Please help me brainstorm college options for my son.

College Search & Selection
41

The web site uses the term “natural sciences”, which includes biological sciences (which, by enrollment, make up about half of the total natural sciences). The referenced paper at http://www.gradeinflation.com/tcr2010grading.pdf says that “Contrary to conventional wisdom, engineering departments tend to grade significantly higher than science departments for the schools in our database.”

If you want, you can look at grade distributions for various courses at University of Wisconsin at https://registrar.wisc.edu/course_grade_distributions.htm . It does appear that engineering departments are all over the place, with some being very grade inflated and others being somewhat grade deflated. A confounding factor is that many engineering majors are selective majors. It does appear, however, that the organic chemistry courses are among the most grade deflated courses there. A pre-med at University of Wisconsin looking for grade inflated courses may find these grade distributions to be useful when selecting courses.

42

^yup, organic chemistry is a big one, and pretty much the only one but since it’s the gauntlet all premeds have to survive, it’s graded like the “weeder” chemical engineering classes.
And that’s just one university for which we have information.
As I said, I’ve never know any major to be less generous with grading than engineering, which is acknowleged and considered part/parcel of the program.
Do premeds drop out enmass because of orgo? Sure.
But there’s a reason why 2/3 would-be engineers switch majors.
let’s try to stay on-topic though - you’ll link to numbers, and I’ll argue numbers can hide the reality on the ground by smoothing out specifics. :slight_smile:

43

@albert69 hope you have a safe space to avoid scary free speech.

I am certainly not attacking home schooling. And if you took the time to read what I actually wrote - my question combined small privates and home schools.

Why do only the home schoolers come out of their safe space to thwart any dialogue? Yet never provide a coherent explanation why a huge OoS public is a logical landing spot after a small schooling environment…

44

Aloha, @mmom99, back to brainstorming. :slight_smile: It sounds like you have the financial safeties figured out, so maybe next is to consider schools “one tier up” with the possibility of excellent merit aid.

Colorado School of Mines checks off all your boxes, and they have the very selective Harvey’s Scholar Program for big merit (I think that’s what it’s called).

I also have a soft spot for Olin, even though D didn’t make it past candidates weekend. They are an itty-bitty engineering college who’s graduates do amazing things (including med school) and have an extremely hands-on approach to learning. Everyone accepted automatically gets a half tuition scholarship.

In big cities, but if he is willing, Northeastern and USC come to mind with NM half tuition plus even greater (and harder to get) merit scholarships. My daughter is starting at Northeastern in the fall and is especially excited about their co-op program to help hone exactly what she wants to do after undergraduate.

Finally Case Western, University of Rochester, Lafayette, Lehigh, Rensselaer, & Tulane MIGHT offer enough merit to make it work.

Good luck!

45

@ClarinetDad16 A huge OOS public may have a good program in what the student is looking for. A huge OOS public may have a good merit scholarship. A huge OOS public might let the student experience a different environment than the one he was brought up in. Not that there was anything wrong with it, but hey, why not try something new?

The reasons don’t have to be any different for a home educated or private schooled student than they do for a public schooled one. Why do public schooled students go to big colleges? Or small colleges? Or medium sized colleges?

46

@ClarinetDad16 I went to a tiny (class of 2) ACE (!) school. Yes, I was the top 50% of my grade :D. I went to college at Cornell University, which while isn’t as big as the really huge flagships, is still plenty big. And it was great! I don’t see how it would be an issue if his parents feel he is prepared.

47

chem eng or pre med, pick one but not both. go to whatever school you and your son like the best

48

I wouldn’t necessarily agree that Univesity of Wyoming is conservative Christian. The state may be, the town may lean that way but the school itself is a mix. Leaning towards conservative more likely than not but I wouldn’t assign it that strong of a blanket statement knowing kids that go there (who are not) and are quite happy.

Colorado School of Mines would be an excellent choice but not sure about merit opportunities. Cal Poly SLO would be as well and for OOS is reasonable, but will not offer much in merit either.

Under 25 is hard at an OOS school for engineering, that isn’t geographically less desireable, even with stellar stats. The reality is the 3 you have on the list already as “home” safeties are some of the best deals in the country for anyone.

49

@albert69 - a small private or home school was the family’s choice, correct?

Rather than attend public school the family purposefully decided to take another route.
Part of that decision or the result of that decision was a very small school class size and a low student faculty ratio.

