They have an income of around 400k and my understanding is that the cost of living in Louisiana is not considered to be among the high COL areas of the country.
OP you might want to post your query on Physics Forums in the Academic Advising subthread to get some feedback on the quality of the undergrad Physics program at LSU.
Also I have to wonder, you say you aren’t interested in grad school so what are your plans for your undergrad degree? If grad school were your goal then choosing LSU over MIT would potentially highly impact your chances for admission to a top Physics PhD but you say that’s not your goal so maybe LSU will be good enough. You should be aware however that close to 70% of Physics majors go on to graduate school.
True, but HALF of gross income going to higher ed? If we knew more, that would be helpful. However, if I were OP, I wouldn’t go into too much more detail.
More importantly, many of us parents on CC encourage students not to get hung up on prestige etc. I am not sure why that is not relevant in this thread.
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I would wager that people can likely live fairly well day to day with a 400k gross income in Louisiana. Plus they told her they had the money.
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400k income is plenty to afford this for the vast majority. You can cash-flow it id you are savvy. Seriously. People have two in college overlapping with this, and in this situation there is no undergrad overlap. I do not understand how a parent could say they are ok with MIT then balk when the kid gets a full ride. As a parent, it is frankly unfathomable unless they have had a change in situation. And YES I definitely relate and understand and would never ever make the kid who had the chops to earn full cost of attendance somewhere, pick that over a dream school that I said I was ok to pay for. I am sorry but I do not understand this whole situation. OP, look into the loans others have recommended (DoD, etc) and explain to you parents how important MIT is to you. Best of luck. It is not even the same ballpark as LSU.
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Many people send 2 kids to college full pay on an income of far less than 400k. It depends upon one’s priorities. The parents have had 20 years to prepare for this expense, right?
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I would wager that the parents are the best judge of that.
This is my last post on this thread, but I find it quite remarkable that:
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We assume that a senior in high school has done fabulous work will know for sure today what they want to do after graduation. What if OP HATES physics? What happens to the “sure thing” that they will make a ton of money upon graduating?
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We jettison the economics over prestige argument that is de rigeur for parents’ advising students on CC.
Again, OP should discuss this carefully with their parents. But to say that there is some contractual right to the money or that equity dictates the parents spend the same money for both children seems a bit much to me.
Most importantly, OP, you should be VERY, VERY proud of all that you have done. But remember that this is just a step in life. Work hard and do well wherever you go, and most of all, love what you do. NO one will care where you went if you do that.
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A mediocre state flagship might be ok if OP knew she wanted med school, or that she was committed to academia and getting a phd. That is not the case. She expects to work. A degree from MIT will open far better and more diverse employment opportunities to her. Her parents can afford it; if they refuse to pay, take a gap year and join ROTC. The Air Force Space Command would sponsor her.
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I’m the one who used “bananas,” and the scenario you propose, where this student arrives in Cambridge and decides she doesn’t want to study physics anymore, actually only strengthens the case for MIT, in my opinion.
Even a full-pay MIT student is receiving an enormous discount on the actual cost of his or her education.
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None of this matters. They are now telling her no, that her only option is to go to LSU
What we all think they can and should do, what they can afford is simply not relevant.
You are all bashing someone you don’t know. You know what OP is saying about them. You don’t know the why they have made the decision they have.
Those reasons are likely personal.
It’s one thing to be supportive of OP but another to be dismissive of people that you know nothing about.
If you want OP to attend MIT so badly then start a go fund me for her.
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However, it does appear that the OP is getting one or both of the following not-very-nice messages from the parents:
- Parents said or implied earlier that they will pay for the OP’s potentially expensive college, but now backed out of.
- Parents may be playing favorite to the OP’s older sister by being willing to pay list price for expensive college and half of expensive law school (if they do not back out of that) but nothing for the OP’s college.
Both of the above messages are unlikely to be good for future family relationships.
Basically, the story serves as a warning to parents:
- With multiple college-bound kids, be sure to financially plan for how much the parents are willing to contribute for all of them, rather than just looking at the one nearest to going to college.
- With multiple college-bound kids, consider any fairness issues that may arise for differences in the amount willing to contribute for different kids. Sometimes, the differences are easily understood or accepted, but other times, it is more likely to be seen as favoritism for some over others.
- Let the kid know the financial limitations before the kid makes an application list, in order to avoid wasted applications. Avoid promising more than can be delivered, which will damage trust if the promise has to be broken.
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Great idea. You could also offer to pay for four years of your parent’s assisted living/skilled nursing home expense when they run out of retirement money. Or have them move in with you. Shouldn’t be an issue with the high salary expected from MIT on diploma.
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Not sure it’s minimizing the difference but rather difficult to justify a $350,000 difference.
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Great description of MIT. My high school boyfriend attended the school and I flew up from Texas two years in a row, Thanksgiving week, to visit him. I went to a few classes with him and talked to a lot of students. I remember actually being shocked at how stressed out a lot of them were. I was quite happy to go back to UT Austin after that. My boyfriend got his Bachelor’s from MIT in physics and then got his PhD at UT (he dumped me a few weeks after my second visit to MIT).
