Are MFE programs only for rich kids?

[jondan]

Tuition fee is extremely expensive for most MFE programs and unlike other traditional graduate programs, almost all offer no financial aid to qualified but needy applicants. MFE programs are recruiting best of the best brains like any other top PhD or Master programs but those who may do well but are not financially well off will be brutally denied the chance to step foot in this education. While every university claim that education is not for profit, isn't it obvious that MFEs program only entertain the rich kids? And I do not understand the obscene tuition fee of 60K, 80K, is it really that expensive to teach a few courses in Maths and programmings? Why a Master in Mathematics or Computer Science teaching almost the same kind of courses and with the same professors is so much cheaper and offer financial aid too? Sometime it seems like MFE has become a cash cow, if one think about it, this is no different from a job agency which attracting rich kids from asia to pay a helfty fee to place them a job in America. Isn't it a commercialization of education and deviation from the noble purpose of being educators?

 

[Andy Nguyen]

Two points
1) Education is a business
2) I do not agree that MFE applicants are rich. I have seen many applicants apply first and worry about tuition later after they have been admitted. A lot of applicants take out a loan, mortgage their house to pay for the tuition. There isn't many 22 year-old students who have $100K liquid in their bank. Their parents are paying for it.

 

[ferdowsi]

It's a professional degree like an MD, JD, or MBA. Professional degrees are very expensive but in theory they will more than pay for themselves. You don't need to be rich; just willing to go into debt for future earnings.

 

[purplyboy]

Are those asian kids from Asia rich?

 

[kamikade]

Yes and no. There are always rich applicants and normal (or even poor???) applicants. Some international applications can take a loan from their home country banks or they get sponsorship by a company or their government.

 

[aaronhotchner]

I'm $20k in debt from undergrad, have more credit card debt than the balance in my checking account, and an IRA with less than $5,000. My $70k tuition will be fully funded by loans, and I didn't think twice about it.

 

[Andy Nguyen]

I'm $20k in debt from undergrad, have more credit card debt than the balance in my checking account, and an IRA with less than $5,000. My $70k tuition will be fully funded by loans, and I didn't think twice about it.

I'm waiting for GoIllini to stop by and give a long lecture on "living within the means"
https://www.quantnet.com/forum/threads/princeton-cost-of-attendance-analysis.8704/

 

[jondan]

everyone understands risk and return but is this kind of obscene tuition fee enticing more "gambling" in the youth who keep being told that an MFE will promise them a good return and a good career just to end up being jobless after graduation and deeply in debt. If tuition fee is reasonable, it will be a better chance for everyone who love to contribute to this field. What about those 220K finance professional being laid off worldwide last year?

 

[Zeuge]

Why a Master in Mathematics or Computer Science teaching almost the same kind of courses and with the same professors is so much cheaper and offer financial aid too?

Care to point out some of these programs? :D

 

[ferdowsi]

everyone understands risk and return but is this kind of obscene tuition fee enticing more "gambling" in the youth who keep being told that an MFE will promise them a good return and a good career just to end up being jobless after graduation and deeply in debt. If tuition fee is reasonable, it will be a better chance for everyone who love to contribute to this field. What about those 220K finance professional being laid off worldwide last year?

If your goal is to contribute to the field, then you can get a PhD, which will cost a lot less.

 

[alain]

Tuition fee is extremely expensive for most MFE programs and unlike other traditional graduate programs, almost all offer no financial aid to qualified but needy applicants.

AFAIK, master programs of any kind usually don't offer financial aid. That applies to MFE, CS, EE, etc. I don't know how many traditional master programs you know that offer financial aid.

 

[JDawg]

everyone understands risk and return but is this kind of obscene tuition fee enticing more "gambling" in the youth who keep being told that an MFE will promise them a good return and a good career just to end up being jobless after graduation and deeply in debt.

How many people do you know with MFEs from top schools that are jobless? You may not be able to become a quant or front office baller, but you should be able to find a decent job that pays enough to make a living. I'm just a (not rich) undergrad student planning on attending an MFE program next year so enlighten me if I'm making a mistake.

 

[Dismantler]

AFAIK, master programs of any kind usually don't offer financial aid. That applies to MFE, CS, EE, etc. I don't how many traditional master programs you know that offer financial aid.

Most masters programs offer a graduate stipend in the form of payment as a teaching assistance and a tuition waiver (at least the ones in Canada do).

