We are a poster family for this thread. My son who took an academic full ride to the state flagship just graduated without debt and is gainfully employed in a hot field. He is studying for professional exams after work so he has no meaningful social life. His living expenses are low, he still has a used car that we bought him and our health coverage so he is now mostly obsessed with beefing up his retirement accounts. I was surprised at the number of job offers he got. It seems when a student has an academic pedigree to get a full ride at a flagship it will not go to waste during the first job search. Ability to get good grades, pass tests, pass interviews will still be there as well. When your entry-level job resume has things like top magnet public high school with competitive admission, IB program, 2300+ SAT scores, Presidential scholarship, high college GPA in hard discipline, good internships - it all commands attention.
The kid at an Ivy declined many athletic full-ride offers. She is not a STEM type and has no idea what she wants to do with her life. We are not paying full price but when everything is done it will be 100K+ down the drain. She is not going to have a car any time soon and will have to work every summer to cover her expected contribution. Jr/Sr. years she may have to take out loans to pay our EFC. I hope she can support herself after graduation.
I should add that my son did not like his college experience while my daughter is in love with her college but it really depends on a person. The jury is still out if Ivy is worth all this money.
My son was not as highly rated as your son sounds, but he was recruited in another sport by Princeton and PENN. He chose PENN (Wharton) since it was offered. #1 in his class and 2300+ on the SAT’s gave us leverage. He was injured his freshman year and decided to give up sports. There was no scholarships so he lost nothing. If this happened at BC, would he keep his scholarship? Knowing that answer might help his decision.
@stepay
But those numbers are your toleration point from your personal circumstances. That is the price you have have determined weighing your pros and cons. Other people will have completely different numbers. Our “toleration” numbers for our family are very different bc our circumstances are very different.
Looking at @UMDAD ‘s numbers, for his family it was the correct personal decision. For our family it isn’t. We have eight children and one is a dependent adult Aspie. Take our EFC for any school and multiply it by 8 and it consumes yrs’ worth of income. If we had 2 kids, our “toleration” numbers would be different. We chose to have a large family and that choice is expensive, even with a high income. Everyone makes choices which impact college selection. Family size was ours.
FWIW, our kids have not been negatively impacted by the need for scholarships at non-top ranked school approach. Our oldest is a chemE with a great career. Our youngest is attending a flagship full-ride (not via a single scholarship, but from multiple stacking scholarships.) He is an incredibly strong student, but finances were definitely a major factor in choice. Searching for honors programs which were geared toward meeting his unique needs was key. Where he is attending was not his only full-ride option, but where he is attending came with the “meeting the needs of top students” that the other program could not match. It has a research honors program and allows undergrads to grad level courses.
My kids have loved their colleges. Our youngest son states that he is surrounded by academic peers in the research program. He has found his “tribe” and loves it. He has nothing but wonderful things to say about his school. Our oldest, like a previous poster, graduated with multiple job offers. (but he did love his college yrs unlike what the other poster stated about her son.)
That is exactly the problem - kids applying to Ivy schools simply because they want the prestige/exclusivity, without putting much emphasis on other factors. These are the ‘square’ kids cramming themselves into ‘round’ holes.
TL:DR: Basically, the hyper-competitive nature of Ivy college admissions forces kids to perform to the required “specifications” necessary to be admitted, without really thinking about why they are doing it.
I agree. And it seems like a lot of them will actually graduate in three years or have master’s degrees after four, since state universities are generally more generous in accepting AP and CLEP credits. (Do Ivies accept APs for credit these days?). That’s another thing to consider as you weigh “total cost.”
I understand your point, but I think when it comes to choosing safeties, it isn’t always so clear cut. There may not be an obvious “fit.” My son didn’t even visit his until spring of his senior year. He was originally looking at SLACs and made the cerebral decision that if they ended up not being an option (for whatever reason), he’d rather go to a big flagship where he’d have more choices than a less competitive LAC where he might have attracted some big merit money–not that they’re necessarily “safe” either.
@mom2aphysicsgeek - I understand that the price point is different for different families…that’s why I listed several different amounts and said you would have to determine what is worth it and that for me “personally” it would be about $20,000. I didn’t say (and in fact said otherwise) that that amount should be for everyone.
Also, I don’t doubt that you can go to a non-top college and end up doing well either in a career or in graduate school. My wife and I went to a good, though not top liberal arts college, and we both went to graduate school after that…for her it was Stanford and then University of Michigan for two separate graduate degrees.
@ucbalumnus "FCCDAD wrote:
How is that any different than married parents who are unwilling to pay or fill out the forms? Or divorced couples where the primary custodian is unwilling to pay or fill out the forms? Why stigmatize divorced parents or NCPs (who, after litigation costs and paying for twice as many sets of household bills, are likely to be in much worse financial shape anyway)?
You just described exactly why kids of divorced parents tend to have a harder time with college financial aid, even at the “super generous with financial aid” schools."
NO, I described why kids of divorced parents have a harder time with paying college costs, not with getting financial aid. They have less money available to pay for college because their parents are paying two mortgages, legal fees, etc. Presumably the parents have the same incomes regardless of whether they divorced or not.
For all except CSS NCP Profile schools, divorced parents should mean lower household income and therefore better financial aid.
For CSS NCP Profile schools, looking at all parents’ and stepparents’ incomes probably hurts the student’s financial aid because the school will assert there is more money available for the student to draw on. This is if the parents are all fully cooperative about filling out the forms and disclosing their finances.
You didn’t address my question: why denigrate divorced parents (who probably both have less money available anyway, as you concede)? Being unwilling to pay (if you have the money), or unwilling to fill out FA forms, hurts the student regardless of whether the parents are married or not. If the parents say, “we will provide up to $XXX for you to attend college, that’s all we can afford,” what difference does it make whether they are married or divorced?
