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Computer science could certainly be studied at a more “cost effective”school. Yes, MIT is a great school! So is CMU. Perhaps their career recruiting is terrific…but you do know that your kid isn’t going to get paid a higher starting salary at a specific company just because he has a MIT or CMU degree.

And really…if you feel MIT has a cache for CS or engineering, I’m not sure why you wouldn’t have the same feeling for philosophy. Maybe your kid will want to go to law school…and a MIT degree in Philosophy will make him a great thinker!

And for the record…you don’t have to get a degree from a music conservatory to become a professional musician. I know that!

One of the world’s leading experts on voting fraud is an MIT professor of Poli Sci. Ten years ago I’m sure he was an after-thought…but times change!

@thumper1

You are correct again. Yes, I should make it clear to him, that if he gets in and we decide to tighten our belts for him, then it would be for CS/CE only and should he decide CS/CE isn’t something he wants to pursue then we would want him to do so at a school which doesn’t have the same financial implications as MIT/CMU.

Really great conversation here. I fell the pain with 2 in college. We started a 529 for each when they were young. Put money away and now feel like we are no where close. We are both professionals. I don’t care what someone makes its tough with the costs today.

Our rule was apply wherever. If you don’t get accepted anywhere then community College. If you get accepted to more then one college then you have a choice but we have to be able to afford it. We made an excel detailed spreadsheet for costs and had scholarship dates etc on it for all schools being considered. This was extremely helpful for both kids to see the cost differentials quickly.

We knew Berkeley OOS without merit was not going to happen but Michigan OOS did for my engineering son.

I also made him apply to his choices (like schools in the top 10 engineering) plus I made him apply to a few in the 20, 30,40. What this did was made him look at other great schools. He picked them not me (except for 1).

Pretty much anything below the top 10 he got great merit like at least half scholarships. A few more with other incentives.

I would encourage your son to look at a variety of schools. There are tons as I said that don’t land in the top 10. No school is worth $250,000 in debt regardless what you think he might make. Ask anyone that works currently in the CS world.

So…basically, you are tying your kid’s hands if he gets accepted to MIT. It’s CS or engineering or bust. Change majors or want to do something different…then transfer or don’t attend.

What will you do if he decides to NOT attend MIT because he wants his options to be a bit more open? And doesn’t want to risk needing to transfer.

It sounds like you want a prestige degree…but only in the major you choose.

If that works for your son and family…great. I can tell you…it would not have worked in mine.

I hope you’ll reconsider your stance and allow your son to discover his path in whatever school he attends. without making him transfer It should be a time of exploration. Sure go in with a plan, but be open to the possibilities. College is a difficult transition both emotionally and academically as it is.

From what I have seen, there are far more people in software development from public universities (not just UCB and UIUC) than MIT. Perhaps MIT may be more favorable if he wants to go into Wall Street or management consulting, but is that really the goal?

@jamgolf… Now I understand thumper1 comments, kids do change majors. My junior (should be senior) daughter did. It happens all the time regardless what he is doing now. They find their passion in something else and who can blame them with all the great choices and choices they are soon to discover! I know several kids that have done so. Make sure the college has a good transfer policy between schools like Michigan does. I know that UIUC… One of the best CS colleges is not so kind or encouraging for that.

@thumper1

Strange that you think I would be tying my kid’s hands if I ask him to transfer out of his dream school in case he switches majors. We are trying to support HIS dream to go to a top CS school. If he later finds out that is not really his dream, then why would he not agree to transfer to another school which might be equally good in that narrow field and not continue to put financial burden on the family.

As far as wanting a prestige dgeree, I don’t care about prestige, but I do care about quality of education in the field of his choice. As I said, he is not applying to any Ivy Leage schools. Also, both the schools and the major are his choice not mine.

Regarding the philosophy major mentioned upthread … I actually think it’s more important to go to a prestige school if you want to major in philosophy than it is if you want to major in something skill-based, like computer science or engineering or physical therapy or pharmacy.

A philosophy major from MIT or Harvard or Swarthmore has a lot better prospects that a philosophy major from Central Michigan University or SUNY Brockport. At an elite school, a student has the luxury of majoring in ANYTHING. For non-skill-based positions, companies just want to hire smart people. You’d be doing him a major disservice to make him transfer out of MIT if he wanted to major in philosophy.

Tech has a big talent gap, and companies are hiring philosophy majors, says the CEO of CA Technologies
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/11/16/tech-talent-gap-looks-to-philosophy-majors-ceo-mike-gregoire-says.html

^ totally agree. OP has dismissed Ivies several times based on CS strength. But those students can easily switch majors, and the philosophy or history student will have no problem finding a lucrative and/or rewarding career.

When someone says they graduated from Yale, do you then ask the major to determine if it was good enough to justify going to Yale? An employer may care (probably doesn’t) but most people are either impressed by the school or aren’t, and rarely care what the major was.

I have rarely been asked my major, even by employers.

Although the thread drifted a bit away from topic, I do appreciate everyone’s help.
Always good to hear diverse points of view and first hand real world experiences.
Thank you !