So if that chosen or let’s say preferred environment was best for the child throughout their life. Did something change when it was time to pick colleges? Now was a huge school with huge classes a better fit? Did they rethink their approach? Did the student dislike small classes? Or did the kid change?

Or are they just looking at programs and costs regardless of fit?

50

Aren’t academic programs and costs two of most important factors in determining whether a college is a good fit? (The third most important factor would be whether the student can be admitted to the college.)

51

@ucbalumnus should a student seek out the cheapest options even if they are otherwise horrible fits? Say non-accredited programs, poor resources, very low graduation rates, high default rates, awful placement history. Etc

On the flip side should a student seek out academic programs at schools there is no way they can afford? Or doesn’t check almost any of the boxes they deemed important? Or they have virtually no chance in getting in? Etc

We both know there are many components to fit and students need to figure out what is most important to them and then find schools that most closely match. If I had a student who went to a Jewish day school his whole life, I doubt he would be a good fit at BYU even if they had the major he was seeking. Probably couldn’t have a minion, find kosher food and many of the other things important to him.

52

Some east coast schools close to skiing with good engineering programs, where high stats might earn some merit$ (assuming SAT scores improve and/or high ACT):
U Mass Amherst is close to the Berkshires, also not too far to Vermont/NH ski areas, has ski clubs and trips in winter.

University of New Hampshire, University of Vermont also have skiing nearby
Lehigh and Lafayette are near the poconos, Lafayette has good merit aid for high stats( up to 40k, I think)

53

@ClarinetDad16 Of course the kid changed – what kid doesn’t change between the ages of 5 and 17?

Seriously, I homeschool mine and the itch to get out of the house and/or small homeschool co-op and be more independent in a bigger world usually starts somewhere in the tween to teen years. Who is the parent to hold this boy back if he wants to go to a big school? (Conversely, if the son has misgivings, no, you shouldn’t force him to go.)

Nothing wrong with trying something new. In fact, it’s very common in the college years. Most students at a large state flagship have never attended a school like it, even big high schools are not /that/ big.

54

@ClarinetDad16, We can all agree that a student of a particular faith who’s in search of a college where s/he can more deeply delve into that faith would probably be happier at a college that offers a program based on that faith. However, homeschooling isn’t a religion. Families are different. Their reasons for homeschooling are different. Students’ goals and abilities are different. Even children in the same family can differ widely in personality, goals, and abilities. In that way, homeschooling students are no different than public school students.

The type of school a student starts in has no bearing on the type of college that student decides s/he wants to attend at 16 or 17. Their 5-year-old selves didn’t decide to homeschool. This student has figured out what’s important to him. It’s our job to help find places that meet that criteria. We don’t ask kids from small public schools why they want to attend a large college in a metropolitan area, or question a student who wants to attend a large sports college to make sure that’s the type of environment they’re coming from; we suggest colleges that meet their stated parameters. We don’t grill them to make sure their parameters fit our preconceived ideas of what they should want.

55

Your children sound bright and interesting.

At some point, I will write about Chem E college options — But, I have a few other thoughts here…

I have a different viewpoint from yours. I feel like you are focusing so much on saving for med school that you are potentially limiting some great undergrad options.

Like you, I don’t like student loan debt either. So, I was surprised to read that you are still paying your own student loans (or just your husband’s now) as parents of college-age students. To try to understand, I read another thread where you and others explained about how doctors can end up paying on student loans for a long, long time. I didn’t realize how much debt some doctors take out for school. Am surprised that Utah State costs so much.

This is kind of personal, but will you have enough money to pay for med school for all the kids, or will they have to take out debt too? No need to answer here, but it relates to the next question…

With the expense and time involved in med school and residency, are your kids really sure they want to be doctors? Your daughter appears to be a Comp Sci major at AL and your son says he wants to be Chem E. They could probably get great jobs out of undergrad (in engineering or a different field), and pay their own ways for grad school a few years later (like MBA or other masters). Or sometimes employers will pay for grad school. Or maybe the kids won’t ever need or want to go to grad school.

But, back to med school — The military has programs that will pay for med school and provide great training after. With the military, your children wouldn’t have to take out loans for school or to start a business. Not even sure if they would have to carry malpractice insurance. And, they could always leave the military later to start their own practice.

