Associate degree and higher. The Associate Degree is given from 2yr community colleges and the like. Bachelors and higher are from universities. The diploma is the "piece of paper".

As to how much, in the late 90's, an MBA from a Private or "big name" public university, was roughly 12-15K (I don't know about Ivy League, but the private university that is near me was at this rate) per year, and an MBA usually took 2 years to complete as a full-time student.

[cleflink.livejournal.com]

I love all you helpful people very much!

*nods* It makes sense that an MBA would want to come after getting work experience (if at all). My brother is in an MBA program that offers an internship program for students right out of their undergraduates; it's one of only a few in the country since most people come back later when they have work experience under their belt.

Based on what you've said, I think I'll probably leave off giving the character an MBA as well; it doesn't seem necessary for their career path.

In Ontario, a college graduate receives a diploma and a uni grad receives a degree. For example, I have a Post-Graduate diploma from college, whereas I have an Undergraduate degree (B.A.) and a Master's degree (M.A.).

[usagimc.livejournal.com]

I can tell you that between 95-97 Yale tuition was approximately 30K a year. As a decent GPA student I received pretty much 15K between scholarships, financial aid, and work study allotments during the first 2 years. Don't really know what price would have been for the last 2 years since I ended up coming home. :)

[cleflink.livejournal.com]

The stats I found (http://www.state.nj.us/highereducation/statistics/TUITweb08.pdf) indicate that Princeton was in the low 20s in the 95-97 (with the number increasing by 1-2k every year), so a little less than Yale, but still in a similar ballpark. Which means that I should be pretty much set!

However much it was, it was probably too much. That seems to be the vibe I'm getting. *grins*

Thank you!