Could a moderator please remove the duplicate posts? The site was giving me trouble. Not sure why, as I didn’t have any problems on the other thread I posted on this morning.
Seems elitist but that’s none of my business.
Precisely. Stanford is an elite school with top-notch students who are only improved by their time there. To suggest the Stanford experience has anything at all in common with a community college is plain silly.
I was more aiming for the indomitability of the human spirit and less comparing Stanford to a community college but if it seemed that way I apologize.
@TheGFG, I’ve deleted the duplicates.
When I was applying from high school my father wouldn’t pay for a HYPS that accepted me. I ended up at a large state university. Two years later I applied to a different HYPS for transfer and was accepted. The difference was enormous in terms of the student body and educational environment - but not the actual lecturing in the class per se. The degree and the school it came from made a huge difference. More so did the motivations and exposures of my fellow students. I am very grateful to have had the opportunity, and will always be generous to my school in return.
This thread is super helpful. Our daughter was just accepted to Stanford’s class of 2021, and money is definitely on our minds. On paper, our expected contribution for the first year is completely reasonable but it’s still a daunting amount of money calculated over 4 years, and we also have two other younger children. She still has applications pending at other very good schools that might also give her significant merit aid. So it is very nice to hear from other parents who had similar concerns but feel like they made the right choice in the end.
@picklesarenice Same situation here. This is the first time I wished we were poorer so our kid could go to Stanford for almost free. I feel like I am being penalized for having worked hard and saved for my kid’s education. Lol I am sort of ashamed to admit that I secretly hoped that my kid would not get accepted to Stanford so he could go to a decent public college on a near full-ride scholarship.
I have a tremendous respect for all kids who went to cheaper universities to help out their parents. I think I should have lied to my kid and told him “We have zilch money saved up for your college education so you will have to get a scholarship if you want to go to college.” I was afraid he might then say “How come you just upgraded your iPhone from 6 to 7?”
@websensation you may want to look at other universities : UChicago, Duke, USC, WUSTL, and others that provide a few merit scholarships (full ride and/or tuition ),
@CA94309 He can always attend UCLA or UCB for 35K as a CA resident as he has a decent chance to get into one of them, I think. I say “I think” because in this random college application process, it’s realistically possible to get into Stanford but get denied from UCLA and Berkeley. He applied to several UCs as a backup because their application deadline was Nov 30th. He applied to Stanford REA as a remote possibility. But I hate the fact that UCs generally don’t allow gap years. Same thing with Univ of South Carolina.
@websensation Good luck to your son on his remaining college applications. One more thing you would want to consider before spending 260k is what your son wants to major in. I know of someone who graduated with a degree in one of humanities majors from one of the highly ranked (top 10) east coast university, he wanted to study premed but changed his mind. His parents were in similar situation to yours, but decided to take the risk. He is now having a real difficult time finding a job and is working for 15$ an hour as a temp. If your son is interested in engineering or CS then it might be worth it. But, he can also go to a cheaper (and even free with merit aid) but very good state school that has a strong engineering program (U Wash, UCB, UCLA, UIUC, GAtech, UT Austin etc) and do well. There are 1000s of engineers here working in silicon valley companies (Facebook, Linkedin, Uber, Google, Tesla, Dropbox etc) from these schools and they are doing very well.
If you are full pay at Stanford that means you make in excess of 200k per year and have lots of assets and are very lucky indeed. You are part of the richest one per cent in this country
@websensation Good luck to your son on his remaining college applications. One more thing you would want to consider before spending 260k is what your son wants to major in. I know of someone who graduated with a degree in one of humanities majors from one of the highly ranked (top 10) east coast university, he wanted to study premed but changed his mind. His parents were in similar situation to yours, but decided to take the risk. He is now having a real difficult time finding a job and is working for 15$ an hour as a temp. If your son is interested in engineering or CS then it might be worth it. But, he can also go to a cheaper (and even free with merit aid) but very good state school that has a strong engineering program (U Wash, UCB, UCLA, UIUC, GAtech, UT Austin etc) and do well. There are 1000s of engineers here working in silicon valley companies (Facebook, Linkedin, Uber, Google, Tesla, Dropbox etc) from these schools and they are doing very well.
Yeap. He’s going to major in Humanities but will be able to speak 4 languages at a high level by the time he graduates. That way, at least he can make a good living selling expensive handbags to foreigners at a premium outlet stores, in case he cannot change the world. Lol. We purposely had him learn many languages as a hedge to be able to earn a living.
To answer OP’s question, it really depends on how much financial aid Stanford gives you. If you don’t have to pay a lot, then it’s worth the money. If you have to pay for a big chunk of it, only you can decide whether it’s worth paying a lot of money to attend Stanford.
I think $200k household is top 5%. 1% requires more: about 450k. Big difference there. A whole Stanford education difference:)
I think it is worth it. It can open doors if you can afford it. If it requires full loans…then you need to think hard about that. Unless parents can pay off those loans over the college period for the student, I wouldn’t do it. And I do think taking loans for parents to pay is an option. Most top 5 or 1%ers have not always made that much and may not have saved. But now that they do, they can pay off most of the loans (reverse college savings).
Debating the same question here. Received very little aid from Stanford and will have two kids in college for the next three years. Income is high, but has only been so since I returned to work three years ago. We can afford $30-35k per student, or the equivalent of a UC school. Son also applied to several other schools with merit, but haven’t heard from them yet. As a prospective CS major, we would really like for him to go to Stanford, but it would require our son to pay us back $75k. Not sure whether this is a good move, even with lucrative summer internship and starting salary potential.
If my kid were to major in CS, I would do it but my kid is going to major in a low paying IR field to help the world. lol
I don’t really understand the idea of only thinking it worthwhile as a parent to pay for certain majors. If your kid doesn’t major in something like CS and goes to a cheaper school, are you planning to subsidize your child in their post grad years? If not, why does it matter to you? Are you PERSONALLY (not your kid) going to benefit from your kid being a CS major instead of a Hum major?
I don’t think a Stanford education should be viewed as vocational training nor looked at in a ROI way like some stock investment.
I was responding to carlbruin whose son told him he would repay a chunk of money. Just saying IR major might not get a high paying job to be able to repay in near future. In many cases, I do believe it’s better to use money for grad school and other items.