This discussion was created from comments split from: Discovering Affordability.
We are fortunate to be in a different financial position, mainly because our older children did not use most of the college money earmarked for them. My s20 knows this, yet fortunately (maybe because he has worked a residential construction job for 3 years and is around guys who struggle financially), he has a very good idea what $70k a year means. To add to the mix, I know a lot more about how colleges price tags work because I am a consultant in the higher ed industry. I know that it does NOT cost $70K a year to provide a superior education to an 18 year old and I know the marketing games colleges play to convince us that they are worth every penny. They are not. So it KILLS me to think I could pay full price at a private school, as I really know better. But, we have a huge soft spot for our youngest who truly has never asked for a thing from us and has insisted on paying for everything he can since he started earning money. We are lucky (and our oldest two would have ripped that $70k a year out of our hands so fast we would have gotten paper cuts).
After many college visits, it is looking like he will have a top three which will include our state flagship (where he is likely to get $8k in discount because our state targets his intended major). So, about &20k COA annually. Low prestige but precisely the kind of program he wants. Spot on. Versus full price at a very prestigious college (Cornell) vs. full price at a prestigious OOS state school (COA about $50k).
Of course, there is that liiiiitle detail about getting accepted, which of course may settle the matter for us.
Hail Mary passes aside, I really, REALLY want him to go to the state flagship. For lots of reasons. The only thing holding him back from being a âone and doneâ is that he likes the comfort of being at a high prestige school in case he doesnât like his engineering major. Other than that, he sees the three as equivalent. It is hard to argue with him. For engineering, he is better off at our state flagship than pretty much anywhere else, career-wise. He totally agrees with that.
So weâve been trying to help him understand what else he could do with the $ if he goes to the state flagship (aka, we are trying out the concept of bribing him). He wasnât swayed by a fancy car. He isnât a fancy-living kind of kid son there was no allure in having a nice off campus apartment (instead of the frightening dump my oldest lived in at the same state flagship). Promises of an extra-awesome semester abroad didnât work at all (I might take that offer, myself). He is a dual American/Italian citizen and his cousin is an engineering professor in a university in Italy and he offered to craft an awesome multi-university experience linked to the auto industry in Italy. Weâre talking Maserati, etc. âNo, thank you. I donât think Iâll be doing a semester abroad.â
UghâŠbut then it occurred to me that the biggest thing he has focused on at the colleges heâs visited is connections to employers - he is very focused on internship/summer research opportunities. SooooooâŠthis tactic worked: âwith the money youâd save, you would be able to take any internship you wanted, paid or unpaid, no matter how expensive it is to live at the location. You could even bring your own funding to a research experience during one summer.â now THAT gave him pause and raised an eyebrow. HmmmmmâŠhe hadnât thought of that. I think we may have a winner!
We arenât going to write him a $50k check every year if he goes to the state flagship, but that savings will certainly encourage mom and dad to pony up for things like two monthâs rent in San Jose one summer, and do so with glee. He wonât be taking his frat brothers to Hawaii for spring break, but we certainly will be happy to fund that week for him in Daytona every year.
Any other bribe recommendations are welcomed.
In a nutshell, we want him to be thrilled to attend our state flagship, not just âokâ with it. He is fully aware that many, many kids in his HS will be sweating even getting accepted at that school. But high stat kids want high stat experiences. Just like in youth sports, you donât want to be the best or worst kid on the team. In college, he wants to be surrounded by kids similar to him in terms of academic success. Every kid does. I get that. But for high stats kids, this is really tough to achieve. His being an engineering major helps with this, as engineering has a way of creating a high stats environment for majors. But if he changes majorsâŠ
@cypresspat: To be fair, Cornell is excellent for engineering and there ARE some opportunities that are only offered to students attending specific schools (even for CS).
Making the flagship appealing is a great strategy - but see if he can find an equally good college willing to pay him with merit scholarships. This way heâll have a choice in the Spring. (He may end up choosing the flagship but he wonât feel like he had to choose it. Makes a big difference.)
If he likes professional outcomes, why not look into UCincinnatiâs excellent co-op program as well as their scholarships (Cincinatus + some which are college-specific).
@MYOS1634 Sigh⊠I have tried. Any school which has the major he wants where he could get merit $ compares unfavorably to OSU on what matters to him. Cost wise, it canât be beat; he wonât get a full scholarship anywhere. And the research programs and hence the scientific firepower of the chem engineering professors (and he knows he will likely never be in the same room as those guys and gals) pretty much squash every other school. Except Cornell and UCLA. He is willing to accept the relative slight inferiority ofnthe chem eng depts. in the other schools he is looking at because they have something else he likes (usually the ability to do a minor he is considering).
And he shuns co-ops. He wants to graduate on-time. Heâll be all over summer internships, but the school year is for school, according to my 17 year old.
He is not making this easy.
For that major, have OU looked at UDel and UMN TC?
He could apply and compare, + Cornell (UCLA is going to be private price/public university. Great for Californians whoboay instate rates, not for OOS).
The Ohio State University is a terrific flagship universityâŠwith tons of majors if he changes his mind. His is a win winâŠa great flagshipâŠreally greatâŠat a very affordable cost. And he loves the school according to your other thread.
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I agree that OPâs son not giving up much going to OSU. I know many many talented kids who have gone there.
It seems like you really really really are not willing to pay more than OSU. Youâve said about your kid that âbeing a pretty self-less and easy-to-please kid, would never ask his parents to spend $200K more for something just because he likes it better. It would be really out of character for him to think that wayâ. So trying to â convince â him seems more about you than him. Given his personality youâre never going to know fir sure if heâs just being self less or really wants to give up the other schools. Tell him you do not want him to go to any school but OSU. That feels a lot less manipulative to me.
