<p>Hypothetically speaking (which takes all possibilities into mind), would it be better to choose your dream school (very selective, hard classes) and be content with financial aid or would it be better to go to a safety college to which you have gotten full tuition (and maybe more)?</p>
<p>Dream school, education ROI can’t be beat. Dad had option between full ride Rutgers and full tuition Columbia. Chose Columbia, reflects on it as one of his best decisions ever. </p>
<p>Without knowing the 4 year graduation rate at each (I have known brilliant students who have dropped out of safety schools due to grades) and the amount of debt expected and the likely major (is it a high return major like Engineering?) it is impossible to advise reasonably. It may be possible to rule out your dream school based on the cost. Use the maximum reasonable loan estimator (<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>About Finaid - Finaid) and EFC estimate for the dream school to see if the financial difference really is reasonable for your family situation. </p>
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<p>For someone w the name “Wharton” in your handle, u seem not to understand at all the concept of ROI. </p>
<p>The “I” stands for “investment”. If your monetary investment is zero (full tuition scholarship) at safety school, then your return is infinite. Therefore, it’s gonna be a helluva better monetary investment than taking money out of your pocket to pay for dream school. </p>
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<p>It depends. For example, when you say “be content with financial aid” at the dream school, how much financial aid is that? Or, more directly, what net prices and debt levels would be required at each school?</p>
<p>Other factors include your intended major, whether it is offered at each school, and the selection of courses in that major at each school. In addition, how much more do you like your dream school more than your safety school?</p>
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Dream school, education ROI can’t be beat.
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<p>Total BS for 99% of majors and career goals. As for your dad, when he went to Columbia, he paid very little. </p>
<p>to claim that there is a substantial ROI when paying $250k for an undergrad education (for most majors) instead of much less at another good school for far less is ridiculous.</p>
<p>My son went to a mid-tier Flagship for nearly free. He is now in med school. When he becomes a surgeon, the ROI of his undergrad costs will be completely amazing. lol It would have been a total waste of money to have spent $200k+ for a dream school. </p>
<p>If you can afford your dream school I’d go for it. But if your dream school would leave you with crippling debt, then you should take the more affordable option.</p>
<p>If you had to pay full price and had to take out loans (with parent co-signers) for an Ivy vs. Full ride at a State School…go with the State School honors program.</p>
<p>Impossible to say without knowing specifics such as the schools involved and the amount of money you’d be paying out plus the loan amounts. But there are very few situations where taking on a huge amount of debt vs. a totally free ride is the right decision. Anything in between can be a judgment call depending on circumstances.</p>
<p>This actual situation comes up a lot here for kids, maybe you can find threads on that in the financial aid forum. But often those people are talking about an extra 150k+ level of debt which is a lot different than an extra 40k of debt, say. Not worth it.</p>
<p>The financial aid at the other school would probably be around 10-20K per year. I come from a middle-class family; however, my parents are determined to leave me with no student loan debt (I’ll probably end up contributing with internship money).
And let’s assume the schools are Stanford and Santa Clara University. Again, this is hypothetical–I probably won’t end up getting into Stanford xD. But assuming…
By the way, I intend to get a job in Silicon Valley, where the value of a high-tier education is very high when applying for both internships and a job. </p>
<p>Isn’t the financial aid at Stanford extremely generous? (Tuition waved if income is below $100K)
So, if it was Stanford, your debt probably would not be that much. You need a different example.</p>
<p>Then… Caltech, I suppose?</p>
<p>CalTech, like Stanford, should be pretty good need based aid - hard to judge without you plugging in the numbers
<a href=“Net Price Calculator | Financial Aid”>http://finaid.caltech.edu/npc</a></p>
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<p>Looking for an investment banking or management consulting job?</p>
<p>On the technical side of computer companies, graduates of state schools predominate – not just Berkeley, but also other UCs, local CSUs like SJSU, and other states’ state schools. There just aren’t enough Stanford, MIT, and CMU graduates to go around.</p>
<p>It still is much, much easier to get a job if you’ve gone to a top-tier university. And it’s easier to get an internship at Microsoft, Google, etc. The financial aid I’ll get will probably make them equivalent to a state school, anyway. </p>
<p>Still, would it be better to go to an okay university and pay next-to-nothing, or to go to a good university and end up paying ~120K?</p>
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<p>You are probably overestimating the advantage of school prestige if your career goal is not investment banking or management consulting. Also, Google, Microsoft, etc. are big companies that recruit widely. It is smaller companies that have more limited recruiting, often only at local schools (e.g. the tiny startup in Silicon Valley might go no further than Stanford, Berkeley, SJSU, SCU, and UCSC).</p>
<p>Like any financial decision, this comes down to exact numbers. People always throw around these vague statements about “next to nothing” without ever coming down to brass tacks. Santa Clara University is one of the most expensive schools around. How much, exactly, would the cost of attendance be? Are they guaranteeing this exact amount for all 4 years? </p>
<p>That said, I would find it hard to ever recommend that someone take on $120K of debt, no matter how amazing the school. You’ll be paying that off for decades. And living in Silicon Valley is not cheap.</p>
<p>“Still, would it be better to go to an okay university and pay next-to-nothing, or to go to a good university and end up paying ~120K?”</p>
<p>No contest, an “okay” university and pay next to nothing. Especially since your definition of a “good” is more like a “prestigious, this name will impress my friends” school and the “okay” school is actually a good school.</p>
<p>$120K is an unreal amount of money for a new grad to pay off.</p>
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<p>120K in debt is not ok. If parents can pay, then 60K of debt may be at
the upper end of acceptable for an engineer or CS major
(see the financial aid calculators). The fastest growing segment is
jobs that require a masters degree (including various types of tech jobs)
so that may need to be factored into your calculation as well.</p>
<p>For many fields the ROI of an elite vs. average university (but you
did not ask about average universities so is more complicated) could easily
justify 120K more and the placement rate of elite schools in more
desirable initial jobs or graduate programs is higher (although
for CS not all high ranking undergraduate programs are private).</p>
<p>Many elite schools have good research money for undergraduates,
not just better need based financial aid than the next tier, which also
complicates the estimate. Presumably you are expecting the
other college to offer strong merit based aid for all 4 years to offset
the elite school’s advantages in need based aid.</p>