Last year, the city I lived in floated a proposal to cancel an evening bus route which was underutilized. And the local paper published the stats- aprox. 5 people on the last bus, every weeknight. And the transit authority pointed out that to run a bus with a capacity of 40 riders at that low usage rate, they might as well pay for taxicabs for the 5 people who take the bus.
Guess what? All 5 were community college students, and the ONLY way they could stay in college after working a full day at their jobs (to support their family) was that late bus. A few people offered to subsidize the taxi service- pointing out that the long term cost to the community of having these kids drop out was MUCH higher than the price of a cab.
It all got resolved, transit authority fixed the budget gap some other way, the bus route stayed. But it pointed out to a LOT of oblivious people who think that every smart poor kid is getting a full freight deal at Williams and Amherst (because that’s what you read about; it makes great copy that a homeless kid is going to an elite college for free) that the reality is quite different. For every smart poor kid getting that full freight deal you’ve got dozens who are trying to pay their family’s rent (affordable housing in very short supply; landlords don’t want voucher tenants in their buildings) AND get an education. And that means staying home and taking one or two courses at a time.
The New York Times published a story about the economic diversity at elite colleges a few years back. Based on tax record there were about 10-15 elite colleges where more than 20% of the student body came from families in the top 1% of income distribution (> $630,000 annual income).
For the record, OOS tuition at the University of Minnesota-Twin Cities is $30,438. That’s just a bit more than half the tuition at the private University of Chicago ($55,425).
Understand your point but did not mean to exactly quote numbers. Was giving some example - am sure the midwest schools are cheaper than East and West coast public schools for OOS - know that for a fact.
Did not say the same price- But why would one pay around 30K for a Mid- Lower Mid Tier school just for tuition and fees???
Since we are diving in to numbers - let us say we calculate the ROI and extra money spent would easily be made up within (say 8 years - assuming starting salary is around 12-15 higher on the average ?).
Also, let us put the money issue aside, how about the multitude of opportunities that would open for a U of Chicago graduate compared to U of MN or OSU or most of the mid-tier or lower mid-tier schools?
Also, I keep hearing from people here that where you go to college does not matter? Having graduated from a public university (mid-tier), I can tell that is a bogus statement! People who go to top tier schools have so many advantages starting out, and if the student does not take advantage of that situation, that is his/her fault! Do not know if it is jealousy or feel good to say such things! Yes, anybody can make up for it but the opportunities available are different and let us accept facts!
If you decide to pursue a career in business especially finance or consultancy after undergrad degree - you better make sure to go to a prestigious school because there is a world of difference between the opportunities.
I understand any decision people want to make, and obviously kids can “make it work” most anywhere. But my husband and I both went to excellent private undergraduate schools, and were glad to be able to give that same opportunity to our kids. Those four years were a gift of more than simply “get degree, get a job, move on.” Certainly for me I came out a different person (in a good way) from my undergraduate school than I went in. And I don’t think that would have happened everywhere. Of course no one can “re-run the movie.”
Also forgot to say the FA from private schools are much better than public school as the OOS student. In fact, if your family annual income is less than around 150K, then the out of pocket for tuition and fees at UPenn will in the mid 30K.
The FA figures for HYPS posted by TiggerDad in post #35 are instructive. Take Yale as an example. Just about exactly half the undergrads there are full-pays. It’s only when you get to family incomes above $250,000 that most students receive no need-based FA—and even at that level, 23% do get FA (mostly those from families with multiple kids in college at the same time). At family incomes up to $200K almost everyone gets FA, and even at the $200-250K level nearly 2/3 (64%) get FA.
The numbers of full-pays from sub-$250K families are probably roughly equal to the numbers in the $250K+ category receiving FA, so it’s a reasonable inference that roughly half the students at Yale are from families with incomes of $250K or more. In 2017, a household income of $225,196 put you in the top 5% of income earners.
Family incomes are usually a little higher than household incomes because “household” includes single-person households, while “family” is by definition 2 or more persons related by blood, marriage, or adoption. Even so, it’s a fair bet that something on the order of half the seats at Yale are taken up by students from the top 5% by income. That leaves precious little room for any other income group to be overrepresented.
