Is Villanova University worth it?

Parents Forum
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<p>“I keep reading on this thread that “it’s not like she’s going to Harvard”. What I’m wondering is would Harvard make a difference? Harvard still seems like a waste of money to me for a student who likely wants to major in English and/or secondary education. At least if borrowing is in the picture.”</p>

<p>that’s a good point. Harvard wouldn’t be worth a lot of debt either…for a whole lot of majors, but especially education.</p>

<p>I think when people are saying that, what they mean is that Nova is a typical nice school. They’re a dime a dozen. To believe that this school alone is the “perfect fit where everything else pales and would cause misery” is just silly and naive. </p>

<p>OP…you and your D need to play “The Fast Forward Game” with your brains…Imagine that it’s 6+ years from now. D is graduated with her credential (which, BTW…does that mean a 5th year or more??? Grad school? More debt???). She’s begun working. She begins paying these awful loans. How is she (and you) going to feel when she sees that her colleagues being able to move on with their lives, buying homes, getting married, etc because they don’t have that debt because they went to “University of No Big Debt”? What do you think is going to happen to her fond memories of Nova? Don’t you think those fond memories will soon be clouded by regret? </p>

<p>(Does her career goal require a masters degree that will also get financed??? If not, then it probably requires an additional year to get her credential, right? How will all that get paid?? More debt?)</p>

<p>I’m reminded of my sorority big sister who got an AmEx card before she graduated and went on some pricey European month-long trip as her reward (she also had become a credentialed math/AP teacher, but that’s not really the point). How exciting! How awesome. So much fun. A dream come true. Then it came time to pay the piper. For several years she paid on that debt. Do you think her fond memories were tainted by that albatross of debt? You can bet your 401k it did. </p>

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<p>Post of the day!</p>

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<p>"Hanna, but an 18 year old with rich parents (whether or not they want to pay full tuition, at Harvard or anywhere else) is in a very different position vis-a-vis debt than a kid with middle class parents. "</p>

<p>If you mean that the OP’s daughter would be making an even bigger mistake than the young woman I advised, then I agree.</p>

<p>The hypothetical doesn’t really work with a middle-class family, or even a CC “middle class” family making ~$150k, because those kids will get some need-based aid at Harvard. The only Harvard admit who’s looking at paying the full price tag is one that (by my personal standards) is pretty darn well off.</p>

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<p>OP: thank you for getting back to us with the information.</p>

<p>SO, Villanova isn’t willing to provide merit aid to a 10% applicant?
:frowning: Sorry but that doesn’t make me think so well of them. Not to mention it’s not a savvy move on their part, or a very cynical one (“we’ll get more money off them, who cares how they come up with it”.)
At most colleges of Villanova’s standing the response would have been different.</p>

<p>re:loans
$20,000 over 4 years ($5,000 per undergraduate year) = $230 per month for 10 years.
I think it’s possible for someone to pay $400/month (about $30,000 borrowed over 4 years) as long as they have no car (=limits job possibilities) and no social life (… and that’s already very hard on young people because most of them don’t want to spend their time at the library or at home, they want to go to clubs and restaurants when their friends go, they get tired of telling their friends they can’t and often “overspend” to avoid being the party-pooper or the miser or the unfortunate destitute one, so get into more debtvia credit card and that’s a vicious circle…).
That’s why the federal limit is under $30,000 for undergraduate borrowing.</p>

<p>If OP’s daughter can make it to Villanova with federal loans only, ie., $5,500 freshman year, it would be reasonable borrowing but anything else is going to make her miserable 3 years from now when she sees how she bargained her freedom for the next 30 years, won’t have a car, won’t be able to get a mortgage, etc, etc.</p>

<p>OP: Would YOU have to borrow to pay for the rest or do you have that money in savings/invrestments somewhere (without touching your 401k)? </p>

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<p>Villanova does award merit scholarships. According to the 2011-12 CDS, 125 out of 1644 entering freshmen (~8%) received an average of $8824 in non-need-based, non-athletic awards. However, 64% of entering Villanova freshmen ranked in the top 10% of their HS classes. Almost 1 in 5 scored at least 700 on the SAT-CR; more than 1 in 3 scored at least 700 on the SAT-M. So ranking in the top 10%, alone, wouldn’t have been enough. Non-academic factors such as geographic diversity may have played a role, too.</p>

<p>The average amount of V’s merit awards, and the percentage of entering students who get them, is roughly in line with the numbers at Lehigh, Bucknell, or Franklin & Marshall. But these are all more selective schools than the ones that have offered merit aid to the OP’s daughter.</p>

