Rethinking the Costs of Attending an Elite College (Wall Street Journal)

Parent Cafe
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<p>@MIPerson80 and hyeonjlee: I’m sympathetic MIPerson’s concerns, but also hyeonjlee’s ambition and confidence. My brother (many yrs. ago) did ROTC, then a tour of service, then MBA and it seemed to work out well for him – but military service has its own risks: my brother got sick during the service, and the consequences of that came back to him after he got his MBA and was in a very good position with a major company, and he never fully recovered from that illness (exposure to Agent Orange in Vietnam).</p>

<p>But there are risks in any course of action, and I think that if you have the kind of mentality of hyeonjlee, then there’s certainly an appropriate reward/risk calculation going on. When my son was in college (also economics at UChicago), I told him that if he wanted a PhD it would not cost him anything if he was truly qualified, but that if he wanted a law degree or MBA it would cost more money and he would have to do most of the financing. In the end he decided not to pursue an advanced degree but he’s had a very fine career anyway mostly because of his own talents but also I credit this to the quality of his undergraduate education – AND a willingness to take certain risks.</p>

<p>I would only add that “kids” are in constant learning mode, about their interests and talents and taste for type of work, etc. So it’s not that easy to predict what a 17 or 18 year-old will want to do for a career 4 or 5 years in future. I believe tthat as they learn about their interests and respond to opportunities, they have to be able to change course. But it’s very important that they have a good foundation for doing so, by which I mean a good undergraduate degree from as good a school as they can afford to attend.</p>

<p>My daughter has definitely changed course: getting a degree in industrial design from a top art school, working 4 years and discovering through this work a strong interest in business/product development (not just product “design”). And so she has now gone back to school for an MBA with a joint degree in environmental studies (she’s interested in sustainable design). She has no company sponsorship – and so is doing this mainly by way of loans! Still, it’s the right course for her and I admire her willingess to invest more in herself.</p>

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<p>Regarding the military and post-grad studies…It is my understanding that upon fulfilment his/her committment, if the officer (or enlisted) decides to separate fr. the military, they are eligible for educational benefits under the GI Bill.<br>
S1 , an Ensign, recently attended a briefing on the GI Bill. After three years of active duty, the GI Bill will pay for tution and fees equivalent to the highest in-state public u. costs, a living stipend and $1000 for supplies. The veteran has up to 10 years after separating fr. the military to use the GI Bill benefits.</p>

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<p>

Regarding “weed-out” at public engineering colleges: My husband is a professor and administrator at one of the top ones, and he has told me many times that “weed-out” is a myth and certainly not the policy of his school. Yes, the classes are very tough, and lots of kids drop out. But the difficulty of the low-level classes is to make sure that students will be able to handle the upper level work, definitely not because there is a lack of faculty in the upper level years! In fact, because of this loss of students in the early years, his school accepts a large number of upperclass transfer students to refill the ranks. Upper level classes can be small, due to the specialized nature of the material, and he has taught seminars with as few as five students. But they absolutely do not want to lose students in the early years. They accept transfers from within and without the campus to try to make up the difference.</p>

<p>I realize policies may be different at other schools, but he is in close contact with faculty at many top engineering schools, and “weed-out” is not a common goal. I happen to think the grade curving and large lectures do not serve students well and lead to many kids dropping out, and that is unfortunately the model most engineering schools still follow. But “weed-out” is the by-product, not the goal, of large lecture classes.</p>

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This depends entirely on the school. At our university there is little local recruiting going on – recruiters come here from all over the country. I agree that most of these companies have built up relationships with the school over the years, but these are all national name-brand companies from all parts of the country.</p>

<p>

You do not pay for a PhD in any field! PhD students are paid a stipend for teaching or research in addition to a tuition waiver.</p>

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<p>Unless the cost of an elite education is comparable to the cost of other options, it isn’t worth the cost.</p>

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<p>“You do not pay for a PhD in any field! PhD students are paid a stipend for teaching or research in addition to a tuition waiver.” </p>

<p>I guess I went to the wrong graduate school for my PhD - I paid an awful lot of tuition!</p>

