In my mind there is a big difference between deciding to spend money that you have or can cash flow versus borrowing for a dream school. I really think large student debt is disabling and that no college is worth large debt.
We are very middle class but have saved like crazy for D22s college. We helped her develop a great list, ran the NPCs and told her the money was there for any of them. Cost could be a tie-breaker but fit should be the overriding determination.
However, there is a relative dream school that appears to be a perfect fit. And, it is the only one that the NPC showed was not affordable. We let her apply with the caveat that she would need to be awarded one of their very competitive, very generous merit scholarships and we will likely have some news about that soon. She also may be awarded full-tuition at a less selective state flagship and the idea of big fish/small pond is something that is intriguing and is definitely being considered.
So yes, we would pay for a dream school if we had the money, even if other good schools were cheaper or even free. The money is there. But, I think her conception of “dream school” has expanded so it will be very interesting to see how it all plays out.
100% agree with this. There is a recent viral tweet from a 27 yr old who took on $120K loans for undergrad. He says he’s been making monthly payments of $970, and in the past five years the loan principal has dropped $2K. He’s made almost $58,200 in payments to only have $2K go toward principal. It’s obvious that private loans were a significant part in his paying for college since the max amount of federal loans is much less than $120K. I don’t see how anyone’s future could be bright carrying this much debt. It’s not even forgivable in bankruptcy.
But I digress. This thread assumes the parents, not the student, are taking on the responsibility of paying for undergrad. And I agree that no one, not the student nor the parents, should take on large debt for college, dream school or not.
And consider the entire financial picture of the parents: savings, retirement savings, house mortgage owed if any, other children, older parents, stability of jobs. Many things to parse through that are individual for each of us.
If I could afford to do it then I would. As long as my children could explain to me why it was their “dream school” and what that extra investment would bring to bear in the long term.
I am lucky in that our state flagship is affordable and a public ivy. My daughter is only too happy to go there. It is still $100K over 4 years. Not a small amount of money for a one income family. My son does not care one bit about college now. So, I am less inclined to pay for his dream school until I see maturity in him.
At the end of the day, they can take out loans for education but dad and mom cannot take loans out for retirement.
I need to make this decision with my D22 once we receive all decision from schools she’s applying. We’re from CA, all her safeties are UCs and her school had acceptance rate of 76% to UC in 2021. I think she could even make it to UCB which her school had 30% acceptance rate and over 90% among the ones with 4.3 or higher GPA(UC uses Cap-GPA, my D22 has 4.3).
Also, her majors are International Relation/Political Science which will be less competitive than other majors, like CS. Unfortunately, UCB or UCLA are not her dream school, and she’s applied to most of T-25 private colleges. The difference in costs between UC and other colleges for 4 years will be around $100,000 to $150,000 for us. We have saved money for her and I wouldn’t mind her not going to UC, but it will be somewhat difficult to see her turning down likes of UCB and go to T20-25 colleges.
That’s a tough decision. UCs are really good schools. If grad school is in the cards then maybe UC a better path for undergrad. UCB is a great school, but not everyone’s cup of tea
UCB is a wonderful university with many wonderful opportunities. However, as someone who has lived fairly near UCB for 20 years, the downtown is just a mess. Methed out people every block and tents everywhere. The university is fantastic but the city and city government itself is a mess.
It’s all too common for PoliSci kids to want to go to the East Coast and be near the center of government and politics. S18 was the same. He was admitted but refused to consider Berkeley as it’s just too close to home. He’d never even visited UCLA but fell in love with it at Bruin Day and hasn’t looked back. The sunshine seems to make UCLA a much happier place than Berkeley.
I’m personally not a fan of going to a place with the intent of transferring - that’s like asking to have a not great experience. It’s hard to “reset” and it may also be hard to leave all that is left behind from friendships, familiarity and other.
They are the same level school - PSU will be ranked higher but that’s not really a reality vs. a magazine article. CU is strong in engineering and the sciences.
Both are beautiful campuses - can you afford it? Do you want to afford it?
He can always move to Colorado later or PA later if he dislikes CO.
We gave my S a budget of what we could afford without loans and he could choose a school that was within that budget.
He had offers to attend college for free or very little money, but chose a school at the top of the budget. My S gets very generous financial aid from his school and we are able to cover our portion without loans.
But there is so much more to Berkeley than just the downtown! Elmwood, Solano Ave, 4th St, Tilden Park, Gourmet Ghetto, the views from the hills, lovely leafy neighborhoods, etc. So much more than the slightly seedy downtown.
To answer OP, we put four of them through their number #1 choice (never liked the term dream school). Zero regrets. Since #1 was also the most expensive option of many, we had them put some skin in the game and take out the Stafford loans that they could. This could knock down your debt 27K. It was a little dent in the big picture, but if they wanted what they considered “the best” we wanted them to have some responsiblity for it.
