<p>I asked myself: how would I justify NOT paying for the reach when 1° I have the money 2° it’s a great school for my kid 3° s/he did everything to get in (and stay within budget)? Just because there’s a cheaper option doesn’t mean you should always take it if you have a choice. And you can create that choice by choosing cheaper options at other points (cheaper car, smaller house, etc). As long as we stay within the federal debt limit, I dont know how I’d justify saying “finally, I changed my mind, I’d rather save what I’d budgeted for your college, go to your safety.” The exception would be if 1° the safety is a good fit and 2° there’s professional school planned plus 3° kid is totally on board, but it should be their choice. In addition, I don’t think it’s fair to change the parameters after the fact, just because there’s a cheaper option than the expected (and budgeted) amount.
The situation is very different if the reach school is unaffordable (ie., federal loans + budgeted amount + work study don’t suffice).</p>
<p>@GoldenState2015
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<p>Some parents can easily afford the amount and some can’t. If not, then the parents need to plan and allocate accordingly.</p>
<p>Are you a California resident? (I can’t tell from your screen name whether you are now in California, or that you hope to attend college in California).</p>
<p>I would suggest that you have a talk with your parents about how much they have budgeted for college and what their limits are. If you hope to attend a college that will cost more than what your parents are comfortable paying for – then I think you will need to be able to articulate reasons that are more specific and more suited to your needs and goals than US News rankings, perceived prestige. or generalizations like “best”. </p>
<p>Your success in life is going to depend on what YOU do-- not what college you attend. There are multiple studies that show that: students who apply to top-ranked schools and then end up going to lower ranked schools end up doing just as well as the kids who actually attend the top schools. If going to the “dream” school also entails taking on a inordinate amount of debt – then that can be a factor that holds you back in the long run - worse if your parents take on debt beyond their means. </p>
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Nada. Again, it doesn’t mean there was no great sacrifice on my part in order to make that happen.<br>
Calmom - you sound just a bit bitter about Gucci.</p>
<p>“Now that we’re looking at schools for child, we will not consider undergrad schools that don’t give substantial merit aid. Therefore, no ivies, no Georgetown, no hoity-toity merit-aidless LACs. Not worth it. The money will be saved for grad school/ professional school.”</p>
<p>Aren’t you paying substantially for hoity-toity boarding schools? Not that you need to justify anything - it’s your money. How do you know kids will go to grad / prof school? </p>
<p>Pizza girl, it sounds like you are arguing against yourself. Paying for a good elementary and secondary education is MUCH more valuable than paying for a name brand college. What if your kid does not want college at all?</p>
<p>I know it is hard to fathom for many on this particular site, but there are hundreds and thousands of highly successful people who did not even get a BS/BA. </p>
<p>In our case, S1 already knows he wants to get a PhD and all of the research shows that where he went to undergrad has little or nothing to do with opportunities for great grad schools. Where data skews toward the name brands it is only due to the fact that they have a higher percentage of top notch students.</p>
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<p>Exactly. Still not understanding how this is so difficult to get.</p>
<p>We were prepared to pay for financial reaches for both our children but then during the application process, I was diagnosed with a chronic illness which is going to change our lifestyle substantially. We have very good insurance, but there are so many things insurance doesn’t cover, so now we’ve had to recalculate the safety net for retirement.</p>
<p>I felt terrible that we had to change what we could contribute after our oldest had already applied to some schools that had become too expensive, but our goal now is to get both our children through college without debt for either them or us, and to make sure my husband and I can take care of ourselves financially, without our children needing to contribute to our care when we are older. I’m not saying everyone should make decisions fearing disaster might strike, but life certainly never goes exactly the way you plan. </p>
<p>"Pizza girl, it sounds like you are arguing against yourself. Paying for a good elementary and secondary education is MUCH more valuable than paying for a name brand college. "</p>
<p>My kids went to public schools (as did my H and I). I didn’t have a need to pay for a private education. NNTAWWT. </p>
<p>Torveaux, if I had a dollar for every kid i know (both in HS as well as undergraduate) who claim the are going to get a PhD who actually ends up with one…</p>
<p>Yes, it’s all very well and good to decide ahead of time that the name on the diploma has little or nothing to do with opportunities for great grad schools. But universities have a thriving business in unfunded Master’s degrees populated by kids who couldn’t get funded for a PhD program. And even the most committed undergraduates sometimes get deeper into a discipline and realize that the doctorate is actually nothing like what they thought it was.</p>
<p>There are many “below the radar” fantastic undergraduate institutions that the general population doesn’t know much about. There are also many diploma mill type colleges where even a smart and savvy undergrad will be woefully unprepared for graduate level work. There are state flagships (generally not thought of as underfunded) that have 5 professors in a particular department, one of whom may be on Sabbatical the year your kid thought he was going to work with him, one of whom is actually emeritus, and one of whom is going on maternity leave in January so not available to mentor/supervise your kids honor’s thesis senior year.</p>
<p>So develop a plan that works for you- sure. But the “name” colleges and universities aren’t just Brands- go compare the experience of being a history major at Yale to being a history major at University of New Haven (a private U by the way so I’m not bashing the publics). They are down the street from each other but a universe apart.</p>
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Such schools, if they have affiliated professional schools, tend to provide need-based financial aids for their professional school students as well. Granted, the aid is usually not as generous, because the FA includes the so-called unit loans. But it is fixed amount.</p>
<p>On top of my head, I know for sure that at least two “CC families” who were fortunate enough to take advantage of this kind of need-based FA at both UG and professional school levels. I also know another family who take advantage of a full ride at a “lower ranked” UG as well as a professional school with the need-based (with the unit-loan component) FA policy.</p>
