<p>My child is hoping to go to medical school one day and eventually be some type surgeon.<br>
i just completed a spread sheet comparing Tulane tuition to Ole Miss tuition. In state tuition at Ole Miss is approximately $8,000/year. Tuition at Tulane is $38,000/year. I hypothetically deposited the $30,000 difference into a Vanguard Total Stock Market Index Fund under my child's name yielding .08%/year. I deducted .40% to taxes and added the interest income back after taxes back to the original $30,000. I then added another $30,000 to the total and repeated the process for the following year as well as the junior and senior years.
From this point forward, I deposited no more money. Using only the interest earned minus taxes added back to the total each year, the amount of money in my child's account at age 68 is $1,167,616. The question then becomes, is the Tulane education going to yield $1,167,616 more than the Ole Miss education by the time my child reaches age 65. What do you think????????</p>
<p>Highly doubt it.</p>
<p>The question is whether it’s all about the money. Is the money all that your son/daughter is going to get out of his/her college experience? Will the extra million dollars at age 65 translate into extra happiness? I doubt it.</p>
<p>Also, if your son/daughter is planning to go to medical school, will the Tulane education make that easier?</p>
<p>bruno14, most parents truly want every happiness for their kids. Not every parent can afford Ivy League schools or other privates without serious consequences to their own financial safety and/or happiness for the entire family. Parents that are wealthy may not have as many concerns but those that are not wealthy tend to think about these issues. You may have a different perspective when you are older and have children yourself. Good luck at Brown!</p>
<p>From what I’ve read here Med schools don’t care about where your undergrad degree comes from. The primary criteria used are GPA and MCAT. Saving $ before going into a medical program makes a lot of sense.</p>
<p>I think you should set the money aside for something else and have him go to Ole Miss.</p>
<p>i ran a second spread sheet to see how much money my child would have to deposit into the same type Vanguard Account to equal the $1,167, 000 once he is out of school and working. I started the deposits at age 32 and continued to age 68. $12,000/year would need to be deposited into the account to equal the same money by age 68. The question then becomes, is the Tulane education going to yield $12,000 year more than the Ole Miss education. It may very well come down to where he is living and the perception of the two schools in another area.</p>
<p>*The question then becomes, is the Tulane education going to yield $12,000 year more than the Ole Miss education. It may very well come down to where he is living and the perception of the two schools in another area. *</p>
<p>??? What? Your child is going to go to med school, so who will care or have a “perception” about his undergrad? It’s his med school that people “might” care about. </p>
<p>When my son had surgery last year, his orthopedic surgeon was talking to him about med school (my son is pre-med). The surgeon had gone to Duke med school and had done his residency at the Mayo Clinic…all very impressive. Where did he go to undergrad? A modestly ranked school in Florida. Who the heck cared? No one.</p>
<p>Assuming the grades are the same. Will Tulane be looked upon more favorably than Ole Miss when applying to medical school.</p>
<p>smile1257, Again,highly doubt it. Not sure what advice you are really looking for. Seems you are/have been asking the same types of questions in more than one place here. Only you can decide if the extra cost of Tulane is worth it (if no merit aid is there). For my family, it would not have been worth it but only you can decide what is best for you. We are not talking here about the difference between Ole Miss and Harvard,for instance (no offense to Tulane folks-great school!). Ole Miss sounds great.</p>
<p>30,000 x 4 = 120,000</p>
<p>Just exactly where do you propose to get that 120,00 from to begin with? That is the real question that you have to answer. Is your family going to be 120,000 in debt at the end of the kid’s undergraduate education? Is that kid going to have to pay for his entire Med School program with student loans and come out another 200,000 or more in the hole?</p>
<p>The way I see it is: Attending Ole Miss means that there could be 120,000 available for Med School.</p>
<p>No offense taken, sevmom. I think very highly of Ole Miss, especially the Barksdale school. Frankly even the difference between Harvard and Ole Miss is only worth so much. It isn’t infinite. And of course Ole Miss is actually a better environment for some people than Harvard, or Tulane.</p>
<p>OP - It really does come down to more intangible factors, as well as your own financial situation. If you are very comfortable, and you anticipate that you have enough money to help him be comfortable starting out after school, then while the calculations are accurate, they are not so consequential to you or him. However, if you are upper middle-class, comfortable enough to be able to put aside $30,000 a year into an account like that and not have it affect your day-to-day living much but not rich, then I think there is little doubt that the money will serve him well after he is out of med school, or just out of school period no matter his future path. And if your financial situation is less than that, then I would think there is no question but to go to Ole Miss. No school is worth going into deep debt for, not even Harvard. But I suspect from your posts you are in that upper middle-class range.</p>
<p>What cannot be quantified or monetized is the different experiences he will have at Tulane compared to Ole Miss. This is a total unknown. In my book, odds are that going to school in New Orleans, being around peers that are higher achievers overall, and being at a smaller, private school where you can get to know your profs better if you want to will be a better experience. But that is just my book, not his. And even if that is true for him too, is it worth $5,000 more? $30,000 more? $100,000 more? Where is the cutoff? Only you as a family can decide that.</p>