The Poor Kids Club & Film School

[bombshellfilms]

Okay, so this is for people who have only themselves as financial providers. How did you make film school work the first year? On the US Dept of Ed site, grad students can only borrow up to 20,500 per year. NYU and Columbia are this much per semester. I've looked into several scholarships. Any info from current students would be great.

 

[duders]

Alot of people at NYU are living off of their wealthy parents.

The poorer students usually have federal loans, supplemented with scholarships and private loans.

The poorer international students don't qualify for federal loans, so rely on scholarships, loans from their home country (whose maximum values pale in comparison to NYU tuition), or private loans.

An email was sent around recently, about Citibank not offering their loans to international grad students. All international students should take note. This will definitely affect a lot of international students. It could be a serious problem.

 

[tabbycat]

I'm starting to doubt whether or not I want to be in so much debt for pretty much the rest of my life... but I don't know if I'm actually second guessing my desire to go to grad school, or if this is some defense mechanism softening the blow for when I don't get in.... but then if I do get in... wow my own mind is so confusing

 

[Ryandbc]

I've had to turn down Grad school acceptance for not getting enough loans in the past. It's painful stuff for folks that don't have the enchanted pedigree to come up with the cash =P

Lucky enough my BA from a not well known school has been good enough for plenty of jobs. Most people I've found could care less if I had any degree to begin with. That said I'd love to be able to afford a program.


I guess it all depends on how life turns out. I mean I've worked with rich kids that did the NYU thing - and had no problem, due to no debt, parents paying for living costs for years so they could take low paying but rewarding projects/ fund their own projects.

I also worked as an editor with a guy who had gone back to school a bit later in life, from a poor background - and was pretty much screwed. We were making really great money - and he still could barely keep his head above water. He had loved school though as a break from reality.

It just all depends. The odd thing though for me is that my most successful friends have not been big time film students. I have friends making very good livings in LA - own homes, are in their respective unions, and working on massive projects - all from my small state school video program. And then you have the kid with an MFA from nyu, stocking shelves at the store my dad was an assistant manager for in CT.

If your poor - it's up to you if you want to roll the dice on those loans.

Make a couple short film, get some work written, save some money and get a place for a month or two in NYC or LA - and work. After that now see if you think it's worth it or not =). Hell half the jobs out there you can get just by showing up - my DP friend has tried to get me to switch to LA for years, lamenting that sprucing up my oldish demo was a waste of my time since nobody probably would bother to look at it anyhow for mostjobs... And if you think you can make a film, then make it. MFA's are def good to teach tho -and sure great experience for the wealthy crowd. One day if I could make it work so I wouldn't be in over my head, I'd love to go and don't knock anyone for doing so.

My 2 cents.