<p>I have to agree with Proudmom that out in the working world, at least the one I'm in, I see that school does matter. I can think of many high paying jobs (corporate law is mine) that it is almost impossible to get without a degree from a handful of select colleges.</p>
<p>The $300,000 number seems oddly come by, I'd like to see numbers, for example, for lawyers who went to ivies v. lawyers who went to average State schools. $300,000 a year difference would be more likely.</p>
<p>So can an ivy (or other top school) be a good investment? You betcha! It just depends on what you want to do career wise. Clearly it's not a good investment for a future teacher financially, but it is for would be lawyers, bankers, management consultants and so on.</p>
<p>Kirmum, interesting in what you said about paying top $$ if someone's planning on being a teacher....but I know someone who's the top administrator at a prestigious private school in Manhattan......she ONLY hires LAC grads. She herself graduated from a Seven Sisters college. I've got to ask her what influences her hiring policy.</p>
<p>Interesting, dke. While touring prep schools with daughter recently, I asked how they came by so many ivy teachers. I was told that most of them are teaching for a few years before heading to grad school and that in fact they had 2 year "programs" for such teachers.</p>
<p>Heck, I would imagine some wealthier kids want to be teachers though and that their parents have no issue with paying for an expensive private education. People with a lot of money have often shelled out over $300K in private school tuition for each child before college. That's not including the $8K summers, tutors, individual test prep (for SSAT in addition to SATs) and every other bell and whistle. </p>
<p>Let's hope the wealthy choose to become teachers because who else can afford it these days?</p>
<p>My point was not that future teachers shouldn't go to expensive schools, just that if finances are the deciding factor, future career must be weighed in making a decision.</p>
<p>It's my belief that a college education is a consumer product. Affordability needs to be wighed as it does when you buy a house or car. Is it a good investment? What is the expected return?</p>
<p>Kirmum, I'd never heard of a two year program like that......makes alot of sense....I was just looking at a brochure for a prep school in Delaware.....they had teacher profiles and every one of them went to either Ivies or top LAC's....maybe this is what they're doing.</p>
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<p>The $300,000 number seems oddly come by, I'd like to see numbers, for example, for lawyers who went to ivies v. lawyers who went to average State schools. $300,000 a year difference would be more likely.>></p>
</blockquote>
<p>zagat,
Excellent point! Also their future career goal should be a guideline. If someone know for sure they are going to stay home when they have kids why waste money in top notch school, I'm not suggesting staying at home mom should not be educated, but didn't some survey said 70% female lawyers(?) quit work to stay home after giving birth to their first child? Money magazine a while back had an article about a Harvard Medical graduate(male) only work 8 hour/week after graduation. Is burnt out factor in the equation for college education? How long does it take to repay Harvard Medical education while working 8 hours. One must be rich not to think about all these things.</p>
<p>SusieQ2007, you're looking at the college experience like some sort of vocational training....a college education should teach you to be a critical thinker as well as a cultured person....its not just about what pot of gold is at the end of the rainbow.</p>
<p>Let's say a wealthy parent said to his child, "I have here in my hand $100,000. You may invest it and go to a state school or you may use it to pay for an expensive private school. If you go to that expensive private school, you will probably earn $300,000 more over your lifetime. It's your choice." What should the student do?</p>
<p>To make things easy, assume a person has a working career of 40 years and the $300,000 was spread out evenly over those 40 years. That is, a person who goes to an expensive college would earn $7,500 more per year than someone who went to an average college. </p>
<p>If our student had conservatively invested the $100,000 Dow Jones Industrial stocks in 1965, he would now have approximately the same amount of money as would have had if he had similarly invested his $7,500 each year. If the student had chosen to very conservatively put his money in a passbook account, the $7,500 per year would have been the better deal. If he had chosen to invest the money more agressively, the $100,000 would have yielded more.</p>
<p>The bottom line? Expensive/prestige college versus cheap/public university is basically a push from an economic standpoint. So the student should choose to attend the college which is the best match for him.</p>
<p>(Not wanting to spend hours figuring this out, I used the actual Dow Jones averages, plus an assumed 2% for dividends.)</p>
<p>dke,
Do you have to go to college to be a critical thinkers and a cultured person? Ask "Bill Gates","Michael Dell",and "Richard Branson" whether they consider themselves to be cultured or critical thinkers because they are all college drop outs?
