It appears that the law school path has become less popular among students from very top schools over time: http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2016/03/14/fewer_elite_college_students_are_applying_to_law_school.html. (I also see similar things related to the financial well-being of law school professors in the past 20-30 years.)
This might have some implications for the OP.
Discussed quite a bit here: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1686904-choosing-full-ride-vs-selective-college.html
If this is looked at strictly from return on investment perspective, always take the full ride.
30-50 range includes places like Boston College, University of Rochester, Brandeis, Case Western, Tulane, Lehigh, and Northeastern. It also includes LACs like Bryn Mawr, Bucknell, Holy Cross, Lafayette, Mount Holyoke, Skidmore, Dickinson, Occidental, Rhodes and Sewanee. These are excellent schools! Iâd take a full ride at any one of those over shelling out $250,000 at Harvard et al. any day of the week.
It also includes publics like UCSB, Georgia Tech, UNC, UCSD, UC-Irvine, UIUC, UW-Madison, Penn State, and William & Mary. Same answer.
But thereâs no evidence that a 30-50 ranked school like Boston College, Tulane, or Lehigh is less competitive or extrinisically motivating than Harvard, Yale, or Stanford. I also wouldnât say itâs necessarily easier - there are so many schools in the U.S. that Iâm not sure thereâs a meaningful difference between a top 1% school and a top 2% school. Like, would a Georgia Tech engineering major be easier than an engineering major at Harvard? Maybe, maybe not. I wouldnât bet $250,000 on it.
Oh, also:
I visited the article in question. The âtopâ selectivity group included 164 colleges - both colleges considered elite and some that were not. So colleges in the top 30 and colleges in the next 30-50 were included in the same group and were not compared to each other. This is also a longitudinal study that looks at a cohort that finished college over 20 years ago, in 1993. Maybe the results are still salient to students who will be finishing in 2020 and beyond, but maybe not.
That said, letâs even say that weâre comparing full pay in the top category (top 164 colleges) to a full ride in the middle category. Median annual earnings in 2003, 10 years out from college, were $64,075 for the first group and $54,445 for the second group. Thatâs about a $10K difference per year. Even if we assume that the gap was that big from the time they graduated until the year 2003 - for 10 straight years - $10K x 10 years = $100,000, which isnât even half of what the cost of the elite college is. Basically, youâd have to make $10K more over the course of 25 years to even break even on that investment, assuming you paid for everything in cash and didnât borrow and accrue interest. Thatâs not even accounting for the more social/emotional impact of belt-tightening during the years it takes to pay for the more expensive school.
Also, first, I doubt that the gap is $10K in the early years straight from school. Second, that difference is bigger than the 12% cited here. If it really is 12%, thatâs like the difference between $50K and $56K. If we say that the average difference in salary between top and middle selectivity schools is $6K a year, thatâs over 40 years before you break even on that investment, assuming you pay $250K for a total education at an elite school.
Iâm not saying itâs not worth it for some families, but itâs probably not about salary. It has to be about something more intangible than that.
Since the prevailing wisdom here is about fit, shouldnât the debate be âfull ride vs. best fitâ?
Thatâs a harder decision.
If itâs not a place you will thrive and achieve your goals, is that worth any amount of aid?
If you would thrive and achieve at either, itâs then a question of disposable income vs. prestige, which is really a question that is different for every family, and consensus can be misleading since it is subjective.
Amirite?
Unless you want to go into investment banking (which is soul crushing anyway), I would take the full ride in a heartbeat.
I am generally in support of taking the full-ride, and especially so if being full-pay imposes any sort of financial burden. Having said that, we are considering the same set of options as the OP for our D.
But first, some background. For financial reasons, I chose the full ride at my state flagship for my undergrad about 30 years ago and later went to grad school at an HYPSM. I was part of the honors program at my undergrad, and the quality of the teaching and my honors peer group were every bit as good as at the HYPSM.
