@mom2collegekids I agree. It was very interesting that they disclosed that. It was in a graphic labeled “where tuition money goes”.
Also, I agree that part of ROI will be S19’s mid career salary but we are also counting the actual four year experience at the college as something worth paying for.
“I think it really depends on what the school is spending their money on. One of the schools on my dd’s list is in the top 10 for their endowment $ and we were very underwhelmed with their academic facilities, condition of their buildings on a whole, dining, etc… I’m not sure where there $ was going but it wasn’t into anything that would have been meaningful for my DD.”
Maybe it goes to professor’s salaries? I’d rather that money be spent in support of full time professors than using part-time faculty who are not paid well or on fancy dorms or deluxe dining halls.
Those schools with the best endowment per student are also the most generous with FA. You said you’re “full pay.” Is that your post-NPC assessment or just your assumption? At some of these schools, you could be eligible for some grant $$ even if your income is over $200K.
@TiggerDad we are definitely full pay. Our EFC was $160 on FAFSA and every NPC I ran had us at full pay. We’re bummed that the cost of college has sky rocketed but we have saved for this. Unfortunately it will just mean that our kids will only get undergrad paid for by us if they choose a full priced private undergrad.
Rather than look at the ROI in terms of trying to find which $70,000 per year schools are more luxury class in terms of possibly useful but not essential extra amenities (increasing the R part), you can also look at ROI in terms of schools which offer a strong return on the core educational mission at a low cost (reducing the I part). For example, your in-state public universities may offer good educational opportunities and options for your student, but without the extra luxury amenities, but at much lower cost, so that the savings can be used to pay for any particularly useful amenities yourself. Also, depending on the state and the university, some amenities like SES diversity may be greater at your in-state public universities than at the luxury class universities where the students are heavily skewed toward the upper classes.
In terms of future pay prospects, http://online.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/info-Degrees_that_Pay_you_Back-sort.html suggests that they are strongly associated with major, although the top graduates of each major (90th percentile) do well. The medians do vary considerably, though.
@ucbalumnus I’m not sure what your point is in regard to my OP. Trying to figure out how to find out how tuition money is spent on the students in order to compare schools. S19 has already applied to schools and wants the small class size and community feeling that his LAC-heavy list provides. I can see that there are differences between his schools, though, on instruction. A school like Grinnell spends much less per student than Williams or Midd. Yet Grinnell’s endowment is pretty darn big. That’s the kind of info I’m looking for.
Not all LACs are luxury class priced, so you may be able to find a better ROI by looking for LACs with a smaller I in ROI.
Of course if you are paying luxury class prices, you certainly do want to get luxury class R in ROI.
@ucbalumnus Lol. Right. Looks like luxury price may be our only option unless some long shot merit comes in. That’s why I’m asking how to compare these expensive options.
If you simply look at the NESCACs to which your son has applied, then Hamilton, Williams, Amherst and Bowdoin graduates, in that order, report the highest early career salaries as indicated in U.S. News. Though the data represent general figures across majors, the information nonetheless may suffice with respect to these generally homogeneous colleges. However, note that these schools fall within a 5% range of each other by this measure.
But what does that info tell you?
@collegemom3717 not exactly sure. But I found an article published by Grinnell saying they spend more money on merit money and less on professors and that they have fewer professors than many of their peers.
https://www.grinnell.edu/sites/default/files/documents/grinmagfall11.choosing.pdf
I will be blunt. Looking at expenditures per student is a terrible methodology. You wouldn’t like the grade that you would get in an econ class with it. As a consumer, the cost to produce a good is irrelevant to your decision to buy it. All that you care about is the cost and the value that you receive. If I am buying a new phone, I don’t know or care how much it cost Apple to produce it. Same for college.
But I care about what we are buying. And if a school has better support for students in its classrooms and outside its classrooms, then I can use that as part of our decision. It could be more professors or more extracurricular activities included in the tuition or funded research or even free laundry as mentioned above.
As a general comment (not directed toward anyone specifically), while subsidized laundry (i.e., at nominal cost) may offer a nice fringe amenity, free laundry can encourage waste and consequent environmental degradation.
Yes, but that is the value that you derive from the good. You still don’t care how much it costs to produce it.
OP - What kinds of things besides small class size are important to your child? Is it study abroad opportunities that are financed by the school? Lots of clubs/activities that are free to join? Sports or theater and associated easy of obtaining tickets and costs? Leadership opportunities on campus? Events? Guaranteed housing on campus all four years or flexibility to live off campus? Good career counseling resources? Tutoring options? On campus jobs?
Just trying to think of some of the things that might be a deeper dive in terms of culture/fit.
However, higher spending per student needs to be viewed carefully or skeptically.
- Sometimes, accounting quirks can result in misleading spending per student. For example, colleges with associated medical schools often have very high spending per student, even though medical school spending is irrelevant to undergraduates.
- High (luxury class) spending may not necessarily be efficient spending, and may not necessarily be buying the types of additional amenities that your student would value or make use of, given all of the possible ways to spend it. For example, new biology labs may not be of much value to someone who is not a biology or related major.
So actual results of such spending matter. However, judging those results can often be subjective, and anecdotal reports from a few students may not have any comparison with other schools or be that applicable to your student (the biology lab example).
@Eeeee127 ok I get it. You are saying that I shouldn’t look at the dollar amount. That I should look at the actual experiences provided. Perhaps one school can deliver the same goods for less money but that shouldn’t matter to me. Right.
So the question is more like “how does one evaluate the student experience included in the price of tuition?”
@ucbalumnus agreed. So, I guess we are saying that one spending number really does not tell the whole story.
@momofsenior1 good idea. S19 should be able to make a list. It’s a little harder because he’s not sure about major but he should definitely include labs, etc, on his list since he’s currently interested in physics. And I believe college sponsored activities are important to him since most of his schools are pretty rural. I do think some schools are better at that than others.