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<p>Who are these people? I just haven’t seen them here. I agree with fluffy–I think we are generally talking about schools in the top 50-100 (maybe 200 if you add up the “top” 100 universities and LACs). For the most part bright, motivated kids CAN go anywhere they want from any of these places…even many you might categorize as “third tier.”</p>
<p>^We would have been these people - except that we have a ds… The free choices that my ds had were state flagships, but those are not all created equal. There is a BIG difference in rankings and perception between VA, Mich, UNC-Chapel Hill, the top UC schools and flagships in other places. Yes, my ds did receive nice merit at a top-20 school as well, so that did make the decision a bit harder. But the reality is that had he chosen one of the state schools, we <em>could</em> have bought him a condo. I know there are a few kids who seem to get in everywhere and who seem to receive merit everywhere that it is possible to receive merit and then get into an Ivy where they receive no merit. But, I really think those are few and far between. I think it is much more likely to be in the situation of free v. full-pay. This is especially true for National Merit kids, which was the main reason my ds had such generous offers at the state schools where he was accepted. Not ONLY this position, but to have that much of extreme among choices.</p>
<p>My problem with the idea of the financial safety: states have stopped funding higher education, and consequently the great public universities of the past are being gutted. This sometimes means a drop in quality more than an increase in tuition, though it can mean both. Financial safety is a more complex concept than many want to admit. </p>
<p>For this quick post, I’m going to use numbers from the National Education Association, but the numbers are easy to find else where. In the last 5 years, the majority of states have reduced their funding of public education. Here are some of the more dramatic drops: PA -20.5% (go Penn State), MI -18.4% (good thing Ann Arbor has a big endowment), NH -21.3%, C0 -18.5%, AZ -33.3%, NV -21.8%, WA -13.2%, OR -15%, LA 34.4%, MA -12.1%. Even that great giver of Merit money AL is down by 8.9%. </p>
<p>Our financial safety was also the reach, a case of Fortuna smiling on us, but I wonder if the state schools are currently as good as people think they are.</p>
<p>@calmom: agree completely. Given the competitive application process and the high cost of college, many intellectually curious kids end up at schools ranked from 50 to 100, or near the top of a regional list. Kids from those schools go on to med school and law school. Many kids at these schools are intellectually curious and others are not - just like at the top schools. </p>
<p>Every family has the line they will not cross. A NMF full-ride at University of Dallas was of no interest to my son nor to us. But taking a merit scholarship at a very good, but not super-elite, school was. Sending my other kids to a directional State U or Community College was not an option for us, but choosing the Big State U over a full-pay school was the right choice. </p>
<p>As for a second income, it comes with costs. For many years, much of my second income went to the baby sitter, commuting costs, and the other expenses that come with working as well as paying for day to day life. Not everyone can afford to stay home in the early years and then use all of the 2nd income to pay for college. </p>
<p>As a college administrator, I can’t stand the thought of paying 60K a year because I have a pretty good idea of how money gets spent at a university. I know how much of your tuition at most fancy universities will go for things like faculty and administrator travel, lawyers to defend the university against frivolous lawsuits, someone whose full-time job it is to coordinate the peanut-free table program in the cafeteria, recruiting trips to get yet more applications from people who will never get into the university, the conducting of focus groups to decide if people are more likely to apply to a school where the educational experience is described as “lively” vs. one where the educational experience is described as “deep and profound”, the purchase of yet more petunias for homecoming weekend, boxed lunches for administrator brown bags, outrageous speaking fees for controversial speakers on campus, office supplies, technology that never gets used, gym memberships, etc. etc. etc. </p>
<p>My overall problem is that I’ve become rather cynical and I’m not convinced that spending more money will get my child a better education because there’s not a very direct correlation between the money you spend and what your child ever gets – that’s where the analogy with the car purchase fails. Paying university tuition is more like perhaps paying an admission fee to an amusement park, but it would still be up to your child to decide what rides to ride, how many times to ride them, and whether to brave the long lines for certain rides. Some of your money would go for things like landscaping at the amusement park that you may or may not appreciate or even necessarily enjoy. Some of the money will go for frivolous things (like gelato vs. ice cream at the amusement park’s ice cream stand), and some students will only be satisfied with the amusement park where they can ride Space Mountain because that’s the only thing they are interested in. But all of the amusement parks have a merry-go-round and for some people that might be a better choice. But not everybody has the same experience at an amusement park, even if we all pay the same for our ticket (though in this case, there will be people attending the amusement park for free, some paying half price). Some people will go home early, others will end up buying multiple tickets, etc. </p>
