<p>There are a lot of posts that are about limiting how much a family will pay for college. There aren't a lot of posts about parents willing to pay up for some schools but not others.</p>
<p>I was talking to a friend of mine and he told me that he is going to help his kid choose the school. He's paying for it, not the kid. </p>
<p>My first reaction was that's not right, the kid is the one actually going to college, but then I got to thinking.... the common sense parts of teenage brains aren't even devoloped yet. What do the students really know? </p>
<p>My kid's favorite schools are schools he has never visited in cities he has spent very little if any time in. And I'm supposed to pay for this?</p>
<p>yeah its definitely okay... i say this as a student. for example, my parents would pay 45k for USC or other prestigious privates but wont for santa clara U or LMU.</p>
<p>if you think about it, its like paying the price of a BMW for a honda.</p>
<p>Whose money is it? That should answer the question.</p>
<p>I'll stop making "suggestions" the day my kids say "no dad, I've got this check." Till then, if they can't pay their way they're still just a kid, subject to dad "lectures". Besides, what will ever motivate them to become true adults (i.e. handling their own responsibilities) if I stopped "lecturing" early?</p>
<p>Parents have the right to say we will pay that much... because that is what we can afford. In fact, they should say it, so the student can draw up an appropriate list of of schools, schools where the student has a chance of being admitted and the family will be able to afford. It is not fair to allow kids to reach for a dream school only to yank the carpet, so to speak, after the student has been admitted.</p>
<p>But that is not really the problem. It arises when a student either wishes to apply to schools of different levels of prestige and selectivity or has been admitted to such schools and they are equally expensive. Or when the more expensive school is, from a purely academic point of view, not much better than the less expensive one.</p>
<p>Two scenarios: 1. a student gets admitted to both Brown and Sarah Lawrence, paying full fare at both. Should the parents pressure the student to attend Brown even if the student prefers Sarah Lawrence? </p>
<ol>
<li>The case of Songman, who decided that a Skidmore education was not worth the cost over and above a UMass-Amherst one. If the parents are really well off, the more intimate setting of Skidmore might be worth the extra expense. If not, then UMass-Amherst is the better deal, and the parents are justified in not wanting to pay for Skidmore.</li>
</ol>
<p>I think it's reasonable to have a dialogue with your student about what you as a parent are willing and able to pay towards your student's education. We were not going to go into debt due to our kids' education. Our daughter opted for a higher priced school and ended up working every summer and every year on campus. and minding her frugal budget. She applied for and competed in various cash prizes (for writing, best student in a subject) in college and also took out reasonable loans. She could have chosen a lower-priced school with a more generous scholarship and not have had to "work" so hard, but that was her choice. She was glad of her decision and felt more engaged in her education as a result.</p>
<p>What we would pay for or not pay for was not a function of the particular school, but rather of the cost. It's the student's job to research the schools to find the ones that meet his/her needs and budget.</p>
<p>There was one school that DH categorically said at the beginning - "You are not going to X, I'm not paying for it". D didn't want to go there so it was basically a non-issue.</p>
<p>With DS who is to come - what do you think of this scenario - full fare at a regional LAC, say #75 on the USNews VS R&B only at a state school (commuter or residential) VS OOS tuition at another public for a kid who just barely gets admitted to the regional LAC? Is full fare tuition, prob $30K, worth it when the student has not performed well in high school? What if he has an abysmal 9th grade year, but manages As and Bs after that???</p>
<p>My son was accepted at GWU (very expensive school) and at Northeastern, among others. Northeastern offered decent merit aid. We were not eligible for need based. The money played a very small part for us BUT (and this is a big but) we had discussed our finances and his applications ahead of time so that if he had decided on GWU we were prepared to pay for it (along with his summer savings, grandparents gifts etc.) I think that is the important thing. Have this discussion ahead of time and at application time. Do not let your student apply to and get accepted at a school and then say "I won't pay for it."</p>
<p>I wouldn't pay more than instate public for a #75 ranked LAC, because our in state publics are better than that for a LOT less money. If you live in a state with abysmal in state public universities than maybe the #75 LAC is a step up, but you'd still have to balance the extra cost against the incremental benefit.</p>
<p>I am probably in the minority around here, but once you get below the top 20 in any list, the incremental value over a decent flagship public school (say anything in the top 100) may not be worth the extra expense assuming the incremental cost is on the order of $20-$25K per year.</p>
