And that focus is more of a perception than reality depending on the LAC/university and student.
Especially if one considers undergrad debt even 10+ years out from undergrad.
At one party I attended, when the conversation came up about undergrad debt, it was a bit awkward to find myself the only one in the room who had none as the last bit of college debt I had was easily paid off within 6 months of graduation(Less than $1 grand).
Everyone else in that party with substantial debt were university graduates with mostly pre-professional majors(business, MIS, etc)…including from their respective in-state undergrad/public graduate programs.
At least in my case, the ROI on my LAC education was a great one not only educationally, but also financially.
Had nearly 2 decades to accumulate savings because I didn’t have massive undergrad debt of several 10s or even hundreds of thousands of dollars hanging over my head.
If typical LACs enabled typical students to graduate with less debt than state flagships, they would have more interested students. A post a while back in this thread compared the NPC of a poster resident in Indiana and found that IU Bloomington was slightly less than Earlham. People in our midwestern area are well aware of the NPC of area LACs compared to state flagships. LACs can work hard to get close to the flagships. Few are able to be less for a broad swath of students. Having said all that I still think the shift in desired majors is the biggest effect.
If you mean a shift toward pre-professional majors, that is probably related to the increasing cost of college. Students and parents are pressured by cost to consider how to prepare for immediate employment at graduation, in order to pay off student loans. Students not from wealthy families willing to support them in an extended job search may find it less attractive to major in something that has no major-specific advantages in the job market.
That said, many students choosing pre-professional majors (or liberal arts majors for pre-professional reasons) may not choose all that well either, in terms of considering whether their majors actually give much of a major-specific advantage in the job market, and otherwise making themselves marketable to employers at graduation.
From what I can tell the more highly ranked liberal arts colleges tend to leave graduates with less debt than the state flagship while less competitive LACs leave their graduates with more than the state flagship.
For instance, among Vermont colleges in 2015 the average debt for a University of Vermont graduate was $27, 276, whereas the average Middlebury (USNWR #4) borrower owed only $17, 975 but the average Marlboro College (#128) kid left school in debt to the tune of $29,478.
Seems like that is often the case with private schools in general, not just private LACs. (Public LACs are probably similar to other public schools in their states.)
Here are the data for Massachusetts, according to the U.S. Department of Education:
UMass-Amherst: average debt $24,300; 60% receive federal loans.
Williams: average debt $13,212; 26% receive federal loans
Amherst: average debt $11,706; 16% receive federal loans
Wellesley: average debt $9,000; 32% receive federal loans
Smith: average debt $19,000; 52% receive federal loans
Why so much less debt at the LACs? They meet full need; UMass-Amherst doesn’t. So the lower sticker price at the flagship doesn’t translate into lower actual costs, except for those at higher income scales.
You can also compare median salaries 10 years out:
UMass-Amherst $49,300
Williams $54,200
Amherst $56,300
Wellesley $56,500
Smith $44,400
These data would suggest the LACs are a better value proposition. Granted, these are pretty elite LACs; many others can’t afford to meet full need, and UMass isn’t among the strongest state flagships. But a similar relationship holds in many states, e.g., Penn State average debt $27,000; Swarthmore $18,100, Haverford $14,000. I think a lot of people are scared off from the top LACs by the sticker price, without bothering to do actual net cost comparisons
However, all of those private LACs are more selective than UMass - Amherst, so relatively few students will be able to take advantage of their better financial aid. The story may be different for private LACs and other private schools that are about as selective as UMass - Amherst.
I think you would need to break the data down by family income during college to really understand the loan burden. In many cases the lower debt burden at privates might correlate to higher family income and less need to take out loans.
My D received six LAC offers with COA lower than UMassAmherst (Honors College which costs a bit more), all in the 30-50% acceptance rate tier. We used the instate tuition as our budget parameter and were very happy with the choices available in the end. UMA was the only large school on the list and was her state academic/financial safety.
@bclintonk: As @ucbalumnus pointed out, a big variable is missing in your analysis: The percentage who need fin aid and amount needed. Even though those LACs have a much higher sticker price, I’m going to wager that a smaller percentage of their student body needs fin aid than UMass’s. Simply put, those LACs enroll a higher percentage of high-SES compared to UMass. Naturally, those folks do not have to take out loans.
207 has it right about the debt issue, and #208 has it right about what the right comparisons are (Amherst College to UMass-Amherst doesn't make much sense). It is why I thought the NPC comparing Earlham to IU Bloomington was a good one.
re#1: "My newspaper just published the information about my region’s valedictorians and salutatorians. I couldn’t help but notice that, out of about 300 students, only one or two plan to attend LACs. "
I bet if you look at just these 300 vals & sals, most private universities, including very “good” ones, are similarly absent, not just LACs. At the schools my kids attended, also in the Northeast like OP, the vals & sals generally gravitated to the sub-10% admissions rate places. (Whereas, when we were in the Midwest, while most of them did likewise, a fair chunk of them went to the state U).
But if you go down just a little bit, say to the top 3% of the classes, you will likely find that LACs have decent representation. Taking into account the small numbers of students they have the capacity to enroll.
"Very few students from my daughter’s high school apply to LACs, let alone attend them. My guess is less than 10 kids - maybe even less than 5 - out of the 160 or so graduating this year will be attending LACs. "
I think popularity may depend partly on the specifics of your school- relative demographics, etc. At the NE school my kids attended, LACs were reasonably well represented. Again,. taking into account the relatively small # seats these schools have to fill.
