<p>My son is likely headed for a public university, and someone I met last night had a perspective on public versus private that I had not heard before. She felt that sending your child to a private school, whatever the rank, made it much more likely that said child would end up in a different (higher) social class than at a public school, because they would be more likely to meet kids from privileged households. This would ultimately help them become more connected with people in a position to help them with their careers.</p>
<p>Without elaborating on the rest of the conversation, or my personal reaction to this comment, I'm throwing it out there for reaction to her comments.</p>
<p>My question is do you want your child to end up in a higher social class? DD went to public school through ninth grade and then attended a prep school with kids with last names like Ripken and Unitas. After three years with the privileged kids, she chose a public university over Chicago and Georgetown (part of it was the $$$ as she accepted a nice scholarship). She did feel as though she had had enough time with the privileged kids and she is quite happy at the public university.</p>
<p>A college education will allow people to move up in society. One of my dearest friend’s father used to call education the great social equalizer. To me, it is more important for young people to find people of similar social status who have similar goals for where they are headed. I joke to my husband that he is lucky I didn’t grow up rich. Not everyone is motivated by money and status. This is a good thing for all of us.</p>
<p>Oh, and another friend whose daughter insisted on going to a small, expensive LAC (and could have attended the flagship for room and board) came home last month with a pierced nose. My daughter said that that was pretty common with the preppy girls.<br>
Soooo, my opinion is that meeting people from “privileged households” is not for everybody.</p>
<p>My D attends a private school with a high percentage of students who are full pay. She receives FA. Most of the people she is friends with are also on FA. I think she gravitates to people who are like herself.</p>
<p>Most of the private schools around here are religiously-based. There’s absolutely nothing more “privileged” or “upscale” about the families who send their kids there, other than the parents chose to outlay money to have their children educated in the faith of their choice. The schools aren’t any better, either, than the better public schools. I think it’s entirely dumb to classify public as one way and private as another. It’s just too wide and general of a classification.</p>
<p>welllll, let me put it to you this way,rtr…</p>
<p>older daughter: all of her wealthy camp friends went to UMich ( and apparently the current camp seniors are going as well)… her friends at the private she attends are all on FA…</p>
<p>mind you, with the cost of Umich OOS, you have to be quite wealthy to attend…</p>
<p>therefore, my answer would be, “it depends on the school, both public and private whether social class would be affected”…and who your own particular child gravitates to in their encounters…</p>
<p>She felt that sending your child to a private school, whatever the rank, made it much more likely that said child would end up in a different (higher) social class than at a public school, because they would be more likely to meet kids from privileged households.</p>
<p>My kids go to their state flagship, and they go to school with some incredibly wealthy kids. If I named the companies that their parents own, you’d recognize some of them.</p>
<p>Many kids at privates are wealthy and many are on FA.</p>
<p>Public flagships are notoriously bad with FA for low income, so generally the campus is filled with kids from upper middle class to affluent kids - because they have to be able to pay for all or nearly all the costs. There are kids on merit scholarships, but typically those kids are from upper-middle class families, too.</p>
<p>I think it really depends on the school. Certainly, you will have a much more financially diverse student population in a public university than a small private school, in general. Small private schools tend to be very expensive and while they do give out merit aid (actually, usually a lot more than the public Us), there is often a large percentage of upper-middle class population who can afford to be there without aid. So, on the whole, you are more likely to meet kids who come from privileged backgrounds. In our state, the public Us are less than 1/2 the cost of the private colleges.</p>
<p>I don’t know if you can extrapolate this to college but my son attends a private college prep school where nearly everyone is upper middle class to down right wealthy. Some of his classmates parents have private jets and also all own a vacation home. There are pluses and minuses to this setting.</p>
<p>On the plus side - the bar is set high. Most of my son’s friends parents are doctors, lawyers, CPAs, real-estate developers or business owners. They’ve all grown up with a high standard of living and most of the kids who graduate from this school go on to be highly paid professionals or business owners. That is what they’ve seen and that is what they aspire to. 100% of the kids from this school go to a 4 yr college and 98% of them graduate with a degree. But, remember, most of these kids have been there since 1st grade - not just 4 years.</p>
<p>On the negative side - if your kid can’t financially keep up with the more ‘privileged’ college students in their school, they may feel left out. Seriously… ski trips, trips to Europe, expensive cars and clothes can be the norm. It is at our school. Coming from a private HS, they kids tend to live in a ‘bubble’. Other than the community service work they do, they are extremely naive about how people live outside the top 5% of the wage earners (I know my son is).</p>
<p>As to your question - I don’t know if going to a private college would necessarily mean the student would end up in a higher socio-economic class - I think it depends on the kid, their drive and what they decide to major in. </p>
<p>I do know that about 1/2 of my son’s class will go to a public U and half to a private college. Doesn’t seem to effect the outcome of their future lifestyles, one way or another.</p>
<p>Our perspective was similar, but related more to work ethics. I know a couple of our friends’ kids with great credentials who went to the local public school and described life as great because they didn’t have to go to class and were still getting an A. To me this is a huge wasted opportunity because the school indeed has outstanding opportunities for the motivated and these kids were just cruising with the good work they did in HS. We decided that the private schools our kids went to would be more rigorous, and they would be less able to ride the wave even if they were tempted to, and thus far it’s worked out. </p>
<p>DS has befriended some really wealthy students as well as those who are supporting themselves pay check-to-paycheck on minimum wage jobs, and I think the latter have made a much stronger impact on him.</p>
<p>Anyway, I think it totally depends on the school. I can assure you that there are families who are wealthy beyond compare who are sending their kids to public flagships like U of I, Indiana, Kansas, Iowa, etc. Same thing for the southern / SEC types of public flagships. There is HUGE money among some of those folks, and they are all perfectly fine sending their kids to Alabama, Ole Miss, Georgia, etc. and don’t really see the need for a private university.</p>
