My sympathies to parents as costs approach $70,000 per year!!!!

I just toured four schools with two of my kids the past few days. Oh, my goodness. I really don’t see why I should pay $50k/year for a small liberal arts school in the boondocks, when they could go to the University of Maine for about 2/5 the cost. They’re both B students. Great kids, but not cream of the cream. I’ve made it clear to them that money is a HUGE issue - they won’t get any need-based aid.

Big yes! Those who CAN pay $55K to $65K per year, but choose not to go that route, don’t necessarily value a college education (or love their children) any less than those who choose to send their children to expensive schools.

When I applied to college, it was $6,500 a year. Four years later it was over $12,000. I look at those numbers and wonder if I am remembering correctly. I know that I am - I just cannot imagine.

When i went to Ga Tech sometime in the last century my out of state tuituion was $333 per quarter, room and board cost $220 per quarter. In state tuition was $133 per quarter. No wonder I could “work my way through school.”

Its fabulous when a family is able to absorb these costs out of pocket and allow a student to be debt free, especially after paying $100K for undergraduate. Congrats! The estimated college savings cost of the full tuition scholarship (which seems to have been a total of around $40k for the instate tuition then) helped defray the cost of about a half a year of med school.

Compared to my salary I saved an extraordinary amount in my kid’s 529s. I can not see how I could probably had saved more. Yet, I can not afford a 60K college let alone a 70K without taking substantial loans. I am not sure I want to take that route. My kids are good students but not super stats so while I afford more than our state school I do not have other options. So state school it is. It is a good school but giant. One of my kids will have trouble there, the rest I think will do fine.

We never know what anyone else’s circumstances are so we should not judge. OTOH I have been criticized for sending both of my kids to private colleges. My response is that if I am not asking anyone else to pay, it is not their business.

@am9799, there are few good cheap LAC options, but look at New College of Florida. Especially if they keep that OOS scholarship, it should be as affordable as in-state.

Also, it’s actually not very difficult to get merit money (essentially discounts) at many LACs (especially LACs that aren’t at the very top and aren’t in the Northeast) these days. They may keep a high list price, but check out what percentage of the student body gets merit aid and how much at some of those places.

Like most things in life: it’s relative to your own situation, what can potentially be the best fit and what does your budget afford? In our case, both my wife and I, are first generation college graduates, and so we know first hand what that looks like on the ground level to make it through college and go on to graduate and professional school. So, while there were certainly very solid state institutions that our Ds could have gone to, our personal philosophy in life is not legacy wealth (we told them to expect out house and a couple of rentals we own and nothing else), but legacy education. So, whatever we can do for our family, and that applies to both nieces and nephews, we are willing to make sacrifices to achieve that goal.

Now, it is certainly debatable whether, say, our middle D could have gone to a state school or even private institutions that had offered significant merit aid, and obtained a very similar education-I will concede that point. But, for a family like ours, her going to Yale was not only a notable achievement for herself, but it was an inflection point for both sides of our family. To think, just 3 generations ago, a time not so long ago, both sides of our families were still working in plantation fields, my wife’s family in Hawai"i and my own in the south, well, it was money not only well spent, but also one of the most straight-forward decision we have had to make as a family. So, at the end of the day, everyone loves their kids, and makes education a very high priority, and every deserves an applause, as getting your kid through the local community college is just as profound as moving your young one into Apley Hall…

Not sure how to take your last line. Most here are not comparing Yale to local CC, but weighing a school less prestigious than Yale to a merit money school ranked just a bit lower, an OOS public, or a State flagship. The leap from Yale to community college is absurd. Of course you and your kid should be proud she got into Yale and you have the funds to pay for it. That doesn’t mean she will be more successful than if she went to a lower ranked 4-yr school. I know a kid that went to Yale and 4 years later is living at home trying to find a job and kids who graduated from our State flagship that are doing incredibly well. Life is a journey. College is a short time (an influential one no doubt, but just one stop). It is what they do with that education that is most important.

@mom2and You are stating a statistical outlier, and making a rather abberational example. That is certainly not true of most Yale graduates. And here is the thing, you don’t have to believe whether it will mean she will be more successful at another school–at the end day, it is her belief and our support of that belief. What I do know, and these are binary facts, is that 98% of her class will graduate in 4 years, there attrition will less than 2%, and that about a 1/5 of the class will go directly into graduate/professional schools immediately upon graduation. Not too many other schools can claim such numbers, so again, I am not looking for either your approval or implicit nod on this issue, it is ultimately for each respective family to decide.

As to the community college example, I know personally some families in which this form of education is just as important and weighty—so, I don’t get your remark that it is absurd–its all relative.

Good info!

In response to some of the earlier posters who think it’s crazy to spend 60-70K on college, well, it’s a personal choice.Tons of people drop huge sums on boats, Mercedes, MacMansions, vacations, handbags, and generally keeping up with the Joneses. These types show up at our school’s financial aid info nights whining that they don’t qualify, yet have no savings.

They want their kids to attend a pricey school for the social cachet, but believe someone else should pay.

I know the majority of posters are NOT like that, but some people would just rather spend on themselves.

It’s not the school; it’s the students the school selects.

The reason NBA basketball players are tall is not due to the NBA; it’s because the NBA selects tall players.

And what is your point? The conscription of the institution and it’s ability to have said conscriptions lends to both it flavor and success. It’s like saying why Los Alamos National Labs has the most PhDs is not due to the labs, but because they hire PhDs. Again, it escapes the point that you have to hire these PhDs relative to the marketplace–or create an environment in which is superior to most similar placed folks—

austinmshauri, actually the state university systems are better in most other states, especially the flagships of most states. Further, the tuition is usually just as cheap for in state students. And for those who live in states with great university systems, the students can go there for about what students pay to attend in state in NY but they can also come to NY for little more than it cost NYers to attend. But NY students may have to pay 30,000 more to attend their flagships. Tells you something that, as cheap as SUNY is for out of state students, the best ones aren’t flocking to NY. In contrast our best are itching to go to theirs.

For example, the OOS % for Binghamton hovers around 11% but at michigan “Of the 43,625 students enrolled in undergraduate and graduate programs, 21,514, or 49.3 percent, are from Michigan.” and “Among other U.S. states, California, with 2,428, was the one that sent the most students to Michigan; 2,170 students are from New York, 1,978 are from Illinois, and 1,1118 are from New Jersey.”

And those 2170 from NY, they aren’t students who could not get into their favorite SUNY! They are the cream of the crop.
Don’t think other states are hurting!

mom2and. The comparisons you are making don’t make a whole lot of sense, The question isn’t whether there are students at Yale who don’t do well, or whether there are students at community college that do well.The issue is whether the same student will do better at Yale or a community college. The same student is more likely to not need to return to the parent’s home if she or he had opted for Yale than for a community college. That does not mean every student attending Yale ends up with a great job and good income. But I would guess everyone does end up better off then if they turned down Yale in favor of their community college.

Please cite a single instance of a kid turning down yale for community college. The student who is accepted to yale will have other attractive options.

Because yale gives generous FA to lower & middle income families, it’s the lower-upper income parents who face a difficult choice. Is fullpay yale worth it over merit money at other elite university (e.g. Chicago, duke). For all but a few fields, probably not. For kids studying engineering or are destined for med school, definitely not.