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<p>Some people equate “moving out of one’s comfort zone” with “growth.”</p>
<p>"So why did your daughter go to Smith? I’m sure you had a state flagship or community college nearby. I guess it’s “smart” to go to Smith if you can convince someone else to pick up the tab, but deluded to go to Smith if you can afford the tab yourself? "</p>
<p>It cost me less than half what the state flagship cost us for her to go to Smith, and we are very grateful for it. And, as I said, TWICE, you can get a great education at the LACs. I know that I did, and she did as well.</p>
<p>The question is whether it is worth $200k? And I responded 1) If you have relatively unlimited funds, YES. (and, no, at my alma mater, the so-called full-pays do NOT subsidize the tuition discount folks; on the contrary, the so-called full-pays in total receive a far larger subsidy than those aren’t full pays. I didn’t say so, my alma maters says so - it cost $95k per student per year, and each full-pay student receives a $42k subsidy each year. From this perspective, there is no difference between the full-pays and the non-full-pays - the only question is the size of the subsidy. So there definitely isn’t a moral distinction.) 2) If you don’t have the money, and have to go into significant debt, likely NO, it isn’t worth it, and 3) if you have $200k to spend on education (and no more) and WILL spend it on education, for many if not most students, you can get a better education AND likely a better return on investment by going to the state honors college, and spending the remaining $120k on other educational opportunities.</p>
<p>(and P.S., the slimeballs are those who run the racket, not those who get taken in by it.)</p>
<p>At one point I worked for a top tier executive recruiting firm. If I did not recognize the name of the school or the last job the resume was put in the “other” pile. The further out you get on your career, the less it matters where you went. Early on, however, the name does matter. </p>
<p>Knocking it out of the park in a state or less famous school you will be fine. But what if you do ok at that lesser known school? Unlike lake Wobegone, not everyone can be above average, and then a top LAC will give you a second chance.</p>
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<p>That just doesn’t compute for me. They don’t get to decide that they want to go to a low cost directional state U and then use the remainder to buy a car or take five trips to Italy. If one of my twins had chosen an appreciably cheaper school than the other, that one wouldn’t get to make five trips to Italy to “eat the rest up” - I would just be out less, that’s all. In other words, I’m funding “the cost of your college - whatever that may be, the best you can get into.” Not “Here’s $200K, what you don’t spend on college you still get to use somehow.”</p>
<p>So far, we’ve gotten arguments that unless you have money to burn, an elite private isn’t worth $200K, but I still haven’t seen one iota of logic to support the notion that Harvard is worth $200K but Williams and Amherst aren’t.</p>
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<p>EXACTLY. The fact that many / most people are unfamiliar with Amherst and Williams and so on and so forth isn’t my problem, nor is it my kids’ problem, nor is it how I would determine I would spend a significant chunk of money for something that I would deem to be high quality. (Do I buy cars or watches or choose vacation spots based on whether the masses will recognize them? Of course not. So why colleges?)</p>
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<p>Went through SCEA at high reach/super-selective schools TWICE with the two kids. One rejection, one deferral which led to a later rejection. So yes, I know all about the MONTHS of angst that follow after SCEA. It was brutal, especially the first time (second time, we were more experienced).</p>
<p>Prepare yourself mentally for it…you might hear great news in December, but looking at the acceptance rates, betting money says that most people are probably in for disappointment.</p>
<p>'That just doesn’t compute for me. They don’t get to decide that they want to go to a low cost directional state U and then use the remainder to buy a car or take five trips to Italy. If one of my twins had chosen an appreciably cheaper school than the other, that one wouldn’t get to make five trips to Italy to “eat the rest up” - I would just be out less, that’s all. In other words, I’m funding “the cost of your college - whatever that may be, the best you can get into.” Not “Here’s $200K, what you don’t spend on college you still get to use somehow.”</p>
<p>Well, it does for me. I’m looking for educational “value”. So I look for educational “goods” that cost the same amount, and compare their “quality”. That’s how I evaluate “worth”. Otherwise, it’s just a game of what school is supposed to be better or worse than another school, not what they are “worth”. Does it work for you to ask whether a $200k LAC is “worth” more or less than a state honors college plus two years of medical school?</p>
<p>"but I still haven’t seen one iota of logic to support the notion that Harvard is worth $200K but Williams and Amherst aren’t. "</p>
<p>Wouldn’t get it from me. I think that the quality of education is likely better at Williams and Amherst (and Smith) than at HYP (and I have some close secondhand data points to judge.)</p>
<p>Mini:
I do not have my glasses on and my brain is a little fuzzy at the moment, but could you please explain this? The Math does not add up to me, unless the cost of educating a full pay is different from that of a partial pay. I do understand that there are scholarships and endowments and Federal subisidies and so forth, but it still does not make sense to me, sorry:</p>
<p>"no, at my alma mater, the so-called full-pays do NOT subsidize the tuition discount folks; on the contrary, the so-called full-pays in total receive a far larger subsidy than those aren’t full pays. I didn’t say so, my alma maters says so - it cost $95k per student per year, and each full-pay student receives a $42k subsidy each year. From this perspective, there is no difference between the full-pays and the non-full-pays "</p>
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<p>I am curious about the understandable skepticism about so-called need-blind admissions and the lack thereof on the so-called cost of educating the student.</p>
<p>As mini has often pointed out, it is an astounding coincidence how the financial aid student numbers tend to be virtually the same year after year at the “need-blind” schools.
