I have to LOL because my parents have theology and sociology not only undergrad but PhDs, and both have (had, retired) great careers.
I think college is about learning to think, analyze and do research, skills that are useful in many careers. Not that there’s no reason to study nursing or engineering or other very specific disciplines, but that’s not the only way to prepare to make a living.
I’ve been a web/database developer for 15 years (since the web got inline pictures, basically) but was a soc/women’s studies double major. Didn’t care for computer science back then which in any case wouldn’t have prepared me for what I do since the web didn’t really exist when I was in college
I guess my point did not come across as clearly as I wanted, and was maybe too dogmatic as well. What I’m really trying to emphasize is that as hard as it may be to do (for parents AND their kids), you have to do a risk/reward analysis. Think of buying a house. Would you take out a $200,000 mortgage (or 100k, or even 50k) if you KNEW the house would decrease in value, with no/dim prospects of recovery? On the other hand, if someone gave you a house for free, would you take it? Under most circumstances the answers are “no” and “yes”.
If a school is giving you large amounts of merit aid, up to a full-ride, its like a free house. Your risk is essentially zero. In my mind, the less you pay for your education the more unencumbered you are to pursue degrees that may not be lucrative, like theology, sociology, women’s studies, history, philosophy, etc. If you have to work at Starbucks when you graduate, until a better job comes along, not such a big deal – you don’t have a huge debt you’re repaying.
But if you turn down that heavily discounted education to attend another school thats a “better fit”, and in order to do that you have to take on a lot of debt, you’ve got less margin for error. If you couple this education decision with a major that does not increase your chances of getting a good-paying job, you’re playing with fire. Now you’re working at Starbucks, with a history or sociology major, and spending half your paycheck paying back your loans. And the prospects of your degree landing you a job where you can eventually pay back that loan are dim. And yet really smart kids attending prestigious (and expensive) schools are doing this all the time, and I just don’t understand how they could not have done this simple analysis…
You seem to believe that there are few fields of study other than those that have very specific training (engineering, accounting, nursing) that end up panning out into worthwhile careers. You also seem to think that success is a straight path that begins with your college major.
My experience in life and in the lives of people I know has been very different. Half of the successful people I know could not have even envisioned the jobs they have today when they were undergrads.
I know many, many highly successful English, psychology, history and political science majors in a very wide range of careers. Many are high paying executives or entrepeneurs.
I was an English major myself…and ended up in marketing communications and later education. So I know where many have ended up career wise and believe me the most ambitious and talented feel their degree has served them well!
Interesting conversation, my view is that kids with average to above average academic preparation in elementary, middle and high school can work hard and become successful in careers such as engineering, medicine and computer science etc. However, kids with really good preparation can be successful with a major in any field including those from the humanities. I believe problems begin to emerge when kids take courses in the humanities because they think it is easier to pass. These kids study humanties because they know they do not have the academic prepartion to study subjects such as engineering, medicine and computer science. This is not true of kids at Harvard and other top schools with SAT scores in the 2100+ range and high GPAs who took rigorous courseloads in highly competitive high schools, who know they could get into and pass engineering etc. They I believe will be successful in any major. These kids are studying the humanities because they want to, not because they could not get into and pass engineering (or some other technical field). Unfortunately, a large number of kids in college do study the humanities without adequate academic preparation. These are kids that have difficulty finding a profession after college. (unlikely to get admission in a graduate school to study for a PhD or any other program.)
When it comes to my child, I have given him a clear choice, get into a professional major such as engineering or computer science at any college and I will find the money to pay for it. Get into one of the Most competitive colleges and study any major; and I will find the money to pay for it. However, do not expect me to pay for a degree in the humanities at just any college.
I am on the side of the fence where you go where you can afford. I just don’t understand kids going to schools where they and their parents are borrowing a lot of money. I have two neices who are doing just that. When I talked to one SIL about it, she told me “it was her D’s dream school, how could she deny her?” Same way you deny her an expensive brand new car she can’t afford. I have never understood how rational people can’t think rationally about college.
"I just don’t understand kids going to schools where they and their parents are borrowing a lot of money. I have two neices who are doing just that. When I talked to one SIL about it, she told me “it was her D’s dream school, how could she deny her?” "
These are the same people who will go into massive debt to pay for “dream weddings”. the odd thing is that if they’re still in deep debt from college costs, going more into debt for a dream wedding will likely destroy any decent retirement hopes. Some people just can’t say “no” to their kids.
