An important component of being the “right fit” should include being a “financial fit”.
College “fit” is a lot of like “soul mate.” You have to resist the myth-making power of popular culture (and college confidential) and instead remember that there isn’t just one “dream school” without which life is incomplete. Marriage is what you make it. Likewise, college is what you make it. If you keep in mind that Mr. Perfect is a myth, you are much less likely to overpay and be disappointed.
@PragmaticMom ^ You are aptly named!
Thank you, @mamaedefamilia. Alas, my life is not void of romantic notions. It’s a pervasive disease I have to fight every day.
as @Mom2aphysicsgeek put it, no one can help you with this as it’s entirely what you feel is appropriate and affordable.
Personally, I think fit matters alot. It doesn’t have to be full pay / great fit vs. free ride bad fit (extremes). You can likely find something more reasonable (and you have if the differential is 30k per yr).
Questions to ask yourself:
- How will it affect our family if we pay this? Retirement, lifestyle, other kids, etc.
- What are the core advantages of the better fit / more expensive schools? Are they tangible? Are they really important?
I get that most kids would be able to adjust anywhere. Heck, they’re thrilled to be out of the house and learning to deal with things on their own.
We viewed this conversation not as a cost (entirely) discussion but more from a perspective of “what are we trying to do here?” My wife and I view college as so much more than an education. It’s a launching pad. We decided to pay for a launching pad that provided, what we felt, were the best set of tools in the tool box. Would he have been just fine at state flagship (virtually free), absolutely. Would he be having the experience (all in), absolutely not! We think that’s VERY important so we decided, because we could afford it, to use our resources and make that happen. It’s not cut and dry. Not sure it would be the same decision, for the same reasons, with my other kid as fit will play a lesser role (she’s a performing artist. Her fit is “anywhere I get in via the audition process”. She’s be ecstatic to actually have a choice. Short of that, it’s likely state U.
Each time we speak to him (very infrequently mind you), we are sooo glad we made this decision. Kid is thriving away from home, in a different state, where he knew no one. Has had to deal with random room mate assignment, tough academics, navigating to greek or not greek, being exposed to all kinds of things he’s never seen before (including his first snow storm!). He likely will want to live in that part of the country which is why we wanted him to experience it.
Great school, Great education, Great launching Pad!
When considering fit, ask the student what would happen if the major he/she is planning doesn’t work out for some reason. What would the student consider majoring in instead? And is the alternate major offered at the colleges the student is considering?
For example, my son wanted to major in computer science. But if that hadn’t worked out, he would not have wanted to major in another STEM field. Computer science was the only STEM subject of interest to him. He would have wanted a liberal arts major, probably sociology or philosophy. So I strongly discouraged him from applying to technical schools and pushed him toward universities instead. As it happened, the computer science major worked out fine, and the issue of changing majors never arose. But it could have.
That’s a tough question 
It really depends on his personality. If money isn’t a real issue, then it just comes mainly to interests and preference. If he’s not sure what he wants to major in, it would be better to pick a university with flexibility. Changing majors is generally fine for smaller schools. Big flagships (UT-Austin, Florida) can make it nearly impossible.
If money is an issue, an out of state college is usually not worth the cost if it’s going to put your son into more debt. Co-signed private loans are a very bad idea and it can very easily sabotage his career. If he’s going to graduate with any more than 27k in loans, scratch it off your list.
Also, is he more comfortable in urban environments or a small college town? I’ve seen very good vibrant students become severely depressed because of culture shock. Schools with a party atmosphere can be especially hard on introverted people because parties are where friends are generally made. If he’s more introverted, it would be good to choose a college with a more academic culture, or a diverse school where he can find like-minded students.
Also, once the list is narrowed down, spend some time touring schools if you can. That can make all the difference.
@PragmaticMom Was just typing the same thing. I deleted it and liked yours instead.
Reminds me of “college experience.” First time I heard that was many years after having graduated college myself. I had no idea what it meant but it sure sounded expensive.
@PragmaticMom So true! I’m glad you wrote that b/c I’m typically the more pragmatic in my family, but somehow this college app process has made me less so. I’ve tended to get caught up in the romance of getting into the reach, or whatever. At least I’m self-aware! That’s my only real defense.
@rickle1 Lifestyle. Yes.
We could afford the fit school without dire financial consequences, but we wouldn’t get to do some things for ourselves/our family that we’ve been wanting to do. For example, I’ve been waiting to replace my old car for several years now. Knew college was coming up and didn’t want to make a purchase without knowing the future cost of college tuition. And there are some home repairs that aren’t urgent but taking care of them would make living in our house nicer. There’s a particular and pricey trip I’d like to take with the whole family. On one hand, these seem like trivial things to me when compared to college education. But on the other hand, they are lifestyle improvements that we’ve held off for years. And frankly at some level I’m not sure, in our case, the cheaper school would be that much worse of a fit. Child might think it would be, but he’s 17. And that’s when I start to weigh my own life/lifestyle with the whims of a teenager. We may ultimately end up paying for the more expensive school, but it’s not going to be without long conversations about value.
