<p>^^^ I tend to agree. A friend of mine was a biology professor at Bowdoin. She told me to save our money and apply to less expensive schools! She said if our son (who wants to major in biology) gets a full-tuition scholarship to a lesser-known school, we should go for it. I’m not sure that we will do that, but it’s interesting.</p>
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<p>I absolutely agree with this. Our kids learn value of money and value of education, car:) from us. They may not agree with us, but at least they’ll have a benchmark to help them make their decision.</p>
<p>I guess my problem is that I don’t link prestige and cost with superior quality in all majors, all programs. I firmly believe that kids who are academic in nature will do well and find opportunities no matter the level of prestige or cost of the school.</p>
<p>No offense, mythmom, but our instate public flagship does offer a strong Classics program as well and they also read THE ILIAD in Homeric Greek. </p>
<p>I’m not opposed to people who have the financial means paying $200,000 for an undergrad degree from a prestigious school if that’s what they choose to do. But I don’t think you <em>have</em> to pay $200,000 for a quality education. </p>
<p>Given the choice at age 18 of $200,000 cash to bank and going to a state public flagship vs no check but going to an ivy…</p>
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I clearly indicated that when two equally qualified candidates comes for the same job. With more experienced person it is difficult to find the exact two candidates with just different college.
Since the child remain same, a better college will always add to child success.</p>
<p>We had set aside $78k for our son’s college fund. Junior year we sa down and decided that he would be responsible for tuition, fees and books while we would pay for his room, board, insurances, cell tel.</p>
<p>That gave him time enough to do his rsearch for merit scholarships and public univ options. He ended up attending Rensselaer and got $25k/year in merit awards the bulk of which was the Rensselaer Medal that he lobbied for junior year hs.</p>
<p>By beginning to discuss college choice and finances early in hs jr year he was provided time to investigate a wide range of college choices, redefine what were best options for him and not get wedded to a choice that was financially out of reach. I believe it also gave him a sense of ownership of his final short list options which boiled down to RPI, Case, Oberlin and our state flagship honors program.</p>
<p>Because of his hard work in the merit scholarship derby, he graduated from RPI with about $30K of his scholarship fund in the band and got a great job as a computer game designer for a mid-size firm.</p>
<p>ParentOfIvyHope, I have to agree with GoalieDad. Under your scenario, even with two kids straight out of college, neither are going to have the exact same experiences, internships, research, study abroad so there’s never going to be an exactly even situation. And the resume and degree will get you an interview, but once you get to the interview, personality and presentation play a strong part as well. I don’t even know where half of my colleagues that I work with every day went to school. </p>
<p>I do generally know where my doctors went to school, although that’s partly because they hang their diplomas in the exam rooms.</p>
<p>OP - I agree with the other posts that you cannot teach a child to appreciate the cost of things - they have to experience it. I don’t know the best way, but they have to have some skin in the game. 50K a year is a lot of money and even if you can afford it I’m not sure of anyone that would not want their child to appreciate what else could be done with the 50K.</p>
<p>OP, our oldest is a HS junior, so we’re not quite there yet. We’ve talked with both kids about the finances of all this for a few years. One thing we’ve mentioned is that if they opt for the full-pay $200k school we can cover that, but it means that we may not have the resources to help with other things such as gap year programs, grad/professional school, help getting established with a business or with paying living expenses during an unpaid internship, or with a down payment on a house. We have no intention of helping with the luxury car 
but if we WERE to help with, say, buying a first house, that may free up room in our adult children’s budgets to buy a nicer car. Not all (most) kids will be able to wrap their heads around the value of saving for the future. It’s difficult for a 17 year old to consider all of this dispassionately. It’s hard for many adults, for that matter! </p>
<p>You could also offer your son half of the savings in cash if he goes with the less expensive school, with the proviso that a certain percentage goes into savings, structured so that taxes aren’t an issue, yada yada. You’d save $40k a year? He’d get $20k a year. Then he has to think: is going to the private school worth not getting that amount of cash? </p>
<p>An anecdote: childhood friend and I pursued parallel college paths in the same major. He went to an in-state single intial undergrad school, I went to the state flagship. When we were high school seniors deciding where to go, my friend commented that he could go to X, OR he could go to the state flagship and buy a Ferrari with the savings. He went to an in-state single initial grad school, I went to another campus of our state public. We both work at the same organization, and occasionally have lunch together. Neither of us has a Ferrari. </p>
<p>No moral to that story, if you were looking for one. I am still waiting for my sports car.</p>
<p>Make sure your incentives align with the goals you’re trying to achieve. If you want a kid to value education, structuring an incentive that emphasizes a fancy car vs. the intangibles of college is probably not the way to go.</p>
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<p>I don’t really care what else $50K/ year could buy, though. I don’t value a fancy car, etc. as much as I value the education.</p>
<p>As a CFO of a company and a graduate of a large state university (big 10) I can attest that undergrad matters far less than grad school (if you go to grad school at all). Even more than that, experience, capabilities and personality factor the most in any of my hiring decisions. I have had CEOs and other executives not hire IVY kids on purpose, because they are often high maintenance, move around to grab the “best offer”, focus more on strategy and theory than the actual tasks, to name a few. So if you son or daughter is thinking of medicine, law or MBA, then I say pick a more affordable undergrad where they can get a solid education and a setting that is appropriate for them which becomes a platform to get into a professional program at a notable university. If they are film, music,etc, then the name and reputation of the university matters more.</p>
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<p>“Always” is a strong word. As used above, it’s the wrong word. “Sometimes” is the word you’re looking for.</p>
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True, not two exact same candidate but your child going to top school and your child going to instate public is same, so the degree will make the difference. </p>
<p>Denying the fact that top school education will not make the difference is not the best way to pursure children away from it. It does make a difference. Whether or not one’s financial condition allow to avail that difference is another thing. For OP the saved $80K may provide a better retirement or a luxury car or dream vacation. It is up the OP to decide whether or not to spend the money.</p>
<p>Arguing that the top school is not worth the cost is not the correct route to go through.
