There is a school of thought that says for any major that isn’t explicitly pre-professional or vocational there is great value in getting it at an elite school.
To use one oft-repeated CC example, for job opportunities after college it doesn’t matter where you get your ABET-certified engineering or your nursing degree is from but it matters a lot where your English or History degree is from.
Math and Physics and English are all liberal arts and not explicitly pre-professional so there may not be a distinction, there?
What do you do when your kid changes their major halfway through college, stop funding them?!
I went to a decent-but-not-great local college in my home country growing up because that was what we could afford. I (eventually) went to one of the best universities in the world for grad school. It had been my dream school for years, and it was everything and more than I thought and hoped it would be (even though the “real experience” was supposedly the undergraduate one). If my child had the opportunity to experience that, I would gladly pay, even if she decided she wanted to study medieval literature (and thanks to some fortuitous events, we have the means, and do not need to sacrifice anything to do it). I am one of those who believes education is about the experience as well as the degree, it’s an investment, and it’s something that you never lose. D19 is not ivy-level, but we are more than happy to pay for a tier of colleges that we think would give her a great experience, while she is there as well as opportunities after. Again - we realize that we are very fortunate to be in this position - but this is the position under discussion: even if you can afford it, would you still pay for it if there was a cheaper option? For us the answer is generally yes. There is a line - she has a “safety” that she has chosen purely for its location. We think it’s an awful school. (Her other safeties are decent.) We’ve already told her if she ends up there she better get a full ride, because we won’t pay a penny. That is our value, it is based on our subjective factors, and as no-one else has their experience or their future dependent on our decision we don’t feel the need to justify it to anyone.
How many people saying that a private , liberal arts education is best would decline an acceptance at William and Mary, UNC ,UVA or any of the California schools? These are all public schools.
@twogirls “How do you know…that throughout your career…you did not get several interviews due to not having a top university on your resume? Did they tell you? No sarcasm intended…not my personality…just curious.”
Yes, executive recruiter mentioned to me that the roles in question required Ivy league background. Ridiculous? yes!!
I was not trying to complain about it. Just an observation. I did just fine and now support my state U vigorously.
I think that some students prefer a private liberal arts education, while other students …who are academically similar… prefer a school such as UVA etc. Declining an offer, in my opinion, would depend on finances and/or the preferences of the student.
My own D has a major/double minor that is considered to be liberal arts, and is definitely not preprofessional. She’s doing great at her public university… no shortage of internships or job offers etc. I honestly thought she would have been interested in LACs… but she wasn’t.
@ucbalumnus “Naturally, that will bring up a follow up question: How is “better” (than any college in your state) defined?”
Yes, it has come up many times. It is difficult to define and personal in nature. Fortunately, we did not have any close calls to argue with the kids. But to answer your question, we looked at the specific program at that college, looked at ranking by US News, looked at research dollars spent, companies that recruit on campus, avg job salary upon graduation, a better “fit” for our kid, etc… We went through this exercise at time of application with each school and we always agreed with our son on the concept of “better”. Are we correct in our analysis? probably not as learning is so personal.
We were just trying to avoid sending the kids far away when a university in our state would provide just as good of an education. or just as good of an opportunity of a good education.
I was told that I didn’t get a job because after a fantastic set of interviews, someone noticed that at the bottom of my resume (community service, etc.) it said “Advisory Board of NARAL”. Someone from HR called to tell me that due to the number of “True Christians” who worked at the company, hiring someone who was a NARAL supporter would make everyone uncomfortable.
I think I’d have rather been told I didn’t get the job because I didn’t go to Harvard!!!
Sad at the self-segregation based upon politics these day, @blossom, but you might not have wanted to work there either. I’ve heard that on dating sites, people specifically say “If you voted for Trump (or Clinton), don’t message me.”
I have been a beneficiary of opportunities that were created directly or indirectly by my gilded education (I studied at three of HYPSM and was a professor of business at one of them). Many years later, the background on my resume still helps in getting clients for my consulting firm and more recently, I’ve co-founded a firm that uses machine learning/NLP etc. to automate for simpler domains some of what I consult on in more complex domains. It is clear that my academic pedigree (including the books I wrote etc.) causes VCs to want to talk to the firm.
A gilded background does not guarantee anything. As I discussed in an earlier post, in some fields (but likely not others) it just increases the probabilities of certain things coming your way. That doesn’t say that people without those backgrounds don’t do well and don’t get great opportunities, but there are probably points at which the probabilities are lower.
Whether that’s worth paying for really depends. I’ve seen my job as helping prepare my kids for a happy, productive adult life, not getting them into prestigious schools. As I said in an earlier post, whether prestige matters depends upon the field. And, it is worth pointing out that it also depends upon the kid. If it seems like the prestigious schools route is best, I’d suggest that, but if not (and for one kid it did not seem that way), I would steer in a different direction.
@homerdog - My daughter is at honors college at Purdue. We did exactly what you said you don’t understand. She turned down more expensive and “prestigious” private schools for Purdue. We are full pay and would have gladly paid whatever. She CHOOSE Purdue because it’s the right fit for her and her major. Believe it or not, not everyone likes small LACs or private universities. And guess what, there are tons of vals/sals at Purdue that turned down the T10 schools. For engineering and STEM, I’d argue that Purdue is a much better school with excellent career outcomes.
Are there any real examples of kids turning down Stanford or Yale, with full-pay parents, and instead attending a middling flagship for free, and getting that saved 300K at age 22 to buy a condo or start a business? (A supremely stupid idea. At least tie that wealth up in a trust till the Ivy-refusnik is 40). Seems that the reality is that parents who can afford any school full-pay usually end up paying full-pay, because the schools the kids want are the most expensive, and anyway often the best opportunity for their kids.