I can sympathize with those feelings of failing your child. I’ve shed tears over it. My daughter’s dream school was Duke. I ran the NPC after the info session and told her I wouldn’t even take her to visit campus unless she got in and it was affordable. She knew exactly what number we had to hit for it to be affordable. I honestly thought she wouldn’t get in and that would be the end of it. But even with a ~8% RD acceptance, she got in. And I cried because after all her hard work - and with 529s for our three children totalling almost a year’s worth of salary - we couldn’t afford it.

But there’s a happy ending. During the whole application process, we found a financial safety - an OOS public with a good honors college - that she really liked. And not only did she get their automatic merit aid, they offered her their highest merit scholarship. She’s involved in a bunch of activities because she doesn’t need a work study job. She has zero stress about money, not only for undergrad, but grad school. Because not only will she not have debt from her undergrad degree; that 529 is going towards the terminal degree she will need for her intended career. I think a lot of people overlook the intangible lifestyle benefits that come with choosing a school that costs less than you can afford. DD is very happy and so are we.

Our family’s situation is that our kids know from the beginning that cost is the driving factor behind college applications. Some of our kids have graduated from high school with unusually high levels of academic achievement. They have not been able to attend elite schools due to cost, but honestly, attending the schools which offered them large merit scholarships hasn’t impacted our kids negatively at all. Instead, they have been greatly blessed.

We have a chemE who attend a very avg university and has a fabulous career. The name on his diploma is definitely not holding him back. Our recent college grad attended an avg large public U. He is now a grad student at one of the very top physics programs in country. His UG friends from that “non-elite U” are doing things like MD-PhD school at Harvard or working the jobs that they wanted. Our current college sophomore is also attending a large public on scholarship and having an equally excellent experience.

Fwiw, our philosophy is more along Bruni’s “where you go is not who you will be.” Our academically advanced kids arrive on campus and jump in full speed ahead. They get involved and use every opportunity to their advantage. UG research, internships, co-ops, seeking out professors as mentors, etc…they are not just students going to class. They are students shaping their own futures.

Anyway, just wanted to share that from 20-20 hindsight, any angst I experienced when our older kids arrived on the campuses of their non-elite Us was all for naught. They have unquestionably been able to pursue the futures that they had hoped for.

My CS kid is so happy to have rejected the ivy (at full cost) he was accepted to, to attend another top 40U at half the price, with all the honors college perks. He has flexibility to take chances with side projects that are so huge in CS. Loves the honors college perks. He thinks (and we agree) that 250k is not worth it for all but 2-3 schools and only if those schools are a top choice for the student in their field. My kid was not interested in MIT, but I hear you about how that ** may be ** worth it for CS if the kid was crazy about that culture and the merit school was not highly liked by the student.

If your top 5 reaches don’t offer merit, I would cut them back to 1-2. Save yourself some heartache. And try to get him to get really excited about some merit schools.

Not all colleges offer merit aid to transfer students so if finances are an issue I’d think carefully about overextending. You may have to go down the rankings a bit to find something that’s affordable. What are your plans for your other children? If you borrow heavily to send your son to a prestigious school, will you borrow for them too?

Kids don’t always think logically. Once they start school that’s their home. It’s where their friends are. It’s a horrible choice to be asked to leave someplace you love or continue to be a burden to your family. I wouldn’t put a kid in that position. I’d pick a school I could afford for all 4 years.

How about community college and then transfer to a good fit college? This will give you 3 years? to aggressively save for junior/senior year of college.

Some will say just “chase merit” but there is a reason some colleges are giving a free ride to high stat kids. Just because it’s free (or close to free) doesn’t mean it’s the best fit for your kid.

The other thing about merit that is rarely discussed is the additional stress and burden you put on your child to maintain that merit aid (e.g. GPA of 3.2 - 3.5). What happens if one year the GPA drops below 3.0?

Lastly, do you want your child to be the smartest and most accomplished student attending (top 1%) or at a more selective college among a group of peers who are all equally brilliant? In a perfect world you would choose the latter IMO.

Good luck to you and a cautionary tale that college COA is very expensive and the earlier and more often you save the more options your child will have in the future. I know 16 years ago when my first child was born the estimated future cost of college was 150k for public and 250k for private. The procostinators were fairly accurate with their assessment.

As a family who chases merit and have had multiple children attend different schools that way, I always wonder where people think the multitude of extremely high performing kids attend whose parents cannot attend afford elite schools. My kids have never lacked for peers. They have formed great friendships with equally high performing kids. They have never stressed about keeping their scholarships.

Honors programs like the ones at USCarolina are set up in ways that let kids find peers easily. Scholarship programs like Top Scholars or Randall Research Scholars help students establish networks both on and off campus, give connections for research projects, etc.

And not stressing about $$ (both students and families) is huge. My ds who just left for grad school is incredibly thankful to be starting out with no student debt and instead has a significant amt of $$ saved in the bank from his REUs.

If finances are an issue then I think it’s a dangerous game to allow your son to attend a prestigious university (and take out loans to pay for it) because you think it’s worth it for his major. It’s likely to cause a host of problems between your children if you send one to a prestigious school and make the others settle for lower tier schools and/or in state safeties because you don’t think their majors are good enough.