<p>As more and more families on the margin are sending their kids to public universities, those universities are becoming overcrowded. I read in the local paper last month that UC Berkeley's freshmen chem class was over 800 students and they showed a picture of kids sitting on the floor in the aisles. The chem professor says he only gets to meet about 10% of the class. Even if Berkeley does rank in the top 10, I wouldn't want to send my child there. It all depends on if you think you are paying for reputation or for quality instruction. Reputation-wise Berkeley is a bargain, but for quality-of-instruction I'd go to a private school.</p>
<p>this is why I go to McGill...next year I'm paying 2k per year....
The undergrad experience is not as good as a top U.S. school because of underfunding, but so what? The course work is very challenging compared to most U.S. schools, and grad. schools are well aware. I know plenty of seniors who will be attending Oxford, MIT, LSE, Harvard, etc. for grad school. It pays to think long term...</p>
<p>As an alum of an expensive private school (~43K a year) I can definitely understand why some people choose to attend them over public schools: Financial Aid. I ended up with a better package and taking out less loans than my brother who wound up at a (much cheaper) public school.</p>
<p>Why will you be paying only 2K per year at McGill starting next year?
Do you know the acceptance rate to top US grad school from McGill?</p>
<p>For a school like George Washington, what would the family have to pay if they are under say $20k per year for the entire family and the student is a major wage earner?</p>
<p>A student like the student described in post #45 ought to get a full ride (100 percent waiver of tuition and fees and charges for room and board) at any college with need-based financial aid that doesn't "gap" its financial aid offers.</p>
<p>Educations are analagous to cars.</p>
<p>Ivy = Rolls Royce
Flagship public = Cadillac
Local public = Chevrolet</p>
<p>All fit the basic transportation "mission profile" - 5 people and their baggage from point A to point B. All will award a bachelor's degree to your spawn in 4-5 years.</p>
<p>Why is it "unfair" - or even worthy of comment - that Rolls' are so expensive they are unaffordable by most people? Or that they are so limited in supply that most people who want one won't get one?</p>
<p>I think that the private's are jacking up their prices in lock step because the baby boom echo is presenting a temporary bump up in demand, so they can get away with it for now. The price increases are limited to 5% a year, so far, because they can't afford to have this become a big topic of conversation among most full-retail payers. 5% a year gets a wince from Mr. Full-Retail, but not a walk-away.</p>
<p>The main reason why a list like this is ridiculous is that the difference in price between these schools and any number of schools just slightly less expensive is probably a matter of less than a thousand dollars, possibly as little as $500 or so. </p>
<p>There was a time when people were going around talking about the fact that Bennington was the most expensive college in the country, like it was a big deal...and this conversation was going on at institutions whose fees were literally a few hundred dollars less. Silly. </p>
<p>Once you get above a certain mark ($40,000 or even $30,000) schools with fees within several hundred dollars of each other in effect cost the same. There are any number of elite LACS priced within several hundred dollars of Vassar, Kenyon and Wesleyan, no? Are there really any parents out there who are perfectly willing to fork over $43,800 but balk at the outrageousness of $44,500?</p>
<p>So I would not have to pay any money or take out any loans?</p>
<p>Wow, then why do so many other poor people complain about not affording college?</p>
<p>Harvard did a study before it announced its financial aid initiative in which it found that many poor families are simply unaware of how financial aid works at the best-endowed highly selective colleges. Since I read about that, I have tried to spread the news. Maybe my own family a generation ago should have been more ambitious about where we applied for college--but we thought we couldn't afford any of the famous colleges.</p>
<p>Harding: Read up about the Harvard Financial Aid Initiative. A number of other top colleges have similar programs. Princeton, Yale, Stanford are among these. There are probably others as well.<br>
In some cases, it is actually less expensive to attend a top college than a public university as a resident. I believe Va Bene's post above yours is an illustration of this.</p>
<p>Dana:</p>
<p>I don't know about acceptance rates across all disciplines. But McGill has a very fine reputation--on a part with top US colleges. Several high achieving students from my Ss' hs are attending McGill. The college experience is probably not worse than at many US colleges where housing is not guaranteed for 4 years. The students I know of live in apartments close to the university.</p>
<p>Babson College!!!</p>
<p>Last spring my neighbors kid graduated from Princeton. Tomorrow at 9am his house is being auctioned off as they have been foreclosed on. This is a couple from modest backgrounds who achieved the American dream.. then lost it when he lost his job and found himself up to his eyeballs in debt having paid full fare at Princeton for four years. There will be more of this owed to the amount of "creative mortgages" written over the last ten years. Adjustable rates, interest only, blah, blah, blah. The fact of the matter is that wages have increased 9% over the last ten years while in the last five years college costs have risen 35%. The sad fact is many people would sell thier soul to get thier child an Ivy League education. Yes it may pay huge dividends for that particular child, but what about his or her siblings? What about retirement savings? Quality is obviously an issue but do you have to sacrifice quality when sending your kids to a publicly founded school? Large class sizes, difficulty in obtaining courses, undergrads teaching in lecture halls, abysmal four year graduation and freshman retention rates, limited opportunities for internships or research....the list goes as regards the difficulties encountered by students in most publicly funded institutions. American families, even those not myopic about Ivies, or top twenty LAC's are between a rock and a hard place and things don't seem to be getting better. Where have our tax dollars gone?</p>
<p>Nightingale,
American families, even those not myopic about Ivies, or top twenty LAC's are between a rock and a hard place and things don't seem to be getting better --</p>
<p>It's not just in education that the American dream is starting to prove elusive for middle/lower middle class. Such basics as healthcare and retirement are major question marks as well.</p>
<p>So where the heck is BU on that list???</p>
<p>To me, the list doesn't mean a whole lot, since there are MANY private Us in the $45K-50K range, depending on how you calculate expenses in addition to tuition, room & board. In the sceme of things, $1K/yr either way doesn't seem to make a huge difference when we're talking about $190K-$200K for 4 years (assuming the kids graduate in "only" 4 years).
There are even more schools if you go to the $40-45K/year COA group, including some/many OOS publics. College is not for the faint of heart or faint of pocketbook. Even the publics--for in-state & OOS are rising, as another thread shows. It is very worthwhile to investigate tuition agreements that may exist between your state & neighboring/cooperating states.</p>
<p>I think that CMU keep their tuition a hair below the top 10 so that they don't register on this top 10 list.</p>
<p>Dana-Quebec Residents pay less than 2k/per year...my mom moved here (Montreal) for work...I will warn you, getting into McGill is the easy part, but getting out is much harder. Canada has a much more meritocratic system of higher education, where $$$ doesn't buy degrees, hard work does. That said, I honestly wish McGill would raise tuition for Quebec residents, or at least unfreeze it so it paces with inflation. Right now the school's endowment is seriously hurting...Look to France, and see what happens when you don't fund a school properly(Sorbonne what?).</p>
<p>George Washington is so expensive because tuition (and fin aid) stays the same for 4 years. In other schools, tuition goes up about 6% every year, so that must be taken into consideration.</p>
<p>Also, if a student receives Fin. Aid for example because they have a sibling who is also in college, and the sibling graduates after 1 or 2 years, the fin aid stays the same for the duration of the kid's time at GW.</p>