Should your kids attend a well known, expensive private school at full tuition?

<p>Sorry for the momentary detour from the current bragging-rights exchanges …

I get that you were incensed by my post (#154). I can only surmise that you either misread my post or simply jumped the gun with your reply. My posit you quote is based on 20+ years worth of insider observations of the asian and immigrant communities around me, in fact many within the circle of own extended family and friends. </p>

<p>Please read the additional post I made (#158), where I mention that my own D is now exploring BS/MD as a possible career path. Further, I am quite familiar with the medical field (family-insider view), the unique challenges faced by ORM doctor-aspirants of all socio-economic backgrounds, as well as the issues of asian doctors in-training or practice. </p>

<p>Are you an ORM your-self? I can understand your feelings, if you are - perhaps even learn from your experiences. Please PM me if you wish to connect.</p>

<p>If you are not an ORM, I can only say that your well-intentioned advocacy is not appreciated by this ORM, as it came across poorly because of the berating-style.</p>

<p>I want to return to the original post. Should one pay for a private school when a state school will work? I am a tenured professor at a private university. We sent our children to another private university (in another state) and pay full tuition. Our children could have gone to one of the best state schools in the country. The reason we pay for private education is that I have personal experience with the pressures/values/goals of different types of universities. I want my children’s teachers to care about them and their learning. I hope my children’s teachers care about them as individuals - even as freshman. This is very difficult for a faculty member at a large state school to do because of his/her own career pressures (publications, grants) and because of class size.
In contrast, I want my children to go to graduate school at a large, state school because of resources. Also, there are fewer graduates students so they get the individual attention they need for strong learning.
My daughter is now in a Ph.D. program with full tuition for 5 years at a flagship state university in another state. There are a total of 5 students in her cohort - all with full funding. I think her path to this program started fall her freshman year when a professor expressed interest in her paper (and her) during an introductory course. </p>

<p>My daughter is a TA this year for a class with 100 students. She takes her recitation sessions seriously and prepares each time. She said that her students think the professor is indifferent to their needs and they are very appreciative of how hard she is trying to help. And my daughter has discovered that she loves being a teacher -</p>

<p>I know our experience might not generalize. But we are so grateful that we could send our children to excellent schools and we are happy to have paid for it.</p>

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<p>He’s speaking for at least two of us.</p>

<p>Here is another point of view:
My H is a tenured professor at a large but not flagship state school. He is in a dept. with a small (low teens) number of faculty and I can tell you that many of the professors in the dept. know the undergrads by names and will call if they are missing more than a couple of classes. We have been invited to students’ weddings, and still received annual updates with their kids’ pictures, and yes these were undergrads.</p>

<p>Our 2 kids are at medium sized private schools (less than 9000), one has mostly positive experience with faculty, the other mostly negative. Both kids came in as top of their entering class (based on merit scholarship) majoring in the sciences, so very similar.</p>

<h1>183 you send your child to school for bragging rights? I thought you believed that every college was as good as any other.</h1>

<p>I’ll bite. Should my kids attend a well known, expensive private school at full tuition? I don’t know if they SHOULD attend, but they did attend. For us, there was not debt on either parent or kid. Our family decision would have changed dramatically if a lot of debt for either parent or kid were involved.</p>

<p>Ambitious students with certain kinds of career goals are likely to find that the odds of great success are higher if they attend top schools (for example, where did the Supreme Court Justices go for undergrad and law schools). For some career paths, in my experience, doors open more easily if you attend those schools. A few years ago, a disproportionately high fraction of hedge fund folks, for example, came from high-end schools (this may have changed). But, attending these schools guarantees nothing but tips the odds in their favor. Moreover, 25% of the people at Yale will be in the bottom quartile. That won’t help getting into Yale Law school, for example. Moreover, it’s not clear that it makes a lot of sense from a career trajectory or income standpoint to attend Cornell or Harvard if you want to be a fine artist or Princeton if you want to be a social worker. And, while attending these schools may offer easier access to certain opportunities, the opportunities will be of no avail to students who don’t take advantage of them.</p>

