First of all i want to clarify, I do not know anything about higher education in this country,
My husband and I are both immigrants and neither one attended college in this country.
We are starting the college process with our daughter. She is an extremely acomplished girl with impressive credentials who wants to mayor in history and attend Law school down the road. Due to our income we do not qualify for any financial aid, my daughter has her mind set in a Liberal arts college, either Vassar or Williams, none of them give merit scolarships so we will be paying the full price 70k+/year. My question is, given that we will be paying full price and that her stats are really good, doesnt it make more sense to invest our money in a more “Brand name-impressive” university? Ivies, Georgetown, Duke, Tulane kind of institution? or even just go to a state school with a higher acceptance rate where she would likely get a full ride and put the money away for law school? we are in no way millionares and if we are paying close to 300K in her education we would like the most bang for our buck!
Some liberal arts colleges like Vassar and Williams do have respected brand names.
However, law school admission is strongly focused on college GPA and LSAT score, not college brand name (law school rankings are strongly correlated to both admission stats of college GPA and LSAT score, and to law job hiring). Law school is also very expensive, so there is a strong argument for choosing a less expensive undergraduate college to save money for law school.
If your D likes a smaller LAC, there are plenty lower ranked schools that offer merit scholarships. As ucbalumnus noted, the most important part of getting into law school is GPA and LSAT scores, not the school name on your diploma.
There are other factors besides stats but yes, with high enough stats, she can get in to T14’s (outside of YHS which would require extra) on stats alone.
As for whether LACs are “worth it”, in what sense? There’s a lot to be said for the undergraduate focus of LACs and the top LAC alums do as well as Ivies/equivalent grads in per capita alum achievements. But if law school is the goal, can you justify spending $300K on any undergraduate degree? I don’t think you can from a purely ROI perspective (especially since law school will also cost a ton unless you get scholarships). You’d be paying extra for the extra stuff at an elite private (more resources per undergrad; more accomplished cohort, etc.)
In any case, she has to get in first.
And good point. Go lower down the list and outside the Northeast (and CA),you’d find plenty of excellent LACs that still provide a lot of faculty attention and care that would offer significant merit scholarships to a kid who is in the running for top LACs/Ivies/equivalents.
For a student who majors in a humanities field such as history, some LACs show returns on investment in the vicinity of those from very highly ranked universities, and Williams appears among the top 20 across colleges of all types:
Of possibly further interest, both LACs you mentioned, Williams and Vassar, appear in this Forbes article, “10 Expensive Colleges Worth Every Penny”:
My husband is also an immigrant and shared your reservations. Our daughter’s current career path has shown us that, at least in her case, her degree from an LAC has been invaluable. Her experience at an LAC has certainly helped her become a confident young woman.
I’m going to share a couple of links with you. My D attended Bates college, but neither of these posts are exclusively about Bates. It might help give you perspective on the value of an LAC. Understand that the people who matter know about LACs, and they know that LACs send high percentages of student to grad school and med school. Grads from LACs work alongside grads from HYP. Tulane, fine school that it is, is not better than Vassar (in my opinion.) Georgetown is not better than Vassar either. These colleges all have their strengths and weaknesses, and the name of the college is nowhere nearly as important as the environment at those colleges, the students who attend, and the students themselves.
And this one…
In terms of alumni accomplishments, Georgetown, Duke, and Williams are Ivy-equivalents (Williams is more like a HYPSM-equivalent). Vassar a Near-Ivy and Tulane below that.
But in any case, if the end goal is definitely law school, I’m not sure it makes a lot of sense (from an ROI perspective) to spend $300K on any of them.
A lot comes down to what your family can comfortably afford (no hardship, no loans,).
If I was willing to pay full price for Georgetown, I would be willing to pay full price for Vassar or Williams.