^^^ makes sense to me. We had our son do a pro and con list of each school in the running. We did one too (from a parents perspective including lost opportunity cost on the difference in cost so he saw that this wasn’t about $X but really a multiple of $X - I’m a financial advisor so I couldn’t help myself!). Ironically we came up with the same list and decided he’d be better off at school X. To really cement the idea of value and costs, we have him paying / borrowing a small amount so he has some skin in the game. When they’re willing to pay (which means ALL of your summer job money and having to work at school and borrowing the federal amount), you know they get it and I respect his decision. It woukd have been easier on him and us to go to state U, but he’s all in and working with that toolbox.
For most people here, do you mean “fit” to include and perhaps prioritize academic and cost factors, or do you mean it mainly in terms of factors other than academic and cost ones?
@ucbalumnus Good question. I think in our case it is other factors. The vibe on campus, the particular strengths/focus of student life, the political climate, the region. In our case, all the schools kid applied to have the same offerings in terms of his academic interests and all are strong in that regard. All would be top 20. And when it comes down to it the “quality” difference (according to various ranking lists) would be minimal if anything.
We are paying about 5K more/year for our son to attend the best fit rather than our state flagship and it’s worth it.
For me it’s based on academics, location, campus environment, extracuricular opportunities, cost and the intangibles that could potentially benefit my son.
Great points. I especially connect with the BU comment as that was one of our choices and there was no way I would pay 70k for BU (no offense to anyone BU fans out there). We did a few thing up front that I think helped.
- Had S create a very strong criteria list (fit) of high match / reach schools that was confirmed by visits.
- Applied to a decent number of schools within the criteria plus state flagship as a safety.
- Had him apply for all merit scholarships (as we knew we would get no aid)
- Had the discussion that within top tier, if you get a scholarship, that's where you're going (because they all were varying degrees of good fits based on his criteria and our visits- would be happy at any of them).
So, he was accepted to William & Mary (oos) , Lehigh, Wake Forest, and Richmond - all with no merit. He was also accepted to state flagship with merit (so basically free) and another private with a 50% scholarship. That school, Bentley, we put at a lower level than his top shelf options.
Although nice to have Bentley come in with 100k scholarship over 4 yrs, he / we felt it was limiting due to it’s total focus on business (he’s a business student)
So it came down to state flagship which we don’t really care for or full pay at one of the other fine institutions. Would have been nice to get some merit form the leaders but that is really competitive (like top 2 or 3% of the admitted pool - typically looking to entice the Ivy leaguer with money). BU was also an option but we never considered it as we felt it fell below his other fine choices based on his criteria.
I’d have to say we’d need to remove the dollar amount from the equation. $10,000 per year means more to some families than others.
So WHAT are you willing to give up to pay for that perfect fit?
Driving a new car?
Remodeling the house?
Yearly vacation?
Making 401K contributions?
Selling your investments?
Like so many questions routinely asked here, the answer is it depends. Though that is tough to accept based on the number of times such questions get asked.
My D did a spreadsheet listing her schools in order of choice. She was given a hard line budget right from the start. She only applied to a couple of schools that didn’t seem like a good fit (instate flagship and a couple of other safeties) and they were clearly at the bottom of the list. She herself had to decide after all aid offers came in what schools would be worth how much in student loans and what would she be willing to do to go there (work three jobs all summer, how many hours would she need to work every week, not keep a vehicle on the road, how often could she afford to come home). The hard budget was my $$. Her decision in the end definately leaned more on financial fit than anything else. The school has turned out to be a great fit all around. I personally knew she could make any school the right fit if she chose to.
In general, most schools for the B+ ish student from an upper middle class family (EFC $0) will flesh out between $35k - $45k with merit $, obviously there are outliers. In-State flagship between $22k -$32k (living on Campus). So for my family anything much over $46k was getting into the “that is just silly” range for schools in the #50 to #110ish rank range.
I do think student adaptability is a very important factor to consider. There is no such thing as a dream school at our house, however it is important to choose a school where your student will thrive. I would say we are willing to pay $10k - $15k for fit in an OOS school over the state flagship and $5k to attend an in-state flagship over the directional. I have had no luck convincing my DD2018 that #42 ranked UF is worth the extra $15k annually over our in-state flagship #69 TAMU.
My daughter has been accepted to 5 schools so far (still awaiting word on 8) The total OOPs without loans range from $26,000 to $31,000. Her favorite of those is $30,000. We are willing to pay that because the school is a great fit and we can cover the tuition without too much trouble. Pretty sure the schools we are waiting to hear from will come in much higher, which would put them out of the running, but we are waiting for confirmation of that before making any decisions.