I have attended private and public universities. I have been a professor at three, top 50, public, research universities in three states with solid state higher education. I have taught in their honors programs. I have has state-wide, academic, administrative positions, and so I have knowledge of dozens of state schools at all levels.
My older child went to a HYPS. Her experiences exceeded anything that I ever imagined. With the possible exception of a handful of well-endowed publics, less than five, there is absolutely no comparison between elite privates and publics. Dream on.
My younger, no scholar, is likely to be accepted at both average privates and publics. Her decision will consider cost as well as fit. It will be a very difficult decision in part because her interests are less well supported by the state schools where she is likely to be accepted. The privates, however, may not be worth the cost.
By the way, HYPS cost less than room and board at a state school.
I don’t think anyone is saying that there is no difference between elite private and public universities. The question some may ask is that given the easily demonstrated scenario where the the cost of one school is 100% more than the cost of the alternative, how much more of what should one expect in return for the money paid? We see a similar illustration with public K-12 schools where families might move into a school district that costs 100% more in housing prices and property tax rates in order to achieve 15-20% higher stats for the public high school. As dad, I might rather see the money spent on the down payment for a house or condo after graduation so I may not be in favor of spending an additional $120k on undergraduate school absent some specific expectation of return.
I’d just like to suggest to the folks of the “Our trip to Disney was priceless” and “we would never sacrifice vacations, we cherish our time together” mode of thought…
It’s not like those of us who DID save on these things to pay for college didn’t spend time together, or have priceless memories of vacations. And it’s a little off-putting to read these comments.
People who don’t grow up affluent cherish their time together. It may be that mom and dad plan a trip to a state park, with camping and mini-golf instead of Disney. It might be a “staycation” with outings to local events, museums, historical sites and a lunch out. When I was growing up, my siblings and I did an annual bike day trip with our parents- picnic lunch, old army canteen with ice water, and a lot of laughing along with the candy bars we’d eat for dessert. Were my parents inadequate people? Hardly. We went to youth concerts, got discounted opera tickets, had been to every museum within 50 miles of our home by the time we went to HS.
But we never went to Disney (and I never took my kids) and that doesn’t mean OUR time together wasn’t priceless. Despite what the commercials tell you. Nobody is spending hundreds of millions of dollars to promote what a bonding experience it is to take your kids to The Magic Flute.
I love the notion that sending your kid to a full pay college makes you an elitist, but bragging about your stay at an expensive resort does not.
@user4321 When I decided to live in the suburb with the best schools, and stretch the budget, I wasn’t thinking of stats. I was thinking about friends with intellectual interests, great musical opportunities, playgrounds, provocative teachers, academic support for learning differences. Keeping kids engaged and growing as life-long learners, not stats, is the real goal. The best colleges are also working more holistically.
blossom - I apologize if my post about cherishing vacations offended you. It came from a place of feeling judged by those who act as if it is foolish not to sacrifice every spare cent to college tuition. I was never affluent and we are actually campers vacation wise. I was diagnosed with a serious illness last year and it really woke me up as far as priorities. It simply made me very happy that I’ve spent so much time with my family. Probably could have worded it better!
In my book the answer, as with many things in life, is “It depends.”
If your income is a million dollars paying an extra $50,000/year may not hurt at all. If your income and saving are such that you’re going to have to take a deep cut out of your retirement account or take on heavy loans it probably doesn’t make sense to send your kid to an expensive school.
If you live in CA and you’re deciding between Cornell (USNWR #16) and UCLA (#19) or UCB (#22), two elite state schools, it’s a pretty easy decision to go the lower cost route. If your in-state option is U Maine (#177), with a 4-year graduation rate of 37%, the decision is not so clear cut even if you’re paying full freight.
I don’t think we should pretend that there aren’t advantages to going to an elite school, but the real questions for me would be what are your other options and what would you be giving up in either direction (opportunities, family time, financial security, better connections in your major, etc.)?