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<p>If OP’s D was going to MIT to get a STEM degree or have intention of going into finance/technology, I wouldn’t be as as worried with 100K student loans. Those graduates have good chance of landing 100k+ jobs which could quickly double if they are any good. The loans could be paid off within few years. </p>

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<p>I haven’t read this whole thread…disclaimer.</p>

<p>$100,000 in debt is TOO much in the vast majority of cases.</p>

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<p>“Villanova does award merit scholarships. According to the 2011-12 CDS, 125 out of 1644 entering freshmen (~8%) received an average of $8824 in non-need-based, non-athletic awards.”</p>

<p>We don’t know how many of those 125 awards were Talent based…music, art/portfolio, theater. </p>

<p>Some of those merit awards may have been endowed scholarships targeted for certain things…minorities, grads from certain high schools, etc. Does the Order of St. Augustine run any high schools? If so, those students probably get a merit award for enrolling (the Jesuits often do this as SOP).</p>

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<p>Here is a letter Villanova sent out last January 2013 to scholarship recipients. This did not include their best presidential scholarship of which they only award 18.</p>

<p>…The Villanova Scholarship is awarded on the basis of exemplary academic achievement and accomplishments outside of the classroom. In order to be eligible for consideration, students will need to be enrolled in a rigorous curriculum, rank in the top 5% of their graduating class (if rank is reported), or have a minimum grade point average of a 3.85 on a 4.00 weighted scale (if rank is not reported) and a minimum combined SAT of 1380/1600 or a composite score of 31/36 on the ACT.</p>

<p>For the 2012-13 academic year, scholarships (beginning at $1,000 per year) were distributed to 1,120 admitted students for a total of $6 million. The average, non-negotiable scholarship amount was valued at $5,357 per year. Recipients of the scholarship averaged a 4.17/4.00 GPA on a weighted scale and 1460/1600 on the SAT or a 33/36 composite on the ACT…</p>

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<p>Good cautionary tale for those seeking merit next year. If the average scholarship amount is $5,357 (nice, but doesn’t put a major dent in the overall costs), it pays to keep that in mind when assuming, “we won’t get need based aid but Merit will make it affordable”.</p>

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<p>They run nearby Malvern Prep - an expensive boys’ school. Don’t know about scholarships, but you’re probably right.</p>

<p>The word on the street here (Philly area) as far as VIllanova merit money goes is that they offer it for URM’s and girls in engineering. They do also give out the commuter scholarships, which it seems they’ll pretty quickly offer to anyone willing to commute. Everybody else can forget it. </p>

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Am going out on a limb and guessing neither of those degrees was at charm school… :-" </p>

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<p>“They run nearby Malvern Prep - an expensive boys’ school. Don’t know about scholarships, but you’re probably right.”</p>

<p>I’d bet that there are some merit awards going thru that way. When a college’s order also runs a prep school, that prep school is seen as a feeder school…and usually some merit is offered as an incentive. While this order isn’t as affluent as the Jesuits are (which typically give $10k per year merit to those that feed from Jesuit HS’s), they probably offer something…even if it’s just a couple thousand tuition discounting.</p>

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<ol>
<li><p>I think, from OP’s posts, that they are within commuting distance. (as halfemptypockets has mentioned there are commuting scholarships.) Would D consider commuting? </p></li>
<li><p>Did OP call Financial Aid office or the Admissions Office? If FA Office, perhaps a call to Admissions Office should be considered. OP can explain (as many posters above have suggested) about how D’s stats are above Villanova’s numbers, VU is her first choice, and a specific question about more MERIT scholarship award.</p></li>
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<p>Maybe a question if commuting would change the merit scholarship can be added, too.</p>

<ol>
<li><p>Also, if the OP is only considering the Merit letter, would they perhaps be receiving anything in the Financial Aid letter that, I think, hasn’t gone out yet?</p></li>
<li><p>Catholic U is very nice. Many of the discussions have been about St. Joe’s, but Catholic U seems to have been overlooked. </p></li>
<li><p>A cost that may be in the much further distant future are weddings, as M2CK mentions.</p></li>
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<p>Have been reading this thread with great interest. </p>

<p>The OP mentioned that his daughter offered her college savings so the older brother could go to his dream school. That is really selfless and very kind. I can see why OP wants to send his D to the school about which she feels happy.</p>

<p>Honestly, I do think that several have been unduly unkind to moooop as I think he is just trying to offer some ideas. </p>

