<p>It would have to be the parents who sign for private loans. D may intend to help with the repayment, but what happens after a few years when she wants a wedding? Or a house? Or care for a child with special needs?</p>
<p>Most of us could agree that Villanova is worth some price premium over the alternatives … but not $110K.
Suppose the OP takes full responsibility for up to $110K through a HELOC or a REFI, but D takes responsibility for minimizing the amount by some combination of:
A) taking an RA position for 3 years (saves ~$36K in R&B costs)
B) graduating in 3 years (saves ~$57K)
C) commuting from home for 3 years (saves up to ~$30K)</p>
<p>Maybe only one of these will pan out. Would V be worth a likely net premium of $50K-$80K, with a small possibility the premium could be less, and a larger possibility it could be more? If the likely outcome is higher (but manageable) mortgage payments up to the time you retire, maybe it would be. In that case, D should commit to making at least one of the above plans work, and also forgo expectations of future help from Mom & Dad with other big ticket expenses (grad school, wedding, house, etc).</p>
Exactly, average. Not every MIT graduate has the aspiration of working at Google, FB or any of those high paying tech companies. I wouldn’t be surprised if some of those graduates would rather take a lower paying job at a start up in exchange for some equities, and those students probably would have such options because they are not saddled with large loans. The point here is if those graduates should desire to make high income they have that option. The risk of MIT graduates not able to pay back 100K of student loans is a lot lower than from Alabama.</p>
<p>This is a false conclusion. Most colleges set their tuition in a comparable range–who wants to be the “cheap” school? The diploma has to seem “valuable” no matter the name. The very-well-endowed schools can meet the need of more students, while others that are trying to improve the qualifications of their student body offer merit to entice them to choose their institution over others.</p>
<p>The credibility of the USNWR rankings has been debated ad nauseum on this site. Keep in mind that USNWR is a for-profit publication, and that it assigns value to many factors that have little to do with outcomes for students. These include peer assessment (including that of high school guidance counselors, but not for regional universities) and alumni giving (which you would expect to be high at an expensive Catholic university in a large metropolitan area).</p>
<p>"Suppose the OP takes full responsibility for up to $110K through a HELOC or a REFI, but D takes responsibility for minimizing the amount by some combination of:
A) taking an RA position for 3 years (saves ~$36K in R&B costs)
B) graduating in 3 years (saves ~$57K)
C) commuting from home for 3 years (saves up to ~$30K)</p>
<p>Maybe only one of these will pan out. Would V be worth a likely net premium of $50K-$80K, with a small possibility the premium could be less, and a larger possibility it could be more? If the likely outcome is higher (but manageable) mortgage payments up to the time you retire, maybe it would be. In that case, D should commit to making at least one of the above plans work, and also forgo expectations of future help from Mom & Dad with other big ticket expenses (grad school, wedding, house, etc)."</p>
<p>while those ideas may seem fine on paper, the chance of getting a RA position is low. Those are in high demand.</p>
<p>I don’t think she can graduate in three years…doesn’t a teaching credential actually require an extra year?</p>
<p>While the commuting from home may be an option, the OP and family are highly against it. I also suspect that some/all of the love for Nova INCLUDES living on campus and 'being there" for everything. </p>
<p>She could agree to work full time over summers and part time during the school year to contribute some money. She could agree to commute from home during a couple of the later years of her education. </p>
<p>The parents should either figure out a way to pay a lot more (w/o digging into retirement) or have her choose another school. Maybe one of the parents can take a second job. Maybe the mom doesn’t work full time and can do so. </p>
<p>To make the statement that kids coming out of school do not make $100K in STEM is not accurate, depending on the school.</p>
<p>Here is Carnegie Mellon’s figures for Computer Science majors - a median salary of $100K (with 94% of the graduating class responding to the survey):</p>
<p>As oldfort says: a lot of kids being hired by Facebook, Google, etc., but also kids with smaller firms, such as Dropbox. The median is still 100k.</p>
<p>My S, who didn’t go to MIT or Carnegie Mellon, did pass up a job at one of the companies that keeps getting mentioned here to work for a smaller firm, with a lower salary, but with equity (and a housing allowance, three meals a day, etc.).</p>
<p>I completely understand wanting to make the d happy and around her peer level. My son is full pay at private college, however we can afford it, we saved his entire life for it, and he’s not going into a field that really needs a masters at least for awhile. I’m sure plenty of people would say we’re crazy. My stance is I don’t ask other people’s opinions on it - lol. Don’t teachers need masters these days? How will that be funded if there are current loans? To me the question I agree most with is not is Villanova worth 57k a year, it’s is it worth the difference between the other option?</p>
<p>Is Villanova worth $100,000 more than St Joes. We can debate that.</p>
<p>Should my kid graduate with $1500 monthly loan repayments? We can debate that.</p>
<p>However, this thread has been a moving target.</p>
<p>Seems like Dad has the $100,000 banked. Seems like he can come up with another $50,000 in the next two years. Then he is talking about a possible refi or HELOC to come up with the rest. If he can come up with $25,000 extra a year now nothing stops him from coming up with it a few more years. He will pay this off in no time. </p>
<p>He says he can afford it. </p>
<p>Had the talk with daughter about the $1500. She cries. Now says oh, we can make it work. </p>
<p>I don’t think the $1500 a month payments from his daughter were ever actually on the table. </p>
<p>One quote from OP …“We do feel our kids should have some skin in the game (Staffords), but not want them strapped with large debt after graduation…” </p>
<p>I know lots of people who didn’t manage to sock away the dough to cover full freight college, but somehow think that once the kid is away at college and thriving, the fridge will stop breaking and the muffler won’t fall off and the roof won’t leak and even though the current mortgage payments are do-able, by pulling out 100K from the Heloc they’ll mysteriously be able to cover the much higher payments with no sweat. The first year works great- everyone’s online with the new thrift. After that, not so much especially if there are grad school expenses, and if kid number 1 decides he’s applying to law school and may need some help there, or if the D switches majors halfway through and needs an extra semester at V to graduate… but there’s only so much you can tell an adult before you wish them well.</p>
