<p>I totally agree, tk…if you can do an Ivy for 4K a year, that’s a no brainer 
If it’s 50,000 a year, that changes the calculation quite a lot. We got the Columbia brochure the other day…my son has borderline stats for that level of school…but let’s see…State U for 15,000 (or less with merit scholarship money)/Ivy for 50…hmmm. 35,000 a year difference PLUS grad school? The brochure went right into the trash. Sorry Columbia.</p>
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<p>I think one of the key questions being raised here is, for what kind of kid is this door-opening a big enough advantage to justify the cost? Are you really the passionate self-starter the Ivies all seem to want? Are you headed for a field where social networking, especially at the upper levels of wealth and power, is an important advantage? And can you not find some of the same advantages, given your interests, at a less expensive school? </p>
<p>There’s a MacArthur “genius grant” recipient at the Field Museum in Chicago, a Zoologist, who must have been the kind of passionate intellectual kid who would have thrived at an Ivy. But he went to Michigan. Ditto for Bill Joy, the guy who co-founded Sun Microsystems and helped invent the Java programming language. I could imagine him as a classmate of Bill Gates at Harvard. But he, too, went to Michigan. </p>
<p>I do think Debrockman is onto something (although she perhaps overstates the case). There are social, economic, and technological changes afoot that mean the Ivy League schools (and others like them) are not necessarily among the best choices for every excellent student, at all income levels. If you live in Michigan, California, or Virginia, and are on that upper middle class income/asset cusp (too rich for aid, too poor not to care), then an expensive private school may be fairly hard to justify. However, there are other private schools besides the Ivies that offer merit scholarships. Their smaller classes or other advantages may be worth paying extra, if the out of pocket margin is down to a few thousand per year. If the choice were between Illinois at $25K, or the University of Chicago at $50K minus a $10K merit grant, then for a certain kind of kid it might be worth scrambling (e.g with extra employment, see my last post) to cover the difference. Would it be worth an accumulated $60K in debt? $35K in debt? Hmm. A lot of factors would go into that choice, but for many people it should not be a slam-dunk case for Chicago, as much as I respect that school.</p>
<p>My husband went to state school for undergrad, worked hard and then went ivy for law school. He said it was the best decision he ever made. He came out with very little debt. But he also had a great time at the state school and was ready to work hard when he got to law school. His peers at the ivy law school were burned out from their prep school then ivy undergraduate educations. He was hitting his stride when they were struggling to continue at that pace for such a prolonged time. So he made law review when a bunch of the ivy undergrads didn’t. Undergrad doesn’t have to be ivy to guarantee success in grad schools…</p>
<p>I really don’t mean to denigrate these schools. They are wonderful and tradition rich. But they are a real financial stretch for the “too rich for aid, too poor to care crowd”…exactly as tk states. And when you really have your mind set on the idea that a complete college education ultimately includes grad school, it all has to go into the equation. My son still has a goal of a Wharton grad school education. I hope that can happen for him. If he is working and we are supplementing, two years at that price tag may be “worth it” and do-able. SIX years is a no-go for us…particularly since we live in Indiana, our son wants to study business, and Kelley is such a magnificent value.</p>