Sue- thank you for pointing out that for most of us, our instate option is NOT UCLA.
I live near a branch of our State U. It’s got a nice reputation in allied health and K-12 education, and the kids who major in accounting seem to do fine as well. I have a lot of neighbors who have sent their kids there- for a variety of reasons, but mostly financial-- and it’s a mixed bag once they graduate.
Yes, a highly motivated kid can do well wherever, yadda yadda yadda. But you aren’t majoring in chemical engineering at a college which doesn’t teach chemical engineering. You aren’t studying Art History at a college which has precisely two art courses (for Gen Ed requirements in humanities). And despite the nice track record in OT/PT grad school admissions, it’s not a great place for a future MD because the advanced science classes are geared towards the allied health cohort and not the physician/MCAT level. And there’s no med school advising. Oh- and no physics, bare bones foreign language, etc.
Fine place for kids who can’t or don’t want to go far, but it is NOT UCLA, Berkeley, Michigan, Virginia, and it’s not even a Virgina Tech, Binghamton, Stonybrook. Your kid wants a career in MIS? Fine. But I don’t know that it’s a great place to study computer science beyond the vocational/“get a job working with computers” level.
So for those of you who think that NOT going to a state college where you are paying the discounted rate is insane- remember that in lots of places, the in-state option isn’t necessarily a rational choice depending on what your kid wants to study and what he or she is good at.
Not everyone is cut out to be a nurse. If any of mine had been- we would have taken a serious look at both the local college and the main campus. But for their interests, paying 8 semesters for “not what I want to study” seems like a poor choice.
“So for those of you who think that NOT going to a state college where you are paying the discounted rate is insane- remember that in lots of places, the in-state option isn’t necessarily a rational choice depending on what your kid wants to study and what he or she is good at.”
Absolutely. But your kid might still have the choice (to go back to the original example) of Georgetown at $70K vs Alabama etc at minimal cost.
I’m particularly interested in that decision when it’s not just “we can’t afford Georgetown”. I agree there do seem to be quite a few examples of Californians saying “why pay for Stanford when you can go to Berkeley”. Has anyone said “why pay for a top 20 private when you can go to X for free”? And what would X have to be? A Jefferson scholarship at UVA? A cohort scholarship somewhere else? Or Honors College at (say) ASU or USCarolina?
I really should quit reading this thread.
S goes to a school with high acceptance, a lower 4 year graduation rate, 18,000 undergraduates and I am so tired of everyone saying this is sub par education. It depends! Honestly students wanting to be veterinarians may get great educations at these institutes with big ag programs. Ok he might have looked at Cornell but he did not want the east coast. So? Can he get into vet school with a 4.0 from his college? You bet! Can his gf go to med school from his college? Yup.
He meets once a week with a billionaire, retired CEO of a major corporation, to discuss fraternity issues. He loves school, he won’t be stressed out before he reaches vet school. His classes have not been huge. I do wish people would quit putting down schools because they are not elite. I wouldn’t pay for a school that doesn’t fit his needs or fits just as well as a less expensive school he is just as happy with and has just as good outcomes. Ok, rant over.
Our situation is that my s has known forever that he does not want to go to a large U. He is definitely a smaller school guy. Unfortunately, the state schools that would be a good fit for him academically and major wise are large - thus none on his list. So we did the NPC for all schools considered with the understanding that we will pay X dollars and he will be responsible for the rest. So far, everyone is happy! We will see how things go once decisions start coming in.
@momocarly - I have read this whole thread and I think perhaps you are being overly-defensive. I don’t think anyone is saying that you can’t get a good education at a non-elite school. I think we can all agree that much of what a student gets out of any educational institution will depend upon the effort the student puts in. This thread is about choices and all of us face different choices when it comes to our kids’ college decisions. One family decides one way, another the opposite. Neither is necessarily wrong.