I don’t entirely blame the colleges for this. Our K-12 education system generally does at best a mediocre job and often a downright poor job in meeting the educational needs of low- and moderate-income students, much less preparing them for the rigors of college, much less preparing even the brightest of them for an elite college. And as others have noted, economically disadvantaged kids tend overwhelmingly to be educationally disadvantaged from birth on up, with less access to books, less-educated parents, fewer educationally motivated peers, poorer facilities and resources, more challenging environments in which to learn, weaker social support structures and opportunity networks outside the family, and more family pressures to earn money and/or care for younger siblings and ill or aging family members. There are also huge information barriers. Nearly everyone at a top private school knows about all the top colleges, and students, parents, faculty, and staff are all well-drilled on what it takes to prepare for one and to put together a competitive application. At a poor urban or rural HS there may be no one who has ever set foot in an elite college, and to the extent there’s any college counseling at all it will likely focus on getting kids into local community colleges, commuter schools, and maybe at tops someplace in the state university system, or a local (and likely non-elite) private school. So the pool of low-income applicants to elite colleges is likely very small, and the pool of low-income applicants who are truly qualified for those schools even smaller. The colleges can’t compensate for all of that; not by a long shot.
You have a funny definition of “mid-tier” and “lower mid tier.” In the latest US News rankings, Minnesota was ranked #76 and Ohio State #56 among national universities. Most international ranking place them even higher. In a nation with some 3,000 colleges, that’s not bad—way above the median. But let’s not quibble over definitions.
I can think of many reasons why an OOS student might attend UMN or tOSU. A lot of highly qualified students don’t get into the University of Chicago, for one thing. For another, Chicago doesn’t offer engineering or an undergraduate business major. These happen to be strengths at many Big Ten schools. In undergraduate engineering, US News ranks Minnesota #24 (tied with Penn) and Ohio State #30 (tied with RPI), along with 6 other Big Ten publics in the top 30, led by Michigan and Illinois tied at #6. In undergraduate business, USN ranks Minnesota #18 (tied with Boston College) and Ohio State #15 (tied with Emory and Georgetown) along with 8 other Big Ten publics in the nation’s top 25, led by Michigan at #4. So a better question might be, for an engineering major why attend Penn or RPI, and for a business major why attend BC, Emory, or Georgetown, when you can get an equivalent degree at half the price at an OOS public like Minnesota or Ohio State?
Look, I’m not knocking the University of Chicago. It’s a great school. But Big Ten publics are no slouches, either. They’re research powerhouses, they offer a broader array of undergraduate programs and majors than most smaller and more narrowly focused private schools, and their strongest programs are among the best in the nation, and ineed in the world.
For one thing, any student who was accepted to an elite private would likely also be eligible for significant merit aid at the sort of universities you are dismissing as “mid- and lower tier schools.” The difference between 30K/yr and 55K/yr is pretty significant as is, but the disparity is more likely to be something like 15K vs 55K, or even 0K vs 55K — that’s a difference of 160-220K over four years. Maybe that’s pocket change to you, but for many people that’s a significant amount of money.
FWIW, my son had multiple options at elite (top 20) schools, but chose a full tuition scholarship at a Big 10 school that was ranked very highly in his major — higher than most of his elite options, in fact. So for him the difference in price between the school he chose and, say, Brown or Duke, would have been 220K. Even if his starting salary were 12K/yr higher (and there’s no evidence at all that it would be — see below), that would take almost 18 years to pay off. Add in the lost growth & income that could have been generated by investing that 220K instead, and the pay-off period is longer; for students who would need to take significant loans as well as spending all their savings, it would take much MUCH longer.
OK, let’s discuss facts: Two economists, Stacy Dale (Mathematica) and Alan Krueger (Princeton) have spent more than a decade studying the question of how much value an elite degree really adds to lifetime salary potential, and their conclusion is that for most people it doesn’t actually add value. The biggest predictor of future earnings was the level of the schools the student applied to, not which one they attended. So a student who applied to Princeton, Duke, UPenn, and Penn State, who chose to attend Penn State, will, on average, have the same earning potential as students who chose the more expensive schools. The only groups where it tends to matter are minorities and first generation, where it may add around 6% or so.
Dale & Kreuger concluded that “the finding that the average SAT score of the highest ranked school that rejected a student is a much stronger predictor of that student’s subsequent earnings than the average SAT score of the school the student actually attended should give pause to those who interpret conventional regression-based estimates of the effect of college characteristics as causal effects of the colleges themselves.”
I know for our competitive, high performing kids it is not a bogus statement. Their careers/grad school admissions have not been negatively impacted by their UG institution. Are their outcomes representative of all the kids at their respective schools? No.