We all need good doctors, so I have another idea:

Sometime in the next few years, a class on budgeting/financial planning/debt management (maybe at a community college or sessions with a friend who is a trained financial planner) could be useful to your children. Maybe someone could help them do a long-term cost-benefit analysis of becoming a doctor vs. another career path, using real numbers that you might be able to provide from your experience. If they decide they still want med school, the class might help them better understand how to budget/manage their money to maximize future earnings from investments/income and eliminate long-term debt from school and business start-up costs.

If doctors and all of us could live frugally and pay off student loans and mortgages more quickly, those monthly payments could be sitting in the stock market earning us money for our kids’ college educations rather than earning money for the banks.

56

http://www.aiche.org/community/students/abet-accredited-universities

@mmom99 Above is a link to all of the universities which offer ABET-accredited Chem Eng undergraduate programs. I can’t vouch for the accuracy of the list, but it seems to be a reputable source. A few of the links to the colleges don’t work though.

You can fact check the above list by finding the ABET colleges on the website below, which is official. It is just a little harder to use, because it lists the colleges for all ABET majors, not just Chem E. You have to click on the individual colleges to see if they are accredited specifically for Chem E.

http://main.abet.org/aps/accreditedprogramsearch.aspx

Assuming that your son does better on the SAT than he did on the PSAT, he could possibly go to any of these colleges. Explore.

Have you ever looked at the CSS Profile which private colleges and some publics use in addition to the FAFSA for financial aid? Despite your high income, it may take into account your student loan, business debt and any home mortgage, when the FAFSA might not. I think it will also probe about your daughter’s college costs. If you haven’t already done so, you could plug your numbers into a Net Price Calculator at random top engineering schools, like MIT, GA Tech, or Cornell, and see what comes out. FYI, since you mentioned Ivies, two of them, Dartmouth and Harvard, do not appear to be on the ABET list above.

By the way, look for local scholarships that your son can apply for - maybe for STEM, community service, or music . My son (not a National Merit Scholar like yours but a decent student) applied for four scholarships related to STEM and my husband’s work, and he won three. $28K in funds for a few hours of work each. Good ROI. Other kids at his school won some too. I wish I had found more for him to apply to.

ROTC is an option for full tuition at many top universities like the three I randomly picked above, and the Navy and Air Force especially love engineers. If interested, your son would want to start looking at the requirements for that application now and submit it in a month or two.

57

On that web site, type in “chemical engineering” in the “Program Name” box to have it filter for schools with ABET-accredited chemical engineering.

58

Thanks all for your input!! Lots of great ideas were waiting for me! Thank you!! I’ve got some googling to do!

RE: Med school for all? Uh, no. Not even med school for one. We’ve allocated (up to) a certain $ amount for each child’s education. It is equitable for each. They all know this number, and they know that number can easily get them through an in state university or an out of state one IF they get some scholarship money. They each have similar aptitudes, needs, and abilities, so, unless that changes, then we’ll continue our plan of offering each a certain (rough) equal dollar amount (a bit more for the younger kids to allow for inflation).

Essentially, we’ve told them each that we’ve budgeted 100k (we haven’t said to them, but have agreed with each other that this # will increase a bit – maybe 10-30% for the younger kids due to inflation) to support their education through at 4 year degree +/- help to subsidize grad school. So, if they “use up” the 100k with undergrad, then they’re on their own with grad school. If they get big scholarships and only “use up” 50k for undergrad, then that other 50k is available to help with grad school. We could no way, no how, pay for full med school for any of our kids. (We still haven’t paid for my husband’s grad degree, lol.)

Our eldest child is studying Computer Science at U. Alabama and has 5 years of tuition money (national merit scholarship) as well as other substantial scholarship monies to subsidize housing, and combined with the fact that she came in with 41 credit hours, we anticipate that she can easily get her BS & MS in those five years, and graduate debt free and with a parent-provided reliable vehicle. Nice way to start a career, IMHO. I think we can comfortably help her do that without spending more than the 100k, even if we’re paying full living expenses the 5th year (some of the scholarships end after 4 years) and even with buying her a 20k car sometime close to when she finishes (when the old minivan we’ve already given her dies).

Anyway, we have a financial plan that takes care of our (parent) financial needs that also allows us to offer at least this level of support to our kids for college. If we happen to get richer magically before one of our kids needs something, then, sure, we would help more. I don’t see that happening, lol, but I am ever optimistic.

