<p>Agree Hunt. There seems to be some disconnect between what (to continue the labels) the “value” folks are saying vs the “fit” folks. It is often NOT a choice between an Ivy and a directional state U. There are plenty of choices in between. When the top schools have an 80-85+% REJECTION rate, there have to be a lot of pretty smart, capable students at schools outside of the super elite. As someone said above, a hundred points on the SAT or a 3.8 instead of a 4.0 does not mean that those students will not provide an intellectually thick environment. However, that also does not mean that there is no difference in quality between a school that offers a full tuition scholarship and a full-pay. The difference may be too great, even for families that consider value as one factor in the college decision. </p>
<p>
OK, I cheated and changed the quote a bit … but this quote sums up the whole thing for me. If there is a place XXX that I believe will provide my kid more opportunities I will support their decision to go there and pay for that experience if I can. That may be expensive … .it may not. It may be highly selective … it may not. If we believe it’s the best place for our kid among their choices we’ll try to make it happen … because we believe student’s experiences will be different at different schools … and if that school is more expensive we’ll pay for that incremental improvement in experience even if it not a very cost efficient decision</p>
<p>But wouldn’t you engage in some sort of cost/benefit analysis when it comes to how much more to pay?</p>
<p>I mean, it’s one thing to pay an additional $5000 per year for a college – it’s something entirely different to pay an additional $30K per year - which is the kind of issue often faced when a student has been awarded generous merit aid at a reputable college, vs.full cost at an another school? What if the more expensive school is not a top-ranked school? For example, what should parents do when their kid has their heart set on NYU, and has been offered the typically parsimonious aid package that NYU gives out? Would it have made sense for me to pay for NYU when my d. had been admitted as an in-stater to UC Berkeley? </p>
<p>I appreciate quality. I just think that the $$ spent to get something of quality should be reasonably related to its value to the person bearing the extra cost.</p>
<p>Yes Calmom- and quality comes in different packages which I think is why the “full pay” crowd gets irritated at the suggestion that we’re all too dense to figure out the quality differential.</p>
<p>I had one kid interested in engineering. His top choice was MIT, and we were united as a family that we’d make it happen if he was accepted. It was both a fantastic fit for him personally, AND offered everything he was looking for academically, intellectually, etc.</p>
<p>His guidance counselor suggested several “safety” type schools, none of which I was willing to pay for. I know enough about engineering (having hired boatloads of them professionally) to know that the best “safety” option was a highly ranked public flagship U (not our own, sadly) in engineering. I was happy to be full pay to get what this kid was looking for; I was not willing to pay for what I believe would be inferior to a top flight public engineering degree. </p>
<p>I didn’t need the validation of him attending a private U; there were a couple of smaller engineering programs that the kid explored briefly (i.e. not the relatively huge public U’s) but they didn’t have the bustle and lab culture he was looking for.</p>
<p>Again, I don’t tell other people how to spend their money. But don’t assume that someone is paying full freight at Princeton because they are too dumb to figure out that their kid could have gotten a free ride at Rowan.</p>
<p>The NYU conundrum is a tough one, I agree. Some of the schools and programs are in fact top drawer. Others are not. I think NYU undergrad in many of the Arts and Sciences disciplines get a free ride on the fact that some of the grad schools are so strong. NYU Law school- perennially in the top ten in the country. That doesn’t mean there’s a trickle down effect on your kid who is majoring in Comp Lit. Pay for NYU’s theater program? If your kid makes it in to one of the audition schools at NYU, I think that’s a conversation worth having. Door- opening, potentially career-making training. And if the choice is NYU for theater vs. your own flagships program which doesn’t even mount a director’s showcase for its grads- well again, that’s a conversation. But another kid who is majoring in History is not getting the advantage of the theater schools prominence. And I know someone who gave up a merit award at Fordham to be full pay at NYU in one of the humanities disciplines which frankly, the Catholic colleges do better than anyone. Crazy IMHO.</p>
