That depends on the selectivity of the school or its engineering division / majors, because stronger students are more likely to be able to complete a relatively difficult major.
At time, it was the most selective major, and had the highest drop out/flunk rate.
The guy on my left found that engineering school with heavy duty math wasn’t for him, went to cc for engineering tech and has always been employed doing IT support. The guy on my right discovered that he preferred mech eng (he was VERY good at drafting), moved to Europe, learned a 2nd language and is also employed as a mech eng there.
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That is so true. And it’s sad how many parents don’t do that!
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Who spends 300K on undergrad? We certainly didn’t! And what do you mean by how long it will take to payback? That isn’t something we considered. We had them choose schools that were affordable and we wanted them to graduate without debt and do what they could in college to maximize their chances of finding employment when they graduated. If they were just going to flounce through college with no direction or plan…then we wouldn’t have paid to send them away for college and would’ve explored other options. If they wanted to major in the arts, we would’ve paid for that as long as they had a plan and avoided student loan debt (even more crucial when you’re majoring in the arts). As long as they are employed and self-supporting after college…that’s a good ROI for us.
If you want to major in social work or teaching, it’s probably not a good idea to choose a very expensive school like USC. One of D’s friends is a teacher and she went to USC, but her very wealthy grandparents paid for it…
That said, I think it’s important to try to avoid student loan debt no matter what you want to study. Most of us aren’t made of money. I do get that some kids need to take out loans to go to college to begin with, but that’s a different matter.
That goes without saying. And I know people in all sorts of jobs with a wide range of salaries who are bad with money and don’t save! H and I have never had the highest paying careers, but we have always lived below our means. That’s something that we learned from our parents. Our parents (who grew up during the depression) encouraged us to go to cheap state universities, so we could graduate without debt. As we moved up in our careers, we earned more. H has been with his company for 30 years and has gotten many raises as he’s become more senior.
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I’ll push back at you on the “Who spends 300k …?” If you don’t qualify for FA and don’t want to go to a place that has merit aid - well, the full price tag is 300k at many privates and OOS publics whether you are paying from 529, loans, salaries.
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Yep, that’s about right, said the guy whose son went to Stanford and whose daughter starts at Hopkins this fall. Both full pay completely funded by 529s. 
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Quite a few people do when it comes to private colleges, and they subside those that cannot.
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300k dollars won’t cover it. At least $320k, and likely a bit more given the rate of tuition increases.
I’ve seen a couple of manifestations of this. One is the case where a parent is, consciously or not, hoping the child will live out their own unfulfilled dreams, usually career related.
Another–far more damaging IMO–is how a parent criticizes (for want of a better word) the child. It’s one thing to say “stop doing xyz”, quite another to say “stop being xyz”. The former is about the kid’s behavior, and is part of teaching them what is acceptable or not. The latter implies there is something wrong with the child’s very personality, or essential way of being. The first they can change, the latter not so much. At least this is what I’ve observed.
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I hear you. There is a little variation on prices, Michigan came out to 75k, USC over 90k! But 300k isn’t far fetched for a family that doesn’t qualify for FA and not everyone gets merit.
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Oh I know that plenty do spend that much. I work at a wealthy school and see plenty of families who spend that much…
I guess it’s just shocking because we didn’t even consider schools where it would’ve cost that much
I’ve seen that too.
if> you are not working in a field that allows you to save enough to tide your family through 0 income for at least 1 year by the time you are 30, to me that is an irresponsible path/risk.
Many people live paycheck to paycheck. Many people are trying to get by on minimum wage. They work harder than some who make more. I vigorously object to characterizing folks who can’t save money as irresponsible, or branding folks who don’t have access to that kind of lucrative field as irresponsible.
Perhaps you just want to rephrase.
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I kept track of my college expenses, $80k for 4 years for the CS kid, $132k for 4 years for the film major kid at a pricey private institution, we didn’t qualify for financial aid. The above numbers include room and board, not just tuition.
That is one type of parental response to poverty. And here is another. Both my parents grew up in poverty and in a world that segregated black people and denied them basic rights to hold certain jobs, live in certain areas, or have meaningful participation in the political process. Despite being quite well-educated for their time, the only jobs that their own parents were able to hold were as domestics, custodial staff and a bit later as factory line workers. Both my parents did stints in those exact same jobs (as domestics) in high school and as young adults. And as a young married couple, redlining made it impossible for my parents to find housing in towns that offered the type of schools that they wanted for their own children.
None of that led my parents to thinking about the education of me and my siblings in terms of our financial gain beyond our basic self-sufficiency (and for one of my parents --the immigrant, a heavy emphasis on saving). In fact, quite the opposite, all of those financial hard times led to an appreciation for education and learning for its own sake because so many black folks have been denied an opportunity to go to school in the past. Almost separate from the belief in the transformative power of education for its own sake, my parents also held deep beliefs about jobs. They passed down the idea that the only meaningful type of employment is work that contributes to the health and well-being of others, and that it was their children’s obligation to pay back their wider communities (in both a local and also global sense) through some sort of service. And that to some extent their work (either their employment or community service) must be focused on helping to uplift the next generation of African-Americans.
Honestly, this outlook is as heavy of a burden to bear and as pressured as the messages that parents pushing financial ROI place on their kids. So to be honest, I am not so sure that my parents’ approach was any healthier than parents that demand kid study engineering or become a doctor or investment banker or whatever. Nevertheless, I get frustrated with the generalization that growing up in poverty automatically leads to a focus on education as a means to financial gain. Perhaps it does for some low-income individuals, but I reject the notion that is implied in some posts that non-STEM majors or majors that aren’t pre-professional are a choice made by the self-indulgent and/or wealthy. Somehow it keeps getting repeated that poor and middle-class people should only pursue the humanities, arts and social sciences as a “hobby” not a career. That feels quite reductionist to me. That was not my parents’ experience or mine.
In fact, I am all the more committed not to place too many expectations on my kids in either direction. My kids don’t have to aim to be wealthy. They don’t have to feel obliged to devote their lives to service work or uplifting their race or taking care of me in my old age. I just hope that they are kind, thoughtful, and fulfilled in their lives --and sure that they need to support themselves since I sure don’t have any money to leave to them after I am gone. 
But that financial thing is just a necessity so they can eat and have roof over their heads; it is not because they owe me or anyone else financial success as a return on tuition dollars.
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Tuition at one of our local private middle/HS’s is $55,000/year plus parents are hassled for donations during yearly pledge drives. We know families who have sent multiple kids there from 6th grade through HS. And then pay the $300,000 for college.
Who pays $300K for college? Lots.
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Oh I know lots do, but it wasn’t in the cards for us. I guess I may have phrased it wrong.
Well said! I feel the same way! My D makes decent money in her career, it’s not super high paying, but it’s not low paying either. If she had a super high paying job, that would be great. I don’t feel that she owes me anything for paying for college. All she owes me is being a kind caring person and being self-sufficient! I’d expect the same for my S who is still in college…
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We pay $24,000 a year for child care back in the early 90s, it’s Silicon Valley near San Jose.
Well put. Everyone does have a different response to poverty.
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We do, because we love to 
We have a choice between free and 300k and we picked the 300 number. It’s a free country
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I know. I may have phrased it wrong.
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