However, I found my HYPSM experience provided a notably different set of opportunities than my state flagship. After grad school, I did end up in finance (but in a highly rewarding job working only about 40 hours per week, so not remotely soul crushing). But there were many other interesting options available to us as well. One was an opportunity to get involved in sabermetrics (somewhat like âMoneyballâ) despite my limited knowledge of sports. Another involved the National Bureau of Economic Research. Yet another involved data analysis for an F1 racing team. There were many interesting startup ideas going around. You get the idea.
We have told our kids we have saved enough for each to finance either 4 years of undergrad or 4 years of post-grad (medicine, law, business school, etc.). My D is considering med school, and if she is committed to that, I am recommending the full-ride path so she can graduate from med school debt-free. But if she is still undecided, my recommendation to her will be to choose the college that provides her with the most options.
@Postmodern yes that is the better question. Even though some families might be able to afford HYPSM and their child would be accepted, doesnât make it the right fit. Sometimes its about the big fish in the small pond too.
DD wants to go into medical through BSMD, and weâve encouraged her to apply for colleges that donât offer BSMD too. She received some full-ride+ scholarships (none ranked in 30-50 or even 30-80) where the Honors programs are very well regarded. She is feeling conflicted about applying to Ivy leagues and non-BSMD colleges that donât offer merit aid as she feels she is squandering funds that could be used for her younger sister instead.
We parents feel that the environment in the college matters, and a full-ride or Honors college does not change that, and she should apply, wait for admissions, visit her top choices (regardless of merit aid) and then decide. Would folks share thoughts on going with full-ride from a good honors college, though not top 100, (say Bama, ranked 100) vs a 30-50 college with no aid (say UCSD, ranked 44)?
@Mom22DDs, it all depends on how much you can afford. If your student is truly Ivy caliber, sheâd excel at any of those lower ranked schools. You seem to be comparing either highly ranked publics or state flagships, so I think sheâd be fine either way. All those schools have plenty of smart students on campus.
Plenty of Bama students go on to medical school. My impression is they have excellent pre-health advising for students who are truly competitive for medical or vet school (or whatever).
What does your daughter plan to major in?
Nobody can tell you how to spend your money. My son is in engineering at Bama. It was a no-brainer for us to pass on Penn State and some of the smaller privates he was admitted to for engineering, given the scholarships Bama was offering him. But the $60,000 - $120,000 in savings over four years is a lot of money to our family. And heâs not planning on professional school like your daughter.
She sounds like a smart cookie if sheâs weighing all these costs and how it will affect her sibling. You should be proud of her!
Thank you @LucieTheLakie . Her major is Biological Sciences for most colleges. She is in a small private school and is flourishing there. She is seeking a similar college environment and is specifically attracted to Honors Programs that offer her small classes and that close knit community. She hasnât shown interest applying to Ivies, except for Cornell where she turned in the app before realizing it was an Ivy, lol. She has been offered full tuition + room & board to schools (with popular Honors programs) that shall go unnamed for now, and is trying to understand what would justify turning them down and going to another school, say UPitt which has offered her a 20K scholarship, or UCLA (decision pending) where the total cost would be much lower than UPitt and the ranking is better, but the class size is larger (could be ~300 for GenEd classes).
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For Medicine and Law, grad school is everything.
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For law school, probably. For US med schools, not really.
All US med schools are excellent. They all teach the same things. The education is flat. No one is too good to attend any of our schools.
If your options (actual admission offers) range from Harvard (full pay) to West Podunk State (for free), then if youâve created a balanced reach-match-safety list, youâre likely to have good options in between. These may include a good state flagship at in-state rates (~$25K-$30K), a full tuition merit scholarship from a less selective out-of-state public university, or a ~$15K âmerit discountâ from a selective (but not top 20) private LAC.
IMO a good rule-of-thumb for affordability is to not borrow more than the federal student loan maximums (https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/types/loans/subsidized-unsubsidized). So Iâd try to limit any price premium to no more than about $30K in total debt.
