One more suggestion is to think outside the box. By far the best value for money school on S18’s list was Oxford (~$140K for a 3 year degree at current exchange rates). Unfortunately he didn’t get in. But many people choose UK schools (such as St Andrews) for their combination of strong academics and relatively modest costs, if you know what you want to study.
The one child who absolutely knew he was going to major in physics ended up NOT majoring in physics (took all of two weeks to realize that although he was hot stuff at his HS, the playing field was completely different in college). Fortunately, he was the eldest so we knew in later years that even the most committed HS kid is JUST a HS kid… and can’t possibly know what every single discipline out there is like.
We would have been just as happy to pay for a rigorous major in Renaissance Studies or history as engineering or econ. So it wasn’t about how “practical” it was… I’ve had a solid corporate career as a former Classics major; the most talented CEO I ever worked for (a successful Fortune 50 company) was a Renaissance Studies major- and quite the renaissance man himself. A towering intellect in addition to some other fantastic and wonderful qualities including leadership, kindness, empathy and integrity.
@Blossom your post is wonderful, but what people hate to add to this debate is ROI correlated directly to SALARY!
Will her or she learn more? Of course, does it make sense from a RAW financial perspective, usually not.
There is a post floating around from a year or two back where someone asked “that question”, “Would the child be better off if you took the extra 150k in education and bought a house, invested it, or paid for grad school looking forward 20 years?”
That is paraphrased I’m sure you can find it though and again almost ALWAYS the answer is Yes, they would have been better off financially.
In the end it is your money and your child, so kudos for being able to pay a 300k college education in the first place!
For the best ROI, go to your local community college for an LPN or RN, then finish up the remaining credits for a BSN at your local state college. Have your employer pay for advanced certifications in cardiac care or oncology.
There’s your ROI.
For kids who are not interested in nursing, the world of ROI is much more nuanced. All of my kids are currently out-earning me (and I’ve been in the workforce at major corporations for 36 years, with less than 15 weeks total of maternity leave). They have “non practical” degrees but have managed to find careers which they love AND which pay very, very well. All have taken risks which their boomer parents advised against (leave a high paying corporate job for a startup… I thought that was crazy) but all it takes is one disruptive technology to make your kid look like a prophet and not a lunatic.
If any of us can predict the future and figure out:
1- What will my kid be good at professionally
2- What will be the hot career in 4 years or 10 years or 20 years
3-What’s the one skill my kid can learn in college which will make him/her a “unicorn” such that he or she will be indispensable in the labor market…
then you shouldn’t be on CC, you should be out there advising Warren Buffet et al.
for anyone else- if you’re smart enough to figure out ROI for a HS kid then god bless you.
I’m not that smart.
Clearly, this OP has $300,000 that he “could”spend on his daughter’s college education.
This is a family decision…and really nothing we say here can determine if THIS family really should spend that amount of money…or not.
We can’t prdict college acceptances either. We can’t predict competitive merit aid.
I have not seen any responses that indicate that this poster and kiddo are willing to look at places like Iniversity if Alabama, or University of New Mexico where this kiddo would get merit aid. I haven’t really even seen a sincere comment about their own flagship other than a passing mention that it could be in the mix.
I am not sure what this poster wants us to say. At all.
So…I will give the Thumper family plan. We were in the position to be able to fund college for our kids. Both applied to and got accepted to a variety of colleges…with varying costs and levels of merit aid. We were not eligible for need based aid.
BEFORE the applications were sent, we agreed with the choices, and were willing to find any school the kids got accepted to from their application list. If that had not been possible, we would have jettisoned schools before the applications were sent.
We did not insist that our kids take the school with the lowest net cost…and neither one did.
This poster has the resources to pay the bills. It’s HIS choice whether he chooses to…or not.
I would strongly suggest…again…that this kid choose one or two safety schools ASAP…NOW…and get those applications done. Make sure they are affordable.
Oh…and also make sure the rest of your family finances are in order…because life happens. You never know when you might NOT have the resources to pay for a $300,000 college education.
DH got laid off from his job two months after our first kid started college. Luckily we had our emergency fund set up…and I had my job. Luckily, he found another job quickly. BUT it migh not have turned out that way. So…just saying…look at your full financial picture.
No, I would argue your ROI that isn’t the discussion. The discussion is all things being equal e.g. “SAME DEGREE” is it worth it to pay 400% more and usually it is not.
The rest of your post are different debates all together.
If it is even a question whether to spend $300K at a tony LAC versus $75K at a state flagship, the answer is clear: save the money and go to the flagship. No LAC is worth that differential to a family for which $225K is a sum worth thinking about (and that is going to describe a large portion of even full pay families).
“I know people who paid for their kids to meet “the right social network” which to me is an absurd concept (since it usually involved having your kid hang out with drunk people, practicing their drinking skills for the future).”
I paid for the name and “the right social network”. I am sure the social network was occasionally drunk but mostly it was sober. Quite happy with my investment (although my premium was roughly $120K)