<p>Momzie, the problem with your argument (much of which I agree with) is that the low budget/low tuition schools are ALSO spending money on the petunias. From my observation, the “arms race” is precisely around those things. I’d love to know that a lower tuition model school is spending any extra funds on an archivist, so that kids studying history or archaeology or art history have a more robust opportunity to use primary sources whether documents, ephemera, maps, etc. I’d love to see a university which is investing in the faculty and not the sushi bar.</p>
<p>But from my trips with my kids, the truly fancy dorms and climbing walls and “Hyatt Hotel” like student unions were NOT at the Harvard/Yale schools. It was the lower down the food chain places which had realized that landscaping is cheaper than a nanotechnology lab (duh) and that installing a fancy grill/wood burning pizza stove will cost 50K in the dining hall, but building an art museum costs billions if you start from scratch with no collection.</p>
<p>I have nothing but sympathy for the frivolous law suits- but that’s our society, I don’t blame the university. One kid falls on a patch of ice and the parents are calling the lawyer before they’ve even met the kid at the ER to learn that it’s a broken ankle (which I know is painful but really- ice is slippery.).</p>
<p>As in anything else- caveat emptor. Don’t pay for stuff that your kid is not going to benefit from- but from my perspective, “book learning” is the baseline- and some of the deep pocket schools provide access to archives and labs and performance spaces and museums and botanical gardens/ecological spaces (and the faculty that can use these resources for a robust learning experience) which really makes the college experience come alive. YMMV.</p>
<p>I usually stay out of this kind of thread that pops up every year but I’m hoping to offer a point of view that is not prevalent in these type of threads. I’m the product of a TTT(or what ever the acronym is), paid $69/quarter and I was a poor kid who were on Cal Grant A. I don’t remember if I knew I could apply to more prestigious schools and received financial aid. I had top grades, average SAT(considered I was newly immigrant to this country and barely started to learn English to converse properly). Looking back, I’m sure I would have gone to many great universities if I knew better about the US system regarding financial aid system.</p>
<p>So when I graduated, thanks to affirmative action or SWE(Society of women engineers) I ended up working for a top tiered engineering firm in the East Coast that was started by MIT alumni. Everyday I sat next to tons of people who graduated from top tiered schools like Yale, MIT, etc. In fact, one of my direct boss is now a professor at Princeton. These people were smart but let say they missed the boat on the major trend that annihilated their company. Too much of the same thinking or intellectual thickness, a little variety would have helped them, IMO. So let’s say I was impressed by their ability but also not impressed by their lack of foresight. But I didn’t let that experience stop my kids from applying to those prestigious colleges. I want them to experience living in a different environment of shall one say, get out of their bubble. I urged them to apply ED, EA but they didn’t want to or didn’t come up with a good essay for each college. In the end they applied to whatever they did, considering the whole senior year was very stressful.</p>
<p>As far as the comment about people who can afford college but has to tighten the belt in order to pay for $200K plus versus going to state school. Let just say in my circle, some of us can afford to pay $200K without having to tighten our belts, giving up luxury items or frivolous items, our jobs are secure, some of us has large inheritance, some of us has large money from stock options, but we are not going to blow it based on some reputation or prestige because we all came from state school and we made out ok, more than ok in my own opinion.</p>
<p>And the comment about state schools, not all state schools are the same, even within the UCs system, so far my kid has the best professors, some won teaching awards 3 years in a row, and classroom size not in the 1000s as some would believe, more like no larger than 200 students. So do not discount state schools either, they are the best value.</p>
<p>The only thing I can tell the difference, there are more rich kids at the private schools vs state schools. Kid #1 reported friends dated/hooked sons of billionaires. Her sorority has kids who parents are very wealthy, like SF socialite, winery owners, etc… While kid #2 has friends or roommates who are on the lower end of the SES, for example, she was amazed that her friend’s parents made $20K a year. I think the economic diversity is what one would get from state schools vs private schools. And no, I don’t want this debate to be about state schools vs private schools, it’s just my observation.</p>