@MOMANDBOYSTWO , LOL, student debt is a PITA. Yep, my husband’s debt won’t be paid off until our youngest is out of college. :slight_smile: I am not a doctor; I got a MS in Ecology/Forestry, which was largely paid for by assistantships, but I used loans personally during school for living expenses . . . My husband is a veterinarian, so he didn’t rapidly earn the “big bucks” that human medicine can often offer. I finally paid off my own loans last summer with an inheritance. I haven’t worked (much) since we had kids, so I never earned enough to make rapid progress on my own debt, so we made minimum payments with a handful of deferral/forbearance years that add to the length of the loan by a LOT. My husband’s debt was larger, as he had vet school, so some of his loans were actually amortized for 25 or 30 years (not sure which at this moment)-- those are the last ones (ONE!! Woohoo!!) that we have left to pay and will be paying for some years yet. Fortunately, at 16 years since graduation, our monthly student loan payments are about 1/4 of what they were upon graduation, as various loans got paid off at random times – 2 years after graduation, 5, 10 . . . . At first, we had 2k/mo payments on a 60k/yr salary . . . Do the math; it wasn’t good! We survived the hard parts, though, and we’re happy enough with our own financial situation now, but we understand WELL the risks (and rewards) of educational debt. And to think that we combined “only” owed about 200k at our peak . . . Lots of kids graduate with double that for just one person . . .

Unless you’ve lived with large student debt (say 3x your annual salary for many years, student loan payments taking up at least half your take home pay) and also been in a tax bracket that eliminates deductions (and/or your debt is so large that the deductions are meaningless), then you can’t really comprehend out situation with and aversion to student debt.

Personally, I won’t allow my kids to borrow for undergrad . . . and I’d do what I could to help them minimize grad school debt to the extent reasonably possible given whatever career path they choose.

So far as military option – not an option in my family due to personal values. Fortunately for me (given my personal feelings about it), none of my kids are at all interested in that route. (I am NOT slamming the military. I totally respect and appreciate the sacrifices of military personnel. It’s just not on the table for us personally. Think of us like Quakers but without the going-to-church part, lol.)

So far as FAFSA, EFC, etc . . . I’ve done enough of the calculators and investigated enough to know that we won’t get significant aid based on need. I know it’s really hard for anyone who hasn’t lived this to understand how the EFC calculations can be so unreasonable . . . but it is true. I’ve lived it, and I have dear friends who’ve lived it.

Essentially, in my limited understanding of this mess of college finance, if you are 55 years old, make 200k/yr, but have only 100k in savings/retirement, you are expected to be able to “contribute” close to the same 65k/yr as another 55 year old who makes 200k/yr but who already has 2,000,000 in retirement . . . Likewise, it doesn’t matter (much) to your EFC if you have 6 more kids in line for college money in future years or if you are sending your one and only kid . . . If we had our retirement fully funded, then we’d be OK with spending most of our “disposable” income on our kids’ educations. Or, better yet, we’d just retire now and claim poverty (look! low income!!) on the FAFSA . . . But, we spent their growing up years investing in OUR KIDS (i.e., me at home educating them, $$ in schooling, 10-20k/yr in music lessons/instruments, etc.) and repaying debt for our OWN educations and business start up expenses. Now that we’re finally getting out of that debt and able to start saving for our own retirements, we can’t direct our cash flow entirely to the kids any longer. We’ve got to fund our retirement so that our kids won’t have to take care of US someday! And, we’d like to have fun while we’re at it, lol. I think the whole EFC thing is a real crock for folks in my particular situation. I’m just glad my kids are high academic achievers and that there are some schools out there who reward them for that! Anyway, I’m just working with the cards we’ve been dealt; it’s a good hand, so I try not to complain. Just trust me when I say that our EFC is much higher than we can reasonably afford.

59

@mmom99

DEBT - Just curious. In hindsight, how would you have paid for your own colleges and grad schools differently, if you could do it over again? Would you have even gotten that Masters Degree? Am guessing you would still want to do it because you met your husband there, but was the expense of that degree worth in in the long run? (While I am proud of my MBA and learned a lot and had an interesting job after it, I have not maximized the benefit from it because I stopped working when son #2 was born).

Sounds like your loans were overwhelming. Do you wish someone had sat you down and discussed the long-term ramifications of debt? Would that have changed any decisions you made?

