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Sounds like everyone in my neighborhood :-)</p>
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I learned that too, but I feel like I’m surrounded by people who haven’t, and never will.</p>
<p>Not everyone though. Kind of similar to what you said. The people on my street who probably make the most money sent two of their kids to match schools, instead of reach schools that they got into, in order to save money. They’re still at great schools, but I was shocked that they didn’t plunk down the money for the better schools. I’m pretty sure they could have afforded it.</p>
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Very true. Too bad they can’t buy both. </p>
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I’ve seen this. What a waste. I’ve also seen parents who care very much, but just apply a little too much pressure, and school becomes a thing that they constantly fight with their kids about.</p>
<p>I’m not saying it’s easy. I think I almost crossed that line once with one of my kids, but luckily, things got back on track.</p>
<p>I know a family who has two kids. They could easily afford to send both kids to nice private schools at full price, but the oldest will be going to Community College next Fall.</p>
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<p>Better academic credentials can also make schools with better financial aid more accessible.</p>
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True. I wish good scores could get schools to look at need more carefully, on a more case by case basis, but that doesn’t appear to be the case. It looks like I’m going to be paying full freight, or sending my kids to public school.</p>
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<p>Stop! You don’t have need. It’s not just you, that word is one of my pet peeves about financial aid talk. Nobody “needs” college the way they need food, water, shelter, or even basic reading and math ability. But, if you want to talk about need in regards to college, since a degree in most fields isn’t optional, then ok. Let’s talk about need. You need community college, you may need a state school to finish up your degree, but nobody needs Boston College or Harvard. If you can afford community college and state school without usurious debt, you don’t have “need.” </p>
<p>Now, the elite schools have decided that income and to some degree assets will be the only drivers to determine how much they will charge different people. Tell yourself if Boston College (or wherever you think your D will be happy) actually wanted your child, they would make the school affordable for you. They make it affordable for other kids whose parents don’t earn as much, why not your D? Wouldn’t you rather your D attended a school that wanted her as much as she wanted them - a mutual fit? </p>
<p>My guess is you would look at my family’s balance sheet and tell me that we could afford 60k per kid per year. But we can’t. Not without a good deal of debt or sacrificing our retirement savings or driving a couple of beaters or a whole bunch of other choices we’d prioritize over a fancy (i.e. a 60k + per year) education. Bottom line, we can afford an absolutely good enough debt free education for our children if they are willing to work for it (i.e. through scholarships). And a debt free education is something most FA recipients can’t have. But if you earn a good income, your D is a good student, and you’re willing to look only at schools that will be affordable (either via state options and/or merit), your D can have the gift of a debt free education too. </p>
<p>@halfemptypockets, stop! One of my pet peeves is people putting words in my mouth. I never said my daughter needs to go to a private school. I said that if she does go to a private school, I NEED some money, because I don’t have any. That’s all I said.</p>
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No, I wouldn’t want that. Not if the lack of fit is based on finances. I would much rather have them reluctantly take her, even though it would be a bit of a mismatch financially for them.</p>
<p>I understand the reasoning behind giving less fortunate kids a chance, but let me give you a scenario to consider.</p>
<p>Let’s take two brothers from an established family. Many generations of this family have gone to college. Both brothers go to college. After college, the older brother squanders his inheritance and gets hooked on drugs. The younger brother works hard and starts a business, but the business fails, and he foolishly pours personal money into the business in a futile attempt to save it. This younger brother picks himself up and gets a good job, making good money, but is still burdened by huge amounts of debt from the business failure.</p>
<p>Do the older brother’s kids really have more of a right to an elite education, just because their father became a drug addict, and earns less money? I’m assuming that the kids do equally well in school? Don’t the older brother’s kids only NEED community college, and maybe a state school after that? Do they need more because of their family situation? Do they deserve more?</p>
<p>I realize this is an extreme example, but you get my point. I know the admissions offices can’t dig this deep, but it’s obviously an imperfect system. The middle class is clearly getting squeezed out of many schools. I’m not expecting anyone to fix it. I’m just frustrated that I’m getting squeezed out.</p>
<p>Forgot one detail in my scenario - let’s say that both families have the same amount of disposable income to pay for tuition each month.</p>
<p>@WalknOnEggShells - I’ll give you a different scenario. Two families - the mothers are nurses, the fathers are cops. Base pay is identical. One family earns an additional 80k through overtime, while the other family enjoys watching television and sleeping in. The way the current FA policy is set up at schools, the higher earning family is penalized for working harder. You can say it’s not fair and I would agree that the variable tuition scheme based mostly on income and assets isn’t fair, but it is what it is. And we all know what it is before our kids apply. </p>