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<p>With the result likely being Penn State’s high in-state costs and poor in-state financial aid. Pennsylvania residents who are not able to pay list price at Penn State or other state related universities in Pennsylvania would have a much harder time finding affordable safeties than the residents of many other states.</p>
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<p>Isn’t Yale spending about $600 million to build new residential colleges for about 1,000 students (i.e. $600,000 per bed)? That seems like some rather pricey dorms.</p>
<p>@DrGoogle - I wasn’t talking about comparing state schools <em>within</em> a state. I was talking about comparing state flagships <em>between</em> states. Michigan, UVA, or UNC-Chapel Hill seems very different to me from the University of Mississippi. I’m saying that folks who live in many states cannot get the same bang for your buck at their in-state flagship as those who live in states that have flagships that are considered “public Ivies.” This is exactly my point - not all state schools are created equal.</p>
<p>blossom, you would probably enjoy the thread on Davidson getting rid of its free laundry service for students.</p>
<p>The funding models are so complicated for public universities these days that it’s not safe to assume that just because state funding is being cut that the quality of educational offerings for students will quickly deteriorate as a result. Many of the amenities (not just climbing walls and training facilities but rare books collections, specialized labs and so on) are already paid for by major donors or ticket sales from football games.</p>
<p>Related to that, it doesn’t make sense to compare old, urban schools like Harvard and Yale to state flagships in rural areas where land is cheap and available (and labor costs to build new academic buildings or gyms are too, in many cases). Nor do I look down on schools that invest in new football stadiums or basketball arenas. The revenue that comes in from athletic boosters pays for a lot of petunias and more.</p>
<p>We opted very differently with each kid because our kids’ majors and paths are very different. I suppose there is no substitute to thinking on your feet about this. Rigid principles would not have served in our case.
And, as someone pointed out to me, these types of choices (the sensible vs. the dreamer) are never ending for many. We’ll encounter them our whole life long.
Maybe this^ qualifies as “justification” ;)</p>
<p>This whole thread demonstrates what an emotional and complex issue college choice is. And also how much our own perspectives color our interpretations of what other people write. I, for example, didn’t see any of the smugness or disdain others saw in Oldfort’s posts. I think we all need to look in the mirror more and realize that just because someone is making a choice to spend their money on a prestigious college doesn’t mean that they can’t understand someone else’s decision (rather by choice or necessity) to choose the more cost effective option. Or Vice Versa.</p>
<p>An anecdote from my experience that made me realize that everyone thinks about this differently…I have a friend with 4 kids (2 of whom are currently in college). H is an orthopedic surgeon and they live in a gorgeous, expensive house and drive nice cars (Porsche and BMW as well as more pedestrian van and sedan). They would be considered wealthy by most. But they both grew up in very modest circumstances (in Canada) and were the first in both their families to attend college. My friend is also very frugal in many ways – she clips coupons and shops at value grocery store well out of her neighborhood, she buys some of her own clothes at the thrift shop, etc… A funny contradiction. In any case, as Canadians they really don’t understand the idea of spending $50-60K per year on college. They have decided they are gifting a certain amount of money for each kid (I think about $250K) and that can be used by the kid for UG or later professional or graduate school or whatever. Both of the 2 oldest boys attend a Canadian University - it’s absolutely huge (which doesn’t “fit” at least one of the boys very well) but with the fact they have Canadian citizenship and with some scholarships, it’s only a few thousand dollars a year to attend. The oldest turned down WUSL (among a few other choices) to attend. Both boys seems pretty happy with the choice and the daughter who is a Junior now seems likely to attend there as well. (Although the engineering son has discovered that finding a U.S. internship for the summer has not been so easy and there doesn’t seem to be recruiting on campus for such positions). For that family, college seems almost exclusively about the academics/the content of the classes and the value/return on investment – i.e. what kind of job/profession you will end up with. And that’s perfectly fine and it works for them. </p>
