<p>All good points, but why focus on college choice? </p>
<p>For example, we are willing to pay full fares for two kids. We are not willing to plonk down the price of a Porsche or a Lexus, though I assume that the cost of one car might be less than what we pay for four years of college for one kid.</p>
<p>We just have one rather beat up 1998 Honda. And it's not even a case of saving in one area to pay for the other. It did not even enter our minds. It's a matter of having different ways of judging different things by different yardsticks. I don't go around thinking that people who drive a Lexus are ego-tripping.</p>
<p>My kid would be a very fine math major...he has a math gift.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, he isn't interested in being a math major. Now, we could say, "we won't fund your college education, unless you are a math major, because we think there is no future for musicians"....but we haven't....and we won't.</p>
<p>Parents who try to "select" their children's major and career choice will probably have that backfire. Rarely can you choose a future for another person, since being a part of the decision making is what gives a person investment in a tack or approach.</p>
<p>Sure, I can see people who won't pay for their kids to pursue their dreams. I feel a little sorry for those kids though, and am glad my H and I feel otherwise.</p>
<p>"dstark-- I don't think the word value was used in a judgemental way.</p>
<p>"Value" is used in a judgmental way all day long on CC and the real world.</p>
<ul>
<li>Value (personal and cultural) -- the principles, standards, or quality which guides human actions</li>
<li>Value (economics) -- the market worth or estimated worth of commodities, services, assets, or work.</li>
<li>Value theory -- in ethics, aesthetics and other evaluative matter</li>
</ul>
<p>Those are judgments. </p>
<p>As far as college admissions goes, I like what I said in post 55 and don't feel the need to explain further.</p>
<p>Marite, I'm not being judgmental. I'm curious. Are you or have you ever been a professor? If so, what subject?</p>
<p>Allmusic, I don't think that the issue is that parents won't pay for college unless the major has earning potential; rather, that if a kid makes the choice to study in a very competitive area (such as fine arts), he shouldn't expect the parents to continue to subsidize his dream beyond college.</p>
<p>Dstark. Not telling what my occupation is. :)</p>
<p>Value can mean cost analysis: as in 'this is not worth your money," or it can mean passing judgment on someone else's beliefs and actions as in " paying for an Ivy education is a sign of vanity."
Two different things, sometimes working in combination (yes, I do know some people who go for brand names whether for cooking utensils, handbags or colleges), but they also need to be separated.</p>
<p>good point Marite. In our case, we ARE certainly willing to pay full fare for a college education. But it has to make sense. So, if we had a kid who would seem to thrive only at a small LAC - or had a unique passion that could only be served at an expensive private - then it's on the table. If our kid is a flexible soul who doesn't really know what he wants and seems OK with a variety of environments, then why would we disregard cost in the decision making process? I'm not saying cost is THE factor, I'm saying it's A factor.
I have a friend who has an aspiring writer on her hands. She's paying full freight at a small LAC - even though it's a big sacrifice. Makes sense. This kid would likely suffer in a big U environment (not just states Us). Our son is thriving in a big state U. He would probably thrive at some of the expensive privates too - but at four times the cost.
One last friend of mine has a son who has just started looking. They are not very well off, yet their son REFUSES to look at our good state options. No good reason other than they're not "good enough" for HIM. He's looking at big private Us with D1 sports programs - at full freight since they won't qualify for fin aid. Now, that doesn't make sense to me. Just a personal opinion though...</p>
<p>Do you remember the era of Yuppie competitive consumption? In the land of Filene's Basement, the definition of a Yuppie was someone who boasted about paying more than stiker price. Well, I had a pair of neighbors who bought the most expensive set of cookware on the market but were too tired working to make money to buy the most expensive set of cookware to actually make use of said cookware. They just wanted to be able to say they went for value. And of course, they had no children.</p>
<p>I absolutely agree that the comparison often should be between good, fairly inexpensive state universities and good, quite expensive large private universities.<br>
For a MI resident, I would not recommend BU over UMich, for example, for a student who was comfortable at a large university.<br>
There are issues involved with smaller LACs. Most tend to be more expensive than state universities. And many are not of the ASWP caliber. But for some students who need a smaller environment whether because of intended major or personality traits, parents will very likely be willing to make financial sacrifices to send such students to an expensive LAC.
S1 needed a LAC. S2's range of universities was limited and the large state Unis that were strong in his field would not have cost significantly less than Harvard after commuting was taken into account.</p>
<p>"Do you remember the era of Yuppie competitive consumption? In the land of Filene's Basement, the definition of a Yuppie was someone who boasted about paying more than stiker price. Well, I had a pair of neighbors who bought the most expensive set of cookware on the market but were too tired working to make money to buy the most expensive set of cookware to actually make use of said cookware. They just wanted to be able to say they went for value. And of course, they had no children."</p>
<p>OK. So what if the Ivies doubled their tuition next year? Do you think they would get more or less apps? More or less yield?