"I know many, many highly successful English, psychology, history and political science majors in a very wide range of careers. Many are high paying executives or entrepeneurs.
I was an English major myself…and ended up in marketing communications and later education. So I know where many have ended up career wise and believe me the most ambitious and talented feel their degree has served them well!"
I’m sure you do. I never said you couldn’t succeed through that path, but I did suggest that the chances are not as good as going through other paths like engineering, etc. What you need to weigh today, with college costs out of sight, is whether you want to take a chance on a really big loan package coupled with a small chance of a successful, profitable career. Sure, you could get a liberal arts degree and become a successful entrepreneur and eventually pay off your loans. Alternatively, you could also become like Kelli Space ([Student</a> Begs For Financial Relief from Her $200,000 Sociology Degree](<a href=“http://blog.mises.org/14883/student-begs-for-financial-relief-from-her-200000-sociology-degree/]Student”>Mises Search | Mises Institute)). Do you really want your kid to take that chance? If your child is bound and determined to major in sociology, my opinion is go to community college or the low-priced state school (or, to circle back around to my initial point, take that merit scholarship and heavily discounted education price even if it isn’t at your dream school).
I see your point jroback. My personal circle has lots of examples that contradict it though, I have an engineer friend who has been looking for work since she lost her job in NASA downsizing. She’s working at a supermarket.
…and i have a lot of humanities friend grads who are doing really well.
I think we do agree that taking on a huge amount of debt is a bad idea. I"m not sure I’d support it even if my kid were doing pre-med.
Can we keep this thread to specifics about “Schools known for good merit aid”? I get excited whenever I see that this thread has been updated, hoping to hear another good tip…
Being saddled with a great deal of debt getting out of any program is not the way to start. Even if employed in a high paying job, the debt can be crushing and govern too many decisions. How many students are there who can get no other financial aid but loans? If a family has too high of an income to qualify for non-loan aid, then they should be able to contribute to the cost of their child’s education.
“…small chance at a successful or profitable career…”
My point isn’t that any student should go into debt for a college degree from a dream school.
What I AM trying to say is that there are many ways to a successful and profitable career and that they are not all in STEM related fields.
To me, success is not dictated by one’s undergraduate college degree.
However, one thought I just had is that perhaps where you are located may have significant bearing on the range of fields in which one can realistically achieve success.
As a lifetime NYer I have been exposed to so many people who have lucrative careers outside of the Science/ technolgy fields. I know highly successful people in Advertising, PR, Marketing, Education, Real Estate, Law, Financial services, fashion, design, personnel, film, tv, music and a wide range of businesses. Perhaps once you leave a strong metro area, these fields don’t have the same potential for making high level salaries.
My D was offered merit aid at three schools she has been admitted to:
Willamette University - 17K per year
Macalester College - 15K per year (a surprise since I didn’t realize they did merit)
St. Olaf - finalist for merit scholarship of 18K, but will otherwise get something - 10K plus.
Her grades and scores were very good and she’s in the top 20% or more of applicants. Macalester might have taken her National Merit Commended status into account.
She’s still waiting for other RD outcomes, although I’m guessing these merit awards will represent her best financial opportunities as our EFC is pretty high.
Back to merit aid plus post-college opportunities.
My son chose to attend Willamette, with a large merit offer, over schools like Emory U. and UC San Diego. We parents weren’t so sure, at first. Like some posters here, we wondered whether he should choose the more selective school. But we have no regrets, and I’ll briefly explain why.
The summer before he enrolled at Willamette, the head of the Career Center emailed all admitted students asking them to send him an updated resume. He told them about the Job board and opportunities on campus, and offered to give them feedback on their resume. My son emailed back, and the gentleman telephoned him from Oregon to talk for about 15 minutes, giving him detailed tips about how to improve the resume and information about opportunities that might interest him.
Last summer he had an internship with a non-profit in San Jose, CA. Because of the training he’s had at Willamette, he applied to several internships at the end of the summer. He was a finalist for a government position, an alternate for a State Department Internshp in a foreign embassy, and … {drumroll}…he landed an internship in an international public relations firm that has a branch in San Diego. He’s building a great resume. Not bad for an English major. Better yet, he’ll graduate with zero debt.
Wow - nice to hear about Willamette. We went to their admitted students day and were very impressed with the president (Carleton and Princeton Ph.D) and all the staff we met. They seemed to have their act together and were aggressively recruiting good faculty and students.
