What are the pros and cons of attending Amherst College at sticker price?
This is a very open ended question.
A couple back at you.
Have you been accepted to Amherst with NO need based aid (which would imply a hefty family income and assets)?
What are your PARENTS saying about this? Are they willing to pay $70,000 or so a year for you to attend college? If notâŠitâs a NO GO.
Iâm a concerned parent trying to evaluate the value of an undergrad degree at sticker price. I want to hear about academics, social life, dorms, dinning, travel, career oppurtunities etc to help me understand if should I this investment is worth it.
Yes, income and assests are there but so is future retirement, health issues and some extended family obligations.
Iâm sorry for an open ended question but I can use all the information anyone can kindly offer.
Have you checked out the schoolâs website? That would seem to be the best bet to answer most of your questions.
Itâs a well regarded LAC and your child would get a great education. Lots of variables to the answer if itâs worth it. My D visited and ddnât apply. She thought it lacked in the area of Sciences (but they are making more investments in that area with a brand new Science building I believe) and she thought socially it was too âjockyâ with over 1/3rd of the students playing Varsity Sports and many others playing club.
Every family need to make its own decisions. The top small liberal arts colleges offer a unique and wonderful educational and social opportunity for college students; three members of my family each narrowed their search to primarily small liberal arts colleges and ultimately chose to attend one (Williams, Vassar, Williams). All very seriously considered Amherst along the way, because Amherst is one of the best small colleges in the nation.
Amherst provides these small college benefits:
Small classes
Close relationships with faculty and staff members, who really get to know you and will support and help you
Dinner at a professorâs home while at Amherst, and staying in touch with a professor long after graduation, are common occurrences
Opportunities for research work with faculty, where all the opportunities go to undergraduates
Close community with fellow students
Amherst provides these life-after-college benefits:
Very dedicated alumni network helps graduates find jobs and provides a lifelong network.
Great rate of admissions to PhD, law, business, medical, etc. grad schools. The Amherst name is very much respected and the students arrive prepared.
Amherst provides these resource benefits:
It has one of the nationâs highest per-student endowments. It is generous with financial aid, but even for full pay students, it has great equipment/facilities/resources, great speakers who visit campus, great funding for basically any club students want to put together, etc. On a tour last year, the tour guide was so enthusiastic about how he was able to take a campus car on an outing and the college paid for everything, even the gas! He also marveled how there were so many clubs available, even a Cold Club for people from warm climates adjusting to New England winters! And the campus is great; our guide pointed out across a grassy field to a mountain in the distance, noting that this was âthe Mufasa view,â because, as Mufasa told Simba, âAll this is yours!â
Amherst has super-smart students, meaning that each studentâs learning experience is enhanced by conversations in class, in dorms, in dining halls, etc. That is one part of the college experience that makes it worthwhile to go to a top college.
Amherst is part of a great five college consortium:
Take a free bus for classes, clubs, dining, and social events at any of these fine colleges: Smith, Mt.Holyoke, Hampshire, and U Mass at Amherst. You get all the benefits of a small college within the resources of the consortium which expands your options considerably.
Is it worth the sticker price if you do not qualify for financial aid? Not if you will be unable to pay your bills and will be in poverty. Otherwise, I would say that there is nothing better on which to spend oneâs money.
Run the net price calculator. Many are surprised to discover they qualify for some aid, even in the upper middle class. Or, you may be full price and have to decide whether your family values education more than other possible expenses, or whether a necessary expense that will not show up well on the FAFSA/CSS profile will make it too challenging to pay. (In the latter case, talk to the college. Maybe they can help.)
Iâve but usually websites are there to promote schools. Iâm interested in personal perspectives of parents and students. Iâve read complaints about athletic and racial divide, loneliness and lack of dining options. Iâm wondering if overall balance is enough to make up for these things.
Itâs purely a question of consumption. Itâs like asking if itâs worth it to pay sticker price for a Mercedes instead of a Toyota. Both will get you to the same place. Similarly, other, less expensive colleges can get your child to the same place as Amherst. In both instances the experience will be different (the Mercedes will have more bells and whistles, as will Amherst).
