Wasn’t directed JUST to you. Other posters have expressed similar. Just stating that I truly don’t get the mentality.
I get the mentality. Stanford’s brand name is tied to its engineering, more so than Humanities, even if its Humanities Dept is great. When you look at it as an investment on your kid, it is understandable. I don’t understand why you are unable to understand this approach, even if you disagree.
@doschicos Son definitely doesn’t view Stanford as a “vocational” school but is just being realistic about earning potential and ability to pay back any loans. If he did want to major in the humanities, arts or social sciences, I would be more concerned about incurring any debt. Stanford is the one school he applied to where as a prospective CS major some loans may be worth the investment, in our opinion.
If my kid benefits, I benefit.
@doschicos We will have two in college, so intend to spend the same on both, which is the equivalent of a UC school. Any additional needs to be merit, or in the case of Stanford, loans. This is what we have determined we can afford while continuing to save for retirement. If he goes to a cheaper school that means more in our retirement account; neither son is interested in grad school. We definitely view this as an investment.
I can understand your situation @carlsbadbruin if loans would be taken out and you are quite clear to your kids ahead of time about what you are and aren’t willing to do. I guess it was more the comment #32 and others which sparked my comments. If one is full pay and has the money and lets his/her high achieving kid apply early and the kid gets in, I sure hope 1) the decision to fund isn’t based on major and 2) the family had very clear communication ahead of time with the child that lower cost/merit aid would trump an acceptance to Stanford.
Carlsbadbruin, regarding your question about your son paying you back $75K. If your son goes to work in CS as a programmer for a major company in Silicon Valley it shouldn’t be a problem for him to pay it back. Of course there is no way to know for certain if CS will turn out to be his passion.
My first job a few years ago was at Facebook as a software engineer/programmer. I graduated from Stanford with a BS and MS. The signing bonus was a lump sum of $150K which I received one month after starting work. The contract stated I had to work a full year or return a portion of it. I also received stock worth about $50K at the time. I did well in the interviews so my initial offer was higher than average but not that much above average. My parents didn’t ask me to repay them. I was in a position to do so and gratefully paid them back in full.
My father told me no young person directly out of college is worth anywhere close to that amount of money. The pay structure in Silicon Valley for top software candidates has strayed from reality and will probably come back to earth at some point in the future. It is hard to predict where demand and the pay scale will be four or five years from now. I expect it will level off but not drop that much.
Obviously the starting pay for CS majors is different than other majors. I don’t know about the pay scale outside of Silicon Valley. I suspect it isn’t quite so out of control.
What googledrone said supports my point. Perhaps, I say perhaps, kids who major in CS and engineering fields could probably repay parents some money, but I am not expecting my kid who will major in IR field to be able to repay me in any time soon. This is why if you look at from a purely investment/repayment perspective, an engineering major has a better chance to repay parents. I understand various perspectives on whether Stanford is really worth the money. My own view – and this will probably not matter at all in our decision because our family already pretty much made up our minds – is that a smart kid will succeed whatever school he goes and undergrad education and level of students at a good Honors Colleges at public state universities is close to those at HYPSM and certainly not worth the difference of $50,000. I agree with a lot of people that extra $200K to $300K spent on the undergrad education can be better utilized towards paying for grad school or buying an apartment. The reason I say this is especially for Humanities area, you can more easily build up your learning and appreciation in this area by reading or listening to online lectures at any age. I say this even though I was a Humanities major at an Ivy school.
I really compared courses offered, professors, attention given, dorms, environment, food, and FOR ME Stanford or HYP undergrad education in Humanities field (for engineer majors, perhaps it is worth it – I simply don’t have an insight into this) is NOT worth a difference of $50K to $70K per year once you take away the brand name euphoria factor if you are NOT in a very wealthy level. But since my kid is the one attending Stanford, because of my love for my kid, I would pay for the entire cost if he really wants to go there. If it were me going to college, I would not go to HYMSM over a good Honors College which is ready to give me a nearly free ride for 4 years.
Again, from an investment perspective, for most parents, the intended major does play a part. If all parents were very rich, it would not. So in the real world, it does and should IMO. If my kid was a STEM type, I would not hesitate in sending my kid to MIT or Stanford even if I had to pay for everything because I would feel confident that my kid, along with most engineer undergraduates from Stanford and MIT, would get a decent job after graduation. For Humanities majors, some might but some won’t; that’s the reality.
@googledrone wow… what an awesome signing bonus? Question: Are high signing bonuses more common for Stanford grads, as compared to other top CS schools such as Berkeley? I could see where it would be difficult for companies to pay graduates of certain schools higher starting salaries than others, but compete for talent instead with the signing bonuses. If son chooses Berkeley, for example, because it is half the tuition, would he likely have the same opportunities for internships and such a great first job, or not?
@googledrone one other question… Did you complete the MS using the co-term program? If so, was the MS your fourth and/or fifth year? Just wondering how long it might take with significant AP credit to graduate with the MS. If it was a co-term program, do you still pay tuition, and/or are you paid as a T.A.? Thank you!!
