Since you wanted a response
Hmm I actually thought there wasn't really a need for a response. I just thought it was a well-written article about scholarships that showed a side that the government never tells you about.
So my two cents' worth:
I feel that 18 (or 19) is way too early to decide what to do for the next 10 years of your life. Then again, I'm not too sure that most people know what to do with their lives even after graduation. If you have a degree in medicine or law then it's a pretty obvious choice and many of the many who go into consulting/banking do so because it pays well, it's prestigious and it's challenging (and many of their peers are aiming for a job in those industries. For example, I read somewhere that 20 - 40 % of Harvard grads go into finance). Ironically, those are the very same incentives that scholarship boards dangle in front of potential recipients except that they don't have the same resources and the prestige somewhat dissipates when compared to the titans of Wall Street.
One of the main reasons I took up a scholarship was because I didn't want to burden my parents with the cost of footing an overseas education. That hasn't changed. I'm glad I'm not graduating with a mountain of debt like some people I know. While taking up a scholarship may have meant forsaking many other opportunities, in this economic climate, they really aren't that many opportunities left to forsake so let's just say I'm not complaining too much about my position right now.
Incidentally, a junior of mine once e-mailed me about the very same scholarship I'm on. I told him the pros and cons, much like what the author has written. He still took it up.
Let's get a little geeky here. I think scholarship holders suffer from what, in economics, may be described as a time inconsistency problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_inconsistency). What may seem like the most optimal solution does not remain so as time passes. On a related note, much of the incentive of being a scholarship holder (free education, pretty comfortable allowance) is front-loaded so once your 4 years of college are over, you're left staring at a relatively long bond period and no one likes the thought of being unable to quit a job, whatever the job is.
So my two cents' worth:
I feel that 18 (or 19) is way too early to decide what to do for the next 10 years of your life. Then again, I'm not too sure that most people know what to do with their lives even after graduation. If you have a degree in medicine or law then it's a pretty obvious choice and many of the many who go into consulting/banking do so because it pays well, it's prestigious and it's challenging (and many of their peers are aiming for a job in those industries. For example, I read somewhere that 20 - 40 % of Harvard grads go into finance). Ironically, those are the very same incentives that scholarship boards dangle in front of potential recipients except that they don't have the same resources and the prestige somewhat dissipates when compared to the titans of Wall Street.
One of the main reasons I took up a scholarship was because I didn't want to burden my parents with the cost of footing an overseas education. That hasn't changed. I'm glad I'm not graduating with a mountain of debt like some people I know. While taking up a scholarship may have meant forsaking many other opportunities, in this economic climate, they really aren't that many opportunities left to forsake so let's just say I'm not complaining too much about my position right now.
Incidentally, a junior of mine once e-mailed me about the very same scholarship I'm on. I told him the pros and cons, much like what the author has written. He still took it up.
Let's get a little geeky here. I think scholarship holders suffer from what, in economics, may be described as a time inconsistency problem (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dynamic_inconsistency). What may seem like the most optimal solution does not remain so as time passes. On a related note, much of the incentive of being a scholarship holder (free education, pretty comfortable allowance) is front-loaded so once your 4 years of college are over, you're left staring at a relatively long bond period and no one likes the thought of being unable to quit a job, whatever the job is.
posted by OOP @ 1:58 PM
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