Vocational training is a 2-year thing to me but if I can't practice law and medicine without a degree then graduate school definitely is a training for a profession, note I'm not saying undergraduate.</p>
<p>THe majority of "successful" people I know didn't study in college anything remotely related to their field of employment. They knew that this was the only time in their life that they'd be able to read Chaucer or learn Greek or write a play...and that's what they did....Their drive and initiative ( and a sheepskin, of course, but as I said, unrelated) got them where they are now.</p>
<p>mcdeb, the average salary of a lawyer in the US is sixty some thousand. The average salary of a Yale lawyer is close to three hundred thousand. And that is averaging in the many Yale lawyers who do public service work, big city Yale corporate lawyers average over six hundred thousand dollars/yr. Many making more than a million dollars/yr. Ditto management consultants, investment bankers (10X us lowly lawyers), and fast tracked executives.</p>
<p>Next, look to see where these people did their undergrad work. Overwhelmingly at top 20 schools. </p>
<p>There is no doubt that if such a career is your objective, the extra $80K college might cost you is a good investment.</p>
<p>I should add that my son who wants to be a research scientist goes to a $20K/yr UC. Daughter looking to be a corporate titan will cost close to $45K at Columbia. Ouch!</p>
<p>"It's my belief that a college education is a consumer product. Affordability needs to be wighed as it does when you buy a house or car. Is it a good investment? What is the expected return?"</p>
<p>Kirmum, I have no doubt that what you say is true, but just to balance things out, my four lawyer friends went to Oklahoma, USC, Rutgers and Berkeley.</p>
<p>They have all done extremely well. What they all have in common is the drive to succeed and entrepreneurial spirit. Three have their own practices. </p>
<p>I also have a relative who went to Berkeley, Boalt, had a great corporate career, left and started his own firm, and then chucked it all to become a law professor. He makes less money now, but has never been happier.</p>
<p>If my son wanted to be a corporate lawyer,I probably would want him to go to a top school. But if it didn't happen, and he has the entrepreneurial smarts, I am sure he would be OK.</p>
<p>Oh, I forgot. Two of my best friends went to UCLA and never really practiced law. But they are doing pretty well too. :)</p>
<p>Kirmum, Are there any Boalt people at your law firm?</p>
<p>Over the last three years, my S has had student teachers in each of his English classes. They are doing their practicum to get an MEd. One graduated from Princeton, one from Georgetown (not sure about the third one). They were fabulous. The Princeton grad had gone to CTY, so she shared her experiences with my S. I also met a Harvard undergrad who had Advanced Standing and decided to do a MEd in International Education. So there are students planning on becoming high school teachers who go to elite schools. Let's remember that Teach for America was started by a Princeton student and has recruited heavily among Tier 1 schools.</p>
<p>I hate to be a nag about this, but I think the $300 k difference is getting distorted. If you actually read the paper, it's a pretty comprehensive analysis. One part says, "In contrast, the numbers suggest that a student should reject the free ride if he has a free ride at rank 3 private college but would have to pay comprehensive costs at a rank 1 college; he is predicted to earn his investment back 3.4 times over during his career." It's been a while since I've taken any economics classes, but I'm pretty sure this is not a case where someone is merely comparing the returns of $100k invested in either the stock market or an Ivy. In fact, in many examples cited, the student could expect to earn the investment back over several times in the course of a career. I brought this paper up in the first place, because too often this discussion becomes an emotional issue of how much we love our kids. Obviously, we all want what's best -- it's just hard to quantify what that is. </p>
<p>The issue I've found over the years is that the better credential lets you skip some steps in proving yourself -- whether it's a job interview or grad school. Depending on the career someone chooses, this could be financially beneficial. The question that I don't see answered, and I wish someone could point me in the right direction, is whether the undergraduate degree matters as much if graduate school is definitely in the future. Any ideas?</p>
<p>In my chosen field (psychology), the undergraduate degree does not matter. Occasionally I am asked where I got my Ph.D. and where I did my pre and post-doc clinical training.</p>