<p>It there currently are less available job openings and more competition one might think that a “name” degree would be even more important. However, we are not seeing that trend here or those who believe it are less vocal.</p>
<p>In general, many adults have seen their wealth depreciate since 2007. I believe I read most middle age people have lost 23% or so of their monies . These are many of the parents on this board.</p>
<p>“…Those who suffered the most were people aged 35 to 54, Olsen said. In 2012, they were 27 percent below their peak net worth recorded in 2006…”</p>
<p>In the parent cafe is a thread on getting a job. At least two posters are reporting salaries below $600,000.( We don’t yet know how far beneath $600,000.) I have been wondering where those relatively recent grads went to college. </p>
<p>I don’t think it is all about rate of return. Or at least the financial rate of return. But I’m a grasshopper.</p>
<p>It is difficult for me to imagine anyone being disadvantaged by a Wesleyan degree.</p>
<p>eta: deleted winky. we have really nasty emoticons now - right?</p>
<p>eta 2: so if it is possible to lose wealth going forward, why not just spend it on education now? Especially if retirement is secure. serious question.</p>
<p>If the OP thought it just perception, would the question be raised? When people think their state schools are excellent, usually they aren’t hanging around here asking for for validation of that point of view. They are doing something more productive with their time.</p>
<p>Ooops - need to go do something productive now</p>
<p>Sax and alh, I wrote the same thing on a thread (might have been this thread, I’ll have to look it up). I have seen that same change in attitude here in the seven or so years I have been lurking/posting here. </p>
<p>I am really glad I didn’t ask for opinions on CC when my second son was making his college decision a few years ago. He/we were comparing everything from a full tuition scholarship to our flagship U, to nearly full pay at much more “prestigous” universities. “Nearly” full pay, which would have become full pay when his older brother graduated, and we would have only one in college.</p>
<p>That decision would have presented in a similar way to the OP’s situation, though there were no very small LACs in the mix. It was darned hard to hold off from insisting he take the scholarship (which, frankly, I probably would have referred to as “full ride” although it was “full tuition”). We were looking at ten acceptances, with prices ranging from $8000 to over $50,000 a year. I hate to think what some members would have said to me at the time.</p>
<p>Probably a reflection of economic conditions.</p>
<p>Several years ago, parents’ jobs and investment accounts looked more secure, colleges cost less, and future earnings prospects for college graduates looked good. Today, parents’ jobs may have been lost and investment accounts drained due to withdrawls during unemployment during market downturns, colleges cost more, and news of students graduating into the unemployment line with huge amounts of student loan debt makes its impression.</p>
<p>Actually, in his/her opening post the OP never asked for advice about what to do. The question was: “Is anyone else kept up at night thinking about this insane amount of money for college?”</p>
<p>$599,999 annual pay is certainly quite enough to live on. However, that is most definitely an extreme outlier for a new college graduate, and in the top 1% overall.</p>
<p>Taking a job that pays “only” $599,999 compared to a higher expectation is not something that the vast majority of the US population worries about.</p>
<p>For any people out there looking for big scholarships reading this thread, have to add to my previous comments-
Re: the LDS scholarship lssst brought in as an example of a way to turn full tuition into full ride at ASU.This is a new scholarship. It requires AZ residency. Given the size of the endowment, there will not be more than one per year awarded if the endowment is to be maintained. The minimum GPA to apply is 3.0. Given that so few are awarded, the academic/personal requirements to actually receive the scholarship are likely much higher. I still maintain that full rides, particularly for OOS students, are rare at ASU. Additional departmental money is given, just not often in such a large amount. My D received an extra $5k+/yr, but that isn’t a full ride. Just saying.</p>
<p>Isn’t it just a sign of the times? Don’t we all know underemployed college grads? Many of them from big name schools with big student loans? It’s become almost normal for college grads to move back in with mom and dad just so they can eke out a way to pay back mountains of debt. Meanwhile, kids who went off to cheaper schools are moving out, getting married, buying homes. I know so many parents who sent their kids to prestigious schools and those parents are filled with buyers’ remorse. And they’re not being shy about it. They’ll look my high school kids in the eye and tell them not to take out student loans. All that unsolicited advice has absolutely made an impression on my children, as have cousins who will be living at home well into their 30’s. </p>
<p>This is one of those threads that has touched home. Years ago, I was one of those parents who argued for attending the Ivy and other prestigious schools. In my old views, if the student worked to achieve at that level and aspired for such a school, they’ve earned the right to enroll at the institutions of their educational caliber. The price was worth it and it would be rewarded.</p>
<p>Fast forward through two epiphanies: the market crash in 2008 (about 50 - 60% loss in my investments) and moving to the Midwest where successful people come from all walks of life. That crash was a reminder that certainties are not certainties, money can lose its value, and decisions made by corporations far away from you can be disastrous to you. I haven’t forgotten that so many prestigious law and MBA graduates went unemployed shortly after 2007. Also, I’ve met successful people in the Midwest who just attended their state flagships and were owners of large companies, successful lawyers and doctors, or just “millionaires next door”. These experiences completely changed my plans for my own children. I take a more skeptical approach to higher education and my retirement account.</p>
<p>If you have a dream, you really should do all of your research. If you still want it after the research and advice, go for it. In that case, you will always have regrets if you don’t go for it. IMO, keep in mind that nothing is guaranteed except the educational loans you owe. The folks on CC are here to give you their opinions, their support, and their precautions. You will find different groups here. Usually the prestigious crowd and the frugal crowd. My observation have found less people in between these groups. Your decision is an individual decision and it may be different for everyone.</p>