<p>Some on CC seem to have a deep personal interest in the belief that attending elite schools has no impact and can provide lots of anecdotal evidence to this effect. Others seem to have a religious belief in the value of the elites (and that their kids’ lives or their will be ruined if the kids don’t get in). My observation as someone who as attended three elites and was a professor at one of the elites at the beginning of my career and have had positions in finance and as a consultant to senior execs and high-ranking government officials is, as I said, that for some things, elite schools raise the odds of opening up opportunities and for other things, not so much.</p>

<p>There’s a second question which is how should the parents allocate their income. Those with enough money that they can afford retirement and college tuition and more have no problem. They should send their kids wherever they think their kids will get the best combination of education, horizons, connections, and where the kids will fit in. Classic Rocker Dad is probably here. </p>

<p>For those who don’t have enough for retirement and college, unless the kids are going to pay for retirement, I think money has to enter the decision and largely dictates putting the kids at good state schools unless they get better merit deals at elites.</p>

<p>In the middle, I suppose, are people who would sacrifice retirement comfort for kids’ college if they paid for college. The have a value judgment.</p>

<p>Personally, the Shawbridge family views an education in part as what we pass on to our kids and want to provide what will be best for them. I don’t view cruises and cars in the same way, though they may receive assets from me over time to help them in times of need. And, there will be money left over in their 529 Plans, to which I’ll add, to save for the education of the grandchildren I hope they have.</p>

<p>“When I get a little money, I buy books; and if any is left I buy food and clothes.”</p>

<p>–Desiderius Erasmus</p>

<p>I can’t express myself as well as shawbridge, and that’s why I do what I do. :slight_smile: I provide the best education I could afford for my kids in order to give them more options in life. They could be a stay home parent some day, a teacher, a banker, a politician, whatever they want to be. But I don’t want their education to be a hold back of what they want to do in life. 250K can be spent very quickly and easily (just look at those lotto winners), but an excellent education is something my kids could have for life.</p>

<p>I went to a pubic high school, and I’m now at a top private university. I am in the top of my class with a perfect 4.0 GPA, I am by no means trying to boast or brag, however I am just giving you an example of how just because it has the label “private” does not make it better. My public high school experience was incredible, and it has shaped me to not only be a great student, but it also shaped me as a person, by granting me the opportunity to grow up in a diverse society that simply would not be provided at a private school. I am aware that this discussion is about college but I just felt that it was worth noting.</p>

<p>rtpPLME,
“Please read the additional post I made (#158), where I mention that my own D is now exploring BS/MD as a possible career path”
-If you have questions, you can PM. My D. has graduated from UG portion of bs/md and applied out and currently is in Med. School outside of her original bs/md. Non-ORM, so did not have many challenges that they face. D’s Med. School class has over 50% ORMs, also my GrandD is in a middle school with majority of Chinese in her class, extremely competitive even at this level. Asians do not question what they can afford and what not, they just spend everything they have on kids’ education.<br>
Another proof that everybody is different, including cultural backgrounds, nobody can judge anybody else or as much as to give advice. We have no idea what people are up to. General statements are completely irrelevant.</p>

<p>@MiamiDAP: IMHO, insider observations (made without an agenda) are qualitatively different from unresearched general statements (which are completely irrelevant as you point out). I also agree that judgements (without deliberation) are best avoided. Thanks for the reply, and I might take you up on the PM offer. Peace!</p>