Actually, I think the better approach would be for the parent to tell the student that they are willing to pay the AMOUNT of the full cost of attendance at OSU for any college the student wants to attend, but no more. That sets the budget but preserves the option for the student to apply to other schools where there is a realistic possibility of significant merit aid. Let the kid choose the college, but the parents set the budget.
My engineering child did not do study abroad. It didnât matter to her. She played a spring sport so if she would have done it it would have had to be summer or fall.
My engineer nephew did not do study abroad either. His environmental engineer GF did a summer study in Sweden or Norway (something to do with volcanoes), and he went for about 3 weeks, 1 on his own and then met up with her. His family also goes Thanksgiving week to one European city (Paris, Rome, London and I donât remember the last one). He did a 5th year masters, and finished that this May. He and GF are finishing up 6 weeks in Europe next week, and then it is home to a job for her and a job search for him.
So, long story short, Europe will still be there even if one doesnât do study abroad.
I really like @calmomâs strategy, and I also like dangling the $$ support of summer internships if OPâs son goes to the state school. D has done two internships, but any costs associated with them are on her, even though we cover her tuition and room and board during the school year. Sheâs had to weigh the costs of a summer internship opportunity (transportation, food, rent, etc.) against the income, which means some were just off the table altogether (either never pursued or offers declined). If OP can give son the freedom to choose internships based on interest/career building vs. economics, that will be a real gift. On the other hand, an engineering intern may have more decent paying internship opportunities than not, soâŠ
Freedom to choose internships is huge. If he drops engineering for fill-in-random-poorly-paid-major-here, cash on hand to pay for living expenses during an unpaid or grossly under-paid internship, or for a graduate degree later on, will be a really, really, really good thing.
I just looked at the tOSU website, and it sure looks to me like he can find just about any major there he could be interested in. What, exactly, is this back-up major of his that he believes requires a âprestigeâ institution?
Why do you have to convince him of anything? Tell him he has to go to a school within your budget and let that be the end of the discussion.
It sounds like you are in Ohio.
Iâm not just saying this, but look at the University of Cincinnati especially for chemical engineering. Co-ops may not sound important right now, but the engineering students make BANK on their co-ops (Iâve heard $25-30K a semester) plus graduate with not only experience but job offers from their co-op partners. Thatâs worth an extra semester or two, in my opinion.
With the first DD, I said âmake a list of colleges that we can go visitâ and she did. She picked a geographical distance from our house and researched schools within that. We visited most of those over Spring break junior year. I included a parent pick that met the criteria that she wanted. I encouraged her to start her application over the summer, but she waited until fall of Senior year whiledoing IB diploma with Math HL, Chem HL, and Physics HL. When she got the results back, there was a bimodal distribution of net costsâŠpublic State Us that were under 30K and a couple of privates over 40K. We didnât discuss budgets per se, but at that point as she was interested in the Public Us I told her to pick whatever one she wanted in the under 30K batch as I didnât think the others were worth it for her major, Math. We didnât get to go to admitted students day as we were living in Germany at the time. She ended up picking my parent pick college, which was the most expensive of the publics. She did great. She is a very independent person who likes to do online research.
So for the second one, I started a little earlier. Fall break of Junior year I took her to our Big State U and an excellent State College that I thought would fit what she wanted and be affordable. She hated the big State U (you have to take busses to get around the campuses) but liked State College. I wanted her to get a feel for the type of college she might want to investigate more. Then I did the same thing. Go make your list. ⊠in the winter of Junior year I dragged her to the library, put a Fiske guide in front of her and say look at thisâŠAt some point she said âYou like to look stuff up on the internetâŠcan you come up with a list for me.â So I used the various college search tools on naviance and here on CC and got some ideas for her. We visited them over Junior Fall break (including the State College again for reference). For her I know she wanted to be 1-2 hours away. Summer of junior year I insisted that she came up with a draft of her Common App essay and she did. So come fall, I asked her if she wanted to think about applying ED to State CollegeâŠshe kept comparing everything to it and it was affordable for us full payâŠand she has a terrible time making decisions and I thought this would save her from having to choose in the spring. She did apply ED, got in, and is currently a Junior!
So both of my kids ended up at an affordable parent pick that met their needs.
I had a friend who said âI will pay in-state tuition for your college, but no moreâ.
One picked the State U, and one picked a neighboring StateU that was affordable for OOS.
If you donât want to pay more than ~$25k/year why would you let him apply to schools that cost more only to offer him bribes to take the lower cost option? Just tell him what your budget is so he can find colleges in that price range. If he has the stats to have a shot at Cornell there are more than 3 colleges in the US that will be options for him. Help him find some of them.
Coops are great for would be engineers because sometimes the reality of a job in âindustryâ differs significantly from what a college kid thinks he or she wants to do. I wouldnât let the lack of interest today in a co-op dictate terms long term. Better to switch gears (pun intended ) with a low risk co-op than a full-time job.
@happymomof1 There is no back up major. He is 1000% convinced he will like chem engineering. There is no convincing him of otherwise. We, his parents, the non-17-year olds, know better and have urged him to consider the possibility and not pick a school which would be a bad fit for him if the engineering bombs out. tOSU likely has every major there is, agreed. But that doesnât mean that it is solid in every major. It happens to be rock solid for chem engineering, according to his criteria. Thank goodness.
@austinmshauri Not sure where the idea came in that we canât or wonât pay more than $25k. We are lucky and can afford full pay wherever he wants. But that doesnât mean we WANT to. Especially when the state option is actually the better choice for his intended major.
@bearcatfan I completely agree. Could not get him to glance at U of Cincy. He has a set of criteria about the chem eng depts. will not budge off of it. I think co-ops are a great idea. He does not.