<p>D sounds like a great kid. The parent sounds like a loving and caring parent. He seems not so interested in the “outside of Philadelphia suburbs” perceptions of Villanova which is his prerogative. He seems not so interested in alternative points of view on where a kid with his D’s stats could thrive and grow, which is again his prerogative. As long he’s aware that ed loans are not dischargable in bankruptcy, we can all go back to our regularly scheduled broadcast.</p>
<p>A comment assumes a high school teacher makes a salary of $55K. That appears to be an average salary, including teachers with a masters and many years of experience. The starting salaries are typically lower, and vary greatly from state to state. The higher salaries are often in places with very high cost of living. In my state of PA, 20,000 teaching positions have been eliminated in the last 3 years. In my local school district, 300 teachers have been laid off. Many of those teachers have been rehired - but as permanent subs making half of what they used to make. There has been a massive shift of students and teaching positions to taxpayer-funded charter schools, most of which pay less than the public schools. Hopefully the teaching market will improve as part of a cycle by the time new students graduate, but there are now thousands of unemployed education majors. The number of education majors in colleges has been decreasing as a result of the weak job market. </p>
<p>From what I have seen, the positions for new teachers are often in city public schools and low paying districts, because they have such a high turnover. The higher paying districts can often hire experienced teachers from other districts. </p>
<p>Again, this thread has become my entertainment this week. Well, my entertainment and my worry. My girls are at Duke right now and then to UNC-Chapel Hill (while I’m in freezing upstate NY). Based on these 2 school’s low to non-existent merit aid, and the amount we can pay for each kid, I’m pretty sure that both of these schools are going to be a no-go for us. UNC is affordable out of state, but with much cheaper options on our plates, my girls would have to do one big song and dance for us to make this move. In other words, do I think my girls would thrive in UNC’s environment, heck yes, but they will most likely thrive in 20 other environments too. I am honestly going to send my friends with juniors to this thread. I think it’s a great learning on how to think of which colleges to apply to depending on your circumstances. </p>
<p>And guys, I think OP either has the $$ or can get the $$ bc there is no way this caring dad is going to strap his D with that level of debt. </p>
<p>Then the discussion is apparently over. It MUST be worth it for your family because you allowed your D to walk into this situation like a deer in the headlights and you are not dumb. If you were <em>really</em> worried about the $$, if you <em>really</em> needed either merit or need-based aid to afford college, you would have taken completely different actions earlier on. (Believe me, I’ve been there and done that.) OP earlier said that he could take the money out of 401K without affecting retirement. Presumably there would be other sources, such as a HELOC. Go ahead and let her go there, and have her take some federal loans to have a modest amount of skin in the game if you want.</p>
<p>As to “is Villanova worth it” … personally–and this answer can only BE personal–Villanova is one of the many private and OOS public colleges that I would not go into debt or make huge sacrifices to pay for over the state flagship (and our state flagship is not illustrious). I would, however, borrow money for an English major to go to Harvard, because that would afford her the opportunity to take classes from scholars such as Helen Vendler. </p>
<p>MIT graduates appeared to get a significant premium in business, EECS, and mechanical engineering and a slight premium in aerospace engineering, but came up short in chemical engineering and civil engineering. It is likely that a higher percentage of Alabama graduates ended working in cheaper cost of living areas (like Alabama).</p>
<p>The reason to go to MIT over Alabama is not some marginal difference in starting salary. It is the extraordinary intellectual climate and resources of MIT.</p>
<p>The OP also has done the numbers and come up with what the borrowing ramifications are. Being able to afford something, and making it a priority to afford it are two different things. We can afford any college if we give up certain things, like where we now live and our retirement plan, etc. The problem that many upper income families face is what they are willing to give up for their kids’ college choices, and whether it’s worth it. The whole question this thread is asking. As for applying to such schools, Villanova does have give some merit money, and they use a whole different formula than a number of other schools in defining need. If you own a business, for example, you could fare better in their calculations. Or if you have other kids in private school k-12. They do take that into consideration.</p>
<p>My kids applied to some pricey privates and they actually got some hits in that some “discounted” prices enough to be a consideration. Not many, but it did happen. No problem going after some lottery tickets, but one should be aware that it can hurt to have to take them off the table for affordability reasons. The decisions cut more deeply and personally than deciding that a Mercedes, Rolls, Lexus are cars that are too price and to look at the less expensive lines. </p>
<p>Great point. Financial lottery ticket schools (whether it be FA or Merit)… yes, there is a place for them. But you need to know your strategy going in so the hurt is minimized. Setting expectations upfront is the key. </p>
<p>OP obviously you want what is best for your great kid. This is a conversation I am certain will occur at my house in a few years with my Ivy educated SO who believes you go to the best school you can get into regardless of theoretical price even if you are the last student they admit. I believe the cream always rises and know that going to an Ivy would not have changed my career trajectory.</p>
<p>Seconding the idea that you HAVE D READ this thread. If nothing else to see both YOUR concern for her and the vulnerable situation you are considering AND to see how V is generally seen/whether it is worth the money. Sometimes it is hard to be so frank with our own children. </p>
<p>Finally, perhaps she needs to consider making a decision between commuting to V or going to SJ’s and living on campus. </p>