@stepay
I understand. My only point is that presenting personal and hypothetical financial scnearios really doesn’t help individual families b/c it is their particular individual familial circumstances that need to be evaluated. The entire original question is rather meaningless b/c there is no single “right” answer and there very well could be wrong answers in either direction.
With all due respect, that seems rather anecdotal. As I could repeat dozens of other stories, of recruiters that barely make it to a state university campus, with near 6 six figure job offers. Further, life is a long journey, and success and happiness comes in many forms. That said, like anything else in life, it is your own personal story that is most important. So, along those lines–congratulations on a job well done.
This is the essential question in our house right now. My son intends to pursue a career in International Relations and knowing him I doubt that will change. He’s been admitted EA into the Walsh FS School at Georgetown. He’s also been admitted EA to UVA (instate) which, while not a full ride, is less than half the cost of Gtown. His other choices are Geo. Mason Honors (even cheaper than UVA) and he’ll find out about American U Global Studies (almost as pricey as Gtown- may have a chance of merit aid) and William and Mary (again, in state and relatively cheap). I’ve gotten a variety of opinions from various people, but we (truly a family decision) are leaning towards UVA or WM. That said, part of me says hey, I’ll just have to work a year longer or die a year earlier (my wife hates that part of me). Anyhow, a good problem to have. It’s interesting that I’ve spent more time typing this post than my parents spent thinking about where I’d go 35 years ago.
@gr8fldadd - Funny that you said you spent more time tying that post than your parents thought about where you’d go 35 years ago. I began college 30 years ago this next fall, and it was definitely similar in my case. I visited four colleges, and as many as four only because I was an athletic recruit, otherwise it might have been just one, and I went to the college I seemed to like the best with no real research on my part or my parent’s part other than quickly looking through a couple of guide books from the library after the list was already quickly whittled to 4. Things are SO different now.
As others have said, it all depends on your career goals. My kids (engineering—pre-med and research) choose top schools (Ivy, et al.) over free state rides. Did it matter in the long run? Not really, other than access to excellent labs. I watched their friends take free rides to Clemson, Delaware, etc. make into PhD programs like Princeton and GATech. I’m told by my Harvard-trained surgeon bro that undergrad makes a diff at Harvard (they like their own brand), but if you want to practice non-academic med, why cough up the money now? Also, Something to consider: schools like Penn Engineering seriously, underscore seriously, deflate grades! BME is a GPA killer unless you have an eidetic memory even if you’re National Merit with 13 APs. You can get a ridiculously high GPA at the state school. Read Malcolm Gladwell on this. In most cases, it’s not where you start, it’s where you end. This is America after all.
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However, I would not be surprised if a cohort of students with Ivy League academic credentials going into a state university without breaking their budgets also had a 97% or so graduation rate.
We live in a small NE town and have a Harvard Grad, NASA scientist and Carnegie PHD teaching at our high school. We also have a CEO for a fortune 500 that went to U Delaware. He agrees the name might get you in the door but once you start at a company it is all about results, they could care less about the degree on your application. Get an education you can afford, an then work hard.
I also read that recruiters Like the high performers at the state schools. Great students at a great price. Think like an employer. I rather hire a go getter at a fair price than a high educated graduate that will cost big bucks.
@PurpleTitan Thank you for your vote of confidence! Yes, in fact @stepay, I have run the NPC for each college to which my daughter has applied. We have a confounding problem that makes us appear more well-to-do than we are. My husband and I inherited 1/3rd of the family farm when my in laws died. Farming is my brother-in-law’s livelihood so we can’t (or rather promised that we would not) sell the farm outside the family. Unfortunately, my brother-in-law is unable to buy us out at this point is time. So we have an asset that can’t be liquidated but generates minimal income on a good year and a loss on a bad year… I am quite sure that my in-laws never dreamed that giving us 1/3rd of the farm would actually tie our hands, but it did. I imagine there are others out there like us who are unable to pay EFC to an Ivy because of some kind of non-liquid asset.
If you are planning to go to graduate school or pursue education past your four years as an undergraduate student, choose the full ride to a state school. You will graduate with no debt and possibly have a higher GPA, which will perhaps make getting into a good graduate school (with a scholarship or assistantship) more of a possibility. If you are only planning on attending college to get your bachelors degree, you might consider choosing an ivy league school. Usually, the last place you’ve attended is what people will look at. Plus, Ivy League Schools have amazing networks of alumni. As for myself, I started at Amherst College, not an Ivy but a very competitive school, and left for St. Joseph’s University, a less competitive university. I made the change to have a better chance at a higher GPA because I knew I’d be responsible for the cost of graduate school. Honestly, the only thing graduate programs (in biology) were interested in when spoke with them was my GPA, which was high enough to secure free tuition and a paid position as a graduate assistant. The decision depends largely on what you want to do after college, but graduating debt free is always a good way to get ahead.
@comomom - Man that’s a tough situation. Does your third of the farm actually have any value? With it making money sometimes and losing at other times, perhaps it’s time to give the third to your brother-in-law. I realize that’s easy for me to say, and maybe it’s worth a lot of money. If you can’t envision the brother-in-law ever being able to buy you out, maybe it’s time to insist he sell it so you can get your money, OR you just give it to him. Again, I realize this is easy for me to say, and I do realize there needs to be family harmony.
I’m watching this thread with interest because we are facing a similar dilemma. DD has been accepted EA to UChicago (her “dream” school") but has also received what amounts to a full tuition scholarship to our state flagship U (honors program). Is that “intimate” and rather intense learning environment with other quirky intellectually curious students, and the name on the degree when she graduates, worth $200K? I’m soaking up all of these various perspectives … Keep 'em coming.
