<p>I know ballpark much you would have to make/have to get aid at most of the ivies. It is not poor. </p>
<p>Some people are terrible with money though, and need to spend almost every cent they make. </p>
<p>If they cannot afford an ivy, chances are they will not be able to afford a big out-of-state public. </p>
<p>"Im not going to an ivy because upper-middle class parents want to save 500 dollars a year, so i’m going to go to an out-of-state public’</p>
<p>The point is the tuitions end up being close, Michigan is 35k a year, thats base tuition, compare it to base tuition. </p>
<p>The money that MOST people get from ivys will be far more than the big public schools. If you get money from a public chances are you will get it from an ivy. </p>
<p>Im sure there are some people that will point out UVA. It is not the only school he mentioned.</p>
<p>Mich and illinois, cal schools are terrible with aid for out of state</p>
The issue is what it means to “afford” a college. Could my family pay $50000 a year for an Ivy? Yes. But I personally find the idea of spending that much when I could get a fine education elsewhere for far less repugnant. Three of my grandparents lived in poverty as children and earned their money through hard work and service to this country. I was not raised to spend that much without a really good reason. That’s not to say that top colleges are completely out of the question, but I would have to really feel that the difference in cost was worth it.
I would love to see you respond to the stats in #19.
Care to explain Wisconsin (or Georgia Tech, UNC, etc.)?</p>
<p>And yet people keep avoiding this fact. Along with:
Which college offers more aid? (assume out of state)
Which college has more people who receive full aid? </p>
<p>Stupid people arguing for the sake of arguing. This thread had nothing to do with money. Until people started crying about the cost of ivies.</p>
<p>The money most out of state students will get from a public university will be less than what they get from an ivy. How does that conflict with post 19? It doesn’t. You need quite a bit of money to pay full tuition at harvard, even if 40% of them are paying full.</p>
<p>TOP public universities are NOT a cost effective alternative, CONSIDERING the MAJORITY of people will end up paying more, or within 10%. There are very few ways to avoid this.</p>
<p>In-state options would be a better option.</p>
<p>AGAIN: This is not a thread for people to cry about how much ivies cost. Or that they had to pay full tuition! When the schools he mentioned are also very expensive schools. And in a lot of cases will be MORE expensive.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t spend 200k on an eduction unless my family was extremely rich. But going to Michigan and spending an equal amount is not a solution.</p>
<p>^ Where on earth did you get those figures?</p>
<p>Hint: They’re wrong…</p>
<p>EDIT: I forgot something from one of your earlier posts. You mentioned reckless spending, which is ironic because those who SAVE are penalized when it comes to financial aid.</p>
<p>Those are base tuition fees. College board.</p>
<p>Those are out of state fees for Michigan.</p>
<p>Again: the point is not to cry about how much you have to pay for college. this is an A versus B thread. They cost the same. And for a lot of people Ivies will cost less.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to pay tuition, go to a cheaper school! Not a school that cost a crap load and gives far less FA on average all things equal.</p>
<p>I am NOT trying to whine about how expensive the Ivies are for well-off applicants. Rather, I’m trying to raise the question of value. What are you getting for that extra money?</p>
<p>To summarize: if you consider an Ivy League education at x university worth the extra cash (or if you qualify for the generous financial aid), great! That’s why we have choices. The OP just asked if they were “crazy” for not wanting to go to an Ivy, and I don’t see how any of us can accuse them of that (with the exception of a few hyper-prestigious fields such as investment banking). Live and let live.</p>
<p>Here are the top 100 schools ranked by the quality of the student body as measured by SAT scores. The publics are indicated by an *. The top publics are pretty far down the list. The quality of the student body is generally the most important consideration when selecting a school.</p>
<p>SAT 25th, SAT 75th, school, Carnegie Classification</p>
<p>1470 1560 California Institute of Technology 2
1430 1560 Harvey Mudd College 2
1400 1590 Yale University 2
1390 1580 Harvard University 2
1390 1580 Princeton University 2
1390 1560 Pomona College 2
1380 1560 Massachusetts Institute of Technology 2
1380 1540 Washington University in St Louis 2
1360 1520 Cornell Engineering 2
1350 1520 Northwestern University 2
1350 1520 Swarthmore College 2
1340 1540 Duke University 2
1340 1500 Tufts University 2
1330 1550 Dartmouth College 2
1330 1540 Columbia University in the City of New York 2
1330 1540 Stanford University 2
1330 1520 University of Pennsylvania 2
1330 1500 Vanderbilt University 2
1320 1540 Brown University 2
1320 1530 Rice University 2
1320 1520 Amherst College 2
1320 1520 Williams College 2
1320 1510 Cornell Arts and Sciences 2
1320 1500 University of Notre Dame 2
1320 1480 Washington and Lee University 2
1310 1530 University of Chicago 2
1310 1490 Carleton College 2
1300 1510 Bowdoin College 2
1300 1500 Claremont McKenna College 2
1300 1500 Cornell University 2
1300 1490 Middlebury College 2
1300 1490 Wesleyan University 2
1300 1480 Haverford College 2
1300 1470 Emory University 2
1300 1460 Vassar College 2
1300 1450 Hamilton College 2
1290 1510 Johns Hopkins University 2
1290 1500 Carnegie Mellon University 2
1290 1470 Reed College 2
1280 1460 Brandeis University 2
1280 1430 Colby College 2