<p>To those who counter with the usual "yes but merit aid can reduce the cost) my response is that students who get a significant amount of merit aid are going to be in the top 10% of the applicant pool for a given school. In other words, you have to trade down in terms of prestige in return for a tuition subsidy. Again, it is my opinion, but if you live in a state with a top 50 research university, is your kid better served by being in the top 10% of a moderately bright applicant pool, or being one of many very bright achievers who choose to go in state because the education is affordable without having to compromise in terms of prestige?</p>
<p>Attaching a whole bunch of caveats here: this assumes for the sake of argument, that USNWR rankings are valid predictors of the value of a bachelor's degree, and that a kid won't qualify for significant need based aid so almost all expenses will come from family resources and not need or athletic scholarships.</p>
<p>Some students who might be lost in the shuffle at a large flagship state school (regardless of it being in the top50 research universities) might flourish at a smaller LAC (whether or not it is in the "top 20" you mention).</p>
<p>We had to have the conversation that you need to show me the value of paying oos fees at the oos state university. What do they have that you cannot get at one of our state u's? That being said, we have 2 at ~5,000 student private universties which are good fits for them.</p>
<p>We are fortunate in that we can pay but...each has a Stafford loan and the agreement that if they do not continue to progress and complete the degree all we have invested needs to be repaid. Finish and it is our gift to you.</p>
<p>If Son gets into the Schools of Management at both SUNY-Binghamton (good school which would cost us about 50K grand total as in-staters) and Syracuse U. (roughly comparable school an hour from Binghamton which would cost us 180K if, as I expect, no aid is awarded), I'm fully prepared to tell him I will not pay for Syracuse.</p>
<p>We told S1 the limits of our financial resources. Frankly, we started out looking for the best school at the best price -- I even developed a matrix. It turned out that we are paying almost full fare instead of accepting one of his merit offers, but we felt the particular school was worth it. So we sort of worked in the opposite way -- we decided to take loans for a school we didn't think we could afford.</p>
<p>I think the decision is a family decision -- distance (cost and convenience of travel) and financial issues. At some point, if the schools' costs are similar, including travel, and they are close in selectivity, the child should have the final choice. Because the decision involves sacrifice on the part of the family, I couldn't just say, "go wherever you want." </p>
<p>The problem arises though, in how far you'd go. Would you dictate a major? Are you willing to pay full freight for a non-lucrative degree? These are harder question, in my opinion.</p>
<p>maybe I'm misunderstanding, but I thought dstark's question is--price aside, would you fund one school but not another? (for instance, a parent saying I'll pay 40K for Harvard but not for Boston University, or not for Bowdoin--not picking on these schools, just examples of a larger, not quite so selective school and a small, great but not well-known school, but all similar price ranges.) Rather than, is it worth it to pay more for this school over that school, which is what most of the posts seem to be discussing, but I didn't think was the question asked.</p>
<p>And my answer is, I think I would leave it up to the good sense my kids have shown, rather than using my money to influence their decisions.</p>
<p>It's not necessarily prestige. It can be other things.</p>
<p>Thirtysomething years ago, my parents flatly refused to pay for Penn because it was in a "bad neighborhood." But they had no objections to paying for Cornell.</p>
<p>I have also heard of cases where the parents refuse to pay for a faraway school on the grounds that similar programs are offered at nearby, conveniently located schools.</p>
<p>Yes, you have the right. Parents should not have to pay for attendance for a college that they think is to expensive for what the education is "worth." For instance, a friend's d wanted to go OOS to a "so so" state college to become an elem teacher. My friend and her H could easily see that the extra costs involved with going oos, was just not worth it.</p>
<p>here's a funny one; my friend's dad refused to pay for his cal poly tuition but once he got into USC and other UC schools he's willing to pay full freight.</p>
<p>Our son wants to be a TV writer. He is adamant about wanting to live in Manhatten (we live in California). He has demonstrated consistent passion in writing and has received much positive feedback. We have had the "what we are willing to pay for discussion" re NYU/Tisch, Sarah Lawrence, Eugene Lang, and paying OOS tuition for the dramatic writing program at SUNY Purchase and the honors program at Hunter College. After much research and discussion we have a dilemma: our son loves Eugene Lang (his reasons are that you don't "have" to take anything, people seemed "cool" and that it's in a great location in Manhatten). We have put aside college money and can afford any of these schools. We can still be persuaded. But as of today, the idea of paying $45,000/year for Eugene Lang so that he can live in Manhatten at a school that is known for turning out graduate social scientists as opposed to TV comedy writers does not seem like money well spent. And perhaps one of you could answer the question: why does not Eugene Lang appear on the collegeconfidential alphabetical listing of colleges? It is not any smaller or more "alternative" than some of the other listings...thanks.</p>