Pitt seems fabulous for pre-med and STEM. I was an engineering undergrad who also worked with GaTech, Purdue and UT-Austin types in summer internships. That was at a solid big petrochemical company with great future opportunities. When I got to grad school I realized that the Ivy engineering undergrads – that went back for an MBA – didn’t even work in “real” corporate jobs. They mostly did management consulting. Of those at Google, Facebook and Apple, there are large flagships along with Stanford, CMU and USC. West Coast centric of course.
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Thanks for sharing! My post was based on conversations with other students, but as with most things…experiences will certainly differ.
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As I read about loans on here, yesterday I read that the subsidized cost a point and non-subsidized 4 points. So borrow $10K and you’re only getting $9,600.
Yes, it’s an individual call - but for me personally, I cringe at saddling an 18 year old, with no clue of real life finances, all this debt. On top of that and in addition to interest, you are not even borrowing what you think you are borrowing due to the insane fees. Just another thing throwing out.
But as everyone says, it is an individual call.
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Did I miss reading that this student is considering IB or MC? I don’t really feel like going back to look. I was under the impression that he was potentially looking for medical research with Bio as his major. If I’m correct, I stand by suggesting Pitt for free vs any sort of 5 digit debt.
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I was an Econ/Math major at Pitt many years ago. I worked in a neuroscience lab taking care of lab animals. They couldn’t find people. Not doing research but if I were in a STEM major it would’ve been a perfect way to get in the door. The point being there are so many opportunities. If you show any amount of initiative you can get your foot in the door somewhere on campus.
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Agree. This is what a lot of people don’t understand about CS and pedigree. Can a student do well with a CS degree from state U. Absolutely. Fortune 500’s recruit at all types of schools. However, where the select schools like MIT, CMU, and Stanford really are different is with MC and VC (venture capital). Those schools are pipelines to start-ups. This is why I cringe a little when people say “just go to state U for CS. The starting salaries are the same as XYZ”. It’s not the money. It’s the “opening doors” that comes into play.
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I just went back to post #1 and looked:
“He wants to major in some form of biology with the hopes of doing medical research.”
The chains get off topic - you are correct - bio will have different outcomes than Goldman Sachs 
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This highlights the real question about who should save their money: are you going to be amongst the top 50 students at Pitt? Arguably it might be even fewer than that who are likely to secure the same sorts of opportunities as a strong Ivy student. But it will depend on what sort of opportunities you want (biology is very different to MC/IB and different again to CS). And it depends if the kid is willing to push hard to find opportunities that won’t necessarily be offered to them on a plate.
The easiest decision is for a student who wins a really selective cohort scholarship where it’s clear from the start they can be in the top 1% of students. For a college that offers wider merit then it can be much harder to figure that out in advance.
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Yes, thread has become a general one that usually follows the ones where people debate about whether a T20 is worth the cost. In fact, as OP has already said, the $20k EFC is affordable and was their original expectation. The free ride at alternatives is a happy recent alternative. IMO, OP and S are pursuing this sensibly by visiting Pitt and reassessing their alternatives, all the pluses and minus of their choices, be it academic or social fit, long term career opportunities or financial.
Too often I see people taking a one size fits all philosophical position here; debt is always bad, always take the free free ride/lower cost, seems very popular on CC. Absolutely cost, especially if debt is involved, is an important factor. But it is a very different calculus when we are talking a donut family that is full or almost full pay and going T20 is an over $300k investment, especially if they have to take on sizeable debt, vs a $20k a year EFC. Whole different universes in terms of debt service and opportunity costs. Career direction, academic interest and certainty of major/interest, importance of expected monetary return vs experiential return, big campus/small campus, rural/urban, left coast/right coast/flyover/warm/cold, the list goes on, are specific to each kid, each family. I think it is healthy for people here to give a view on the different factors, but I am always wary of absolute positions.
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Oh jeez, don’t get me started on the travel for weddings that my D and SIL have done. Everywhere in the country, weekends for Bachelor/Bachelorette destination parties. Then there was the wedding in Paris! They saved a lot of money from no travel in the last year.
Their money, their choice. They dont regret any of it.
I agree - there are many issues at play and everyone sees things differently. Also, adults posting see things differently than kids.
I’m risk averse, I’m well educated, I do well financially but haven’t grown in my career. My perspective is based on what I see.
Absolutely - and the poster does need to make the best decision for them.
The cost includes a $60,000 loan that will be paid back by the student, who may graduate with a job as a research assistant. This job comes with low pay. If this student has to pay back a $60,000 loan on a salary that is considerably lower, he will be limited as to where he can live, the apartment he can rent, the job he can accept (an interesting position versus one that is not), etc.
To me, the issue is not whether to accept a full ride to Pitt or an affordable Ivy. The issue is whether to accept the full ride to Pitt or an Ivy that may be very difficult to pay for once the 4 years are over.
We don’t know this student and we don’t know what makes him happy.
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Yeah, this is my point exactly. Choice is between Pitt at a fantastic deal, and Yale at a great deal. I’m a Pitt partisan. I think people who choose Tulane/BU/Villanova type schools over Pitt are choosing the worse school and limiting future opportunities (especially with respect to graduate school). But this isn’t close in my opinion. However, I don’t think OP’s son would make a bad choice with Pitt, especially if he wants to go to medical school.
