Paying full price at Kenyon?

<p>I just wondered how many of you are planning on paying the full price (tuition/room/board etc) to attend Kenyon? That is, no scholarship or need-based aid. Son has applied and is unlikely to get any subsidy, so Kenyon probably won't be in the running, but I'm just curious. Thanks!</p>

<p>I'm getting good financial aid so I'm not one of those guys.</p>

<p>I've already gotten accepted to Macalester and plan on attending, but if not, Kenyon is my 2nd choice and my parents would most likely be paying the full price.</p>

<p>I'm not paying full price, there would be no way my family could afford nearly $40,000 a year! Like, yeahmeh said I also got decent financial aid.</p>

<p>I am paying next to nothing! I got a very decent package. I would not have even dreamt of attending if the case were different. I come from the third world and applied ED Kenyon. One major reason was the aid.</p>

<p>My D is attending Kenyon now with $1,000 a year as a NMS (drop in the bucket, essentially full price). The best offer she had from among the selective LACs she looked at was a package worth about half the cost or nearly $16K. I had hoped she would take it, but for her own reasons she chose Kenyon. She has been extremely happy there, getting excellent grades, making good friends, so I can't complain.</p>

<p>We had saved for her and her sister's college education from the time they were born. I explained clearly to her during the college application process that the money, if not spent on college or grad school, is hers to keep for use later in life, so a scholarship would have had definite monetary value to her. Despite that, she chose to go to one of the more (but not most) expensive options available to her.</p>

<p>We are paying full freight at Kenyon (ouch!). My son turned down a rather substantial merit scholarship at another excellent LAC in order to attend Kenyon. In the end, we knew that it would be a big strain on us financially and that he would need to take out some loans, but decided that Kenyon was the best place for our son (it was his first choice). We haven't regretted the decision yet.</p>

<p>I have to say that Kenyon's financial aid set up is kind of water. Granted that my family's EFC was pretty large, seems like a lot of people i know and people on this site are paying full price. All the other schools i applied to, who were quite comparable to Kenyon, gave me 10k and above. this is not to say kenyon isnt a great school, because it is, but i know that my opinion and definitely that of my parents is that its not justifiable to pay forty grand for an undergrad education. nonetheless, good luck to everyone going there, i hear its a great school.</p>

<p>"...my opinion and definitely that of my parents..." </p>

<p>Opinions vary and, in the absence of hard data for against a position, it will never be decided. No disagreement that it is expensive, but is it worth it? That is another matter.</p>

<p>I have to agree with 2dsdad, whether paying full price is "justifiable" is a matter of opinion and individual circumstance.</p>

<p>Years ago when I went to college, my parents and I debated whether or not we could afford the LAC I wanted to go to and whether it was "worth it." My parents were of the opinion that our state university was good enough and the LAC was not worth it since it was about 3 times the price. Eventually, I agreed to take on the difference in price by working hard in the summers and taking out loans.</p>

<p>In retrospect, was it worth it? I went to a place that I loved, received the individual attention as a student that I needed, met my wife, etc. Both my wife and I went on to graduate school at Ivy League universities. Would this have happened if I hadn't gone to the expensive LAC? Perhaps. However, I do know that I don't regret for a second paying what at the time seemed like a huge amount of money.</p>

<p>That being said, I know other people who made decisions different than mine and were very happy as well. So, as the French say, "chacun a son gout" or each to his/her own taste.</p>

<p>In our family, a large merit scholarship at a comparable school will certainly be a deciding factor against Kenyon. It's a great school - but there's lots of great schools out there that cost less than $40,000. It's lucky for some kids that their families can afford to make those kinds of decisions, but most (including ours) could not or would not.</p>