<p>You could argue (and I agree) that the latter is the cheapest one. But for a student who may not have what it takes to find a good mentor at a “lower ranked” UG, the former one is still a bargain that is attractive enough for most families with a moderate financial means. If the child ends up not pursuing the study after UG (My guess is that more than 60% of the graduates from such 6 or so colleges may not pursue further study), he/she may still have a degree to help him/her get into a job like one in finance industry. </p>
<p>I once heard that, in some “good” years, Princeton sent almost 40% of their graduates there. But it is hard to say whether it is also because their graduates are more likely from a more “well-connected” family. (DS’s anecdotal experience was that a classmate from a well connected family would rarely be willing to spend extra years at a graduate school! He felt that, by and large, only the public high school kids would keep staying on a more lab-intensive education path after a couple of years in college.) The percentage of their graduates to a professional school tends to be much lower, like, say, 6% to MD schools and a similar percentage to JD.schools immediately after college without a gap year. The percentage from a big state college to a professional school may be even lower. How sure are parents that their child will be one of these students pursuing further study after college when he or she is applying to colleges?! The odds may be against them.</p>
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<p>In some communities paying for a good K-12 education means keeping one’s kids in the public schools. Where I live, the taxes that support these good schools are exorbitant. That in itself is a major sacrifice for some of us. I pay almost $7000 a year in property tax for what is technically a two-bedroom house (1200 sf).</p>
<p>katsura, thank you for sharing your story, and sorry about your condition. There seem to be a lot of posters here who are affluent enough that they can just absorb major life changes without them having a substantial impact on their decision-making about college and other things. Then there are the rest of us. :(</p>
<p>@GMTplus7 I had the opposite experience. I’ve gotten at least two jobs based on the name of the college of my undergrad degree, even though it had very little to do with my profession (architecture). </p>
<p>I think the biggest problem is that we just don’t really know what our kids will do. For my older son it was clear, he knew what he wanted to be when he grew up from the time he was seven (computer programmer) and never wavered. We just picked the best school for him in the field that he got admitted to. As it happens he had no interest in grad school - so paying the big bucks was worth it. He could easily have paid off loans from his current salary if he’d had any.</p>
<p>Younger son was undecided when he applied to colleges though he’d discovered this field called international relations when he was applying to colleges so we target good overall colleges that were especially strong in that field. He may well have some grad school in his future, but hopes to work a few years first. His best friend went to his safety college (which offered both merit money) in the same field and is working as a tour guide after graduating early, my son is still looking for a job. Which is better off? Jury is still out.</p>
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^very, very true. Also, it depends if your kids are exceptional students who can get into the colleges who meet 100% need or can get a big merit scholarship, or not. It also helps if you know how to position yourself, how to navigate the system, etc.</p>
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<p>When people are laid off around here, they pay their mortgage, buy food, and try to keep enough gas in the car so they can find work. We haven’t been in that position. There are a lot words I could use to describe how I feel about that – fortunate, lucky, blessed – but smug wouldn’t be one of them.</p>
<p>I don’t know if anyone has mentioned this in this thread…
Going to a very good, but less expensive school may allow one to have money to take advantage of opportunities like studying abroad, or taking a non-paying internship, or taking a leadership position (vs having to do a work study job)… in this respect a less expensive school may pave the way to more opportunities in college. This goes along with the studies (a very extensive one was just released) that find no correlation with school prestige and future success. The latest studies show a big correlation with future success and taking advantage of undergrad opportunities. </p>
<p>When looking for colleges we looked for good schools which had really good programs in the majors that my D had interest. So ended up mostly looking at large state schools (out of state also which either had reciprocity or gave merit scholarships.) Also looked at the opportunities the honors programs provided. Are finding there are more opportunities than one can take advantage of. My D just got a scholarship to apply to her study abroad from her honors program! It was a nice, unexpected bonus. </p>
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This kind of comment always seems kind of sour grapes-y to me, but it’s hard to refute it without seeming obnoxious. Different colleges have different “options,” and some of them that many people value a lot (like big-time sports, for example) don’t necessarily track selectivity or cost. Some schools probably do deliver a lot of value for lower cost.</p>
<p>But the very most selective schools do provide at least one thing that other schools can’t: the highest possible concentration of the smartest, most accomplished fellow students, and the lowest possible concentration of less serious students. If that matters a lot to you, then those schools may be worth paying a premium. If you don’t value that as much, then it may not be worth a premium. If you can’t afford the premium, but still value that factor, you can approximate it by looking for honors colleges at colleges you can afford.</p>
<p>"But the very most selective schools do provide at least one thing that other schools can’t: the highest possible concentration of the smartest, most accomplished fellow students, and the lowest possible concentration of less serious students. If that matters a lot to you, then those schools may be worth paying a premium. If you don’t value that as much, then it may not be worth a premium. "</p>
<p>Yes. Two of the things that I value a lot (me, me, me) are 1) a “thick” concentration of smart students with comparatively few less serious students, and 2) a student body that is nationally based / draws from all over the country (if not world). To me, those things are worth paying for, and the honors college of most state flagships fall short on those dimensions. That doesn’t mean they aren’t perfectly fine options. But we all have things we value differently.</p>
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<p>Because of credentials inflation, isn’t a non-engineering undergrad degree basically what a high school diploma used to be? </p>
<p>" 2) a student body that is nationally based / draws from all over the country (if not world)." </p>
<p>I visited my cousin at Williams years ago, and I remember her and her roommates gushing about how it was such a unique place with people from ‘all over the place.’ Yes, in just this group of six (named, by the way Kate, Katie, Katie, Jennifer, Heather and Heather), they were from NY, Mass, and CT! All over!</p>
<p>The sad part was they really did believe they were a diverse group.</p>