Comments on No Debt MBA: But you're going to make tons of money, quit worry...

Everyday Tips - You're hitting on a poi...

2011-06-16T12:09:48.278-07:00

Everyday Tips - You're hitting on a point that I think is really key - school choice is super important. It's the biggest factor in cost, the biggest factor, with degree choice, in ROI, and it's all under your control.

Congrats on paying your own way for both degrees. It's not easy.

Harvard actually publishes data on salary vs location. Go to their salary data page (http://www.hbs.edu/recruiting/mba/data-and-statistics/employment-statistics.html) and scroll down to "Class of 2010 Career Salary Statistics by Location".

"Other South" looks like the lowest median salary in the US at $100k while "Other New England" is the highest at $122k. So the salaries are actually probably very tightly clustered regardless of location which I find interesting. Maybe I should be shooting for a low cost of living area out of my MBA. As long as it's not India - the median there is $63,000. No idea how you make the MBA pay off that way.

I think student loan debt is a big bummer. I paid ...

2011-06-16T10:34:21.743-07:00

I think student loan debt is a big bummer. I paid for my undergrad and MBA all on my own and it took awhile to get rid of the debt when starting out.

I wonder if the high average salary of those Harvard grads is also because many of them settle in big, expensive cities like New York. (Boston isn't cheap either.)

I would never take on extra debt today for the possibility of future riches tomorrow. Not to say borrowing for education is a bad thing, I did it. However, I went to a school that was reasonably priced and I had much less debt than if I had gone to a private school.

I think you are wise to want to minimize or totall...

2011-06-15T18:28:20.134-07:00

I think you are wise to want to minimize or totally graduate debt free!

As finance folk, we know that debt sucks and paying debt instead of investing is no way to because wealthy...

Besides times are tough and unemployment is still higher than normal...

I think student loan debt is really one of the wor...

2011-06-15T14:18:02.374-07:00

I think student loan debt is really one of the worst kinds of debt possible, since you can never ditch it. Also, we give really young adults a ton of money with the expectation they will be able to repay it. How does this make sense?

Money Beagle - I think you're right tha...

2011-06-15T13:45:58.828-07:00

Money Beagle - I think you're right that there is a threshold where the debt to income ratio becomes unpalatable. Personally I think mine is much lower than 50%, but 50% is a point at which it seems to become significantly risky in my mind.

JT and Money in Your 20s - You guys are hitting on two of the major reasons why I'm trying to avoid taking on student loans. In the end it's all about having options and flexibility in life, right?

Even if you are making $100,000+ after b-school ha...

2011-06-15T13:25:21.732-07:00

Even if you are making $100,000+ after b-school having student loans takes a certain amount of freedom from you.

There's no guarantee you'll be passionate or enjoy your new post-MBA role but you'll have a lot of pressure to stay in it for the $$ regardless if you have a heavy debt load.

Being debt free or as close to it as possible allows you to be more flexible and free with life/career decisions.

I tend to error on the side of favoring certain ty...

2011-06-15T10:43:29.865-07:00

I tend to error on the side of favoring certain types of debt. But student loan debt, regardless of how small, low-interest, and tax-advantaged, is still debt that you can never charge off.

I like debts that leave some flexibility. Student loans are no such loans.

I just read somewhere (I don't think it was he...

2011-06-15T06:53:45.638-07:00

I just read somewhere (I don't think it was here) that a reasonable number for total student loans is half of what you think you can make in your first year after graduating, so if you think you can make $60,000, you could 'handle' $30,000 worth of loans. It seems when you looked at numbers that would start making you nervous, the percentages were above that line, so maybe there's something to that.