<p>Personally, I see Atlas shrugging quite a bit these days. Full pay families are resisting the high charging undergrad schools in greater numbers. Things might be different by the time your D starts looking at schools. I see limiting my kids’ choices of schools to only those that we can afford (or via merit, possibly afford) to pay for outright as a good life lesson. Life’s not fair</p>
<p>Our family is blessed to be able to afford plenty of very good state and state subsidized options. My kids have worked for and are blessed with very good grades and scores and they have lots of private merit granting options that will likely be affordable for us as well. </p>
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<p>It is not a mismatch for them - it is a mismatch for you. They will not reluctantly take her. They will welcome her and your student and parent loans with open arms. But there are some schools that will open wide their doors even without those loans. Those are the schools that really want your D and your D, if she’s as good a student as you believe, should be able to find a school where the feeling is mutual. </p>
<p>walkoneggshells wrote: "Forgot one detail in my scenario - let’s say that both families have the same amount of disposable income to pay for tuition each month. "</p>
<p>^ Ha ha. Disposable income? Do middle class families have disposable income?</p>
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Yeah, I think someone disposed of mine. If you find it, would you let me know :-)</p>
<p>I agree @halfemptypockets The underlying assumption of @WalknOnEggShells is that only the top schools in the country actually offer a solid academic education and therefore kids that can’t afford to attend can’t receive a quality education. A premise which from my view point is not valid. There are literally hunderds of great schools in this country, not just 10 or 20.</p>
<p>I also agree that many top students and families are determining that there are better options for their hard-earned $$. Really elite **students<a href=“let’s%20face%20it;%20we%20should%20really%20be%20focusing%20on%20the%20elite%20student,%20not%20just%20the%20elite%20institutions”>/b</a> are not confined to the working poor or the financially sound. They are found across the SES strata and equally across universities and colleges across the nation. Are all undergrad experiences the same? No. But, elite students do thrive across this country at institutions where their talents are recognized. Professors and universities offerthem their best opportunities which are often excellent in their own right.</p>
<p>Our ds took 300 level physics classes his sr yr of high school at a small regional university. It is not even ranked. His physics professors were parts of international teams such as CERN. One wanted to take him to Kitt Peak to participate in a research project he was part of. (The university denied permission after granting the funding b/c he was a minor.) They gave him books to read outside of class and spent hours talking to him in their offices. He was not just student sitting in their classroom. He was someone they wanted to encourage to high levels of success. The dept offered him the moon to complete his undergrad there. He wanted an away college experience, but he would have been surrounded by professors who were vested in his success if he had stayed. There is a lot to be said about that at the undergrad level. And, yes, I believe good educations can be found in brick and mortar places and not just ivory towers. ;)</p>
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When exactly did I say that! </p>
<p>Jeez guys, why don’t you both take a couple more of the ideas that are looping through your minds, and put them in a little thought bubble attached to my head :-)</p>
<p>You’re assuming that I made an assumption. That’s a pretty big leap :-)</p>
<p>Not everyone who is interested in private schools is a prestige whore. Like you said: “Are all undergrad experiences the same? No.”</p>
<p>My daughter will have to build her own list of schools, but like most of the parents here, I’m building my list of schools that I’ll encourage her to at least take a look at. Some of the private schools that I have on my list don’t have an equivalent school in the SUNY system(or further down the rankings of private schools, as far as I know). Bucknell, for example. Show me SUNY Bucknell. You can’t, because it doesn’t exist. If there were something even close, I would put it at the top of my list. If we could take Geneseo, and add the Engineering and CS departments from Stony Brook, we might get close, but that still wouldn’t give you the personal attention you’d get at Bucknell.</p>
<p>I’m no happier about the cost of private schools than you are, but I’m not going to pretend that I can just plug in a SUNY school, or a less prestigious private school, to replace some school I have in mind. There are too many variables - location, selection of departments, student to faculty ratio, etc. It’s hard enough to find a good fit, period. Finding one that fits, and then finding a cheaper version of that school, is no small feat. </p>
<p>Back to the SUNY’s. If I thought my daughter would thrive at a big research university, where the teachers don’t know your name, and don’t care to know it, I wouldn’t even be on this site. I’d be happily saving the $22,000 it would cost for her first year at Stony Brook or Binghamton.</p>
<p>I saw a thread today from a couple of weeks ago about state vs private schools. I’ll post over there about this, but since we’re on the topic, let me just mention a couple of the reasons why many of the SUNY schools are not so desirable to me:</p>
<p>-All the ones I’ve seen are ugly and depressing places - just slightly more inviting than a prison or a mental hospital.
-I’d say more than half of them are covered in snow by mid December. Maybe three quarters of them.
-Most of the smaller ones are in very remote, cold, and depressing places.