<p>I think the person you were talking too made too wide of a generalization to be accurate. Maybe if they were comparing an ivy with a fourth tier state u, but not if comparing a non-competitive private with a flagship. I wonder what the correlation would be if you compared acceptance rates or SAT scores at particular colleges with the “social class”.</p>
<p>It is more important to make connections with people in your specific career field. People won’t be of help to you in your career just because they are of an upper socioeconomic class, but because they have information that is relevant.</p>
<p>^^You are right Pizzagirl. If you think about it, many entreprenuers attended their state schools and have become very successful and wealthy. The schools you mention, plus many others, have huge support from all kinds of people and great school spirit.</p>
<p>Took long enough with my post that several were entered. A lot of wealth translates into superficial lifestyle choices. Buying expensive things that may be no prettier than other goods (some ugly “designer” purses, watches et al out there). Time spent traveling to the in spots instead of local ski areas… As much fun can be had without the high price tags- meaning middle/upper middle class spending habits. Now to my post as it began.</p>
<p>The status of the public U will matter also. Not all public schools, even flagship ones, are created equally. A major school such as Michigan or Wisconsin can give national networking, especially since they get students from all over the country and world. Private schools are also not created equally. </p>
<p>In my state the public high schools are most often better academically than the private ones- those are typically religious. Too many people waste money on a private HS that could be best saved for college. In my area there are enough people around in the religions to keep the religious training and networking/socialization going in the public schools and the public schools do better in area academic contests as well as offer more academics et al.</p>
<p>The most important consideration is your priorities. Are you sending your child off to school to be in “proper” social circles or to get the best education possible? We once owned a vacation condo in a development where many well to do businessmen owned theirs. Money does not equal intellectual ability or interests. Social circles can be the same. Does anyone outside of those social circles care about them? </p>
<p>Or do you really mean networking among the powerful people in the field of interest? Some public U’s offer the opportunity to do encounter nationally known figures in sciences and other fields. This can make a difference when applying to grad schools or in getting jobs.</p>
<p>Like does gravitate to like. There are many different lifestyles out there. Having plenty of money does not need to mean spending it on the most expensive goods and services available.</p>
<p>Just reread the original post. School rank matters a lot more than public/private. There are literally hundreds of private schools known only in their region, just like their public school counterparts. Empoyers in the midwest and west will not be impressed by many schools known on the east coast since they will not have experience with their graduates, if they are at all familiar with the school (I have heard about many schools here on CC that never hit the area radar).</p>
<p>I’ll bet you and your child will be much happier years from now than the person you met and their child. The reason- they will constantly trying to climb that social ladder instead of being the ones enjoying their social circle and having job fulfillment like most do.</p>
<p>I went to a pretty posh prep school for high school. I went off to Harvard and nearly all my friends ended up being public school kids. There are no guarantees. I do enjoy going to alumni events at billionaire houses in Greenwich and pads on Fifth Avenue in NYC though. Harvard has great financial aid for low income students even back when I was there.</p>
<p>Studies indicate that for a given level of smarts your income in life will not vary much (on avg.) whether you went to a public or elite private school. Minorities do get some small boost from going to an elite school. So in a word–no, it won’t matter much at all.</p>
<p>I just wanted to share our experience with this issue. D grew up in a university town (state school) and went to an elite out-of-state public for her undergraduate degree. For grad school, although she was offered a better assistantship at an Ivy, she chose to go to another elite public university in part because she felt the students were more down-to-earth, and came from all walks of life. She is very happy with her choice, although dad really wanted her to go to the Ivy!</p>
<p>That’s been my understanding also. I think it’s much better to go for fit (academically and financially) than to try to find a school that will ‘magically’ position your kid for higher socio-economic class . It really doesn’t work that way. Smart, driven, motivated kids can go anywhere (from the State U to an unknown LAC to Harvard) and end up with successful careers.</p>
<p>And Pizzagirl is correct. Some of the wealthiest people I know send their kids to the State U. Why? Because they feel like they will get a better return on their dollar, they want their kids to be exposed to a variety of people from different backgrounds or maybe they just want to their kids to stay close by. If they stay in state, they are more likely to marry someone from in-state and stay closer to home. There’s lots of reasons that people who could afford a private school chose a public one.</p>
<p>I had a good laugh about this comment, Wis75. Really? It sounds like an assumption that people without money make about people with money. I digress, onto my main point. I attended UW-Madison and my experience is that almost no meaningful networking exists outside of the state of Wisconsin. If you stay in Wisconsin, great, but on the east coast, where I now live, people consider it just another state school and they’re certainly not impressed. It’s unfortunate that its many virtues don’t transcend the midwest. </p>
<p>My H on the other hand, attended an Ivy, which has opened many doors over the years.</p>
<p>I have not read the whole thread(it’s too early for me) but I think there is wide range of spectrum. My daughter’s friends now at her private school are most are on financial aid or scholarship.</p>
<p>I guess I don’t really understand what is meant by social status. In our area the median income is around 140K and the median home price is around 2M (it’s Ca - where everybody has a house they can’t afford). I’d say a good 40% of the local high school class are going to a UC school.</p>
<p>A lot of my former classmates at UCSD have become big time doctors, lawyers, and business execs. Of course many have led more modest financial lives, like me. </p>
<p>Granted, if you want to hobnob with the ultra super rich I’d guess you are more likely to find them at a private school. But there are so few of them.</p>
Harvard has great financial aid for low income students even back when I was there.</p>