@labegg What source are you using for your rankings? I never really factored in what the schools actually rank in relation to others.
I wouldn’t give up making 401k contributions.
I wouldn’t alter my retirement investment plan.
I would forego the car, the vacation, the remodel (In fact I am on all 3)
Those are the personal decisions we each must grapple with.
I don’t think you can put a price on a fit. Also definition of the fit will be different for different people. If it is happiness, than DD probably is attending wrong school, because it is so demanding that she is miserable half of the time.
I agree with poster above that I will not pay for out-of-state public. We have UCLA in our back yard and DD got into both UCB and UCLA.
First I would evaluate operating budget without any loans. Then I would evaluate earning potential for the major. Lastly I would take off rose-colored glasses and take a look at my student. I would ask myself if environment in school A would put my student in an advance position vs. school B. Then I will let my student choose and pray that this was a right decision.
@time2shine the ubiquitous USNWR!
Forbes puts UF #15 and A&M at #26 for public colleges and UF#40 and A&M #59 research universities.
Niche puts UF at #12 and A&M at #15 for public universities, but Niche is just a popularity vote really.
Rankings don’t mean much really, it is just another factor to consider if you are looking for ways to whittle things down.
We’re in the same boat. A state school that is 1/3 the price of a private school. I don’t want my D to graduate with huge debt but I want her to go where she’ll be happy and can thrive. She is a farm to city girl, having gone to a high school with 200 kids total to a high school with 200 kids in her class, so I know she can do well at either school but I went to a small private school and loved it, having not experienced a large school myself, I’m not so sure it’s the place for her, the lack of debt from the big school is amazing but I want to be sure she’s truly happy. We’re revisiting both schools again in the next few weeks so we’ll see how that goes.
Is the question about “fit” alone? Or qualitative differences between the schools?
I never bought into the idea of a “dream” college, but when my daughter was accepted to schools like Barnard & U. of Chicago, there never was a question in my mind that her experience there would be very different and far more academically challenging than she would likely experience attending a public in-state college. (In hindsight she realized pretty quickly that the in-state options would have been a better social “fit” … but she decided that academics were more important than her social life).
And when my son wanted to attend a LAC rather than large state public – I knew also that the LAC’s would provide a very different learning environment.
So yes, accommodating those choices was worth more. How much more was tied to our perception of the difference and our financial means. But our perception was based on objective, verifiable facts.
D1 went to an out-of-state private university that is less well known and has a lower reputation than our flagship, to which she also was admitted. I’m guessing that we paid a total of $10,000-15,000 more for the school she attended than we would have paid for the flagship. The decision (and it was hers, with a little consultation from other people, including me and her dad) was based on perceived fit, and I think she made the right choice.
For CA resident students who can or are lucky enough to get into UCLA or Berkeley, hard to convince their parents that their kids should pay more or same to attend great OOS public schools such as UVA, UMich, UWisconsin, etc. This is why unless OOS Honors Colleges offer near full COA, it’s going to be hard to get top CA students to come. And why should the Honors Colleges try to recruit CA students when they have so many excellent and deserving students near them?
I mean UCLA and Berkeley charge top dollars to OOS students. Yet every year, more OOS students are applying.
@JerseyParents Things I would give up for my student’s full pay dream school is a short list: vacations (don’t go on many anyway), new car, discretionary spending on wardrobe/personal grooming services/gym membership/entertainment. I wouldn’t get a second mortgage, reduce my 401K or sacrifice educational/extra-curricular activities of younger siblings.
We wouldn’t give up vacations, either. If the oldest child was able to grow up enjoying vacations, then younger siblings should have that experience, as well. Our vacatins are fairly inexpensive, though.
I have been pleasantly surprised by how well my very rigid, Asperger-spectrum son has done at a college that really isn’t a great fit for him. He doesn’t love it there, but has said many times how good it has been for him. And we are a family that has always been about fit at any price. Our daughter chose the full pay school over several big merit schools, and she is the flexible one. This is about the individual, but people are more adaptable than we think.
It is worth whatever a person is willing to pay for it and how they their interpretation of “fit.” Some have kids that get into UCLA and UCB but wouldn’t go there if they were free, while others pay OOS dollars to attend. It is such a personal choice.
