<p>I’m at an expensive private school, but only because of financial aid. Personally, if I had $200,000, I wouldn’t spend it on college. If there was a good option at $10,000/year, I’d do that and send the rest to help feed the 11,000 human beings that starve to death every day. Actually, in that context, I’d feel guilty keeping the 40k, but that’s beside the point for this discussion.</p>
<p>A top private school offers a great education, but so does a good public school. Teaching quality might differ, but the knowledge itself stays the same across schools, and an incredibly expensive school is really an unnecessary luxury that doesn’t make all that big of a difference. Of course, if your goal in life is to make as much money as possible, maybe it is worth it. I suppose it depends on your goals and what’s important to you.</p>
<p>I went to Podunk U for lack of a better description. That would have upset me years ago-couldn’t care less now.</p>
<p>My father went to Brown U-a “lesser” Ivy. His whole family is Ivy League-including HYP.</p>
<p>I couldn’t get an interview after graduation. It took me a year to get one-and that was only after meeting a woman at my first job out of college who did have connections. That first job was one I could have gotten without my accounting degree. I was told point blank in that interview that firm would never hire me since I didn’t go the the right school. I was also told I really didn’t have much of a shot to get into public accounting because I hadn’t gone to an acceptable school.</p>
<p>The next month I had another interview and was shocked to be offered a position.</p>
<p>The following month the first firm called me back to offer me a position! It was wonderful to be able to say I was already employed.</p>
<p>I passed the CPA exam before anyone else in my firm who started within the first year I was hired. It was never an issue after getting that first job in public what school I went to. When I left full time work to raise my children-something I felt I needed to do since my husband is also a CPA and somebody needed to be home during tax season-I was making more money than he was. I was also making more money than my father.</p>
<p>I can’t tell anyone if it is worth it or not. If money is not an issue sure why not go to the very best school you get accepted to. How many people can say that though? In my experience I have seen many people who appear very well off who are living paycheck to paycheck. I have also seen people who thought they were all set wiped out.</p>
<p>It isn’t easy to keep emotions out of this decision. Look at all the posts on this single thread.</p>
<p>The last thing I would like to address is being exposed to more brilliant people at school. I can assure you there weren’t brilliant people walking around my school. I only went there since I went for free. However, I don’t feel it has had any negative impact on my life. I have met plenty of smart people in my travels-among them people who never set foot on a college campus! :)</p>
<p>Should parents of full-pay students at your private school , and others who are srimping and taking out loans to afford the school, decide that their children could get an equal or superior education elsewhere, the caliber of peers who surround you (and the prestige of the institution) will likely drop precipitously. Be grateful that others consider the education (and networking opportunities) at your school valuable enough to by-pass merit offers at other schools.</p>
<p>Also, not all of us, even those of us who are not independently wealthy, value an education solely for the likelihood that it will lead to a job that pays well.</p>
<p>Perhaps, frazzled, the reverse would be true, and perhaps better for the country in the long run. If the brighter kids would go to the state schools in somewhat higher numbers, the state schools would be more desirable, filled with brighter peers.</p>
<p>I would agree with you, but what is alarming to many of us in this particular economy, if our children do not want to go directly to grad schiool or professional school, or do not qualify for desirable programs, is that every year, fewer recruiters seem to be interviewing graduates of “lesser” schools, no matter what they bring to the table. If our STEM graduates who did not go to a top public or private, and were not selected by a small handful of local firms recruiting at the school, are waiting a year or more for an interview, they risk being perceived as having skills that have grown rusty, and they will be passed over in favor of new grads.</p>
<p>Also, every school has its success stories - it is harder to find out what happens to the cohort of students who fall a notch below the “top” students.</p>
<p>redpoint - you wouldn’t guess this from reading cc, but every year, several students from our high school pass on offers from T15 schools to go to Schreyer, Pitt honors, or another school offering merit money. Usually these are pre-professional or engineering students. And there are also a few students who decide on an Ivy or other top school only after they have failed to gain admission to Schreyer, or did not get full-tuition from Pitt.</p>
<p>On the flip side, fewer students seem to be turning down HYP for Penn State, given more recent financial aid policies at these schools.</p>
<p>I am not sure what state schools will need to do to attract more top students and become the places where “smart students”, especially those outside of engineering, comp sci, etc., end up.</p>
<h1>404^^once upon a time elite east coast schools enrolled students with a variety of intellectual levels from a limited number of families. Mostly in other areas of the country, students who got to go to college went to their public universities. And some families went to these schools for generations. At some point many of us decided elite east coast is better than the public option. Maybe this becomes a self-fulfilling prophecy when states quit investing in public education, and even cut resources, while elite privates are very good at fund raising.</h1>
<p>There is no reason imho we shouldn’t insist on having excellent public education in this country for every student K-college. But we don’t.</p>
<p>frazzled the economy was pretty bad when I graduated.</p>
<p>The plus side was I had no debt! I also was not working in my chosen field for the first year. </p>
<p>The OP is trying to decide between a private and a very good public. Will the opportunities be the same-who knows. If the family or OP has to assume the difference in cost by taking out loans that would seem to be a very risky proposition.</p>
<p>My example was just to illustrate you can succeed wherever you go. It may be harder but it isn’t impossible.</p>