That’s a facile assumption, but I don’t think it’s right. Per each school’s most recent Common Data Set, 44.8% of Amherst’s students are full-pays; at UMass it’s 43.5%. Of course, with a higher sticker price at Amherst, need-based financial aid goes higher up the income scale, so a lot of students who would be full-pay at UMass would get need-based FA at Amherst College (if they could get in, of course; I’ll readily acknowledge that most students at UMass couldn’t get into Amherst, but that’s a separate issue, and not the point turtle17 was making in claiming that LACs don’t get more applicants because they’re too expensive).
More to the point, here are the average net costs by income bracket, per the US Dept. of Education College Scorecard:
Household income – average net cost
$0-$30K – UMass $11,064, Amherst College $3,700
$30K-$48K – UMass $12,008, Amherst College $4,840
$48K-$75K – UMass $15,611; Amherst College $10,759
$75K-$110K – UMass $21,127; Amherst College $20,406
$110K+ – UMass $24,338; Amherst College $40,438
So it’s really only among the more affluent, at household incomes of $110K and up, that Amherst College becomes more costly. For those at or below the median household income, Amherst College is significantly cheaper, on average, though of course YMMV in individual cases depending on, e.g., merit scholarships at UMass.
And not only is UMass less generous in awarding need-based FA, but the composition of the FA awards is dramatically different. At UMass, the average need-based scholarship and grant award in 2016-17 was $9,905 and the average need-based loan was $4,568, while at Amherst College the average need-based scholarship and grant award was $50,380, while the average need-based loan was $478. In short, the main reason Amherst College grads come out of college with less debt is not because they went in with higher SES, but because those who didn’t have high SES just didn’t need to borrow very much, since the college’s generous need-based FA policy mostly took care of them through grant aid.
Also revealing are the aggregate figures. In 2016-17, UMass-Amherst students received $105.7 million in scholarship and grant aid from all sources (including $89,7 million in need-based aid and $16 million in non-need-based scholarships); but they took out even more in loans ($117.3 million). Amherst College students received $54.7 million in scholarship and grant aid, almost all of it ($54 million) need-based, but they took out only $3.4 million in loans
Adding that Amherst College doesn’t package loans in aid at all, for anyone on FA, so any student who takes a loan does so to help meet EFC. Amherst is unusual among LACs - or universities - in that respect.
It might be more useful to compare loans taken by students at schools in Ohio, public vs private as none are loan-free and students have somewhat more similar stats.
The state average debt per student is $30K.
Publics like BGSU, Kent, Miami, Akron are at or over that #, OSU, UC, Toledo and OU are just under,
Private LACs with higher student debt than that include Baldwin Wallace, OWU, Otterbein, Wittenberg.
Under are Denison, Kenyon, Oberlin, Wooster.
For funsies private Us that are over that # include Dayton, Case Western.
21% of the Amherst student body is from the top 1% by income. Less than 1% of the UMass student body is.
41% of the Amherst student body is from the top 5% by income. 9.1% of the UMass student body is.
51% of the Amherst student body is from the top 10% by income. 24% of the UMass student body is.
60% of the Amherst student body is from the top 20% by income. 46% of the UMass student body is.
4.7% of the Amherst student body is from the bottom 20% by income. 5.8% of the UMass student body is.
Median family income at Amherst is 158.2K.
Median family income at UMass is 102.9K.
Here are the most amazing statistics:
On a per capita basis, UMass does a better job of advancing the poor than Amherst does:
13% of Amherst grads moved up 2 or more quintiles.
17% of UMass grads moved up 2 or more quintiles.
2% of Amherst grads moved from the bottom to top quintile.
2.1% of UMass grads moved from the bottom to top quintile.
Well, it’s hard to move up two quintiles if you’re already in the top quintile, isn’t it?
That demographic data is interesting, but it has nothing to do with the question of which school is cheaper for those not in the top quintile. The answer is Amherst College, by a considerable margin.
Wait. That’s a little misleading, isn’t it? For the majority of the Amherst College class, it is literally impossible to move up 2 or more quintiles in family income because they are already there. How can that cherry-picked statistic prove that UMass does a better job at advancing the poor?
Amherst College provides far better financial aid to the poor - the school essentially is free for those under 70k in family income, with no loans in the aid package. That’s not a knock on UMass. Amherst College just has a lot more money and spends more of it on aid to low income students than pretty much any college in America.
@bclintonk: “That demographic data is interesting, but it has nothing to do with the question of which school is cheaper for those not in the top quintile.”
Yes, but it does have something to do with what percentage of the student body has to take on debt and how much, which was my original point, if you recall. The rich do not have to take on debt.
And sure, Amherst is cheaper if you are not in the top income quintile, but Amherst also let’s in fewer who are not in the top income quintile (compared to UMass).
Yes, but most students at U Mass are not candidates for Amherst. They would be more likely to get into LACs that offer less generous financial aid. According to the guidelines for benefits, the median income for a family of four in Massachusetts is $104,545 which puts UMass as cheaper for many students.
And note that the poor and middle income students at Amherst don’t need to take on debt either, while those at a comparable income level at UMass-Amherst do. Which was my original point, if you recall. If it makes you feel any better, I’m perfectly happy to concede your point that students on Amherst are on average from more affluent families. But that in no way undercuts my point that, for a low- to moderate-income student who can get into Amherst, it’s going to be a much better deal financially than UMass-Amherst, including the fact that the student will leave Amherst College in far less debt when she graduates.