I think how much it is worth will also differ from a person who has experienced a student that didn’t choose a school that they thought was a fit, then instead had a lackluster or even negative college experience. In hindsight, a friend wishes they would have done all that they could have and sent their D to the school that was a better fit, but instead saved money but aren’t happy with the outcome. They went with the consensus that “they can make it good wherever they are” logic, but in fact, that didn’t ring true for their D. She just feels very sad about it cause their student doesn’t get a do-over of these four years. They wish they would have spent/borrowed (don’t know the financial aspect) and gone to the better fit.
Unfortunately, everyone has to do the best they can with these decisions which are easier to see the answers when looking in the review mirror. But I believe buying into a consensus on such a big decision is risky, best for each individual to do what they think is right in their gut and their unique situation.
But that’s comparing apples to apples. It’s also hard to to see much differnce in “fit” between large public research universities that just happen to be located in different states.
There are going to be many students who favor a small college or LAC environment – and if that is the goal, then the two alternatives are no longer closely comparable.
May well have been the case that the better “fit” would have turned out as bad or worse as the chosen path. No real way to know.
And there is no assurance the better fit will work out well either in any given case. Much of the determination of fit is subjective. And at 18, kids often do not know exactly what they want (many 40 year olds don’t either). Hard to know how you will react the first time away from mom and dad’s protective wings. Things that you thought would be important turn out not to matter as much. And vice versa. Strengths can work out to be weaknesses. Vice versa as well.
And no doubt, hind sight is 20-20. If we knew the future, decisions would be a lot easier. Tougher living with that reality when it comes to something as important as your kids.
For us we didn’t save nearly enough and our income was in the donut hole, not low enough for need based aid but not high enough where our kids could pick whichever school they wanted without regard to cost. Our “right fit” was based on what we as parents had saved and could borrow and pay back without too much personal sacrifice for two kids. We considered the cost of our most expensive state school (SUNY Binghamton) at $25,000 per year x 4 = $100,000 plus added $27,000 (the maximum students can borrow ( $5,500 freshman, $6,500 sophomore and $7,500 for jr and sr year). Rounded up to $130,000 divide by 4 = $32,500 per year. That’s what we did not want to go above for each of our kids. Our strategy was either they go to the SUNY where they felt the “right fit” or an OOS public or private school that would offer sufficient merit aid to get the price down to within the financial constraint above. Fortunately for them (both high stat students with great overall credentials) they were each able to choose a University that was the “right fit” based among a handful of universities we could afford.
Willing to pay full cost for the right fit if the academics are good and the potential to hired after college is good.
However, for those who have an in-state public LAC or similar school (e.g. http://coplac.org/members/ ), the question could still apply to how much is a more expensive private LAC worth than the in-state public LAC (or a low cost out-of-state public one like University of Minnesota - Morris or Truman State University).
But it may be true that “fit”, including and particularly the range and depth of academic offerings, is more important for LACs and other smaller schools, which may seem limiting if the student’s interests are not in the school’s strong areas.
@PragmaticMom That’s my exact give up list too
Now the implied question of the OP what is a perfect fit? For S18… 1. major(uncommon) 2. facilities 3. Vibe on campus. The result …He only applied to 3 schools (one EA , one Rolling, one regular ).
Since education is the number one thing we saved for after retirement the answer was quite a bit. For our kids “ fit” in terms of offering what they wanted was important and limited options. Here were our requirements for DD2:
- Four year nursing program (NOT a 2+2)
- Substantial Jewish population
3)Excellent on campus clinical opportunities
Those requirements narrowed option to just a few. All out of state public’s and one Ivy League
We aren’t rich but we had put together enough in savings (before the 529 plans really came into being), plus some contributions from the grandparents, to cover the full costs of any college the kids might apply to. For that reason, we put no pressure on the kids to consider costs in their choice of colleges. We emphasized “fit” above all. No. 1 applied to a variety of state and private colleges. Chose to attend a private college. No. 2 applied only to private colleges. Chose her favorite from the 5 excellent schools that offered admission.
The larger context for us was this: we had a decent income (one earner), for 25+ years we had saved and invested in tax deferred funds for our retirement, and for 15 years we had saved extra to cover the kids’ COA. We considered college to be the second most defining factor in our kids’ future lives and careers. (The primary defining factor? Us, the parents.)
When it was all over, we didn’t miss the money. We focused on growing our retirement funds. In one case, however, the kid decided after a few years in the economy to return to school for an MBA. In the end we paid for most of that.