Yes top schools certainly have benefits…I agree…but I know kids who who attended such schools and didn’t have internships, are currently unemployed ( not due to health issues) etc. This goes back to…it’s also the person.
This is a personal decision and will vary for each family. There is no right or wrong answer.
And that’s what makes this topic so complex (and debatable). Like so many things, only time will tell if you’ve made a good decision. Success is being happy with your college choice and investment after your tuition paying days are over.
I would also take the long view. Money not spent on undergrad could also go to law/grad/B-school. Or a retirement account. Or a business venture. Or travel around the world. What I wouldn’t do is spend less money on a kid just because they chose a cheaper option.
Sometimes your state flagship isn’t much of a compromise. Michigan, UNC, Cal, UVa, GT, etc. are just as good or better than the expensive privates. Depending on what you study, they are often superior. They sometimes even have better perks. For instance, a Michigan student can study abroad at Oxford and pay in-state tuition (including their FA, if any) - just slightly more than an EU student (cheaper now due to exchange rate) and 1/3rd the overseas rate.
@twogirls It’s not like elite college admissions are strictly merit, people get admitted for all sorts of reasons and expecting all of them to do well and be successful is unrealistic, even though most do.
If that’s an argument than a much much larger percentage of lower ranking college graduates face worse outcomes and we can question value of college education at all. Individual results always differ.
This is a complex topic that doesn’t fit neatly into different compartments. There are too many variables, and the possibility of paying for medical school down the road is a big one. On the other hand, if a family spent years saving and can afford a private school that is a good fit for their child, there is no reason not to do it if they want to.
@Riversider yes… individual results always differ.
We definitely did not feel that UVA was " much of a compromise . " Didn’t feel non flagship Virginia Tech was either. Great outcomes for both kids .
I am one of those people who does not believe any college is worth $70k and it has nothing to do with my personal ability to pay - I’m a full pay parent that was not willing to spend that much, even for an only child. There are lots of other parents like me. I talk to them all the time. I made my opinion very clear to my D very early on. I also made sure she understood that elite colleges weren’t golden tickets and that her success in life would depend on her own efforts, not the name on her diploma. As a result, she had no dream schools, though dreamed of the college experience, and never approached the college search from the perspective that some colleges are inherently better than others and would give her some edge in life. She was a high stats student with a hook and we leveraged that to great success. She’s enjoying exactly the college experience she wanted at no cost to me. Mentors? Check. Small classes? You really can’t get much smaller than the classes in one of her majors. Super smart friends and classmates? Check. And my D actually likes to spend time with the “riffraff” - you know, those kids who got 1200 and 1300 SAT scores. Being challenged and growing? Check. She’ll have six figures in the bank when she graduates. She gets to travel the world, mostly on someone else’s dime. She gets to spend the summers interning right alongside students at elite schools earning the same paycheck, and she gets to save as much of it as she chooses because she has no expenses.
We have absolutely no regrets. I’m not rationalizing. I can afford to full pay with no difficulty. I have 2 elite degrees, and I’d put my D’s college experience up against that of any elite school student. No one can change my mind about the current cost of college. It’s gotten ridiculous, imo. I make no apologies for my opinion. But to each their own.
OP, you aren’t alone.
“I am one of those people who does not believe any college is worth $70k and it has nothing to do with my personal ability to pay”
Curious to know what would you consider reasonable to pay for college for your kids: 50K, 25K, 10K/yr, or maybe nothing?
“Other than providing security in terms of savings for future necessities, I can’t think of on much else I wanted to spend my money than the college my kids preferred”
If the OP is asking why some people are willing to spend a lot for school for us it was this. But it woukd have been different if that meant jeopardizing our financial health. Instead it meant living below our means from the time we were married until the time the last one graduated from college. We were fortunate to be in a position where buying a home half the price of what we could technically afford, forgoing vacations and keeping cars for 12 plus years etc… allowed us to fully fund any education of their choosing.
Op…if you are comparing Duke to its public rival down the road…you will not see much of a difference in terms of academics. The two schools are academic collaborators and it’s not uncommon to take classes at both schools…students often float back and forth. You will pay a lot less money at the public, even as an OOS student. This is the route we took and our D has money left to put towards medical school.
There are two factors missing here. We don’t know your daughter, her personality and her desires…and we don’t know how far down the “food chain” you are willing to go ( public or private). My guess is you will meet somewhere in the middle. I will say this…my daughter received a full tuition scholarship at a public university, and she interviewed for additional money to cover room and board. She was blown away by the accomplishments of the kids interviewing with her and by the students in this honors program. If you go this route I promise that you will not find a shortage of intellectual experiences. If you don’t go this route…, that is your decision. Whatever works for your family.
It’s simply not wrong to not want to “overpay.” Overpaying implies more than you can afford. It is responsible to offer what you can afford and make that amount clear to you applying child from the get go. If you focus efforts on finding these high quality yet affordable options with your daughter she will have a place to attend come May. You have time to work out a great plan for chasing merit.
So good to see this rarely discussed subject finally addressed here. LOL
Is any college worth it? Depends. On a number of things. Kid involved. Major/career path. Other options. Family finances.
No one can answer those questions for you. Particularly not on an anonymous online discussion board. What may have made sense/worked out well for one person my not make sense/work out for you. Facts that are omitted in discussions here (or are slightly different than stated or your own position) may make for a huge difference. You will never know.
And there is a significant tendency toward confirmation bias.
And there aren’t test cases with kids. No matter how well a given choice works out, there may well have been another on the table at the time that would have worked out even better. And no matter how poorly a given choice worked out, it may well have been better than every other option on the table at the time.
Make the “best decision” (knowing that there are rarely if ever one best decision – just different ones) and move forward without looking back (and don’t worry about what other people may have made in similar circumstances).