I wish someone had counseled me. My husband was the only one who ever did, and that was not until my early thirties, when he noticed that I had borrowed from my 401K to pay credit card bills! I remember the lure of student loans and credit cards during that decade in college and after. I took out one student loan just for the heck of it, and spent it on crap (My regular undergrad education was paid for by ROTC and parents.) That loan felt like free money, until I had to pay it off later. Same with credit cards. The new $300 purse looked good in the store, until the bill came.

You sound quite organized financially now. Your kids will benefit from your experience and advice. I keep trying to tell my Son #1 to have fun, but save and watch the spending. He is one year out of college, with a good job and no student loans. But, he appears to be heading down the same stupid spending path that I did. I guess you’re only young once, but I saw his $5,000 May credit card bill online and got sick to my stomach. (I am still joint on his checking account since college…) He paid it, but what the heck was a single guy spending $5K on in a month? It was not his rent. And he has no car payment. He is at sea on a ship now, so I can’t probe. He is an adult now — But, I will feel bad if I didn’t teach him how to budget and live within his means.

EFC – I am guessing that most college EFCs reasonably expect families that make $200K per year would be able to afford to pay to to send at least one child to a $65K college, using savings or income. They don’t know about past income streams and student debt that lingered for years. I think Fin Aid is more geared toward lower income families or middle income families with multiple children in college at the same time. Maybe your EFC would have gone down for your son, if you were paying full ride for your daughter at AL.

We make less quite a bit less annual income than you right now, but we have only one child left to send to college, and we were able to save over the years on a moderate income with no student loan debt. Ironically, our EFC from the FAFSA came out to be far more than the annual $70K cost of our son’s private college and more than our actual annual gross income. Kind of funny when I saw that. I am not complaining, though, and am willing to pay what is needed. We knew these college years would hit eventually…Luckily Son #1 did ROTC, so Son #2 is benefiting from that. We aren’t totally broke - yet. Both at private college, but with dramatically different price tags! Even with our college savings, we will be dipping into retirement. Hoping for no stock market crash. We feel fortunate just to have those savings to dip into.

Regardless, I would have found a way for my son to go to college somewhere, even if we had a lower income and no savings. I can tell that you are that same kind of parent, with the research you are doing on merit scholarships, outside scholarships, and affordable schools.

The real numbers you have been willing to share here are helpful for a lot of people. Especially your experience with student loans. And the EFC.

It will be exciting to hear where you son decides to go to college.

60

@MOMANDBOYSTWO, well, no, I wouldn’t have done anything very differently in hindsight. But, my situation is not universal, and educational expenses are much higher than when I was in school. I took a lot of risks, but it all worked out. If someone else took the risks we took, they might have an unhappy story.

Most of my grad school was paid for with assistantships (research science – tuition waiver and they give you a monthly stipend which would have been enough to live on ramen noodles). Back then, I chose to borrow about 10k/yr for 3 years to fully fund my (comfortable) living expenses . . . Trick is that after those 3 years, I was still writing up my degree for years after I was mostly done . . . And my dh was in vet school by then . . . So I kept borrowing money for living expenses, since I could access 10-15k super cheap loans (Stafford loans) that helped reduce the more expensive loans dh needed to take (since his costs were well beyond what Stafford loans could cover) . . . So, I borrowed for another “extra” 2 or 3 years. But, really, those last 2-3 years I was mostly a SAHM. I didn’t COMPLETE it until I was pregnant with #3, but I’d stopped taking more loans a while before that. I finished the degree ultimately because it was my “insurance policy” in case I ever needed/wanted to work FT to support our family. My back up plan in case dh couldn’t support us fully (or “went crazy and left us”) was always to teach high school math/science, and the area we lived in at the time paid a hefty premium if you had the Masters. Even though I never used it and don’t expect to, the element of having a career to fall back on is prudent, IMHO. We’ve always had disability (and life) insurance, but there is no insurance against your spouse going nuts and leaving . . .

So, IME, since I did in fact marry & make kids with a great “keeper” guy whose career has also fortunately supported us, I have no qualms about the fact that I actually took some of my loans out to support us while he was in school (and taking max loans himself). Obviously, if that hadn’t been the case, I’d have been in worse shape with excess loans in my own name . . . but, all is good on that front. Our money has always been a shared pot. :slight_smile: It would have been great to borrow less. I could have worked FT during his vet school and waited to start our family. That’d have been smart financially, but would have cheated us out of some really fun years as young parents . . . Or I could have worked PT or FT and put my babies in (subsidized, since we were technically poor) child care, but as soon as #1 arrived, we quickly realized that there was no way I was sharing that precious baby-love with a stranger 20-50 hr/wk. We were ready to have our kids, and we owned a home and had enough education to keep them fed, sheltered, and cared for, and we managed to borrow enough to make it all OK. It worked out fine for us, in the end.