When we set it up, we secretly figured we would help them with it if they needed it when they graduated. But the ones that have graduated all paid off their Staffords their first year out of college with their new salaries and intern money they made during college. It may take some longer, but it’s an option.
I agree our kids and I did not any us or them to be saddled with big loans for their Us. We were fortunate I was able to get jobs that paid enough to contribute significantly to their educational expenses, so we could cash flow both S’s and D’s college expenses with sone scrimping by us and some generous assistance by SisIL.
We are definitely fortunate to have great in-state options here in NC, including the flagship. Although reasonably affordable, I did get some sticker shock when my oldest daughter was there, over things like the cost of off-campus housing and parking - and she was involved in Greek life, which was rather pricey (of course none of the things are required in order to get the degree).
All of those extra expenses proved to be valuable negotiation tools for my younger daughter, who is in her first year at an out of state public. When we added up the actual total from older D’s in-state experience with all the extras, it wasn’t as far from younger D’s base out-of-state cost (younger D knows that she will have to expertly negotiate any of the extras that she wants, but so far most are proving to be cheaper).
The food. THE FOOD. I’ve never lived anywhere else that had such a wonderful variety of great places to eat. I didn’t go to UCB, but I lived on College Ave on the border of Berkeley in Oakland for a few years in my 20’s and it was a lovely neighborhood. Yes, downtown Berkeley even in 2000 was gritty. I never hung out on Telegraph. But I have two cousins who attended UCB and loved it, and a good friend from HS who went as well. When I was in college and visited that friend I didn’t like that he had to live in an apartment, there wasn’t dorm space. He seemed to like it, but it felt overwhelming for me. So I can see how Berkeley for students isn’t a fit for everyone. But Berkeley the town has so much to offer.
OP, I agree with you that this is a really hard decision. It’s a lot of money!
We felt that our D could have gotten an excellent education at our state flagship and that they would have promoted her and given her opportunities. But I think she would have been part of a smaller cohort (honors college), and that she would have been given special treatment.
For us, we liked the idea of her being treated like ALL of her classmates. And we liked the idea of her being challenged no matter what classes she took. And we liked how all of her classmates were super motivated and involved, and how different everyone was from each other. We thought she would have more personal growth at the more expensive school.
Now that we are at the end of Senior year, I can say that we have had some years where we thought spending all that money was worth it, and other years when we thought we made a mistake. The years we questioned ourselves were the year and a half of Covid lockdowns, when all the things that made her current school special were suspended. While hopefully something like that will never occur for your student, I think there are some factors that can be sussed out, such as:
are there ECs/internships/research opportunities that are available at the more expensive school that would not be available at the other school? And if not available at the school, would your child be able to obtain these opportunities in the surrounding community? Would your child actually take advantage of these opportunities? One thing that was surprising to us is that some of the more interesting ECs had participation caps on them, and not everyone could get in. That happened for my D, but she was able to find a similar activity in the community and we think that the community activity was actually more beneficial for her.
what is your child interested in studying, and how will that look in the two different colleges? My D is a pre-med, and we feel that the premed classes would be similar in the two different schools because of the MCAT driving the content. However, our D is a humanities major and we think some of those classes could look very different in the two schools. I know you said your child is interested in becoming a vet, but as long as they take certain classes, they can probably major in anything.
how do the classes look at each of the two schools, and is it hard to get into the classes that your child would want? For my D, she ended up having all on-line classes all of Junior year and of course 2nd semester Sophmore year. For us, while we understood it had to be on-line for Covid, this would be a deal-breaker during ordinary times. Some kids really like this, though, so it’s important to see what each school has, and where they are going in the future, and whether this works for your child. Another difference is whether the schools have inverted classes or the more traditional classes (and for what courses), and whether your child learns better in one method than another. Likewise, class size can matter, and how often certain classes are offered can matter because this can throw you off track for graduating on time if you miss some necessary timing. Finally, one of the things that was so excellent at my D’s school is all of the academic support available. I think most schools have TA sessions, but at her school there were multiple sections for each class, and it is easy to switch between the TA sessions.
is there a difference in who you think your child’s classmates will be? Will that make a difference to your child one way or another? Will your child seek out opportunities to be with classmates different from them (I’m not only talking about race/culture, but also about socio-economic class, rural vs suburban vs city, artsy vs sciency etc), or is their personality such that they would naturally tend to hang out with people who are like them?
does the school tend to encourage collaboration or competition, and are the 2 schools different? Is one method better for your child than another?
does your child have any special needs that one school would accommodate better than the other? Whether academic, or physical or allergies/food.
your child’s personality…are they easygoing and would thrive anywhere, or is their environment particularly important to them and one school’s environment much better for them than the other? Do you think your child will have more growth at one school rather than another?
politics…is there a difference between the 2 schools and would one fit your child better than the other? Would that even make a difference to them?
Just some food for thought. Good luck in trying to figure out what works best for your particular child and your family.