<p>I think we may have seen a shift in the extremes–we did in the past have threads in which somebody was seeking agreement that they should make dire sacrifices to send their kids to a selective reach school. My recollection is that there were always plenty of people to tell them that this wasn’t prudent, and that they shouldn’t endanger their retirements. Now, we seem to see some people taking the position that you should take the big merit award, even if you’ve saved up enough to pay for the reach school, and (perhaps) even if the reach school is a better fit. Not surprisingly, there are some of us who think that position is too extreme as well.</p>
<p>I always try to take a moderate position. I don’t know if I always have, or if my position may have shifted somewhat over the years. But I don’t think I, or anybody else, has promoted the idea on this thread of Wesleyan at any cost. Remember, we’re talking about a family that would be full-pay at Wesleyan with no loans. It’s probably true that in the past there would be more people telling them that Wesleyan is worth the price–if you have it, and if Wes is a good fit for your kid.</p>
<p>I note, in passing, that if instead of Wesleyan, this was Harvard or MIT, there would be more people telling this family not to take the ASU merit. Personally, I don’t think Wesleyan is all that much below Harvard in quality.</p>
<p>I’d be more aggressive in advocating for Wesleyan if we had any facts on the table about this particular kid and the particular brand of intellectual intensity he’s looking for in a college (I’m not sold on the whole “too big/too small” business which I think is teenager talk for "I don’t want to go back to HS again). So anything over 10,000 students feels too big and anything under 5,000 students feels too small. I don’t think these gut reactions actually have much to do with the educational experience once you’re an enrolled student. absent, of course, actual facts- like “I don’t want to take Psych 1 with 999 other students.”</p>
<p>But these posts about how everyone knows someone who graduated from XYZ and is unemployed are so tiresome. We all know people who are unemployed. Some of them went to Western Connecticut State College and can’t get hired as a fourth grade teacher because ABC school system has a hiring freeze. Some of them went to Harvard and can’t get hired as a Master of the Universe because ??? The universe has a hiring freeze? We all participate in the same economy folks, and ANYONE who sends little Debby or Charlie off to college thinking that the laws of nature won’t apply to him or her will be facing a rude awakening.</p>
<p>istttt has conveniently ignored that the OP did lie in a previous post, or else is gaming the ED system by putting in multiple ED applications. That is why the OP left and never posted again… caught in a blatant untruth or unscrupulous act while trying to shore up his argument. As you might recall, he posted in early February:</p>
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</p>
<p>It is impossible for this to be the case unless his son put in two ED applications, received acceptances with both, and then did not withdraw any of his applications at the ED schools or elsewhere. And as of mid-March apparently still had not withdrawn them. Everybody who thought this guy was such a swell person, just struggling to pay his bills like everyone else… he is a cheat and/or liar. Stop defending him. No one on this thread ever said families shouldn’t weigh the various offers on the table, or that the most expensive school is the best school. But this guy is dishonest, and it was obvious from early in the thread that he was not looking for a conversation about their true choices. He wanted to set up a discussion of extremes, and not talk about the full range of options.</p>
<p>Thank you for raising the ED issue again, intparent, which I think is perhaps the most off-putting aspect of the OP’s scenario. Had he/she said “I’m speculating here - if my kid gets a free ride at ASU but is comparing that with X offer from school 1 and Y offer from school 2, does anyone think the difference is worthwhile?” we’d probably have had a more civil thread. As it is, if the ED agreement was broken (which the February post strongly implies) - well, that’s what should have been keeping the OP up at night. The point of ED is not to give a student a leg up on applicants from the regular pool and still have a range of financial offers to consider in March and April. Yes, students can be let out of an ED agreement if the school’s financial aid offer makes attendance impossible. But the OP states that Wesleyan and the other schools were affordable.</p>
<p>ED is confusing enough without posts that disregard how it works. As Consolation said so well several posts ago (never getting those post numbers back, I guess), it wastes our time when people don’t write honest posts.</p>
<p>Celeste: This kid is a NMF and ASU seems to give FULL ride (tuition plus room and board) to National scholars, even those from outside of Arizona, with good enough stats This is from the ASU scholarship estimator. No reason to believe the OP is lying about that. Not sure the assumptions that the parents are pressuring the kid, changing the game, or the two parents are in disagreement is evident anywhere in this thread. </p>
<p>I agree that the post on the other thread indicating the kid got accepted into certain skills that he know says he is waiting on is off-putting. But otherwise, I am taking him/her at his word in that it is the kid’s decision in the end. For most, it takes a long time to save $220K or even $160K. Having said that, however, my oldest was an NMF and we paid for college (with merit money) rather than pursuing the full-ride for NMF schools that did not seem to be even a reasonably good fit. </p>
<p>And the thread was started before Weslyan’s RD decisions. So if OP is being honest, it’s not merely breaking ED by not withdrawing other apps when the finances are clearly fine, but illegally applying to 3 schools ED. </p>
<p>But intparent’s thought that OP was not honest in these posts, just writing about acceptances that were hoped for in the future, is likely. Probably RD to all 3. Could happen that all the sitting up nights worrying about the money will prove unnecessary, and the actual decision will be between Lawrence and ASU. Though for our family, thinking about paying $40K/yr is still enough to keep me up nights. Somehow can’t believe there are no financial safeties instate. Doesn’t everyone with high EFC apply to at least one instate public just in case? OK, maybe not in Illinois where publics cost as much as a cheap private, but most states.</p>