Chance me threads on CC often digress into financial discussions with responders typically lining up on one side preaching academic and social fit versus others who advocate for prioritizing low cost above all. I think most agree in principle that both criteria have to be considered but clear priority differences emerge when put into practice via recommendations.
Over the weekend I was reading Jerry Oppenheimer’s book “Madoff with the Money” which chronicles the life of convicted Ponzi schemer Bernie Madoff. A particular passage I read brought to mind CC and the aforementioned fit vs finance debate.
In retelling Madoff’s decision to attend University of Alabama Oppenheimer describes;
“There were several things about the university that appealed to the New Yorker. For one, Madoff wanted to get away from his home in Queens. For another, he couldn’t get accepted anywhere else. Alabama also had easier entrance requirements and cheaper tuition costs.” Nothing seemingly related to fit but all about easy access and finances.
The author proceeds to interview numerous fellow UA classmates about their experiences with Madoff as a freshman on campus. They describe him as having been largely a fish out of water. After a year Madoff was extremely unhappy and transferred to Hofstra and the rest is history.
I was wondering if others had similar examples or experiences that support or highlight the risks of either approach?
I understand what you’re trying to do here, but disagree with blaming it on a financial decision. In the case you highlight I think the individual was looking for a place far away from home, found he didn’t fit in and came back. You could just as easily use this example for why people shouldn’t go far away to college. Bottom line, this is a sample size of one, and the account was written by someone who was not personally involved in the decision so how does he really know why the decision was made.
In terms of a desire to go far away that does appear per the author to have been one of the drivers of the choice of U Alabama. That however is per my suggestion not a choice of “fit” but a desire where not to be. Ironic given he returned to Hofstra which was 12.3 miles from Far Rockaway HS where he graduated.
Not sure if you read the book but finances were in fact a major concern and his academic record was less than stellar.
Madoff as an example is just that… one example which is why I encourage others to contribute personal or notable examples with similar of different experiences.
FYI the book was extensively researched and quotes hundreds of first hand interviews including those of classmates, friends and fraternity brothers.
Well, if you can’t get in or afford to attend, fit never comes into play. That said, you wouldn’t have needed a crystal ball to see that a Jewish kid from Queens was going to have a hard time fitting in at Bama during the 1950’s.
I think that this story reinforces how important finances are in college selection. If he had ignored finances and went to some school far away that required high loans, he not only would have moved back, but would have been burdened with debt without any of the benefits. What he did was take risk in one dimension (location) instead of two (location and price).
Oppenheimer discusses the fact that Madoff pledged Sigma Alpha Mu, a Jewish fraternity and that at the time there were about 1,000 Jewish people enrolled at UA.
This thread isn’t intended to be specific about UA (or Madoff) but your comment begs the question that if UA was a “hard time” for a Jewish kid in the 1950s with 1,000 Jews on campus, is present day Bama a good fit for Asians given the school only has 600 of 36,000 identify a such? I have no idea but I certainly think it should be considered.
Chef hits the nail on the head. If a student is trying to narrow down their options for schools they need to look at the following in rank order: 1. if the school offers the desired program or major, 2. if the student can afford the school, taking into account all the available scholarships, need-based aid, etc., 3. the likelihood of the student gaining admission (it’s crazy out there now, and nothing is certain, but if you have a 3.4GPA and 1260SAT you should probably scratch Stanford off the list), and finally, 4. fit.
Note that when looking at affordability, students should broaden their options beyond aid and loans. The daughter of a family friend who could never afford four years at Purdue wanted to go to their logistics program. After confirming that the credits were transferable, she took all her freshman and sophomore classes at nearby Harper College while living at home and working, then finished off at Purdue, saving herself a small fortune.
One could also go into the military, sign up for the GI bill, and take advantage of veteran scholarships after leaving the service. For example, Illinois has a veteran’s grant program that pays for four years of tuition at a state university. Military service offers the bonus of learning a non-combat marketable skill - think logistics, aircraft maintenance, cyber security, health care, etc. - while also providing discipline and leadership opportunities.
I think that a lot of racial demographics place international students in their own category, outside of the traditional US racial buckets. Your point about people from Asian descent not being a monolith holds true, however. It’s also true about whites, blacks, Hispanics, etc.
I think that fit is important both socially and financially. If a student (and/or student’s family) cannot afford a school, it doesn’t matter how great a fit the school is. The point of fit is to find the best fit within the budget one can afford, and I think that’s what a lot of budget-conscious folks try to do. If one’s budget is $20k, there are fewer options for fit than there are with a $40k budget or an $80k budget.
You can see hints of this when the probably-mostly-White posters in these forums automatically mention colleges like UAH for students looking for scholarships, but not AAMU, which has better scholarships. It may be due to the posters seeing a HWCU as more of a fit for themselves than a HBCU, even though it is not necessarily obvious that it both matters and aligns the same way for the students.
Of course, as others in this thread have mentioned, a student severely constrained by money limits typically has very little choice about any fit factors besides affordability and the academic programs the student wants to study.