1270 1470 University of Southern California 2
1270 1465 Wellesley College 2
1270 1460 Colgate University 2
1270 1458 Davidson College 2
1270 1450 Macalester College 2
1260 1450 Oberlin College 2
1260 1440 Scripps College 2
1260 1420 Tulane University of Louisiana 2
1250 1460 Georgetown University 2
1250 1440 Barnard College 2
*1250 1440 College of William and Mary 1
1250 1440 New York University 2
1250 1430 Boston College 2
1250 1420 Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute 2
1240 1430 Kenyon College 2
*1240 1420 Georgia Institute of Technology-Main Campus 1
1240 1410 Connecticut College 2
1240 1400 Wake Forest University 2
1230 1450 Grinnell College 2
1230 1410 University of Rochester 2
1230 1410 Whitman College 2
1230 1400 Colorado College 2
1230 1400 Lehigh University 2
1230 1390 Bucknell University 2
1230 1390 Franklin and Marshall College 2
*1220 1440 University of Virginia-Main Campus 1
*1220 1430 University of Michigan-Ann Arbor 1
*1220 1400 New College of Florida 1
1220 1380 Gettysburg College 2
1210 1410 Case Western Reserve University 2
*1210 1400 University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill 1
1210 1390 Wheaton College 2
*1200 1460 University of California-Berkeley 1
1200 1410 Bryn Mawr College 2
1200 1380 George Washington University 2
1190 1390 Dickinson College 2
1190 1380 University of Miami 2
1190 1370 Lafayette College 2
1180 1410 St. Olaf College 2
*1180 1410 University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign 1
1180 1400 Trinity College 2
1180 1380 Furman University 2
1180 1370 Occidental College 2
1180 1350 College of the Holy Cross 2
*1180 1350 SUNY at Binghamton 1
1170 1390 Smith College 2
*1170 1380 University of Maryland-College Park 1
1170 1370 Boston University 2
1170 1360 University of Richmond 2
1170 1350 Skidmore College 2
*1160 1410 University of California-Los Angeles 1
1160 1380 Gustavus Adolphus College 2
*1160 1380 University of Florida 1
*1160 1380 University of Wisconsin-Madison 1
1160 1350 Rhodes College 2
1160 1350 Stevens Institute of Technology 2
1150 1370 American University 2
1150 1370 Denison University 2
1150 1370 Kalamazoo College 2</p>
<p>It’s not necessarily crazy to not want to go to an Ivy, or any other highly selective school, but there are silly reasons to not want to go there. Good reasons include wanting to save money, liking the program better someplace else, liking the location and fit somewhere else, and more. Silly reasons, in my opinion, include reverse snobbery and the mistaken idea that all Ivy students are snooty preps.</p>
<p>CCIllinois: your “stupid people arguing for the sake of arguing” comment is unfair. You’re simply wrong (arguing for the sake of arguing, maybe?) that cost (rather than “being crazy”) can’t be a major factor in turning down an ivy. This isn’t whining or complaining. It is directly addressing the question the OP asked, period. Naturally you may get a good financial package from an ivy and then cost may NOT be a consideration at all. Who’s arguing otherwise? Yet it is unavoidably true that things don’t always work out the way you claim they do. And when an ivy costs substantially more, no one should feel guilty about factoring that into their decision.</p>
<p>My daughter goes to a liberal arts college and has many friends who turned down Ivies because they ultimately decided they wanted a smaller school, wanted the full attention of professors and wanted guaranteed research opportunities. My daughter looked at but decided not to apply to a couple of Ivies for the same reasons. FWIW we pay only a thousand more than it would have cost to send her to one of the SUNYs.</p>
<p>My daughter was not interested in any Ivy League schools and didn’t apply to any. They were all weak in her major and there was just no appeal. (Rice '07)</p>
You bring up the same points. You bring up points you wouldn’t have brought up if you actually read the thread. </p>
<p>Were did i say that financial reasons were a good reason not to go to an ivy? I said that going they will ALMOST never save a considerable amount of money going to an big public university. (Michigan’s tuition is the same as the iveys, with far worse FA). I mentioned that in-state schools are far better if some one is looking to save money.
So read the thread before you call some one wrong. </p>
<p>It is not directly addressing the OP question when he mentioned very expensive schools in his post. He mentioned schools that are very expensive.
“When an ivy costs substantially more” … we already went over this…</p>
<p>Money can be a good reason to turn down a school. Its usually is a very tough choice. </p>
<p>There are many great reasons not to go to an ivey. Its an athletic conference. It does not mean that they will always be better than a school that is not in the ivy league. Also, a school ranked higher on USNEWS will not always be a better school to go to. </p>
<p>Its not crazy not to go to an ivy. There are bad choices though. I think a lot of people would turn down ivies. </p>
<p>I also think a lot of people are clouded by the fact that a school is an ivy or a big name and neglect to look at other factors. That can lead to a bad choice.</p>
<p>In response to some of the comments in this thread, I checked a couple of the state university websites for more information about their cost. I was puzzled by something I found on U Michigan’s site for their Cost of Attendance for OOS students. They list different Tuition & Fees costs depending one’s status, ie, Freshmen and Sophomore pay one price ($34,937) while Juniors and Seniors pay a higher price ($37,389). </p>
<p>Is the higher cost for upperclassmen a common practice at many universities or is this unique to U Michigan? </p>
<p>Here is the link in case anyone wants to look at it and can shed some light on this:</p>