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The parents have already justified that degree of tuition difference for one of their children for undergraduate, and even for law school as well, apparently. The question is why they are unwilling to do so for their other child, particularly when it would seem their finances would permit it.
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Not only that but are continuing to do so (ie, law school that starts this coming year).
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Wait, where is there an Academic Advising subthread??
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This feels like as close to a Reddit AITA thread as we’ll get here. We are only getting one side of the story here, but that’s all we have to go on. I take it that our role here is to advise the OP on what to do next with the info we now have.
If the decision is not made then it comes down to laying out the feelings and logic of the situation and listening to the parent’s response. Some angles to take are:
- Is it the parents intention to give each kid the same opportunities and to treat them equally/fairly? And if so, do they believe giving one child $420K to attend Brown and UPenn law school is the same as giving the other child $0 to attend LSU, when MIT is an option. If so, why? And lay out the different opportunities that are available at MIT over LSU, to show that they are not the same.
- Lay out exactly what you plan to achieve in life and how MIT will make that happen better than LSU. From little is provided, it sounds like you do not have a strong plan and for parents that are talking in terms of opportunity costs, it may sound like paying $400k for a highly paid law career makes sense while paying $300K for some sort of nebulous plan to maybe be a quant does not. From here if you definitely want to be a quant, MIT will provide better opportunites and better starting pay - you can outline the amazing entrepreneurial mindset of MIT students, the connections to high powered alumni. Recruitment from NYC IB firms, etc. You’ll need to do your research, and convince your parents that you have a plan and are not drifting.
- Point out that sister had an opportunity to attend a cheaper school, but did not, and ask to explain the difference.
- Ask again if the intention was for them to pay for MIT before you got the scholarship. If yes, then ask them if they believe MIT would give her better opportunities or LSU would. If they say MIT would, then ask them if the lesson you should take away from this is that in order for her to maximize her opportunities she should not try as hard. Because the end result is, her achieving excellence, results in fewer opportunities.
- Make business proposals on how to create a more equitable situation. Ie, attend LSU plus get $100k to start X career. etc
If the decision is made, then there are two things the OP will need to deal with. First is going to LSU instead of MIT. Here, I would say that if you work hard, you will still get amazing opportunities at LSU. There are brilliant kids that go there – will you have to seek them out instead of just be surrounded by them? Maybe, but they are there, and you can find them and form a wonderful community. You will have research opportunities, and you can pursue your degree passions at LSU. I know OP did not say this, but just to make it clear her life is not ruined, if she keeps a great attitude and approaches this as another challenge like she’s already conquered, she will have amazing success at school and in life afterwards. The main thing is to not be so bitter and hung up on what could have been that she ignores the opportunites she will get at LSU.
The second is her relationship with her parents and family. I think it’s going to be natural to be upset with parents who go back on their word and provide more for one sibling than themselves. I don’t have a ton of advice to give here - because I think the onus should be on the parents to appropriately convey why they gave so much money to one child and nothing to the other. And there could be explanations. It could be that older sister has a specific plan and how to achieve it and they can that investing $400K into that plan is worthwhile, while OP does not really have an idea of what they want to do and so investing $300K into that is not worth it. It’s not the tact I would take, but it will be up to them to adequately explain it so that OP will want to continue to have a warm relationship with them. I’ve seen too many times where apparent favoritism leads to familial alienation and everyone suffers when that happens. It sucks.
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I think the OP needs to dig deeper into her career plans. Whether at LSU or MIT, I would think the expectation for top physics students would be looking towards a PhD program. At a place like MIT, wouldn’t they be likely to get the stink eye from peers and faculty? Why would faculty want to give research opportunities to a student who’s not interested in research?
The quant/finance path makes more sense, but as others point out, it’s usually going to be those with grad degrees that rise and supervise there as well.
The other thing that MIT would have going for it would be access to startup culture and support, where one could “fake it until you make it” [“fake it until you’re caught” is the Bankman-Fried model]. Is the OP thinking about that route? MIT would open doors there. But then one might prefer an MBA later.
I think the cachet of MIT cuts both ways. While a BS in Physics from MIT may sound better that a BS in Physics from LSU, down the road in life one might face questions of why only a BS, that would be a bit more persistent with an MIT pedigree.
The usual complain about the cost of college somewhat obscures the fact that the absolute worst outcomes are for those who don’t complete a bachelor’s. If someone has sunk $200k into MIT, but then has to drop out or transfer to LSU for whatever reason (yes, elite schools’ retention rates are the best, but it still happens), then regrets might be magnified. MIT is a dazzling prize (as is a full ride at a state flagship), but the OP should really feel sure about her choice.
That is not the expectation of a top physics program at all. Indeed, most top programs would only encourage the most dedicated students to pursue a doctorate as there are few jobs in academia for them. A physics BS from MIT is very highly regarded on Wall St, in consulting, fintech, and FAANG. It signals that the recipient is very intelligent, quantitative, and opens up great opportunities-frankly, more lucrative jobs than a doctorate from LSU. Many physics undergrads will eventually pursue business or even med school.
Check out the first destinations surveys of the colleges.
Of particular note is that many of the poor LSU physics kids had to stay at LSU-never a well-thought of option for grad school admission.
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