Wright State near Dayton, Ohio, has full tuition for NMSF and full rides for NMF and U of Kentucky just increased their NMF package to a full ride (oos tuition included) and give the kids a $2000 study abroad stipend and an ipad2 for some reason. They are redoing their honors dorm in 2013 too. I figure a NMF can go to a state school, get into the Honors program and do just as well (esp with an undergrad degree) than at an ivy…and have NO DEBT. Then if she wants, she can go to Harvard for her Master’s and have 2 years of debt and their name on her diploma. Undergrads tend to flounder a bit (esp at first) and I’d rather she incur debt when she’s serious about her future employment and know exactly how hard to work and how hard to play.
I’m happy to have found this thread. We expect to finance college entirely with EFC and merit aid. I’m hoping to find schools at which my kids will be top 25%. My question is, when looking and common data sets, are the GPAs weighted or unweighted or does it depend on the school?
The GPA question is only answered by each individual college. Some colleges will use either weighted or unweighted GPA based on the calculation the high school has sent. Other schools will unweight all grades. To add to the confusion–some schools may unweight all grades and then re-weight them using their own calculations.
Still other schools will only use academic classes in their calculations. Even this is individual–for some schools it will be only 5 academic areas. Other schools might include a class like psychology as an academic course which to some colleges is an elective and therefore not considered.
Then there is the tricky part of grade equivalents. To one college a 90 average is a 3.7. To others it may be a 3.4. Still others may consider it an “A” which is a 4.0.
In terms of getting merit $ from schools–if your EFC is below the cost of a school, then you seem to be hoping to only pay that and to get merit aid for the balance. However, since you seem to require financial aid, what you are actually hoping for is financial aid which can come in the form of grants based on merit. The only schools that will provide this without any additional loans are schools that meet full need without requiring the student to borrrow money as part of their financial aid package.
However, most colleges do not meet full need-- meaning they will gap you and you will have to come up with the difference between your EFC and the amount of grant/scholarship/work study money they offer. Some schools do have merit aid that is not based on need. This money will probably be presented as part of your financial aid package and will not lessen your EFC–and will still not necessarily meet full need.
You need to research this very carefully in order to have a clear understanding of each school’s policy.
dpr2college-we have come across a couple schools that have their GPA formula on their website (Carroll College in MT is one). It’s nice to know what to expect. They basically take every A+, A, A- and that is a 4.0, every B+, B, B- is a 3.0, etc. I ran D’s and that helped her by .003% but our school doesn’t weight grades at all. She is already over the “top” for the merit aid there with test scores and GPA but it was interesting to calculate. I wonder if that is similar to what most schools do or not?
Thank you Steve MA and uskoolfish. Our school system gives a .5 boost for honors and a full point for AP, so the weighted/unweighted difference can be dramatic. Message received: we’ll need to dig deep to figure out each school’s GPA standard for merit aid. I’ve studied several common data sets, but many don’t disclose what the GPAs they include there are based upon (weighted/unweighted/core only, etc). I guess I can call the financial aid office for those schools.
We’ve saved toward a goal that our 2013, 2014 and 2017 can go to the college of their choice and come out the other side with no more than $16K debt each. We’re what I guess is considered upper middle class and our investments are OK; our EFC will probably be quite high. If the schools of their choice are $40-50K/year, we might qualify for financial aid for the four years we have overlapping kids in college, but we’ll have to borrow against our 401Ks to pay part of our EFC for at least those four years. And if any of them wants to go to grad school? Yikes! Gotta go for that merit aid … or go to an in-state school … or both.
One of the schools I’ve identified for one of our kids is Claremont McKenna, so I guess I’ll start there with my investigation of merit aid.
I’m not sure, but I think it would be helpul if posters to this thread who disclose merit aid awards for various schools would identify whether their GPAs are weighted etc.
Schools that don’t promise to meet 100% of need for all students will still do it for some students they want, but generally with some loans. My S just got a package that met full need (some merit, some FA grants) but part of the package are Stafford loans and work study. I’m OK with that, it’s his skin in the game and it’s not a large amount. He was not gapped.
You probably want to look for schools that have institutional money to give for FA and maybe also merit, and who would find your child a strong candidate, with higher GPA and scores (and maybe a talent) than the average accepted student. Sounds like you are already thinking along these lines.
As for GPA, I don’t know any schools that take a HS weighted GPA but I’m sure some do. Our HS says they don’t weight because colleges do it in their own way anyway.
The GPA I listed for my S is unweighted, I think most listed in this thread without additional explanation are unweighted.