-The bigger ones offer very little in the way of personal attention. Plan on having professors who have very little time for you, and get used to Intro courses with 300 or more students in them. You will have some small classes, and they’ll be taught by grad students, who will have gone through extensive training in education before becoming your teachers :-)</p>
<p>Of course, I’m being a little harsh.There are some good schools in the system, and I’m sure there are some great professors at all of them. But there isn’t a Bucknell, or even a Fordham or Manhattan College amongst them.</p>
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I totally agree. My daughter might end up being interested in the top 20, but none of the top 20 Universities or LAC’s are on my list. Top 30 is the highest position of any of the schools I like for my kids so far.</p>
<p>There are plenty of lower ranked schools that offer merit aid, everything from LACs to public universities. I know nothing about SUNY schools, but your post is about disparate extremes. There are plenty of schools in the middle. There are even plenty of OOS publics where the total COA with no merit $$ wouldn’t touch Bucknell’s tuition. Just because they are OOS does not automatically mean attendance equals extremely high cost.</p>
<p>I have no idea what your dd’s interests are, but just as 3 very different examples—Case Western gives merit $$ to high stat kids (you don’t have to apply for it separately, but not automatic like published "if you have these stats, we will give you $$XX. But, high stat kids typically get awarded the $$.) It is urban, about mid-sized, has a grad school, etc. On the small, undergrad only, suburban end, College of Wooster awards lots of $$ as well. If you would be full pay at Bucknell, those 2 schools would be close to 1/2 price for a student with high enough stats. Those are just 2 schools out hundreds and both very different from each other. There are plenty others out there that offer similar merit packages. Then you have publics like NCSU where the full pay price for OOS is the equivalent of 1/2 price of full pay at those privates. </p>
<p>Someone recommened Colleges that Change Lives. That is one source. Public Honors <a href=“http://publicuniversityhonors.com/category/national-rankings/”>http://publicuniversityhonors.com/category/national-rankings/</a> is another. </p>
<p>The idea that good professors who pay attention to their students, “fit,” etc can only be found on a handful of campuses that cost $60,000 is an exaggeration, especially for high stat, high performing students that would be sought after elsewhere. And some of the honors programs out there offer amzing opportunities.</p>
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<p>For kids whose families don’t make a lot of money to get a school funded elite education, they have to have the stats to get in to the elite college. The majority of poor kids aren’t attending elite colleges. The amount of federal aid most poor families qualify for combined with the full federal loans and work earnings of the student still isn’t enough to pay for sleep away college at any school that I know of, and the parents of these students are unlikely to be able to make up the difference, especially if they have more than one child. Anyone who’d like to take a shot at the opportunities the poor have is welcome to try. Quit your job, unload your assets, and donate the proceeds. I’d rather have the luxury our $60k/year income provides: enough food to eat, a secure home in a safe neighborhood, medical care when we need it, reliable transportation, and access to cultural, athletic, and purely fun activities. I’ve been poor. This is better.</p>
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<p>You do realize that suNY schools are in NYS, right? We get snow here. And it’s not limited to the public schools; the private colleges in NYS – they get snow too. </p>
<p>As far as ugliness, that’s in the eye of the beholder I guess. I visited multiple buildings at both SUNY New Paltz and Columbia University last month for different events. Columbia is more beautiful on the outside, but the classroom buildings were run down and awful. Their dark hallways, walls with peeling/chipped paint, and drab interiors were in no way superior or more pleasant than NP’s well lit, well kept campus. I’m sure some of Columbia’s buildings have beautiful interiors. I just think the classrooms where our kids spend so much of their time should be among them.</p>
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<p>Which SUNYs are these? You may have large lecture hall classes for the classes that all majors need to take, but not all classes are taught that way. I’ve attended 2 SUNYs and 2 NYS privates (as an adult student) and never met a grad student. In my opinion, the SUNYs had better professors. I found them more caring, more thought provoking, and more invested in their students’ success. The professors at the private colleges I attended couldn’t wait to get out of class to go ride their Harleys or pursue their own projects. I’m sure there are some fine private schools and that you’ll find good and bad teachers wherever you go, but just because a teacher works at a public college doesn’t make them disinterested or less capable than a teacher who works at a private institution.</p>
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<p>Actually I didn’t make a pretty big leap. And, based on what you wrote above, you do think that public/less prestigious schools cannot “replace some school (you) have in mind.” </p>
<p>Based on the above quote, it is also unclear whether you really have limited options based on limited financeds, or you just don’t want to pay for the expense. Quoting: I’d be happily saving the$22,000 it would cost for her first year at Stony Brook or Binghampton is a much different scenario than MANY (probably the majority) of elite students face where even $22000 is more than the total they can afford.</p>
<p>Not liking the costs or not wanting to pay the cost is radically different from flat out not having the means to pay which is what many students’ reality. According to our income, it looks like we can pay. But the difference is we simply can’t. It isn’t even a begrudgingly opt to pay option. It is our life based on our life choices (which I wouldnt change, btw) and it is what it is. </p>
<p>So, ds just had to “plug into a less presitious school” b/c it is his reality. He is now attending Alabama on full scholarship and is loving every minute of it, as are 1000s of other top students at lower institutions around the country…thriving where they are planted.</p>
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<p>For small low cost schools with engineering, what about South Dakota School of Mines and Technology and New Mexico Institute of Mining and Technology?</p>