Similarly, isn’t curious that the top-ranked universities and colleges have virtually identical tuition fees? It costs the same to educate a student in a major Northeastern city, West Coast suburb and middle of nowhere rural areas?</p>
<p>Williams says that educating one student costs them $95k. The most a student can pay is $53k. Therefore, every student - so-called full pay or tuition discounted - receives a $42k subsidy per year. The majority of students (more than 50%) are so-called full pay, and receive the $42k subsidy. A minority of students receive more than the $42k subsidy. But there aren’t too many Pell grantees - those that require a huge amount. So the total subsidy (above and beyond the $42k) for those on tuition discount in total is less than the subsidy already being received by the full-pays. </p>
<p>To figure out the total subsidies for each group (including the initial $42k), we’d need more precise information about how many tuition discount students there are, and what they received in addition to the $42k.</p>
<p>Sorry for the confusion. I hope the point is clearer now.</p>
<p>Is a Williams education really “worth” $380k over four years? Well, my answer would be the same as previously, just with the numbers adjusted higher.</p>
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<p>I don’t think it’s astounding at all, any more than it’s astounding that they wind up with the same general % of males, females, Catholics, Jews, kids from farm backgrounds, whatever. It would be more astounding if it swung randomly from year to year.</p>
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<p>But do you believe them? Does it have to cost them $95k or is there more going on? Why do all the top ranked colleges have virtually identical tuitions?</p>
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<p>But if they are truly need BLIND, how would they know what % they were getting? And why would that number be the same year after year-- there is always the same percentage of attractive candidates that require financial aid every year?</p>
<p>Often schools aren’t need blind but need aware. My oldest attended a lac and received preferential packaging of grants & only small subsidized loans.
However a student could also receive a larger proportion of loans and the college can still claim to meet 100% of need.</p>
<p>Sent from my iPhone using CC</p>
<p>“But do you believe them? Does it have to cost them $95k or is there more going on? Why do all the top ranked colleges have virtually identical tuitions?”</p>
<p>It’s my alma mater! Of course I don’t! They ran an article in the alumni review of a reporter watching the dean of admissions COUNT the socio-ec (read: low-income) admits even as they went through the “need-blind” process. When President Marx at Amherst decided that they needed more low-income students, they magically appeared the next year, the same low-income students (in kind) who would have been rejected as “unqualified” the previous year.</p>
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<p>Because the pool of applicants looks pretty much the same from one year to the next. Look, it’s not as though one year Williams gets 10% of its applications from Catholics and the next year 40% (numbers made up arbitrarily). Why would that be any different when it comes to income? The income pool of the applicants looks the same from year to year, so when you pull from that pool year after year, the resulting sampling is going to look the same.</p>
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<p>I agree that name recognition does not necessarily equate with educational quality, but I disagree that it is not your kids’ problem if their alma maters are not well known.</p>
<p>Someone higher up thread who is responsible for hiring, already gave an example of placing applicants from unfamiliar colleges in the “no” pile.</p>
<p>What if your kid wants to move to California? When there are hundreds of applicants, logic dictates that your kid from Middlebury is less likely than Stanford or MIT students to snag a coveted summer internship on the West Coast. Most people here on the West Coast are not familiar with Middlebury, either by name or by quality.</p>
<p>mini,
I don’t believe the “need-blind” mantra either, but your statement that they are in fact, need-aware, flies in the face of your argument that the full-pays do not subsidize the FA students. Why would Williams care how many full-pays it gets if it doesn’t need the money?</p>
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<p>I simply do not believe that.</p>
<p>My D goes to a public residential high school. I know what it costs to educate each student, because I’m the parent liaison to the Board of Trustees and I see the detailed financial reports every month. I also know what the faculty salary scale is, the faculty teaching load (4 classes per semester), and the average class size (about 19). I have a pretty good idea of the salary information for LACs ([News:</a> Faculty Salaries and Priorities - Inside Higher Ed](<a href=“http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/14/aaup]News:”>http://www.insidehighered.com/news/2008/04/14/aaup)). The LAC pay scale is perhaps 50% higher than the HS scale, the class sizes are comparable, and the teaching load is only a little less. Every student has a full meal plan and there is one salaried adult residential counselor for every 24 kids. The cost per student is less than a third of the quoted value. I know colleges have too many highly paid administrators, but really!</p>
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<p>I would think the main cost difference would be the salary scale of support staff (janitors, cooks, etc.), which would be a rounding error.</p>