<p>But yes, there’s always a discussion around value. And for every kid on CC who took the big merit award and went to Rhodes and then Yale Med school and is laughing all the way to the bank, I think there are 10 kids in real life who took the big merit award at a school for which they were fundamentally a mis-match (socially or otherwise) and really regretted it. We don’t hear about those kids so much.</p>
<p>We don’t hear anecdotal reports on CC about all the different outcomes-- but we’ve got the benefit of statistical data such as Gallup’s recently reported survey (see: <a href=“Life in College Matters for Life After College”>http://www.gallup.com/poll/168848/life-college-matters-life-college.aspx</a> ) – One unsurprising result of that survey is that college prestige was not relevant to outcomes- but factors related to engagement were. (For example, whether the student felt that professors cared, or participated in a long-term project while in school.) Another, I think equally unsurprising result, is that student’s who took on debt for college tended to be financially weaker down the line. </p>
<p>The other kids we don’t hear about on CC are the ones who start off at elite schools but are unhappy there, or who are happy enough but do poorly academically, or students who are forced to leave a college because of financial difficulties – especially concerning when the students or parents have taken out substantial loans but the student ends up leaving school without a degree. </p>
<p>I’m not sure that there actually are ten kids who regret taking the merit for every one who doesn’t, blossom. My guess would be that most people that take merit money to go to a school at around the quality of the average state flagship or better find some good friends, pursue ECs they care about, gravitate toward challenging classes and top professors, and wind up pretty happy. That doesn’t mean they haven’t sacrificed something by not going to the other school, or don’t sometimes wonder “what if?”, but that is different from “really regretting” it. </p>
<p>I’d also agree that this is less of a binary (reach or safety?) than a sliding scale that needs to take into account a number of factors including cost differential and relative school quality. Depending on the financial situation, I might have a different answer if the reach were Yale than if the reach were Wesleyan, or if the safety were State U vs. regional U. </p>
<p>What I often don’t agree with is attempts to define value in narrow ways once we accept the premise that the more expensive thing really is highly desirable. I’m not sure if, by any objective measure, seeing art in Rome last summer was worth $3,000 more than going to the major art museum in a nearby city, and there are certainly a lot of other things I could have done with the money, but it was something I very much wanted to do, and that was the price. If I couldn’t have afforded it, it would have been a moot point, but as I could, I wasn’t about to say “well, I think it would only be worth $1,000 more” and deny myself the experience altogether. </p>
<p>Of course, as I said, this depends on how much you value the expensive thing in the first place; there are plenty of times that I do decide a particular thing isn’t worth the money. What baffles me a little bit is when people who can afford and fully expected to be full pay write things like “Son got into his dream school. I know it would be fantastic for him in so many ways, and we’ve budgeted 250K for his education, but now he has a full ride from State U. Is the reach REALLY worth 250K more”? To which my answer would almost always be, “probably not, but you’ve just told me that you do value it highly, you can’t get the same thing for less, and you have the money.” Frankly, almost any highly expensive thing would probably fail a rigorous cost/benefit analysis. </p>
<p>"I think there are 10 kids in real life who took the big merit award at a school for which they were fundamentally a mis-match (socially or otherwise) and really regretted it. We don’t hear about those kids so much. "</p>
<p>With all the recent stories about the huge increase in levels of student debt, I would be surprised if students who were lucky enough to win big scholarships would post their regrets online. Perhaps those who find the merit college is a bad fit , find out how hard it is harder to transfer “up”, and end up making the best of their UG years, once they realize their situation is far from bleak, compared to other students. Just conjecture on my part.