@momocarly,
I don’t think anyone was saying students shouldn’t choose schools according to their own criteria. I don’t think there’s anything wrong with going to a “less elite” school because it’s strong in the student’s major, close to home, or has other characteristics the student finds attractive. My reference to graduation rate had to do with the fact that many posts on this thread, including the OP, made reference to ROI and I was trying to point out that the ROI for 5 years of less tuition and a year or more of forgone income might not be better than the ROI for 4 years at a more expensive school. Lower graduation rates can be an indicator that a school enrolls a lot of low income students or requires co-ops but it can also result from an environment where students aren’t getting good advising or are having trouble getting into the classes they need to graduate on time.
MomoCarly, your kid sounds fantastic and the U sounds like a great fit. Win win.
But honestly- what if your kid’s interest was physics and due to the HS preparation, would get to college already having taken the first year physics sequence… and then realize there was only one more year of physics at that college? And that virtually everyone who has studied physics at that college was a dual major with the school of ed- and was preparing to become a HS physics teacher? The kind of education required to create a HS physics teacher, and what’s required to get into a high quality physics grad program are night and day different.
Would you tell your kid to suck it up and become a HS physics teacher? You likely would not. You’d investigate other options. And if that meant a public U that was NOT in your state- so you’re already half or 2/3’s of the way to being a full pay at a private U… you might be looking at the financial equation and ROI a little differently.
Then add in the stat that most physics majors at the other Public U (not your own) need 9 semesters or 10 to graduate… so you’ve added another year- and it’s not so crazy to consider your full pay options.
I think your decision is perfectly rational. But there are lots of people who end up in the full pay option and THEIR decision is also rational.
Again- I wasn’t prepared to tell my kid to become a nurse. Or a HS teacher (not that there’s anything wrong with those options). And the well worn on CC “it doesn’t matter where you go for undergrad, what matters is grad school” is well and good- except the likelihood of getting into a fully funded, competitive grad program in SOME fields (not all) starts to diminish pretty quickly once you leave a certain “quality” level of university.
The student who can get into Cornell probably has a much higher chance of four (academic) year graduation from University of Maine than 37%. Graduation rates are mostly based on student characteristics rather than school characteristics; a strong student is much less likely to have trouble graduating in four (academic) years.
The idea that a college’s graduation rates will be what your student’s chance of graduation will be if s/he attends there appears to be a commonly-believed fallacy around here.
@ucbalumnus-
Sure, but students in the U Maine honors college still graduate at a vastly lower rate than the general population at Cornell. The honors college 4-year graduation rate at U Maine was 64%, at Cornell 87%. If you want to make the argument that that is a reflection of the student bodies doesn’t that say something about the peer group your student will be with? If it’s not perhaps it’s a reflection on the support offered by the school.
Is the University of Maine honors college as selective as Cornell? If not, then the difference is still affected by student strength.
If you are saying that a less selective (safety or likely) college has peers that are beneath the student, how did the student get through high school with a more diverse peer group in terms of academic strength?
I happen to think it’s best not to be the smartest person in a room. You learn a whole lot more that way. Besides, I thought the argument commonly made here was that an honors college has the same calibre of student as an “elite.” My point is that it may be true of some schools (places like UVA, UNC, U Michigan and the UCs come to mind) but it’s not universally true. Some schools are just plain better than others. Do I think a kid can get a good education at U Maine? Sure. Are there circumstances under which I’d encourage my kid to choose U Maine over Cornell? Sure. Do I think they offer an equivalent experience? No.
It’s generally better to be surrounded by people who can stimulate and challenge one’s ideas and abilities. That’s why it’s a good idea that people of comparable intellect and abilities congregate. An education at an elite college (which, by definition, has a higher concentration of more intellectual and capable students) could be more than worthwhile if it “fits” intellectually, but it may not be a good fit if one would be in the bottom quartile at a college that has a relative wide distribution.