We are able to be full-pay by luck of windfall inheritance, but choose to pay top dollar for college, not for housing, cars, etc. And hope our kids fully realize this luck, as other great students have to make college choices based on what is affordable for their families.
And outside of CC, Stanford and Duke and the Ivies are not even under consideration, so that all those hypotheticals are irrelevant. And all the full-ride chatter? Virtually nobody is going anywhere totally free. (Well, Division 1 football players, and those brilliant kids whose parents are CC frequenters).
@momofsenior1 right. And I said in my last post that S19 may not choose the most “prestigious” school he gets into. That’s fine with us. I’m just saying that, if we were paying full private school price, we have a limited list of schools that we would pay for and that match up with what he wants. This thread is about paying for college. We would be fine paying full price for a certain type of school. After that, if he prefers a different school on his list, we are hoping for merit.
Just throwing this out there. It is possible to make a personal and family decision regarding a school choice without insulting or minimizing someone else’s choices that may be different than yours.
Petula, I know full pay type parents whose kids end up at all sorts of much cheaper places for a variety of reasons- kid is in rehab, parents need kid close to home. Kid has Executive Function issues so even with a really strong HS transcript, parents feel the kid isn’t ready to wander very far without imploding. Or kid isn’t academically wired- so parents figure the local college is fine- let the kid get the ticket punched with a degree in whatever and if there’s a fire that sparks in college, they’re happy to spend what they saved on grad school or other training.
But I don’t know anyone who’d admit to handing their 22 year old 300K for any reason. The private wealth management industry and family office sector was built on three things- 1- avoiding taxes 2- keeping assets away from an estranged spouse or other estranged family members (or creditors, business partners) 3- preventing little Jimmy or Susie from blowing through their inheritance by the time they turn 25. Ask any trust and estates lawyer what happens to 22 year olds who come into a lot of money the day they graduate from college!
There was an applicant a year or so ago who was in the papers because he was accepted to all 8 Ivies and a few other elite schools, but was full pay so took the full ride at Alabama. I think he was from Tennessee. His parents were both doctors, and he wanted to be one, so didn’t want to spend all his college fund on undergrad. I don’t think his parents planned on giving him the $$$ for a condo, but would pay for med school.
Just as a counter example, our D21 doesn’t want to shoot for very elite schools but she’d still like a smaller environment (or at least she says that right now). So, we will probably be looking exclusively at LACs that meet her needs but all give merit. She’s not thinking she wants to apply to NESCAC schools or Ivies and those are some of the few that we would consider paying full price for. She gets it. So, at least at this early stage, she appreciates a lot of the things her brother does about a smaller school and we will look at those types of schools where she can get a little money.
His list is NESCAC and one Ivy that would be full price. And OOS mid sized uni that would be less than the privates. And then LACs with possible merit.
So, D21’s list could look very similar. Just without the reaches that cost the most money.
@PetulaClark I know this is hard for you to believe but some full-payers do choose to send their kids to non-elite schools by choice. I don’t know about giving them $300,000 to buy a condo or whatever. That’s a personal choice that isn’t going to be touted in any survey, but it does happen and isn’t foolish. My D is getting low six figures. She does not attend a “middling flagship,” but does attend a flagship with a premier scholarship. I promise you that she isn’t the only full-payer that chose her scholarship over an elite school. One of her friends is the child of a CEO for a major corporation you’d recognize. Most of her friends’ parents are upper middle class - two working professional parents (doctors, lawyers, engineers, etc). Most of the students turned down elite schools. Someone upthread mentioned the Bush twin, which I’d forgotten about. You’ll find many students of upper middle class and wealthy parents at UT and A&M, for example, by choice. CC is a bubble and most families across most of the country, including many who can easily afford an elite school, couldn’t care less about the schools many obsess about on CC. Just do the math.
Many full pay families got themselves into this position by being frugal so I’m not surprised that many of them choose to send their kids to places that cost less. It’s a mental struggle over here to think about that big number as well but, as I’ve said ad nauseum, we’ve decided there are some schools that are worth it to us for the experience our S will have on campus.
Of course there are tons of students at state flagships, who were admitted to Top schools but did not go if they were full-pay. OTOH, I don’t believe their parents offered them the balance to spend. I personally think it is irresponsible to offer 100+K to a 17 year old and leave that decision on them.
Regarding the kid who got admitted to all 8 ivies, but chose Alabama, he went there because his parents could not afford their EFC. This happens more than you think, especially if their incomes were more recent but their savings are not substantial.
That’s fine, but the schools all over the spectrum of selectivity and cost offer a whole range of experiences - and in many cases the less selective or less costly options will offer a much better qualitative experience for a given student, based on that student’s personality & goals. “Fit” is definitely important … but it is not tied to selectivity or expense.
I have one kid who graduated from a prestige elite; another who started out at a top-50 LAC & ended up graduating from a directional state U. Both kids were not happy with the social fit at the private colleges. My daughter decided to stick it out, but she spent a large part of her undergraduate time visiting and socializing with students at other campuses, and her happiest time (socially) was her semester abroad. The academics at her school were definitely top notch - and that’s why she opted to stay — but at least from my daughter’s perspective, the “experience” of being at an Ivy League campus was offputting.
Now she was there with substantial financial aid, coming from a public school, so she had different expectations than many students. Perhaps if she herself had come from wealth, her perception of her peers and the overall environment would have been different. Perhaps students who come from wealth and privilege would find a public U environment disconcerting because of the overall cultural differences and expectations.
So yes each family is different. And its hard for me to put myself in the mental position of a family who is comfortably full pay – simply because my life experience is one of always having been comfortably middle class. (i.e., going through life flying economy class).