If you restrict the conversation to kids where the conversation has any meaning at all, those actually competitive for top school admissions vs the general population of the avg U, there are high performing kids at avg Us who can and do have stellar outcomes.
Fwiw, amg the engineers where my ds works, there is $0 difference in pay based on where someone went to school, far from 12-15% difference.
Most kids competitive for top school admissions are also not paying full price at the avg U. Where need determines cost at most elite schools, merit often pays at avg ones. Our recent college grad’s UG degree cost us the taxes on his scholarship $$. He is now a grad student at one of the very top schools in the country surrounded by grad students who attended both elite and not-so-elite (like him) UG schools.
Our 3rd high-performing student is currently an UG. All 3 of them attend(ed) on full or close-to-full scholarship. Zero regrets on their UG institutions. They had/have fantastic professors who have been wonderful mentors. They have been part of honors programs with specialized UG experiences. They have not been at a disadvantage when it has come to seeking out opportunities off-campus.
But, we equally have avg performing kids who are not tippy-top competitive kids (more to do with personality and lower levels of drive than anything else.) They have also ended up exactly where they have been content to land. They function at a different level, but it is the one that fits who they are. They would not have thrived in the hyper-drive lifestyle that their siblings have.
Comparing the outcomes of our less competitive kids with our competitive kids is meaningless. It has zero to do with where they went to school and everything to do with who they are and how they function, and also what they want to put in/get out of their day to day lives.
Some research (such as the Dale and Krueger work) shows that in general (not just for engineering) there is little or no difference in pay. However, all the studies I’ve seen focus only on income, not on wealth. Suppose you’re an old school social climber. If half your classmates come from families earning $250K or more, that’s a feature not a bug. Especially if “more” has virtually no upper limit.
Social climbing (by marrying into money or other means) has become so outré that it’s hardly ever mentioned as a factor in college choice. It wasn’t always so, and surely some social climbers do still exist. Also, among the 25%-50% of “elite” college students who already are wealthy, some of them presumably prefer to be among high concentrations of other already-wealthy students.
As far as I can tell, for most professions one cannot count on a prestigious college brand, per se, to confer a very significant earnings bump (at least, not compared to other top ~100 schools). But if finding a rich marriage partner (or future business partner) is your thing, your task may be a lot easier in the Ivy League than the Big Ten. I mean, I think so. I haven’t seen any research or even CC discussion about this. Maybe the sheer size of a B10 university creates its own social climbing opportunities.
My U of MN grad husband works and collaborates with MIT grads daily. As a peer. In fact, he manages a couple of them too. Hard to imagine I know. A mere mortal out of a state school. The average 25-75% ACT scores in the college of science and engineering at the U of MN are 31-34. There’s a lot of overlap of brainpower and potential in many big 10 programs and more elite programs. Smart, driven people are usually successful.
We are getting ready to do the FAFSA for the first time today. This gets back to the OP on this thread. I punched some numbers to illustrate why someone might appear rich on paper but cannot afford their EFC.
pre-tax income is 280,000
post tax income (federal, state, property) is 147,000
The basic cost of living in our county for a 2 parent, 2 child family is 94,006
(source https://www.epi.org/resources/budget/budget-map/)
That is 52,994 left over.
Our EFC is 75K+. More than half our take home salary this year and more than 20K than our overage of basic cost of living. Yes we have savings for college but not to cover that divide for 2 kids for 8+ years while hoping to retire before we have a health crises. Again, we live in an 1800 sq ft house and drive basic vehicles. We pay a premium so my husband has a short commute and we’re in a safe neighborhood, he’s approaching 60 so we’re preparing for retirement. My kids do some activities and extras that cost money. We do pay additional for medical and dental coverage. And we need an accessible nest egg in case he is ever laid off. The salary varies by years due to bonus packages. It has not been anywhere near this at times.
If we lived in Jackson, MS with a similar income
Pre-tax 280,000
Post-tax 185,000.
The basic cost of living in Jackson MS for a 2 parent, 2 child family is 75,000.
Amenities are lower in general. You might pay $50 for a 1 hour music lesson instead of $75 for a MM trained music teacher. That’s a 105K overage - about twice as much. This is why someone in another location might have no problem covering that tuition on the same salary.
People on these threads over and over say you can afford it if your salary is X, but situations vary. Cost of living varies.