DS was one of those big merit winners at a lower ranked school who is now at his dream graduate school. As are quite a few of his friends from that college. So my viewpoint is admittedly biased. </p>
<p>Blossom writes so well, and expressed my viewpoint.</p>
<p>We all have our biases based on our own experiences. I was a good fit in my HS, but went to the less expensive flagship Honors program OOS. I wasn’t into the sorority scene or football games, but I went along with the former to get out of dorms. I had a few friends studying hard for med school or grad school, but basically I was an outlier. I did great in my department and graduated in 3 years. I’m met a physician/ writer from same college, and her dorm was far better for people like us. I made mistakes like that, but I did have a great adviser, some great professors, and some meaningful ECs (e.g. being the UG representative in department). I liked grad school and internships/fellowships far better. </p>
<p>So, when my son was applying, we talked about his comfort level. He felt he would like any one of 3 colleges. Random events at visits in April influenced his decision.</p>
<p>Another difficult aspect to the decision to pay full price is if the student has a serious LD. I’ve had many clients from a nearby college that was relatively unknown until the last debate which caters to kids with LDs. Some of these students did not qualify for state U’s. I’ve been impressed by the school which really tries to nurture these students. For some families, it is worth the sticker price.</p>
<p>
Well…I no longer need to post my anecdote. LOL</p>
<p>Big merit reward. Tons of perks. First year found out university wasn’t the best of matches. Looked at transferring back home or out-of-state. Super expensive. Sucked it up. Made the best out of my second semester. Super happy to stay. </p>
<p>Being in 50K of debt or being paid to study by university and leaving with money from them…I picked the better choice for my future. </p>
<p>“I mean, it’s one thing to pay an additional $5000 per year for a college – it’s something entirely different to pay an additional $30K per year - which is the kind of issue often faced when a student has been awarded generous merit aid at a reputable college, vs.full cost at an another school?”</p>
<p>How can that be objectively answered, though? $30,000 per year doesn’t mean the same to every family. For some families, it’s a drop in the bucket. For others, it means tightening the belt and foregoing a vacation. For yet others, it means digging into the parents’ savings in a way that can’t ever be made up and runs the risk of putting the family in financial jeopardy. There’s no answer because the value of money is different to every household. </p>
<p>If 30K or 60K is just a drop in the bucket, I don’t think one needs to justify. If it means tightening the belt and foregoing a vacation or a new car, etc., then the justification comes into play.</p>
<p>We are also facing this dilemma. We decided in favor of the reach school but whether it was “worth it” we won’t know until 4 years from now. My S was offered nearly full ride at a very reputable in-state school. The reach OOS school gave some aid, but it will still cost him 10k in loans per year, so we’re talking 40k debt when he graduates. We left it to him to decide as it’s his education and he was the one who would have to pay the debt. In his case the amount of debt was not crushing as for many others, making it a somewhat easier choice. But hey, 40k is still substantial debt.</p>
<p>You all realize that you have just defined a fascinating economics problem, don’t you?
If you take ‘college’ out of the picture, basically what you’re asking is:
How do people think about the utility of paying for something when they sense that there is a disconnect between
what the product is worth and what they are being asked to pay?
A. Some of you guys are saying “Even though we know the product is overvalued, there is no other comparable product out there and so we’re willing to pay that difference.”
B. Some of you are saying “I have come up with some way of justifying that differential.” These are the people who either refer to priceless opportunities at some future date – rooming with the guy who becomes the CEO of Microsoft; or people who frame some sort of risk averse argument about lost opportunities if you are forced to hang around with stupid people for four years and lose brain cells, productivity and future opportunities as a result.
C. Some of us (like me) are in the camp of “I realize there is often a differential between what the product is worth and what I"m being asked to pay – because of some variable like status – but I’m uncomfortable paying that differential because I actively see that money being wasted.”
D. I sense that a lot of you are in the camp of “I realize there is a differential – but I’m opposed to paying that differential when I know that I’m the victim of discriminatory pricing, and that others are not being asked to pay that differential.” (This is why people get angry when airline tickets cost different prices.)</p>
<p>What would be interesting would be to figure out WHY people take one of the four positions – or maybe there’s more – and if they also think that way about other economic choices that they make in other aspects of their lives.</p>
<p>Momzie - I’m sure lots of factors play into it, for example, my parents paid for my Harvard education, I just can’t imagine restricting my kids choices. I’d much rather pay it forward. </p>
<p>Momzie- excellent summary and I expect to see several doctoral dissertations on this very subject over the next few years. But I would add one more point (which I think several people are trying to make here)- your use of the word status is apt in some comparisons (Hofstra is a private U. Stonybrook is a public U. I can’t imagine paying for Hofstra if I were choosing between the two) but falls down in others. It’s not that if kid takes the cheaper option that he or she will be consigned to hanging out with stupid people- it’s that at some colleges, the resources/investments whatever you want to call them will actually yield a “better” (however you define that) intellectual experience.</p>