<p>Agree. Aside from the book-learning and job preparation, where you went to college becomes a part of who you are. There are a lot of intangibles that go along with where you decide to spend those 4 years that can impact your life in various ways, sometimes subtly and sometimes in a way more significant than you expect. My MIL spent her widowed golden years attending alma mater football games and activities, and going on those university-sponsored travel adventures with her alum friends, which provided her tremendous pleasure and camaraderie.</p>
<p>Good point, Bay, Pepper and ALH. IMO, the bottom line is one should go to the best school that offers them the best of what they are looking for (whether that be major, location, size, availability of residential colleges, greek life, sports, excellent career placement and internship opportunities, access to faculty, being taught by fulltime faculty and not grad students, whatever is important to the student) that IS AFFORDABLE. This is key. IMO NO school, no matter how wonderful it is, is worth going into serious debt for. Starting out life with a boatload of debt just sets one up for an uphill battle. The best gift we gave our s’s, IMO, is the gift of being debt free after college. </p>
<p>Having some debt is ok. The rule of thumb I’ve heard on a syndicated talk show is that one should not leave school (presumably undergrad) with more debt than they can expect to earn in their first year of employment.</p>
<p>For those planing to attend grad or professional school, GPA , standardized test scores and to some degree what you do in undergrad are usually more important than the name on the diploma. Same isnt necessarily true for those hunting for the prestige finance jobs after college. But even then, not worth taking on serious debt for, IMO.</p>
<p>IF money is no object and the student will be debt free and the parents will not have to significantly eat at their savings, then sure, go for the golden ring, if it is the best fit for you. Keep in mind, thee are unhappy students at top schools because it really wasnt the best fit for them.</p>
<p>I’m from a state (NC) where loyalties to the local universities (both public and private) run deep. There are outstanding public and private options within a 100-mile radius. Very few of even the most highly-qualified students even consider applying to the Ivy League or Stanford. First, they can get a very fine education in the area and don’t want to go so far away. Second, students in this area tend to be familiar with local universities. They’ve been on campus for cultural or sports events, and they sometimes know from a young age where they want to go. Third, most of the area employers (except for colleges looking to hire professors!) don’t care whether you have an Ivy League education. They are looking for people who can program computers, teach a class of first graders, or handle the responsibilities of an ER doctor. Sometimes they have an eye out for graduates of their own universities, just like a Harvard-educated employer might do. In the Northeast, an Ivy League degree may be preferred. Here, maybe in much of the rest of the country, it will not matter nearly as much.</p>
<p>One of my cousins went to an Ivy League school. Her husband went to a big state, non-flagship university. They are in the same profession and they have almost identical work experience. They have both been successful in their field, and both are happy and healthy. Did the Ivy League education make a difference?</p>
<p>Before getting to your question … my daughter’s magnet school it’s not “(essentially) free”; although someone might think $2600 a year is (essentially) free, I do not. But never mind. </p>
<p>If we lived in a district with even a moderately good public high school then no, I would not pay to send her to the magnet school. But we don’t. Our high school has one science teacher (who tries to teach biology, chemistry, physics, general science, and earth science), one English teacher (who has classes of as many as 41 kids this year), no academic electives, no consumer science, no math beyond pre-calc, one half-time art teacher for K-12, one music teacher for band and elementary music, no honors classes, no AP classes, etc. (but we do have a state-finals-every-year-caliber soccer team that gets anything it asks for). (Welcome to rural America!) So yes, I am happy to pay $2600 a year to send her to one of the best math and science high schools in the United States.</p>
<p>And I will note, for the nth time, that this position is exactly equivalent to that I’ve expressed on the main question - that a motivated student can get a high-quality education at almost any college. If my kid’s only other choice was a college with an educational program as bereft as our local high school’s, then yes, I would find a way to send her to an expensive private school. But fortunately, as the data I have cited extensively shows, there are hundreds of lower cost options where a motivated student can get a high-quality education.</p>
<p>^Wow, $2600 is very very low. We do not have such cheap private schools in our very cheap and economically depressed region. We paid about $8k / year balance since D. had Merit award in HS that covered about 1 /3 of her tuition. D’s private HS was worth to pay for, although we have good public HS’s in our area. I did not feel that my D. was prepared socially for public HS after having 4 kids total in her 8th grade. It worked out well, she liked her HS a lot and we saved on UG, where she was on full tuition Merit award. At the end everything was balanced out and her HS has prepared her to be successful at any UG of her choice.</p>
<p>It’s not a private school, it’s a public magnet school, but with a student fee required to attend. Low income families get a discount off that rate.</p>
<p>We do have other reasonably priced options. My son goes to a nearby Catholic high school where the non-Catholic tuition is about $7,000.</p>
<p>The question is where do you draw the line that it is good enough or not. For some families $2600 maybe a lot of money, and they would consider it a waste of money when there is a free public school.</p>
<p>Our area is full of families who think our school is just fine. If you would be among them, oldfort, there are lots of vacant houses in our town. PM me and I’ll send you the names of a couple of realtors.</p>
<p>I guess he didn’t read your post# 274, oldfort. Is he saying he pays $7k to send son to catholic school, or that he pays less, and non-catholics pay more. Can’t discern. That said, he pays for 2 kids to attend specialty school, bercause the public isn’t in his view, good enough.</p>
<p>So apparently it is ok to pay for private school for one’s children’s education. But we are required to agree that one poster gets to decide how much is reasonable and how much is too much, and also that because they can then go on to get a devent education at “almost any college” (how vague) that paying a lot (whatever that is) for college is wrong. Hard to follow the bouncing ball.