However, only about 30% of young people in the US are eligible for US military service, so that is not an option for everyone. Of course, there are also “fit” considerations for many people with respect to military service.
Great points @AustenNut! Certainly, affordability trumps fit and it’s unhelpful to preach “fit” to an applicant who needs substantial aid/merit.
But the other side of the coin is the full-pay, highly accomplished student that’s looking to get into an elite school who is often told here on CC “just go to Bama instead”. I think that is just as unhelpful.
I think it depends on the kid. My spouse followed the money (literally had no other option besides living at home and commuting to a fourth tier teacher’s college which was not of interest) and never looked back. Was college four years of bliss? No. Were there a dozen BFF’s and annual get togethers to reminisce? No. Is there pom-pom waving every time alma mater is mentioned? No.
It was the first rung on the ladder (parents had no college education) and he grabbed it. Were there “better fits” out there socially, emotionally, etc? No doubt. But the degree launched him professionally and intellectually and stretched him academically and that’s what he was after. No regrets.
Fit is important- but life is full of trade-offs. And as spouse has pointed out many times- because the family could not afford to visit, he showed up on the Greyhound bus for freshman orientation, saw the campus for the first time- and somehow made it work.
Would a degree in Elementary Ed from the local teacher’s college have launched him? Yes, but in a different direction on a different trajectory.
College-specific social and cultural issues can also matter for those who have the luxury to consider them. For example, if a college has high fraternity and sorority participation, to the point that much of the social scene is fraternity and sorority focused, then social fit can depend a lot on how desirable the fraternities and sororities at the college are to the student. If the system at such a college has features undesired by the student (e.g. a highly competitive rush / pledge process, a tendency toward binge drinking problems, or a tendency toward racial segregation), then that could be a negative social fit factor for the student.
I feel very conflicted about HBCUs, including how I have mentioned some of them on this forum. Many HBCUs have very generous merit scholarships available. They likely have done that because they are wanting to attract and reward the caliber of students that meet their scholarship criteria. As HBCUs, their mission, unofficially at least, is to provide a supportive academic haven for black students that hasn’t always been available to black students at HWCUs. That leads me to a few qualms:
How is the enrollment of non-black students impacting students who are attending HBCUs because they want that safe space and feel that increasing numbers of others (particularly white students) starts to threaten that environment? (And yes, I know how people would react if I flipped the races around in that sentence, but the history of mistreatment between the dominant and minority races makes it a different situation, in my book.)
Why are HBCUs usually only mentioned/recommended if a student needs significant merit aid? If we’re mentioning the HBCUs, then I think it’s problematic if we’re only recommending them for their financial benefits. But because of #1, I am hesitant about who I recommend HBCUs to. I’ve posted a question related to this in the HBCU forum, but there haven’t been many responses which leads me to still feeling conflicted.
I think Austen raises valid points. BUT- look at Xavier university and its success in med school admissions. I think there are reasons why an HBCU could be an attractive and supportive environment for non-Black students apart from money.
Xavier seems to get the kids into Med school who get weeded out (or just ignored, hence weeded out) at more “mainstream” universities. And before the “it doesn’t matter where you go for undergrad” crowd starts to yell- yeah, I get it. A strong student, highly motivated, blah blah blah… and yet med school admissions rates suggest too many students chasing too few seats. So if a kid is the first in the family to go to college- so we’ll assume not a lot of “social capital” there- perhaps an HBCU is the right environment, regardless of race???
Seems like an echo of “replacement” fears that are increasingly common, suggesting that many White people fear that the US will not be a “safe space” for them when they are no longer a clear majority (likely the same sentiment that drives “White flight” from neighborhoods or regions).
If more non-White scholarship students attend HWCUs for scholarships, would that trigger a backlash among those White people who fear “replacement”?
Specific HBCUs (e.g. AAMU) are mentioned for scholarship-seeking students for the same reason that specific HWCUs (e.g. UAH) are mentioned for scholarship-seeking students: they offer attractive scholarships. Other HBCUs and HWCUs that do not have as attractive scholarships do not normally get mentioned in these conversations.
I see where the story is coming from. I think it’s distorted by blaming the financial decision as the villain, and praising Hofstra as the solution, absent of real-world factors. In the real world, a lot of things come into play, but for most any middle class family, cost is going to be the first factor above anything else. For instance, there might be cultural shock going to an OOS university, but if it’s a full-ride with no debt, most students can adapt. On the other extreme, a student might choose the PERFECT fit school…but it’ll cost $200k in debt. The student will be happy temporarily, but will be much more miserable building a career with that kind of albatross! The right decision is somewhere in the middle. Sometimes if the school is a poor fit, turning down a full ride might be a good decision…there are plenty of schools where debt can be minimized.
Completely agree with this. Every student and family are unique, so I don’t think a default answer about priority (fit vs finance) can be applied universally and certainly think a “one school fits all” solution is wrong.
Life decisions are often trade offs and not absolutes in my opinion which precludes the appropriateness of a single solution approach.