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<p>“many people ask us how we can be sending our child full freight to his expensive school when medical school or law school or a PhD will be so expensive.”</p>

<p>This is definitely true of medical school - not much in the way of stipends there!</p>

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<p>About a handful of my son’s classmates from Penn received free rides from medical schools. They are rare, but do exist for top students.</p>

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<p>Most MD/PhD programs are tuition-free.</p>

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<p>Yes, but these are MD only programs.</p>

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<p>Medical schools are not free and most do no offer merit aid. There is financial aid that depends on parental income and there is not a way around this either through marriage or age.</p>

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<p>There are also state medical schools. For instance, in NY Stony Brook is very reasonable.</p>

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<p>Assuming you’re a state resident.</p>

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<p>many rural states in the West without medical schools have agreements with medical schools in the area. If the students return to the home state to practice then most of the cost of medical school is covered.</p>

<p>Here is Wyoming’s program</p>

<p>How much does a Wyoming WWAMI medical school education cost?
For the entering class of 2008, the Wyoming WWAMI medical students and their families pay $12,000 a year for 4 years to cover tuition and registration fees to the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM). The State of Wyoming pays the difference between the student’s annual payment and the UWSOM tuition costs (between $47,000 and $69,000 per year of medical school).</p>

<p>Following completion of a residency program, if the student returns to Wyoming to practice medicine for three years, he or she will have completed the contract. If the student does not return to Wyoming to practice, then he or she is required to pay back the amount of money owed on the contract. (Wyoming WWAMI students who graduated medical school in 2008, owed approximately $145,000 plus interest if they decide not to return to Wyoming to practice medicine</p>

<p>[UW:</a> WWAMI](<a href=“http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/WWami/]UW:”>http://uwadmnweb.uwyo.edu/WWami/)</p>

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<p>That’s wonderful! However the point of this thread is whether or not it makes sense to go to an elite school. From a cost perspective, it does not - particularly factoring in the cost of something like medical school unless a student is getting financial aid making the cost of various schools roughly the same.</p>

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<p>Well, from the perspective of those Penn parents whose kids received full rides (merit aid) to medical schools , I guess going to Penn for undergrad was worth it for them. Those schools that offer full merit aid include private and public ones. For example, several students receive full rides to University of Pittsburgh medical school and they are not even Pennsylvania residents. Penn also gave out several full rides based on merit because I know they were full pay Penn undergrad students .</p>

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<p>Last few comments demonstrate that data can be interpreted in a variety of ways and the same data can support a variety of positions.</p>

<p>I meant to indicate that even a medical degree need not be astronomically pricey, therefore it WOULD make sense to attend an elite undergraduate program for the reasons given earlier in the thread.</p>

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<p>Could you concisely summarize the advantages of an elite education?</p>

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<p>MiPerson80 wrote: ************hyeonjlee, your posts on predicting your son’s miliatray career concern me. hopefuly your or your husband were in the military, because it is very hard to predict how successful a person will be as a young 2ndLt. The MBA program’s you mentioned, where the military sends captains or majors to, such as harvard and tulane (the two casees I know of) is extremely competitive, and they only try to send the top rated 5% officers that want the military as a career (so if a person had 4 years as ROTC obligation, then 2 years getting an MBA, then a payback,as I remember it, of another 4 years of service …so the person has 10 years in before he can get out. Also, no young person should go into the military as an officer unless they really want to serve, not just to get an education paid for or their ticket punched for grad school.</p>

<hr>

<p>I certainly understand your concern about the possibility that S2 changing his mind or whether he is pursuing the ROTC route for scholarship without serious interest in the military. On the contrary, he is ALL about military ever since he was a preschooler. So he is deeply committed. His goal, though, is to enter public service eventually - politics, government agencies, foreign services. He genuinely believes that experience in the military will help him serve the country better. His idol is Colin Powell. How many years he will serve after he graduates from college is up in the air. He is talking about 6 years. My father was an Army general, and my husband was an Air Force pilot. I guess it runs in his blood. As for graduate school, we are willing to finance that since he is likely to get an ROTC scholarship for college (based on everything I read, he is on his way to become a very attractive candidate for Army ROTC scholarship).</p>