On this thread, we have an example of a U of MN grad that manages MIT grads.
Conversely, on the “90% of Employers Don’t Focus on College Rankings When Hiring” thread, a poster is showing that a few 22 year old MIT grads are beginning their career with starting salaries well over $200K, not including bonus.
Now strictly speaking, an equally talented U of MN grad could have gotten the same jobs, but it would have been an uphill battle because the companies don’t recruit there, and a typical person would have been unlikely to have heard of the fairly obscure finance companies.
If you want to work at a typical well known company, than a state flagship will do absolutely fine. But for the most talented there are a set of opportunities that are pretty much invitation only, and there is more exposure to them at the elite colleges.
@MusakParent You basically hit the nail on the head. I finished the fafsa last night. EFC was $47K. I have also ran some NPCs at the elites. The range has been $32-45K per year.
Here is where my wife and I messed up. She stayed home for 8 years while the kids were young. When she went back to work she is making around 40% of what she could be making. So we missed 8+ years of solid savings for college. Ironically I don’t think I would have a high stats kid if she didn’t stay home. Or at least as high as she is. Basically my wife should have continued to work back then and quit now.
Acceptances and merit is starting to roll in for my D19. The first two merit offers are less than my EFC by a lot. We are hoping to get merit for her number #1 choice at COA of $16K per year or less. If she does get into an elite with a COA of $30-35K per year it would be really hard to justify the extra cost.
I think the study @Corraleno referenced is on-point. At least, it reflects my own experience. My longtime business partner’s degrees—Harvard (BA/PhD) and UChicago (MBA)—were obviously much more impressive than my own “second (or third) tier” degrees from a Big10 flagship and a regional Catholic private. But none of our clients really cared where we went to school because we both were able to deliver in terms of research design and consulting insights. The fact that I went to “lesser” schools because of financial considerations did not diminish my intelligence or provide me with an inferior set of skills.
@gpo613 It is only a mistake if paying for an elite college is of greater value to your family than the family life and memories of the 8 yrs your wife spent being a full-time mom.
I have been a SAHM since we started having kids. Not only have I been at home with our kids, I have spent my adulthood homeschooling them. Not only that, we made the decion to have a large family, 8 of them. My Dh has a fabulous job and we live a comfortable life, but not enough $$ to put 8 kids through colleges requiring our EFC. We have had some very high-performing kids (graduating from high school with numerous in-major college courses completed and almost/at a 400 level.) I know without doubt that they would not have graduated from high school at the level they did if I had not only stayed at home with them but also homeschooled them bc no school system where we have lived has offered the level of courses they have taken.
No way I see our life choices as a mistake. I would not go back and change a single decision in order to fund an elite college for 1 or 2 of our kids. Nor would we take on debt for them to attend an elite school. Their avg public Us on scholarship have been full of wonderful opportunities and they have achieved their personal objectives.
From our family’s perspective, there is so much more to life than 4 yrs of UG for our children. Many people on CC see it differently and have lived their adulthoods with that as a goal for their kids. They have achieved their goals. They are very different from ours. Life is what we make it.
Our kids have been happy with their financial options for college. I have absolutely no regrets opting to be mostly part time throughout their growing up years. The time and experiences we were able to have far surpass wishing they could have had full pay, “anywhere you want to go,” opportunities. They told me they think so too.
“On this thread, we have an example of a U of MN grad that manages MIT grads.”
Well I can give a lot more examples of elite grads working for non-elite grads, that happens a lot in silicon valley, esp high tech. Recall that the prior Intel CEO went to SJSU, Tim Cook of Apple went to Auburn, and CEO of Cisco went to WVU, so in all those cases you had MIT, Stanford, Berkeley etc grads working for them, shocking I know!
“for the most talented there are a set of opportunities that are pretty much invitation only”
Talent means a lot of different things and it takes more than just talent in a lot of industries, agree that for IB, consulting, you can do well based on just where you went to undergrad, but most are not like that.
https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes suggests that a married couple in Princeton, NJ with an income of $280,000 and 4 people will have an after-tax (federal income, FICA, state income) amount of $204,302. Unless the house that the property tax is being paid on is assessed at over $2 million (more than double the average in Princeton, NJ), it is hard to see property tax at 2.5% bringing that down to $147,000.
How does someone with a pre-tax income of “only” $120,000 (approximately the median in Princeton, NJ) live?