<p>My take on this whole thread:</p>
<p>Other people have it easier than...
The grass is greener elsewhere.</p>
<p>zoosermom -
excellent point on the cost of living factor - in the majority of cases it is not acknowledged at the colleges. With you and your husband as role models, it does not surprise me that your DD is prudent. Best wishes to her and you all.</p>
<p>I have one more thought to add to the discussion about whether college is for vocational or liberal arts education. In such a rapidly changing, technological society, I believe it is foolish to try to predict future jobs via a specific college major. Anyone remember COBOL programmers? (I know they made a comeback for Y2K but it's not exactly a growth field.) My husband's degrees are in pure and applied math -- not exactly great training for the real world in some ways. But the mental discipline and problem solving skills acquired through such an education have served him well. I would compare it to giving someone a fish vs teaching them to fish. The ability to learn new technologies is priceless, and good analytical and writing skills will always find a place in the working world.</p>
<p>sjmom, I agree with you. A relative of mine has a degree in economics with a graduate degree in teaching. Years ago she was hired to teach "key punch" (remember those cards-I suppose they looked like cards with the voters' hanging chads), and shorthand. Today shorthand and keypunch are no longer taught. Fortunately her degrees were useful to use in another career.</p>
<p>Many of us who do not receive any financial aid would certainly like some help, and believe the aid calculations represent the expense side far to little. The 1200 sq. ft. 2 bedroom, 1 bath, house next to mine just went on the market for $400,000, and there is a bidding war. </p>
<p>We decided to send S to his first choice private school (since he was in elementary school) even without financial aid, not an easy decision. We did so knowing that if he went to our quite good State U (to which he was accepted) he would probably be just as, if not more, successful in life. We were aware of the data that show there is little correlation between where one attends or in what one majors and ones eventual occupation, and so was he. In the end, we decided it was the educational experience of the next 4 years, not his occupational future in which we are investing. So far the experience has been as close to perfect as one could imagine, again "so far." But for us, it was not about income and occupation, or prestige. It was about the intellectual, social, and maturation process found at college and what school provided what S was after, and we wanted him to have.</p>
<p>Here is some information we found useful from UChicago's Andrew Abbott, with last paragraph basically summarizing it all very well, and may dispel a few previous assumptions:</p>
<p>All serious studies show that while college-level factors like prestige and selectivity have some independent effect on later income, most variation in income happens within collegesthat is, between the graduates of a given college. That internal variation is produced by individual factors like talent, resources, performance, and major. But even those factors do not determine much about your future income. For example, the best nationwide figures I have seen suggest that a one-full-point increment in college GPAfrom 2.8 to 3.8, for exampleis worth about an additional 9 percent in income four years after college. Thats not much result for a huge amount of work. </p>
<p>The one college experience variable that does have some connection with later worldly success is major. But most of that effect comes through the connection between major and occupation. The real variable driving worldly success, the one that shapes income more than anything else, is occupation.</p>
<p>Within the narrow range of occupation and achievement that we have at the University, there is no strong relation between what you study and your occupation. Here is some data on a 10 percent random sample of Chicago alumni from the last 20 years. Take the mathematics concentrators: 20 percent software development and support, 14 percent college professors, 10 percent in banking and finance, 7 percent secondary or elementary teachers, and 7 percent in nonacademic research; the rest are scattered. All the science concentrations lead to professorships and nonacademic research. And biology and chemistry often lead to medicine. But there are many diversions from those pathways. A biology concentrator is now a writer, another is now a musician. Two mathematicians are lawyers, and a physics concentrator is a psychotherapist. </p>
<p>Take the social sciences. Economics concentratorsthis is today identified as the most careerist majorare 24 percent in banking and finance, 15 percent in business consulting, 14 percent lawyers, 10 percent in business administration or sales, 7 percent in computers, and the other 30 percent scattered. Historians are often lawyers (24 percent) and secondary teachers (15 percent), but the other 60 percent are all over the map. Psychologists, surprisingly, are also about 20 percent in the various business occupations, 11 percent lawyers, and 10 percent professors; the rest are scattered. And there are the usual unusuals: the sociology major who is an actuary, the two psychologists in government administration, the political science concentrator now in computers. </p>
<p>As for the humanities, the English majors have scattered to the four winds: 11 percent to elementary and secondary teaching, 10 percent to business occupations, 9 percent to communications, 9 percent to lawyering, 5 percent to advertising. Of the philosophers, 30 percent are lawyers and 18 percent software people. Two English majors are artists and one is an architect. A philosophy major is a farmer and two are doctors. </p>
<p>With the exception of those planning to become professors in the natural sciences, there is no career that is ruled out for any undergraduate major. You are free to make whatever worldly or otherworldly occupational choice you want once you leave, and you do not sacrifice any possibilities because you majored in something that seems irrelevant to that choice. There is no national evidence that level of performance in college has more than a minor effect on later things like income. And in my alumni data, there is no correlation between GPA at Chicago and current income. </p>
<p>"As for the $160k poster, I understand the position. With that income, you think, gee, no problem, I should be able to send my kids anywhere they want to go. It is frustrating to make that kind of money and realize that either you can't, or if you do, you have to live a $45k lifestyle, but them's the breaks."</p>
<p>Speaking as one joyfully living a $45K lifestyle, I have to wonder why people talk about it as if it were such a terrible thing.</p>
<p>So we have a poster making $160K who is planning on spending $40K over the 4 years for his student to get his degree.
Thats fair I suppose as long as the student knows up front what the limits are, and hoping that there are good instate schools as a option.
But more people make $40K to $70K, than over $100K
and still hope for their children to attend college.
I wonder, what sort of contribution that others expect the family making $50,000 to make?