Re #6: Anecdotes are just that and may not be representative, but our very happy tour guide was an African American non-athlete, majoring in math and philosophy, who interacted happily along the tour with several white students walking past whom he knew, including one in a sports team uniform.
@TheGreyKing Its going to be very difficult for us to afford full price but Amherst isnât willing to understand. Another school with similar ranking tier and COA has offered merit scholarship to make it manageable. We are questioning if Amherst is offering something so valuable to pay twice as much when we are so close to retirement and health issues are lurking closer?
âUnderstandingâ is not part of the financial aid formula. And Amherst does not offer merit aid. Whatâs the other college? Colleges donât offer merit scholarships to âmake it manageableâ for you, even if that is the effect. They offer it because they want to improve their average SAT/ACT scores to rise in the rankings.
As I said above, itâs a matter of consumption. Are you the type that springs for the Mercedes?
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I have heard athletes hang together, gays dorm together, AA hang and dorm together etc. I wonder if its true and a non athletic minority from a different region of the country would end up with so called odd balls. In such a small intellectual community, why do people feel a need to divide themselves? We have a large diverse student body in our town, no one feels a need for self-segregation here.
@brantly No we are very frugal and thatâs why we are in a higher tier but we have old parents and we support education of two nephews in another country. It would not make moral sense to pull out to enroll our kid into an overly expensive school, instead weâll have to dip into retirement savings. We have another kid in college as well and we would like to pay for his graduate school as well. He did pick more affordable undergrad school but he wasnât admitted to top schools like Amherst so choice was easier.
You are right, other school is doing merit not FA, their acceptance rate and ranking is similar but it doesnât provide Amherst style education which suits our kid better.
Why donât you ask Amherst if they can put your son in touch with a current student(s) so he can ask his questions directly. A lot of schools do so vie email or phone.
fwiw, we visited Amherst recently and in our 3 hrs or so on campus saw a diverse, vibrant community. Didnât see racial segregation happening in the dining hall. Food was actually good, and town was much more active than other LACS so provides more to do off campus than a lot of other NECSCACs, plus there are other schools nearby.
fwiw - I think athletes âhangâ together at most places because of their schedules, so they eat together after practice which can be on the later side of dining hall hours. Or they room together because swimmers who have to get to a 6am practice, may make more compatible roommates than a swimmer who rises earlier and a non-athlete who gets to sleep a bit later.
These are hard choices that families have to make. Your family has chosen to support the education of two nephews and you are choosing to support your parents. Thereâs an opportunity cost to that. One way of looking at it is this: If you were NOT paying for your nephewsâ education, would you be sending your child to Amherst? If the answer is yes, then who should bear the consequences of you deciding to pay for nephewsâ education? Should it be you in your retirement? Or should it be your own son/daughter? Who should make the sacrifice?
@CupCakeMuffins: I believe your gut already is telling you that Amherst is not the choice for you. Youâd do well to move on. We felt Amherst was not our familyâs cup of tea, never applied and never looked back. These choices are very individual, with no ârightâ answer that fits everyone.
Would you be able to have your child take only federal student loans so you wouldnât have to dip into retirement?. It is definitely a personal choice based on what is important to your family, but many families feel that some student debt for an educational experience like that at Amhearst would be worth it. Now, if it is much more debt than that, it might be a different story. Best of luck with the decision. I know it is very stressful.
You might get some other insights if you share the other college your child is considering.
@brantly You gave me some food for thought. @MinnesotaDadof3 I think you are right but this kid is intellectually an Amherst type.
@elena13 Its not a matter of few thousands, they expect us to pay roughly$75K every year. Federal loans wonât cover much.
Amherst College is consistently ranked one of the top liberal arts colleges in the country. Is Amherst worth more than the $75,000 cost of attendance per year? Do you make $500,000 per year or $100,000 per year? The cost benefit analysis might be very different depending on your household annual income.