If you can afford a bigger premium without any debt at all, then youâre stuck with a nice âfirst world problemâ. There isnât any formula or definitive research paper to identify the point of diminishing returns for all families. For many upper middle income (âdonut holeâ) families, the in-state public flagship may be the school (or price point) to beat ⊠and you may not be able to beat it based on financial ROI alone. From Payscale.com earnings data, there appear to be greater differences across majors than across the top 50 to top 100 colleges.
Thank you @mom2collegekids & @tk21769 ! DDâs priority is BSMD and we are fortunate that we could support her for any BSMD school she has applied to without financial constraints. BSMD admission is not a given for anyone, no matter how good their scores/essays/recos, and thus we are trying to shortlist the BS school list. Currently, the top choices are: UA (full ride+), UPitt (20K scholarship) & UCs (low in-state fees: decision pending, but she likes all six UCs she applied to). As she thinks through this more, the primary factor seems to be class size, which wasnât something she was aware of earlier, and Honors Colleges, which we didnât even know existed. Surprised that very few seem to target Honors Colleges. Knowing what we know now, and weâre still learning, weâre going to specifically identify Honors Colleges for my younger one.
@Mom22DDs, given your budget, you are going to be able to expand her options beyond the typical âdonut holeâ family @tk21769 describes. Post #33 offers a lot of great advice either way.
A couple of things to keep in mind. If UA = Alabama, they donât really offer full rides except for a handful of students. Full tuition plus (anything from a free fifth year plus freshman housing for NM finalists and/or an extra $2500 for qualified students in the College of Engineering) makes it a great deal for everyone but the truly financially needy.
Still, if you can truly afford to be full pay, and have no qualms about doing so, Iâd let her choose whichever school she feels will give her the best chance of thriving. My son also attended small private schools his whole life (which required a lot of sacrifice on our part), and he thought thatâs what he wanted for college too, but by the end of senior year, having had mixed results at his top choice liberal arts colleges, heâd done a complete 180 and decided he wanted to go to school somewhere larger with less of a âbubbleâ atmosphere, It sounds like your daughter is already looking at schools in the latter category, but make sure she has some good options at the smaller schools she thinks she prefers now. If sheâs keen on merit money, there are lots of schools that offer some very nice merit awards to entice Ivy caliber students (e.g., Rhodes in Memphis and Lafayette in Easton, PA). And maybe consider some smaller publics that offer great money, like Miami of Ohio.
I also want to come back and correct something I wrote in my first response. Although in many ways it was a âno-brainerâ to pass on Penn State for Alabama, at the time, I really struggled with the decision. After visiting State College, I was ready to write the check (and we would have been full pay), but my son (like your daughter) is frugal, and he couldnât see any significant advantage in attending the higher-ranked school (with incredible career placement stats) given his interest in studying engineering. And he actually liked Bama much better than Penn State too, so for him it really was a âno-brainer.â
All that to say, what seems âobviousâ to one family may not be relevant to your situation. But make sure youâre comparing like to like (full ride vs. full tuition, etc.).
Two points:
Florida has 7 MD schools, while Alabama has 2 MD schools. There are more seats to fill in the Sunshine State.
@ClarinetDad16, if you read the entirety of my posts, itâs pretty clear I was referring to any school the student feels comfortable in. Lots of kids dream of Ivies and many (even those who are fortunate enough to gain admission) choose less expensive options for a variety of reasons.
UF is a great school. When did I say otherwise? Still, if it costs twice or three times as much for an out-of-state student to go there, I donât think itâs necessarily worth the difference.
I get it. You think Bama is not in the same league as any of these schools and students opting to take the merit money there are sacrificing future success and opportunities. Youâre entitled to your opinion. But itâs just that - your opinion. Itâs not based on anything other than your own personal preferences.
Is it fact or âopinionâ that UF has 4x more kids applying to medical school than Bama?
What if we used University of Colorado Boulder as the comparison? Same fact (4x more)
For the OP letâs focus on outcomes. Cost certainly counts. But goal attainment has to be mission critical.