"… Get this book: ‘Where You Go Is Not Who You’ll Be — An Antidote to the College Admissions Mania,’ by Frank Bruni, a New York Times columnist. In it, Bruni writes:
‘The nature of a student’s college experience — the work that he or she puts into it, the skills that he or she picks up, the self-examination that’s undertaken, the resourcefulness that’s honed — matters more than the name of the institution attended. … Education is indeed everything, but it happens across a spectrum of settings and in infinite ways.’
Walk through the numbers and the debt that your daughter will have to take on to go to her top choice. If she still presses you, stay strong. Don’t spend more than what you can afford." …