<p>Question: I am trying to decide where to attend college this upcoming Fall. My first option is my dream. a prestigious university in my favorite city. My second option is a much smaller and lesser known school in a smaller city. If the financial situation at both were the same, I would pick the first [...]</p>
<p>Sally, I like your advice in the article, but I’d put it this way:</p>
<p>To avoid this kind of dilemma, I would recommend that students begin the college search with the idea that they will form a strategy, not a dream that focuses on any single school. That strategy will be the method you will use to choose a list of colleges that fit you and that you can afford to attend. You will develop ideas up front about what amounts of money your family can afford to spend. Then, your admissions results and financial aid decisions will sort your list for you, and unless you created a really bad list, your strategy will work.</p>
<p>I would try to include my college’s price tag in the qualifications for “dream school” also when I was searching in the first place. College debt is no fun!!</p>
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<p>It’s interesting to me that a growing number of students seem to be factoring cost and, especially, potential debt into the criteria of what makes a “dream” school. When I started in this business a few decades ago, one heard the word “debt” much more rarely than it’s bandied about today, and it was largely the parents who were worried about it and not their progeny. In recent years, however, I’m encountering more and more students who are concerned about debt … whether it will be their own or Mom & Dad’s. </p>
<p>Similarly, a growing number of families are starting to see the light when they review financial aid packages. Many folks finally realize that some colleges that “meet need” are doing so with loans and not grant, which isn’t really meeting need at all; it’s merely a “buy now; pay later” situation.</p>
<p>Debt-free college is a dream college, unless it is complete student/college mis-match</p>
<p>Follow your dreams!</p>
<p>Also factors into this is whether the student plans to go to grad school.</p>
<p>Grad school was already discussed in the original Ask the Dean Q&A. </p>