<p>I’ve a friend who was accepted to two very prestigious universities here in Midwest, Northwestern and UoChicago. When it came to send the deposit to UoChicago, her mother announced: “we’re not spending that kind of money on a girl, you can go to Loyola as a commuter”. She didn’t get to go to UoChicago. Fast forward, her younger sister applied to UoChicago, was accepted (despite lower grades/scores), and was allowed to enroll and live on campus. My poor friend’s had to listen to her sister and mother crow about UoChicago’s “eliteness” for several decades, while the backstory’s ignored. Sister was a lackluster student, went to a 3rd-tier law school, worked for a small law firm for a couple of years, and retired as the wife of a corporate executive she met in college who’s done extremely well. My friend? Married a classmate, solidly middle-class household, still works, worries about college costs for her kids, etc.</p>

<p>What’s missing from this discussion is that often (but obviously not always) your college choice is a great determinator of your future social condition. There’s such a mystique about UoChicago grads, and a significant snob factor associated with both the professors and their students/alumni.</p>

<p>I went to an Ivy League graduate school, and when I was interviewing here in Midwest that degree made a huge difference in accesssing job opportunities. And three decades later, my boss still refers to that Ivy degree, not because I ever mention it but because he still thinks it confers a certain aura. Almost everyone else I’ve work with has graduated either from Big 10 or local regional universities. The Ivy/near-Ivy degree still is “special”. However, the elite LACs don’t make such an impression here.</p>

<p>Whitesox15: did you happen to graduate from one of the tiny handful of excellent public high schools in Chicago area? If it’s a selective enrollment HS, then I don’t think it warrants consideration in the “private school versus public school” debate, nor if it was a New Trier demographically-selective public high school, just saying…</p>

<p>Re: #193</p>

<p>What was the reason for the friend’s parents not letting her go to Chicago (after letting her apply and get admitted) but letting here sister go?</p>

<p>higgins @193 - I am saddened for your friend. Certain she has carried that slight for a long time.</p>

<p>@cltdad: My niece went to University of Wisconsin for undergrad, did (published) research with one of the top guys in her field (which is biochemical engineering or some such thing; way over my wee little head), and is now earning her PhD at Harvard on a humongous Science Foundation scholarship (full ride plus generous stipend). She says she would probably not have been admitted to her PhD program at Harvard if she had done her undergraduate work there. So, you never can tell. :)</p>

<p>@krug, I hear ya. My older son goes to a huge state school (Univ of Alabama), where he has a near-full-ride National Merit Scholarship. He’s in the Honors College (which has smaller classes), and he is double-majoring in History and Classics. His Advanced Greek class has THREE – count 'em, 3 – students. And his professors definitely know him by name and care about him. Another myth bites the dust!</p>

<p>Son’s scholarship covers tuition and VERY nice honors housing (with private room), as well as a stipend for study abroad. (He also received a free Dell computer, fully loaded.) He does have an outside scholarship as well (Robert C. Byrd, which keeps getting renewed although they are supposedly out of funds). This past semester, Alabama billed us for a grand total of $140 (for fees). Then DS received his Emerging Scholars scholarship (another Bama thingie), which was for more than double the $140. So, we were essentially ahead of the game. (We do pay for books and food, though, so we’re not exactly making money on this enterprise. :))</p>

<p>For us, it’s a no-brainer. We are not wealthy, and this is the only option that makes sense for us. It must be nice to be able to pay a king’s ransom for a top private school, but we’re not in that situation. When #2 son starts applying for college, he won’t even bother applying to private institutions. It’s not worth the aggravation! Why go to all lengths to be admitted to a place you cannot afford? :)</p>

<h1>Pizzagirl: More power to you. Some of us, however, simply cannot afford an elite / private institution. If we can’t afford it, the issue becomes moot.</h1>

<p>Hmmmm. People hereabouts talk about sacrificing a Beamer in order to send their kids to elite institutions. Here in Reality-Land, where I live, most of us cannot afford either Beamers or expensive private colleges for our kids. </p>

<p>I’m obviously the Poor Kid gate-crashing the affluent neighborhood here at College Confidential. LOL, it feels weird. I can’t relate to most of y’all, and you probably can’t relate to me, either. But there you have it. We’re all in different circumstances, and our circumstances do, to some extent, determine our choices.</p>