$10,000 a year as well?</p>
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<blockquote> <p>ellemenope - Have you ever read the "Tightwadder's Gazette"? That was a book that changed our lives. We baked our own bread, rinsed out plastic bags, and made enough lifestyle changes to save money on teeny tiny incomes with two children.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>I hear that Oprah rinses out her plastic bags--and she has gazillions of dollars! I have to admit--I am not as careful with money as I should be and am pretty lazy about doing Tightwad Gazette sorts of things. Just told the hubby to go out there and bring home more bacon.</p>
<p>H and I have committed to making sure the kids have college educations without debt. We both got through undergrad with minimal debt (me, none; him, a little). </p>
<p>If we hadn't saved for the past 15 years, if we hadn't made a bit of money investing over the past 13 years, if H's salary hadn't increased over the years--we would still have kept our commitment to this goal. But the kids would have gone to colleges we could have afforded. </p>
<p>We're lucky in that we could have sent our kids to our alma mater, which costs about $8K per year (including room and board) and is an OK school (it did OK by us!). It is nice to have such a financial safety, even though we haven't had to use it.</p>
<p>"I wonder, what sort of contribution that others expect the family making $50,000 to make? $10,000 a year as well?"</p>
<p>We have friends who make under $50,000 and others under $60,000, the first was asked to contribute $12,000 per year because they have a little house (via inheritance) that provides some rental income to bring their income up to $50K, and were told to borrow against it. The other was told to contribute $8,000 per year. The first could not do it, the second has to go into debt $32,000 to meet it (and it's the flagship State U), which brings a certain hardship.</p>
<p>Okay, I'll bite. What school costs $8K/year including room and board?</p>
<p>State school is the way to go - especially if med school is in the plans. It would be really bad to rack up all that debt for an undergrad education that will only be looked at one time - to get int grad school.</p>
<p>Sorry to get back off track but for those more familiar with the European and Canadian systems. Can you get supplemental insurance? For example, could you get insurance so that you could get a hip replacement in a more timely manner in Britian? Even if you couldn't, you'd still be better off than an uninsured person here who I don't think would ever be able to get a hip replacement. The NYTimes ran a story a few years ago about a woman who couldn't get a wheelchair from Medicaid and their "Neediest Cases" had to give her one. Someone I know has a sister who is mentally ill and she lost her dentures and medicaid will not give her another set and she is toothless. So, I don't think our system is very generous to the uninsured.</p>
<p>Also, about entrance exams, I would vastly prefer that to the capriciousness of our system. Ten or more years developing "passions", SAT IIs, summer programs, etc.</p>
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<blockquote> <p>Okay, I'll bite. What school costs $8K/year including room and board?<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Brigham Young University, but you have to be LDS to get the lower rate. And they'll get all that money back and then some with the church's 10% tithing on your wages in your future!</p>
<p>About the University of Chicago post. I think that was kind of my point that if you go to a school like Chicago (and I think that school sounds terrific) then you need to go to graduate school. It sounds like most of the people cited went to graduate school - like the sociology major who became an actuary - and may have even needed more undergraduate credits to go to graduate school in a different field. I do know quite a few recent grads who studied things like merchandising (whatever that is) or advertising, and got pretty good jobs right out of school. If you want to go to law school you haven't lost anything by having a degree in advertising. Like daughter was considering speech pathology for a while. If you go to a school with even a minor in that it can save you a year in graduate school - 2 years rather than 3. Even though I majored in Econ, I still had time to take sample just about every department and take about 7 courses in Philosophy.</p>
<p>"If you want to go to law school you haven't lost anything by having a degree in advertising."</p>
<p>But any respectible law school would hold it against you in admissions. Unlike, say, engineering, which if anything is a plus for law school admissions.</p>
<p>Amazon.... go to the Career Development website of any well-known University and take a look at the companies that recruit on campus for undergrads w/no advanced training.</p>
<p>Philosophy majors get jobs at Hedge funds; Anthropology majors get positions writing grants for foundations; History majors become managment consultants; Political Science majors become sales reps for consumer products companies.</p>
<p>Lots of people end up in grad school, but the corporate world is filled with English majors who found something they loved right out of school and never looked back.</p>
<p>I heard business was a good major for law school.</p>
<p>Can you get supplemental insurance? For example, could you get insurance so that you could get a hip replacement in a more timely manner in Britian.</p>
<p>Yes, you can, and only the very rich do so. When we lived in Britain, many hospital beds were filled with rich Arabs who came to be treated in Britain. Their doctors had both an NHS list of patients and a list of private patients. The private patients not only got first crack at doctors' services but also at the nursing staff (who did not get paid extra, unlike the doctors). This worsened the queues for those who could not afford to pay for private care.</p>
<p>I agree that for basic medical care, the European universal health system is superior, although it does not mean that preventive medicine is superior; doctors will often do all they can not to prescribe anything ( I had that experience myself). For non-death-threatening but serious and painful illnesses, that system is far from adequate. And, it is becoming more threadbare every year.</p>
<p>Oh, and my lawyer brother turned down a job that on paper promised a huge jump in salary when he found out that the marginal tax rate on that salary increase would be 80%, which would have translated into $200 in his pocket per month.</p>
<p>More and more middle and upper middle class citizens in UK are purchasing supplemental medical insurance, but there is no arguing that there is a better medical safety net there. My parents moved back there to retire for that very reason.</p>
<p>What is most interesting to me is just how expensive health care is globally here in the US when you consider the number of citizens with minimal or no coverage. Too many middle men taking their cut.</p>
<p>Agree with the comments regarding demand for achieving liberal arts majors in the business world. I got a programmer/analyst job with a communciations degree right out of school because the company found the computer science majors couldn't interact with the customers to define requirements.</p>