But, we also had a lot of family help – even some occasional but significant helps during & after grad school. I expect my husband and I to provide similar helps to our own kids. Hopefully not by dying before our times, lol. But, one way or another, we expect/plan to “pay it forward” to help our kids along their journeys. Thus our commitment to fund undergrad and to help somewhat to the extent they need and we can safely do, even once they are past undergrad.

I just personally believe that if you have, say, 300k to invest in on kid’s higher education . . . That they’d be generally better served to manage to use that to get all the way through undergrad grad school debt-free (or lower debt than otherwise), than if they’d used it all up to go to a “little Ivy” undergrad full-pay.

I think education is mostly what YOU make out of it. I see lots of successful human beings who went to state schools . . . I don’t see that the people I’ve known who went to Ivies (or similar) for undergrad are better off post-med-school . . . In high school, two good friends applied to Yale & other ivies. One ended up at Yale undergrad, and then a mid-tier med school. She has a good career. The other went to UVA undergrad (instate, so super cheap back then) and then went to Hopkins for med school. He has a good career. In today’s money . . .the same investment could have paid for JUST Yale undergrad of MOST of in-state undergrad + Hopkins Med. IMHO, I’d MUCH rather have both degrees debt free (or with minimal debt) than that huge pile of debt that you’d get with the other option . . . Anyway, that’s a long way of saying that I just don’t see the VALUE in paying 300k+ for an Ivy undergrad degree VS getting a state school one for free. Especially not if you’re considering the added interest expenses . . .

Now, to be clear, if I had tons of money in reserve and no worries for caring for my obligations (self, spouse, retirement, younger kids, unexpected health issues, etc), then I’d be happy to spend the extra cash on an Ivy or similar. Sure! Sounds fun and healthy, so why not. Certainly better than frittering it away on diamonds, lol.

I’m the business/finance person in our family . . . The reason we survived our massive debts and are now seeing the light at the other side of the long tunnel is because I worked the numbers, worked the deals, kept our credit perfect, and also, what made it all pretty bearable was that we had some very well timed help from family along the way. I could afford to take risks with debt/business/homes/etc because of that security net. Many families don’t have that safety net – a parent willing to cosign a big loan or float you a big loan for a year or more . . . I did. I’m thankful. My safety nets are now deceased, however, and I (and my husband) now takeover being the safety nets for our young adult kids . . . So we are moving away from taking on risks and towards creating security.

My parents always helped us, but they were also always prudent. If we were making decisions that they thought were wise and prudent, and if they could afford to help at that moment, then they helped . . . But we were always working VERY hard towards healthy, reasonable goals . . . and they well knew that.

As long as my kids were making good choices and working hard, I’d want to be able to help them to the extent I could. And, FWIW, when it came time for my own parents to receive help from US, we did so without hesitation and to an extreme extent. That’s just how it went down with my family, and I know we were all lucky for that. If I can be even half the parent my mom was, then I know I’ll have done good.

Essentially, it comes down to our financial priorities being:

  1. supporting ourselves & meeting our duties to our children (as we see it, including a decent 4 yr undergrad degree debt free)
  2. achieving some financial comfort in retirement by age 70 and
  3. making our adult kids’ lives easier by subsidizing their grad school/etc.

Simply put, we don’t put a lot of value on a glamour degree. If I could offer to send my kid to Brown or Yale for any cost anywhere similar to what they could go to a solid public (or second tier private) university, then, sure, I’d do it.

I’d MUCH rather be able to give them that extra towards grad/professional school and thus help them minimize their debt and maximize their future choices. I’d like my kids to enter adulthood with little enough (or no!) debt that they can choose to work PT if they want . . . or homeschool like I did . . . and to take their kids to the beach for a couple weeks each year . . . and pay for their own kids music lessons . . .

I think choice and freedom is undervalued in our current system of financing education with debt. Educational debt is not always terrible, but if you can avoid it, I think you should. And that’s what I hope my kids can do. By minimizing the costs of undergrad, I hope to help them minimize their ultimate educational debt loads and maximize their personal freedoms.