<p>As someone familiar to this area and school, I feel it is important to consider the viewpoints of students and families in this area and in local Catholic schools. To the student who has gone through 12 years of Catholic school, whose Faith is really important to them, who probably knows many people who’ve attended Villanova (their own teachers, family and neighbors), who hears about Villanova in the local news (not just for Basketball!!), Villanova can be just a natural school at which to see oneself. Around here, it’s like Apple Pie, CYO sports, a sunny day and church on Sunday, if I can make an abstract analogy. There really isn’t any other way to describe it.</p>

<p>OP’s D is NOT being a diva. I’m trying to explain how this school is viewed by the kids at the local Catholic schools and parishes. Have you, the many posters, (Hanna included), visited Villanova? It is beautiful. It is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT than Harvard, and quite frankly, the kids who go to Villanova want to be at Villanova and not Harvard. Remember, Villanova used to be about 70% commuter before its current building boom, so there are a lot of local people who commuted to Villanova and worked to pay for it, when it was about 10% of the cost it is now. Villanova is very pervasive in the local culture. Please everyone, consider where the OP’s and D’s viewpoints are.</p>

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<p>Hmmm, fast forward a few decades from now, when their kids (your grandkids) are in high school looking at colleges to apply to. Your son’s family is solidly in the “middle class that won’t receive financial aid” (i.e. equivalent to today’s $300,000+ annual income, adjusted for a few decades of future inflation), but he complains that he would have trouble affording to send his kids to even the local state university that they can commute to (of course, his kids are expecting the full residential college experience at a private university). Your daughter’s family, on the other hand, has a more modest income, eligible for substantial financial aid at many colleges, but has enough savings to comfortably afford list price at even the most expensive private universities (though her kids do not see the point in spending anywhere near that much when they can get good educations for much less).</p>

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<p>“If OP’s D was going to MIT to get a STEM degree or have intention of going into finance/technology, I wouldn’t be as as worried with 100K student loans. Those graduates have good chance of landing 100k+ jobs which could quickly double if they are any good. The loans could be paid off within few years.”</p>

<p>@oldfort</p>

<p>While that may be true for someone going into finance/investment banking and is Wall Street bound, that isn’t really true for those who are just STEM majors of some sort. Even a MIT EE degreed person isn’t going to walk into a $100k job, and certainly isn’t going to quickly double salary. He’d be lucky to walk into a $80k per year job, and likely have to live where the COA isn’t cheap. When you look at the average starting salaries of eng’g MIT grads, they’re not impressive. And, I imagine the other STEM grads (bio, chem, physics, etc) aren’t doing any better…likely doing worse.</p>

<p>My cousin’s son did go the Columbia/Stanford Investment Banking route and now works for GS. He has no college debt, but pays a very pricey amount to live where he has to live (NYC). He married 2 years ago and just had a baby. I’m sure my cousin would be freaking out if her son had $100k in college debt. I’m not saying that they’d be living on PB&J, but that amount of student loan debt, even with a high income, is a pain when you also have to live in a very pricey area, wear professional clothing, and have taxes and everything else to pay for.</p>

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<p>Busy person.</p>

<p>If you read the thread from the beginning many of your questions have been answered. </p>

<p>It appears that the OP wants to know if Villanova is worth $100,000 more than Widener which is his daughters 2nd choice.</p>

<p>This is impossible to answer because we all have very different buckets of money that we are pulling from. Michael Jordan money, two income professional couple money, single mom money etc.</p>

<p>He is not interested in anything else according to his last post. </p>

<p>I am sure his daughter is a lovely young lady. She however has her head in the clouds. If dad indeed honored her wish of giving her college savings to her brother so he could attend his dream college then there might be nothing left for her. She is already crying that she might not be able to attend Villanova. Like many of our 18 yr olds she has no basis to understand what $100,000 is. She just wants to go to Villanova and has stated (according to the OP) she will not be happy at any other school.</p>

<p>Re: mooops</p>

<p>Mooops came into this thread with his gloves on and swinging before any of us even realized we were in a boxing venue let alone the ring. I honestly believe people have been relatively nice considering his name calling, etc.</p>

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<p>Wow, this thread is my new pasttime. As some of you know, I have twins in the college decision making process this year and I suspect in a month or so I will be posing questions similar to this to all of you. We’ll have choices and I’ll want feedback. Good, bad and ugly. Sometimes we parents need tough love too! </p>

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<p>I wonder why Nova gives a Commuter’s Scholarship? </p>

<p>The OP says that he and his wife are adamant that she live on campus. However, do people get that merit if they live right off campus? (that would seem weird).</p>

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<p>Busyperson, I do understand your point about Villanova being like apple pie, etc. in your community. But most people can afford CYO, apple pie and tithings at their church… Villanova, not so much. We are talking apples and oranges here!</p>