<p>Funny enough, both of us are Ph.D.s and working in the high tech area, and somehow the default expectation at home was that the kids will also get Ph.D.s and become academicians. Alas, it shall not be the case. I joke that with two parents with a liberal political view, one kid is turning into an unrepentant capitalist, and the other one a military wing nut. </p>

<p>Yes, S2 may change his mind later. But then again, in the absence of a crystal ball, I can only go with the stated intention of the kids, and regardless of whether it is what we expected/hoped for or not, we are committed to helping them as best as we can so that they achieve the goal they set for themselves. If they change their mind, that’s OK too, we will still support them no matter what. </p>

<p>Even if they change their mind later, I am very gratified that they have such a strong sense of mission and goals they chose for themselves. It gives them focus and discipline. S2 the other day mentioned that whenever he has the temptation to go along with what other kids at school are doing (the usual teenage follies), he thinks about how that may adversely impact his plan for the military career, and decides to refrain. His ambition and goals are teaching him the art of delayed gratification, which is a fundamental secret of all successful people - the ability to sacrifice the near term gratification (e.g., playing around) in favor of the later, greater gratification (personal goals met). Just today he came back from a 10 day training course for mountain search and rescue operation geared toward HS kids sponsored by the armed forces, during which time, he slept only 3-4 hours a day in the open air, hiked all day long with 40 pounds on his back, was not able to take a shower, and ate only cold food from cans and pouches. He said, he wondered several times why the *** he was subjecting himself to this ridiculous ordeal, but told himself that this will let him achieve his goal to join the best ROTC unit he can aim for. S1 has started his paid internship at Wall Street the Monday after he graduated from HS and turned 18 (the company requirement). he starts his day at 6 AM, and does not come home until 7 PM. It’s a grueling schedule for a kid who has never worked until now, but he is excited and happy about all the new things he is learning by being part of the established professional team in the world of high finance. He is planning to ask the company to let him work till the day before he goes off to college this fall (his school has a quarter system and does not start until late September, long after the company internship program ends). He reads at least a book a week in the area of economics/international finance.</p>

<p>With both kids, we never pushed them for anything. Never told them to do their home work. There was NO bed time. S1 spent the first two years of HS doing nothing but playing on line games, which cost him an admission to HYP, but hey, that’s another story. n fact, other parents were worried on our behalf that we are letting the kids waste their talent by not being focused and productive enough!!! But in the end, when they found their passion, they pushed themselves like a bulldozer, way beyond anything we could have done to coax them into being “productive”. </p>

<p>At this point, I feel that both kids are on an auto pilot. We are simply providing resources that enable them to live up to their dream without undue hardship. The ambition is all theirs. And, to loop back to the original theme of this thread, if a prestigious undergraduate degree from a university ranked #1 in his chosen field (economics) for S1 or a post graduate degree for S2 give them an edge, we are willing to finance that. I can’t think of a better way to spend the money we worked hard for. If not this, what are we saving our money for?</p>

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<p>An elite institution has established a history of excellence in education. Earning a degree from such an institution therefore carries three chief advantages:</p>

<ol>
<li><p>You are virtually guaranteed a good education. The institution is not going to gamble away its reputation by admitting students who aren’t capable of succeeding, nor graduating students who haven’t performed.</p></li>
<li><p>The world assumes you are well-educated. Since elite institutions are well-known for admitting and graduating only the best, the hurdles later in life are lower. A graduate of a top program in a given field will not be asked to prove his or her worth all over again in the same way that someone with the same degree from a lesser institution might.</p></li>
<li><p>Connections. The best-connected, smartest, hardest-working, world-changing people gravitate toward the most elite institutions. Therefore, your best chance of meeting, studying under, working with, and impressing the world’s brightest minds and most powerful personalities is at an elite institution.</p></li>
</ol>

<p>If I had to summarize all of this in a single statement, it would be, “Attending an elite institution maximizes the odds that every advantage will come to you.” It’s no guarantee, but it helps a whole lot.</p>

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<p>“Attending an elite institution maximizes the odds that every advantage will come to you.” </p>

<p>The real question becomes is this worth $200k.</p>