<p>Meanwhile, our family made essentially the opposite decision. Our D went with an option that was $30K more per year for a LAC experience ranked only about 20-25 spots higher on USNWR. And she is not likely to end up with a particularly well paying career (likely non-profit/the arts). The experiences would probably have been pretty similar at each of the colleges though we agreed with D that the 1st choice had a few things we all liked better in terms of location, size and program of interest. We won’t have to go into debt and neither will our D, although those bills will certainly be noticed. We let her pick where she wanted to attend and I try not to second guess. </p>
<p>To each their own. It’s just an extremely family-specific decision and no one can say whether the road not taken would have been better or worse.</p>
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<p>If you’ve been inside Yale’s dorms, you would agree that new dorms are sorely needed. Not so sure about the $600M figure.</p>
<p>My daughter had her heart set on Michigan and got in. The price was and is ridiculous as she could get as good or better education in our home state of California. She wanted to major in biology and then off to Vet Achool. Maybe take some classes at MSU while at Michigan. I nipped it quick and told her to keep her budget comparable to our UC schools or less based upon all in costs (housing is a lot out here regardless of state status). </p>
<p>She looked at a few schools in the MW and South where her scholarships were plentiful. She was initially upset and would remind me how hard she worked and appeared depressed. After a visit to UGA, about 10 days for the acceptance deadline, she said she liked the campus and town. One year later, she is spending the summer in Athens, GA for an internship in the Animal Husbandry industry, loves her sorority, blossomed as a young woman and is majoring in an Ag. degree more applicable to Vet School.</p>
<p>My daughter has photos of she and I all over her summer house and Facebook. This was not the case at home. She is much sweeter and so happy. She got over the prestige and UGA was the greatest choice she ever made (over many UC schools, Michigan and Texas) as she thanked us after the finish of her freshman year a little over a week ago.</p>
<p>I have two more children and my setting the rules for her will help me keep them in line in terms of expectations. If you really want to go somewhere, get better grades and test scores for that scholarship or go in-state. We pay for four full years so they will have zero debt. </p>
<p>Regardless of where you go, it won’t really matter. The cream seems to rise to the top in the end. Enjoy the journey in the meantime.</p>
<p>The first time I answered the OP’s question I answered at a very high level … Mom3ToGo and I decided to try allow our kids to go their best fit schools. We do not believe the experience is the same at all schools and that this is an important 4 years … and we’d like to tailor that experience to each of our kids if we can. A nice ambiguous high level theory. </p>
<p>Here is how I came to have that belief. High school was not a great time for me. I was very smart, very young socially, very introverted, very perceptive, and not very strong emotionally. So how did that play out. I was a bit of geek, had a very small circle of friends, was never invited to the in-crowd parties and events (football players, cheerleaders, etc). At my school being smart was far from cool it was frowned upon by the in-crowd. I essentially was in a small minority population that was ignored and not included by the majority population … and I was VERY aware of my position in the social structure at my high school. And I believed it was my fault because I wasn’t cool like the in-crowd folks.</p>
<p>So, for me, going to Cornell, one of the school with a high density of high achieving students, did put me in a population of intellectual peers … but as others have mentioned a big State U has just as many smart kids … they are just spread out across a bigger student population. However, there also a HUGE social benefit for me being at Cornell. Being smart was a positive, there were lots of folks like me. Actually folks similar to me were more of the norm instead of being a small minority. I could be myself and fit virtually everywhere. It was eye opening and life changing. My 4 years transformed me and help me grow in strength and confidence to go forward being myself. Being a in a minority population can be tough … I couldn’t handle it when I started college … but was more than ready by the time I finished college.</p>
<p>I do not know what would have happened if I had gone to another school … however I’m convinced that going to a school that was full of intellectual and social peers was invaluable … it transformed me … and may have literally saved my life.</p>
<p>So when FirstToGo was born and I was sitting at my financial planning spreadsheet my number one goal was clear as day … helping my kids find the best environment for the intellectual and social growth while in K-12 and college was job one … because I know it can have an HUGE affect.</p>
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<p>Which leads to my second topic. My earlier post which discussed MomToGo and my car choices (among other things) drew replies about smugness and being self-righteous … just like it does every time I post the idea. That is not the intent (really) …so I’m going to take another crack at it.</p>