Another note about how the parents on here tend to frame discussions of attending schools ranked 50-100 in USNews. When I was in the Pitt Honors dorm (Sutherland), my 1550/1600 SAT score was among the lowest on my floor. Many of my floormates got into schools like Hopkins, CMU, etc. full-pay and picked Pitt. A lot of them thought Pitt was beneath them. They, almost invariably, did not have academic success. If you walk in with the attitude that you are the big fish in the small pond, you will fail. I see lots of parents on here use that to justify sending their kid to a lower-ranked school. It’s a poisonous attitude and harms your student.
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This topic always seems to generate long threads long after the original poster is gone. The original poster was letting the son decide.
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Lol I’m still reading it tho. We are on our 5 hour drive home from our Pitt tour. He really likes the campus and it’s still high in the list. He now has lots to think about. Hopefully soon:)
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H2P! Good luck to him, no bad choices.
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Many parents on CC have had kids have unbelievable success choosing lower ranked schools that have lower costs despite being able to afford (or easily borrow) to attend a higher ranked school. I have written about watching my 2 siblings turning down 10 schools ranked in the top 20 USNWR for a full ride to a non-flagship state school (they happened to also turn down a full ride to UPitt as well) despite my family having the money to pay for those schools. I have also shared their acceptances to a top 5 school in their academic discipline for PhDs and they have had many fabulous professional successes since (my 2 kids are on a similar path now as bigger fish in their pond). My siblings choice ended up changing the financial wealth of our parents and has helped create multigenerational wealth within our family.
Parents like @itsgettingreal21, whose kid has had monstrous success going to a very good school for free while avoiding racking up expenses at even higher ranked schools, shows that their is more than one way. But not everyone is “built” the same, so it is easy to imagine someone making the best choice for them which includes choosing the highest ranked school and dealing with some higher costs. I am an advocate of each student figuring out what they want and finding a way to achieve that goal no matter where they go while looking at overall fit (which includes costs) at each school.
OP, you have some fabulous choices and I wish you luck as you figure out your next steps for fulfilling your immense promise.
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This is orthogonal to my point. I’m concerned with the “big fish” fallacy. If the average grade awarded at Harvard is an A, then I do not suspect that an average Harvard admit should earn more A grades at Pitt (since they are already earning A grades quite frequently). There’s no premium for having a 3.8 at Pitt vs a 3.8 at Harvard. When a kid goes to Pitt, or Ohio State, or UMD and succeeds, it’s not the result of magic money-saving “big fish” arbitrage. The kid is just smart! The benefit is that you save money. The cost is that you are less likely to work at McKinsey. It is a fine and rational decision to make (I made the same decision!), but I think it sets students up for failure to pretend there’s more to it.
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This thread is no longer answering* the question, so, to reiterate: this student is brilliant and (it sounds like) a bit quirky? intellectual?
He wants to become a researcher - not get into IB or Consulting and not medical school.
His areas of academic interests are varied and NOT all in fields as strong at Pitt as biology is : interest is in biology, but also political science, foreign languages, and even fashion.
Pitt has tremendous medical research opportunities but it’s NOT as strong in those other areas (and I’m not sure whether fashion is meant here in terms of “connected clothing”, “aesthetics and fashion design”, or “materials/textile engineering”…)
20K is what the family said they could afford (although there’d be debt, amount uncertain). However the free ride at Pitt is an added bonus which is 100% important to investigate.
*while I was typing all this it went back on track 
@sparkleybarkley : tell us more about the tour! what struck him or made him interested? Were you able to visit Pittsburgh a bit, or the area (Oakland, Shadyside, Squirrel Hill, etc), and/or the Cathedral of learning?
@tsbna44 : Engineering is fairly equalitarian. Research isn’t, but it’s not as clear cut as, say, playing D1 football v. playing D3 when you want to be selected for the NFL. The goal is always getting into a funded PHD, preferably one that’s both well-funded and highly ranked (we’re talking top 5 or top 10); a non funded PHD is worth absolutely nothing, and funded v. well-funded depends on where you’ve been admitted; there’s no good outcome for PHDs from lower ranked institutions, because academia is not equalitarian when it comes to where you get your PHD and where you go from there. So the million-dollar question is “how to get into a funded top 5-10 PHD program?”
Keep in mind that you’re upper middle class already, whereas OP is middle class. It makes a difference for your kids v. this kid: they’re part of the group for whom where they got in (even if they don’t attend) matters more than college actually attended. Your children will land on their feet and do very well, and if they stumble, you have the economic and social capital to help them. Middle class kids replace this with their college’s reach, connections, resources, etc. In other words, the differential in outcomes is not the same for the child of an upper class or upper middle class family and for the child of a middle class family.
So, what works extremely well for some families or some majors may not work for others, due to various variables that aren’t all obvious and not easy to take into account, even when you’re used to this.
There’s collective wisdom in this thread, outside the “off topic” posts so I think it’ll be saved and referred to in years to come!
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EE, Math, Physics with a heavy dose of CS and with a sparkle of Econ / Finance is an easier path to Wall Street - and these grads are MUCH more useful.
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