It just seems strange that the market for the top 50 or so schools doesn't seem to follow any of the normal rules. Since many parents will pull out all stops to send their kids to these schools - they can just keep raising the bar on tuition. How far before it has an impact? This is related to the OP's original question.<br>
Reminds me of a school that was on our list a couple of years ago. They raised tuition 25% in one year. Said that they thought many were discounting the value of the education at the school since tuition was on the cheap side. They wanted to "upgrade" their image. Charging more would help them do that.</p>
<p>"OK. So what if the Ivies doubled their tuition next year? Do you think they would get more or less apps? More or less yield?</p>
<p>It just seems strange that the market for the top 50 or so schools doesn't seem to follow any of the normal rules."</p>
<p>They actually follow fairly strict rules of prestige products. The already-existed panache of the product increases with the price (even if no changes are made in the product), and more people seek the prestige object because they believe it enhances their own. And being able to purchase the product, and receiving a small scholarship (which is simply a discount) adds to prestige even further.</p>
<p>They don't need to double the cost of the product in one year. As long as list-price increases are higher than general inflation, but lower than the increase in assets/income of their prime customers, they are in a sweet spot of continued increases of applications</p>
<p>toneranger, if you increase the price of some products, you increase the demand. It is explained as mini says, in Veblen's book, "The Theory of the Leisure Class". (It's a hard read).</p>
<p>By the way, Penn State gets more applications than any Ivy league school and its a state school.</p>
<p>You can argue that more people would rather go to Penn State than any Ivy.</p>
<p>It's the people who argue that more people would rather go to an IVY, that have to come up with all the flawed and distorted studies, and flawed and distorted ranking systems to make their points. :)</p>
<p>OK - I get it. It's like box of Godiva or a Lexus.
By the way, Trader Joes has a great box of Godiva-like chocs - for about 1/3 the price. Pretty box too... :-)</p>
<p>Is there more emotional involvement in your childs' college education as the price you pay increases? I know right now it is pretty easy to ignore the skipped class here and there but I'm not so sure if I was paying $45,000 for 30 weeks of classes if I would feel the same way. How would you feel if you did not believe your kid was trying their absolute hardest? Would you be able to give them the latitude to have some screw ups as one might expect from an 18 yr. old or would it drive you nuts and start to hurt your relationship because you expected better? I don't know the answer but I have often
wondered.</p>
<p>I bought the Trader Joe knock offs. I guess I'm consistent.</p>
<p>If you follow the Veblenesque logic out a little further, as regards colleges, it would go something like this: If "we" (prestige colleges) only appeal to those who have already attained prestige, we will lose ours over time. After all, within a capitalist society, the numbers of those at the top of the heap should, at least in theory, shrink, in the neo-Darwinian survival of the fittest. So to maintain prestige, we have to get those who believe in their own upward mobility to also believe in the obvious superiority of our product. We have to make the product difficult to obtain, or it will lose its panache, but it must be obtainable by some, or it will lose its prestige. Fortunately, we know how to do that.</p>
<p>Now, although we serve the same social function in the delivery of a product (in this case "education") as others do - who are able to deliver a similar product at a fraction of the cost - we must make it so that others believe these providers are merely imitators, and enhance the belief that everyone would prefer our product if they had the choice (which of course they don't). Nevermind that the available evidence suggests otherwise; this is about marketing, not facts. </p>
<p>And, lucky for us, because of the class position of our prime consumers, they will always be leaders in the prestige game, regardless of the quality of what we deliver. We could make all the students live in mudhuts and eat gruel, and call it "advanced anthropology", and pretty soon, there would be mudhut imitators all of the country. Ah, but they wouln't be OUR mudhuts - ours are the only ones that can provide prestige, provided we continue to charge a premium price for them.</p>
<p>"Is there more emotional involvement in your childs' college education as the price you pay increases?"</p>
<p>"Would you be able to give them the latitude to have some screw ups as one might expect from an 18 yr. old or would it drive you nuts and start to hurt your relationship because you expected better? I don't know the answer but I have often
wondered."</p>
<p>Yes there is more emotional involvement and more intellectual involvement too.</p>
<p>It's harder to give latitude, but what are you going to do, they are young. You don't want to hurt the relationship.</p>
<p>"I bought the Trader Joe knock offs. I guess I'm consistent."</p>
<p>Godiva chocolates are made by the Campbell's Soup Company. Kind of ruins the image, doesn't it? But they'll still taste the same.</p>
<p>Regarding going for a dream in the artsy type fields: My friend's son is opening this March in his second Broadway show. He has interrupted college a few times and even has attended a lower tier college close to home to accomodate this dream. He's a dancer. When in the world will he ever be able to land a dance job on Broadway if not in his youth? College & his future teaching career can wait. But you'd be surprised how many people still judge his path as a foolish one. And this is a kid who has LANDED his second show & spent a year with the touring company of another. Perhaps he'll finish his BA as a twenty-eight year old instead of a twenty-two year old. Big deal.</p>
<p>My brother has a philosophy degree and his chosen career is fireman. I've studied architecture, English, Marketing, Nursing. No need to view your first career as your last. I want my kids to have some type of plan, but I can't see meddling too much in their choice of major. I will tell them, in the words of Tim Gunn, "Make it work."</p>