To me, the opportunity cost of money as well as whether a college is affordable should be considered. $300K invested in a decently conservative 75/25 allocation, over 40 years, at least over 40 year intervals in the past, has generated a little over a million to a little over 6 million after 40 years, averaging around 2.5M, in real terms. Granted, the future is not the past (bond yields are low now), but there is the whole world to invest in, and those are amounts that can provide for retirement or at least a portion of it. You could still argue that some expensive college is still better than a full-ride based off of non-ROI criteria, but if you don’t already have millions, this is a trade-off that should be thought through.
If she’s really interested in law school and she’s aiming for a T14, that will run you another $300K as those schools don’t give much in the way of merit money so you’re $600,000 all in for those 7 years. Law schools are primarily GPA and LSAT although top schools seem to be adding in work experience as well and the percentage of students accepted straight from college is shrinking. Might be worth considering schools with more merit if you want to save some of the undergrad funds for law school.
T14 (outside of YHS) do give merit scholarships. They don’t give it out to everyone but it’s definitely easier to get substantial ones than getting large merit scholarships to Ivy-equivalents for undergrad.
Sorry should have been more precise…you’re right …Harvard Yale and Stanford don’t, but the rest do.
This may offer some insight as well.
I generally agree with @Lindagaf’s and @Eeyore123’s comments regarding paying for the various schools. Kids from top LACs definitely get admitted to top law schools.
I would say the important thing is for a child to be somewhere where they can be happy and thrive socially and academically, and that can be very different for different kids. The level of attention one gets from professors at different highly ranked universities, for example, can be very different depending on the school. Some kids are just fine with large lecture halls, others not so much. Also, kids often want to find “their people.” For some that might mean a strong Greek system; others may want nothing to do a school that even has a Greek system. For some that means a large school in a big city; others, not so much. Sometimes kids are just looking for a certain “vibe” at a school, and they know it when they see it. My own child took one step onto one of the colleges mentioned above and they immediately decided that everything about the school made them feel uncomfortable and that wanted to leave, immediately, and we quickly crossed it off the list.
I also agree with @momofboiler1 that what matters for law school is primarily GPA and LSAT. And I will add that, as someone who has interviewed many, many lawyers and law students, what matters is the name of the law school (and law school performance), not the name of the undergraduate school.
100% agree with this, that’s why it absolutely worth going to the best school you get into. I just wanted to bring the OP’s attention to info regarding law school costs because they might be substantial and they might want to factor that into their choices for undergrad since the law school name IS more important than the undergrad name.
Respectfully disagree. I’m a CPA but I don’t think everything in life can be boiled down to ROI (or any financial equation). IF a family can comfortably (no loans, no hardship) afford to be full pay (including any grad studies) then I would go with the best fit school regardless of price.
But CC is not a debate club so now that both opinions are posted we should let the OP decide what is best for his/her family.
Hey, I agree with you that fit is important, just like it is important for other things where fit matters (like the neighborhood you live in). But just as I wouldn’t ignore the financial ramifications of choosing to buy a house in this neighborhood or that neighborhood, I wouldn’t ever ignore the financial ramifications whenever we’re talking about a serious sum of money (and I know that number would differ among families). So I wouldn’t ever disregard price on any major purchase, but different strokes for different folks, and the OP can decide how they value things.
Williams and Vassar are extraordinarily difficult to get into even for students with impressive credentials, so she is going to have to cast her net wide and consider many schools to apply to, including those that are not as difficult to get into. As others have suggested, among those colleges at which you can be more certain of her admission, there will be many who do offer merit scholarships. She would be best served by identifying what the qualities are at Williams and Vassar that appeal to her, and to then seek other schools which also have those qualities but are less challenging to achieve admission.
But even at the level of Williams and Vassar, there are colleges outside the Northeast which are liberal arts colleges similar to Williams and Vassar which do offer merit scholarships. Examples would be Washington & Lee in Virginia, Richmond in Virginia, Davidson in North Carolina, Grinnell in Iowa, Macalester in Minnesota, and Claremont-McKenna in California.
Yes, but very few families have that sort of finances where college money is effectively unlimited. For most prospective college students, cost constraints are the most important fit factor.
That the OP is asking about whether some colleges are worth the price suggests that college money is not effectively unlimited.