In all seriousness, @socalmom007, what do you expect that your kid would get from a high-prestigiosity college that would make it worth a price differential of $X? You’re arguing for paying more for prestige, but part of the problem in this whole discussion is that you’re not laying out what the ROI is.
And if the ROI is simply prestige, then yeah, that’s cool, just recognize that not everybody agrees that it’s worth the amount of cash outlay you’re talking about. Different valuations by different consumers and all that.
(But before you answer, it’s worth reviewing DadBodThor’s post just a few spots upthread that starts “The interesting thing about the value…”—if you suggest that certain things exist at school X more than at school Y, you’ll need to provide evidence for that in light of his description of the very real problems involved in making predictions about educational experiences.)
Man, if your kid can go to UCLA for in state prices, as you said that’s a no brainer.
USC is an amazing school, no doubt, and it would be really tough to figure out that trade-off.
FYI - we were considering Cal Poly SLO for my son b/c they have a very good engineering program and it’s near surfing, but given the difficulty in getting in OOS and the cost for OOS, he didn’t end up applying.
Good luck, I wish you and your son the best in figuring all that out, and seriously congratulations on the full ride for your son to Alabama. He should be very proud of that!
For people who have a college fund ready to go, the smaller class sizes, advising, resources, research opportunities, and generally more comfortable college experience may be worth writing the checks, especially if the student might be better served in that environment.
NJ too! Cheaper to send kids OOS State schools than our own. Plus Rutgers gives estimate that is a few thousand lower for some schools than actual COA. They do disclose it, but you need to dive deep to figure it out.
Edited to Add: I had to stop looking at other states’ in-state tuition rates when D20 was searching for colleges…it was so depressing. Some people are very very lucky to have multiple, incredible, affordable in-state options. My envy included CA with their CSU program.
If I knew for a fact that my kid would excel in an expensive school and struggle in a big public state school, then I’d happily spend a lot more money at the expensive school. I just don’t have that certainty. I’m not even sure it’s more probable for my kid. And ultimately that’s what everyone needs to figure out for their own situations.
There’s also fit. My son does not want to go out of state. He wants to be close to home, ideally within a two hours drive. He may not have that option, because I have no idea where he’ll get in here. If he didn’t care about location, the full ride at Alabama or the presidential scholarship he has at Purdue would be way more attractive. Close to home we’re going to spend 150k plus.
My daughter loved her time at SLO and it’s an exceptional value in California at 28k a year COA. Now my daughter didn’t have any full ride or big scholarship offers, so SLO was actually her least expensive option and highest quality option.
Your son got an OOS scholarship to Purdue? That’s also very, very impressive, and a really good value. Did he apply engineering or physics there? Both are really strong programs.
But if your kid is likely to get homesick and not thrive out of state, that will be a challenge.
He did. He was accepted Friday with their presidential scholarship. Purdue is super affordable for out of state and obviously an excellent school. He was accepted under applied physics.
That is really, really awesome, and I’ve heard wonderful things about their physics program. Basically, to me, it sounds like your son is a very strong student who will likely be able to thrive academically anywhere, it’s going to come down to where he feels comfortable emotionally.
In Virginia, UVA is starting to get pretty pricey even for in-state (tuition is about $26K, compared to $14K for Tech and $17K for William and Mary), which brings COA to about $40K.
Did you know this at the time ? If so, I’d ask why did you apply to Bama ? Assuming you are in So Cal , did he apply to Arizona? Assuming top merit it’s very reasonable too although not Bama reasonable.