Places like FB or Google generally do not pay you more depending on where you went to school. The hard part is getting the job. The starting first year pay including everything according to my computations is around 200k for a CSE
@carlsbadbruin Stanford does not give a lot of credits for AP/IB. You can get about 24 credits, which is around 1.5 quarters (Stanford is on the quarter system). Most of co-term students complete their BS/MS in 5 years. I have seen people complete in 4 years but it is very very rare. If you get financial aid that will continue for 4 years only, after that you have to pay or get a CA position.(There is no guarantee you will get one)
Here in the Silicon Valley you get a job if you do well in the technical interview otherwise you get rejected no matter what university you graduated from. If you are a fresh grad your starting pay and bonus is fixed. If you are experienced then your pay depends on your skill set and experience.
Hey everyone! I started this thread and just came back to it today. I have to laugh because my S and I always talk about this. When my S was in high school he loved bio. So he would tell me that he wanted to major in marine biology when he went to college. Personally, I love the field too. But I also knew that he could never make a living from this degree. So for years we debated this issue before he went off to college. S worked at an aquarium. So one day, I found the local marine biologist on staff and outright asked her the starting salaries for kids coming out of college. She explained it was around $22K/yr. I then explained to my S that he can’t live on that. His answer to me was "WELL, MAYBE I DON’T NEED AS MUCH MONEY AS YOU TO LIVE. MAYBE IM NOT AS MATERIALISTIC AS YOU’ Hmmmmm…that snide remark landed him a very dirty look, but I realized too that he just wasn’t understanding what it took to survive, monetarily here in the northeastern part of the US. So at that point I realized that I needed to play hardball and told him, “I will not pay for a college education that you can’t make a living from.” I explained that he could get a minor in marine bio but his major had to be a degree that ideally would make him some money.
Well since all of you know my S’s college experience you can see that he chose a different path. Now he laughs and can’t believe he ever thought that he would be able to live off of $22k/yr. He still loves marine biology. He always fishes in his spare time and just visited the Monterrey Aquarium. But he is thankful that I had that foresight to tell him he had to do something different.
Doschicos - If I were rich and had a trust fund for my kids than I believe that I would have been easier on them. S would have been able to pick any major he wanted. But I’m not rich, I needed him to be self-sufficient, for his sake and mine. I think its a parents duty to be very clear with their children. They are too young and immature to understand what it takes to survive this world. It would have been remiss of me to allow him to do anything else.
Lastly, when people say things like CollegeDad said,“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” Keep in mind that someone making $200K exactly is completely cutoff from aid. There’s no sliding scale. So although that may seem like a lot of money, in the Northeast and California its not. The cost of living is so darn expensive, people have to make salaries like that just to live an average life style. These people are paying $18K-$20K a year in real estate taxes, school taxes and town taxes. Believe it or not thats only on a home thats worth $575K. So subtract that from the $200K which is a gross salary and its very very difficult to pay $60K/year for college. In addition, those same people are paying into the higher tax bracket so they are lucky if they are bringing home clean $130K, after taxes and paying for employee benefits. Then subtract out the $20k for real estate taxes and now you have a family of four living off of $110K/year. Keep in mind that these families pay alternative minimum tax, are not eligible for the child credit nor college credit. Then subtract $60k for college and the family is now living off of $50K. To some people that may seem reasonable but in NY, NJ, CT, CA the cost of living is so high that thats extremely tight if at all possible because these people have to pay for commutation, utilities, etc etc just like everyone else but its more expensive in these states.
So this is no easy feat for people in this salary range.
I echo what Dungareedoll says above. From now on, I won’t be entirely sad when I end up making significantly less money every year; that’s because making less money may mean we might get some financial aid from Stanford. I am not salaried and my income varies significantly every year, so who knows?
websensation you’re 100% correct, a little bit less in your salary can absolutely pay off in finaid. Nothing is perfect and I guess the schools do need to draw the line somewhere it just hurts when you’re the one on the cusp.
In California real estate taxes are about 1. 2 per cent . So if you are paying 20k in real estate taxes you live in a 1.8 million dollar house. Also taxes on 200k salary are not 70 k per year. The effective tax rate after deductions is probably around 20 per cent not 35 per cent as stated above. It could be lower. Also if you do not have enough money you can always take out loans.
I have a suggestion for all the one percenters on this site who complain about the cost of college. Lets have government pay for college and make college free.
I have gladly paid for my two kids to go to private colleges. You cant take it with you!!! Also the quality of life is important. Some people want to treat Stanford like it should be a trade school . It is not. Going to Stanford or Harvard is a once in a life time experience open to a select few. If you are lucky enough to get in you should value it for what it is and consider yourself lucky
collegedad you are trivializing a very serious problem with the cost of education. There is simply no good rational reason why college costs should have escalated 4-5x the rate of inflation over the past 25 years. College debt is now a massive problem that will have a significant effect on the overall economy. Taking out big loans to pay for college is hardly a solution nor are glib comments like you can’t take it with you. The real problem with private schools is that the 80th-100th ranked school has the same tuition as Stanford or Harvard. Stanford and Harvard are great schools but you have swallowed too much Kool Aide.
LOL
Nobody expects a relatively high earner - regardless of locale - to from out pay out of pocket. Most people save up over an 18 year timespan.
For those stating they think it ok and prudent to dictate what major they will pay for, I’m curious as to where you draw the line. CS and engineering = yes, mine bio = no. What other majors, if any, would be ok with you?