I think “overpay” in this thread is more akin to wondering if buying a widget for $20 at Fancy Dept Store is equivalent to buying a similar, but not the Fancy Name brand, widget for $10 at Regular Department Store. I’m not seeing a comparison to the No-Name brand sold widget sold at the Dollar Store (in this thread by the OP) and I’m not seeing any reference to spending more than they can afford.
My goal was to have my kids go to a 'good value" school.
So I listened to what they wanted in a school, and then suggested a school that was a good value that met their criteria.
They looked at various schools, but ended up at SUNY Binghamton and The College of New Jersey…both schools I had suggested for them. As they were at public school price, we paid for their undergraduate for them as that is what they had saved.
OP here - this is correct (as far as my question). Sort of a Canada Goose vs Columbia Titanium line. Both will keep you warm. One gets oohs and aahs; the other flies under the radar a bit, but is high quality by any objective testing standard.
There is no doubt I could educate my children in a cheaper manner. We have a fantastic community college 2 miles away; taking classes there for two years would be very easy on the savings account. We live close to a big city with great colleges that can be commuted to and have night school. Heck, I’m not divorced where paying for college might be mandated by law. I could say - you’re on your own, kid.
I also think it makes a difference that my daughter is a candidate for honors colleges and the privileges that go along with them AND that she is likely going to attend graduate/professional school immediately (or maybe a year later depending upon the situation). That may or not be likely for my other younger children, so my definition of “overpay” could change per kid.
I am a victim of my own experience. I attended a relatively elite college (Tulane); I didn’t see a lasting bang for my buck, but that money is still gone and spent. Could it be because I went straight to law school and my final degree is what mattered to employers; absolutely - but that is the path down which my daughter is heading. My husband attended a Big 10 school that was not Michigan or Northwestern. He wasn’t in honors and he and I were in the exact same place after law school. Our job prospects were the same, our earning potential was the same; everything was the same except he has more fun during March Madness every year.
It makes me not want to pay the premium for an Elite College. Not when schools are willing to cut the bill in half or more based upon her stats; place her in the honors college where she will get special privileges/attention/help with school/internships/work and that money will still be in her account for medical school or as a safety net for later. It seems like an easy choice, because I’ve lived it. But, I feel guilty because I had the opportunity to “live it” and see the results. By steering her towards the public honors college and away from the elite, I’m taking that opportunity away from her. Sort of a do as I say, not as I do situation. But, isn’t that what parents do - use our life experiences to guide kids so they don’t make the same mistakes? Ahh…it is a conundrum.
@3kids2dogs I would just be choosy about your honors colleges. Some don’t offer all that much. Do your research and make sure you’re going to be getting what you expect. Honors college doesn’t always mean smaller classes or more opportunities or super high stat students. Many universities know that parents like the idea of a school within a school so many colleges have honors colleges but some are better than others.
Absolutely. I’m learning that myself.
@itsgettingreal17 , so if you were a billionaire, several times over, you would still not pay $70K+ for Harvard if your kid were accepted and really wanted to go there? You’d say, “not worth it” and insist on Flagship U or a school that costs below a certain dollar amount? I doubt it and it wouldn’t reflect well to do that, IMO, unless you are living at a level where you are cutting back on all things to the point of those who would not be able to pay that amount without compromising what are generally considered important in life. Maybe if you were spending most all of your money on great causes but then you wouldn’t be a billionaire.
Most people I know who are truly wealthy, don’t really think about college costs as anything but a necessity. They want their kids to go the schools the kids and they feel are the best for them. It’s when other important things in life collide with college cost, that decisions have to be made I would gladly give up the yacht, private plane, and other high pay items for college (yes, exceptions if a business expense, but I mean private stuff) but there is a pause when it comes to health costs, safety costs, retirement, emergency funds, and certain quality of life standards that I can probably cut lower to pay college tuition. I wouldn’t live in a hovel or scrub floors and have DH take a second job (wait, he has no time to do so) to pay for college. I wouldn’t have a junker car (though that has happened at times), eat unhealthy food, skimp on medication for college either. Having had a lot of kids with a lot of needs, college also was not the first priority thing on my list. But we did cut expensive vacations–my kids couldn’t take that kind of time off, and we found just staying at home, short trips (usually to visit friends and family, kids at college) were our vacations for these years. So we did cut some costs, had some austerity stints, borrowed, yeah, borrowed PLUS, to pay for some top price colleges and many years of private school even before college because those were our priorities. We were fortunate enough to have the choice of including school tuition as a possible item on our budget list, but couldn’t just pay it without a thought. Things did have to be shuffled to make it possible. No idea if we did the right thing, by the way. Don’t know when or if ever we’ll know, one way or the other.
I even say that we won’t know even though my oldest bailed on college after 3 years, after we borrowed money to afford all of those private school tuitions. Yes, he did not finish his top 25 university, but what he got from it was a lot. It’s not just that diploma they hand you, that makes individual college experiences valuable. Yes, he got things from his time at that college that he most likely would not have gotten at the local schools, including the that will get my school donation money for years to come due to their generosity that finally got him that diploma. He never was academically inclined, didn’t do well at his first college, but the courses he took, the peers he had, the experiences there are ingrained. It wasn’t just natural smart and work ethic that allowed him to take the advanced courses he needed to get a degree in two semesters, (really just one substantial) but a base of knowledge that I doubt he would have gotten at most schools. I’m not saying that lightly either. There are some things at some schools that are not just the degree. Also the contacts he made at that school have been invaluable at times, even without the degree from there.
@3kids2dogs For instance, at Wisconsin, anyone can be in the honors program. It’s just more work. No real perks. And the honors program at ASU is HUGE with an average ACT of 29.