<p>I absolutely agree with everyone who says if you don’t have the money you can’t pay for an expensive best fit school (if the best fit school happens to be expensive). The point I was trying to make but never made clearly was essentially this. For a two professional family making $150k-$200k without tough life experiences (layoffs, medical bills, taking in relatives, etc) full pay school probably could be done in many cases … but if the college planning doesn’t really kick in until the oldest kid is 13-14-15 it is probably too late to make it happen. If saving for college is in place from when the kids are born it is a lot more likely to work out.</p>
<p>I really am not trying to be self-righteous because of the two main reasons this worked for Mom3ToGo and I was not because of any great thing we did it. First, we got lucky nothing bad intervened … and second, we both are naturally REALLY cheap … we naturally live pretty much on one salary. So when I was sitting at my spreadsheet we didn’t have a long way to go to put ourselves in position to let the kids pick their college of choice.</p>
<p>I used the car example because it’s the one place that I gave up pretty significantly to make this happen. From birth to the end of med school for FirstToGo I’ll have driven two Honda Civics into the ground… instead of having a RX-7,a Beamer, a Mini Cooper, and a couple other fun cars. And looking at the affect of these choices over 27 years actually makes a pretty big number … again the point being we started at birth so the decisions had a lot or leverage … if we had started when FirstToGo was in high school it just would not have made much of a difference.</p>
<p>That said having the goal clearly in mind and planing for it did affect decisions along the way … cars, when we bought a new house getting a fixer-upper, applying most found money (raises, gifts, bonuses, etc) to our long-term goals etc. Having the long-term goal and plan helped us keep discipline along the road … a 25 year quest … not a few year sprint.</p>
<p>It depends on the student, too. We’ll end up spending a lot more on D’s education than we have on S’s. Why? Because she values it more and will make better use of those educational funds than he did and because he had a skill that schools were willing to pay for that she doesn’t (ironically, one that has nothing to do with academics). </p>
<p>Hard to say if it’s been worth it since D is heading into college this August. The school she chose is about 3K outside of our comfort zone (and we won’t take out parent loans as it would screw D’s little brother who heads into college just as she leaves.)</p>
<p>At this point, I do think it’s the right thing to do. She got into 3 financial safeties. All fantastic schools. However, all are huge public schools that offered her major but not the concentration she’d been wanting. All promised large classes her first two years and the high likeliness of an extra semester or a couple extra quarters due to difficulty in getting classes (which of course, makes the potential of it not actually being cheaper than the reach.) The financial reach is a private school with tiny classes. A very high 4 year graduation rate. Socratic style learning and the exact major and concentration she wants (and another unique major she really wants to double in.) She sat in several classes at several colleges but THIS was the school that had her at the edge of her seat and bubbling over with joy with not only how the class was presented but by how the other students were responding to it (and had her at the computer at home doing more research on the material presented.)</p>
<p>D’s schooling has been tricky since preschool. Her emotional/mental stability is directly tied to her being challenged and engaged intellectually. It’s not a matter of “want” it’s really a matter of “need” which I know people who don’t know her or haven’t encountered similar people tend to roll their eyes at. We’ve watched her fall apart twice when not placed in appropriate learning environments and so stretching for the right college fit is worth it for us. Well, I should say it’s worth it for D as she’ll be taking out the difference in a subsidized loan (and we’ll all pick away at it while she’s in school to bring down the total.)</p>
<p>The other thought I have on what I am reading is this: We are talking about undergraduate studies. They can and often do, change their majors. So pursuing schools for a specific emphasis at this level is almost always futile. Graduate school is more important (if they pursue that level of education) in terms of specialty and quality of school. And you can get into those better graduate schools from so called lesser undergraduate programs. </p>
<p>My daughter is in a very specialized program at UGA (only undergraduate one in the nation) but she chose it a semester into her college life. In fact, she was originally a bio major in Liberal Arts before switching to AG at the beginning of her freshman year. </p>
<p>Everything is about balance. Whether is it is financial, school life, relationships or what you eat. Don’t go overboard on school costs. If you can afford it and want to spend it great. Otherwise you will be surprised how understanding they are and you will not feel like you are suffocating. It was hard to say no to UM but she couldn’t be happier at UGA. And it was one of her lowest scholarships but it converted to instate costs at home. I stuck to my guns and we are both happy and that is my balance.</p>
<p>Two more kids to go!</p>