You should just look at whether or not you are ready to pay that amount.</p>
<p>We have paid the same tuition at DD private HS. DD joined the school in middle school but the school was worth the cost in elementary also but we just couldn’t afford it. As soon as we were able to afford it we sent DD to the school.</p>
<p>Just because school is out of reach financially doesn’t make it unworthy. If the private top colleges are good then they are good regardless of whether or not we can afford to pay for it. </p>
<p>Since it seem OP can afford any college, so then OP need to decide the college by taking the finance out of it. Send the child to the best match.</p>
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It certainly is a strong word but is used appropriately. It is like Jon is High School grad and same Jon a college grad. The college grad Jon will <em>Always</em> be better than HS Jon.
Because it is the same Jon.</p>
<p>We offered to buy D1 a new car if she would take the full ride. She turned it down. We were very proud of her for making that decision because most teens tend to go for instant gratification. We also offered to help D1 with down payment for her first apartment/house if she took the full ride. She said that with a good education she’ll be able to buy her own house.</p>
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I’m not a CEO but in my experience companies have always rolled out red carpet for candidates from Stanford etc. at every level. Exec staff from top colleges are always known across the company because the company takes pride in their recruitment and will flash it whenever the oppertunity arise while a state flag ship exec will only be known by his work.
Most state flagship CEO’s go and do exec MBA from the top school to just lit up the company bio’s.</p>
<p>So there is a value in top school education. Whether you do it at undergrad or at grad level.</p>
<p>If, ten years after graduation, an ivy grad has the exact same accomplishments as a no name public university grad, then if they are both applying for the same job, I would hire the public univ grad over the ivy grad. </p>
<p>The logic is simple- the ivy grad started out with a big advantage, but still only accomplished the same. For the next ten years, I’d bet on the other applicant.</p>
<p>vicariousparent: The analogy was provided to point out the fact the college attending student “OP’s child” is same whether from top school or not.
i.e. you are only going to compete with yourself in two forms, one with degree from top school and another with degree from instate univ. </p>
<p>In my opinion the first <em>Always</em> win over the other.</p>
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<p>I see your point but we don’t see it in quite such black and white terms. College X might be worth paying $50,000 yr (not necessarily because it’s a name brand school but because it is an excellent fit with what son is looking for in a college), whereas, college Y is simply not worth the same amount of $$$ (son thinks it’s okay but he’s not dying to go there, etc). </p>
<p>So yeah, what we are willing to pay is to some degree dependent on where he gets accepted and how strongly he feels about any one particular school. I can see why many parents limit their child to a certain dollar amount and that’s all they get, regardless of where they get in and want to attend. If you have multiple kids and/or limited financial resources that makes all the sense in the world. We are fortunate in that we only have one child and some solid financial resources. We have always felt that ‘fit’ should be the driving force and education is one of our top priorities. We will be making the decision on where son attends together as a family after evaluating the acceptances and merit offers. Son is aware of this - we have been upfront with him from the beginning.</p>
<p>Well, if you can afford any school, and want to take the money angle out of the equation, let your child make the best-choice decision without talking about expense. </p>
<p>In our case, we couldn’t easily afford any school (although we could probably make any school work). Our in-state flagship offers a terrific honors program and my son liked it there. He ended up getting multiple scholarships from this school and we offered to save one of them for his future (after he graduates) if he went there. He went there. He’s doing well. It’s impossible to know how he would do at the expensive privates that admitted him. He doesn’t care. But it sometimes bothers ME since I know his decision was likely influenced by money. But I must admit it bothers me less since the bottom fell out of the economy…we’re all REALLY lucky to have a quality option at a low cost.</p>