 

[alain]

Most masters programs offer a graduate stipend in the form of payment as a teaching assistance and a tuition waiver (at least the ones in Canada do).

This is very rare in the US. PhD programs get all the money and TA jobs when it comes to stipends.

 

[MiloRambaldi]

Most masters programs offer a graduate stipend in the form of payment as a teaching assistance and a tuition waiver (at least the ones in Canada do).

As far as Canada's biggest university, financial support for graduate students has apparently become a big problem. It was brought to my attention by advertisements in the subway stations.

 

[helpteye]

Tuition fee is extremely expensive for most MFE programs and unlike other traditional graduate programs, almost all offer no financial aid to qualified but needy applicants. MFE programs are recruiting best of the best brains like any other top PhD or Master programs but those who may do well but are not financially well off will be brutally denied the chance to step foot in this education. While every university claim that education is not for profit, isn't it obvious that MFEs program only entertain the rich kids? And I do not understand the obscene tuition fee of 60K, 80K, is it really that expensive to teach a few courses in Maths and programmings? Why a Master in Mathematics or Computer Science teaching almost the same kind of courses and with the same professors is so much cheaper and offer financial aid too? Sometime it seems like MFE has become a cash cow, if one think about it, this is no different from a job agency which attracting rich kids from asia to pay a helfty fee to place them a job in America. Isn't it a commercialization of education and deviation from the noble purpose of being educators?

I think of it as "paying for a job interview, and eventual job". I agree with you fully. This is the reason I am usually impressed with the Baruch program's lower tuition, reasonable job placement. However, I notice their tuition is beginning to make quantum leaps as well. And you are right, they teach the same stuff as in MATH, CS courses and simple finance. But you are paying to get a job.

 

[helpteye]

This is very rare in the US. PhD programs get all the money and TA jobs when it comes to stipends.

I disagree. Masters programs in STEM tend to get at least a tuition waiver. The bottom line is that you do not go into the type of debt that makes you scared of 'pissing off your future boss' because you have a $100K loan to pay.

 

[helpteye]

I'm $20k in debt from undergrad, have more credit card debt than the balance in my checking account, and an IRA with less than $5,000. My $70k tuition will be fully funded by loans, and I didn't think twice about it.

If you get a job that pays $200K after graduation, then your investment is sound. However, if you get a job that pays $80k, then you will have to smile at your boss for a few years to pay your loan off because your will be living in expensive areas of town, so you can not pay off the loan in one year. I do happen to think that in 'best case scenarios' it is a reasonable investment. However, when I look at MIT finance numbers, I realize that that makes no sense. DO the math. If you take a 100K loan, and have to repay with interest, yet you get a job in NYC that pays $90K, but rent is at least $2k, and assuming you may have a family to take care of, you have to pray to not lose your job for at least 5 years. It is no better than an $80K engineering job, where there is no debt to pay.

 

[robopool]

I did my MFE in Switzerland's Ecole Polytechnique Federale de Lausanne for 633 francs a semester, 4 semesters. Yes you read right. 633 x 4. It's a pretty well-respected school in Europe, I had found it through Stanford's List of Comparable Programs.

I lived for 455 francs a month for rent in the student housing dorms and 300 francs per month for food. I didn't eat lobster dinners. I didn't even eat out. I cooked myself and packed lunch. I bought the store brand. I applied aggressively for research assistant jobs and got one. That paid me 30 francs an hour, and I saved it. I lived on a student line of credit with 4.5% interest but I didn't have to use a lot of it.

In short, if you live simply, without all the perks that you can't afford, it is very possible to have an affordable MFE.

 

[jondan]

When I look at the job statistics recently from most top quant programs, the average salary of entry level rarely reach 100K even at the very best institutions. The majority are earning 60-90K, and with normal increments of 5% as I have been told by close friends who work in Wall Street, it is not so fast to reach 120K a year given that you still have the job at that time. Most of these positions are in very expensive location where rent can easily be 2K or more for a tiny studio appt. While the entry level salary for quant analyst is stagnant over the years, fees for MFE programs are rising well above 10% each year, and not to count the amount of admission fee of thousands of applicants that were rejected, many programs do not even bother to send a properly written rejection letter, they just simply send an automatic generic email sometime ridden with typographical errors and that's it, for a fee of $100-240. A program that receives 800 applicants earns nearly 150K in application fee, that is more than a year of salary for an associate professor in a good university. And the job for this 150K compensation is simply to screen out these 800 applicants, what a good job!