<p>I’ve made this point before so sorry to repeat- Williams college is known as the “home” of the art mafia. If your kid has no interest in Art History, this likely will not benefit your kid. But if you have a kid who hopes to/is interested in studying art history, this is one of the top institutions in the world for launching a career in the very competitive art world. Again- this benefit is of zero value to you if this doesn’t apply to your kid.</p>
<p>But this isn’t “branding”, and it’s not “prestige” and it’s not “status seeking” or any of the other consumerist descriptors you can fling at it. It is a combination of factors that this school out in the middle of nowhere has an alumni network poised to help a fellow alum interested in working at an auction house, a museum, and insurance company which has built a portfolio of clients who insure fine art, historical societies, the Interpol/FBI project on art theft, etc. It is a combination of factors which means that the allegedly unemployable art history majors from Williams have populated the gallery/scholarly/commercial side of the art industry for the last couple of decades.</p>
<p>So sure- take the free ride at University of Maine in Art History. But you cannot disparage the kid whose parents decide that the moderate belt-tightening to attend Williams at full freight is “worth it”. The school fosters a culture whereby the kids studying art history don’t feel marginalized, have access to fantastic faculty, museums, technical resources in the archival sciences, funding for incredible off-campus studies and fellowships etc.</p>
<p>Again- this doesn’t help your kid who wants to study econ and has zero interest in being funded by Fuji to spend the summer in Milan staffed on the Last Supper digitization project. But it ain’t “status” to calculate that in a competitive field, coming out of one of the top institutions (even if the general public has never heard of Williams and thinks that kids who major in art history should just suck it up and study STEM or become a nurse) is a good decision IF YOU CAN AFFORD IT.</p>
<p>@blossom that is an excellent post-</p>
<p>If your child is uncertain of what direction they want to go in that would also be a factor in this decision. If my child was certain (well as certain as anyone can be at that young age) of what they wanted to do and there was a place that was as clearly superior as your example it would make the decision-removing the financial factor-simple.</p>
<p>I am wondering if the OP is still reading this thread and if so what they have learned.</p>
<p>I think “value” is a difficult concept to pin down. How much is an airline ticket to Los Angeles next week “worth?” That depends on why you need to go. If it’s for a shopping trip, it may be one thing, but it may be something else entirely if your kid is in the hospital there and needs you. There are a lot of personal intangibles built into what “value” is, and I think we can be too quick to project onto others what those are. Again, this is why those in the “full pay” group can be annoyed, when it’s assumed that the value they are interested in is “prestige” or “status.”</p>
<p>I have not read the thread.</p>
<p>We had to make a similiar decision in 2006. We made it. Son went to college was very successful ( 3.8 gpa, two degrees, had much fun, had an internship and a couple REU’s, name on a published paper, research since freshman year, wrote a thesis, did a senior project, Phi Beta Kappa, fun ECs. Did awesome on his GRE’s. Applied to grad school. Accepted to some top 10…not all. Got in and chose one.</p>
<p>We will never know what he would have accomplished at any other school. We only know how he did at this school. We don’t know who he would have met at other schools or what other connections he would have made. We will never know. </p>
<p>He matured, made friends, learned some life lessons. He was fortunate enough to stay healthy and not have any emotional problems in these years.</p>
<p>So even after you choose your school and go through that school you will never know if you made the “right” or "best " decision. You will never know what might have been. Only what is.</p>
<p>Do some schools have awesome opportunities. Sure. Would the student get a chance to do those things? Were these opportunities limited to only a few students? Would he have to “fight” and “compete” for the awesome opportunities? I don’t know.</p>
<p>Would his personality hinder or help his gaining opportunities? I don’t know. People grow and change.</p>
<p>Everyone will justify their decision. They have to. It creates too much cognitive dissonance to not.</p>
<p>So much of ones education is determined by their drive to learn. So choose for yourself and go kick a$$ at whatever school you choose.</p>
<p>Blossom: agree with most of what you are saying in your last two posts. I think many CC posters are in the NUYU full pay vs Fordham with merit type of decision rather than the Princeton vs Rowan. A kid that got into Princeton is likely to have many higher ranked schools with merit money as choices. </p>
<p>Also agree that if a kid knows exactly what they want to do and are highly motivated, taking on debt or tightening the belt heavily may be worth it to go to Williams for Art History, Yale for finance or MIT for engineering. It is a bit farther down the line where the choices become murky. My son wanted to go to school in Boston, but got a very nice merit award from a very good school in a less desirable location and to me there was no reason to pay that much extra for location (and with the financial meltdown that followed, it was a very good choice).</p>
<p>There are not that many families for whom $120K is not a lot more than a drop in the bucket. And multiply that by 2 or 3 kids and that is very big chunk of change. While I understand the frustration of parents changing their minds about how much they are willing to pay, I certainly can understand that a very big merit award may mean another look at the cost-benefit ratio.</p>
<p>The biggest challenge, however, is that it is impossible to really know how well a kid will do at a particular school and in the job market. $40K in debt is not much if a kid is going to Wall Street or a big engineering job, it is a big number for a teacher or for a kid having to pay for professional school. </p>