<p>No. I don’t see an equivalence between paying for a college education and giving kid money to spend on (whatever). A college education is an investment in the child’s future in a way that a down payment on a house, a nice car, etc. isn’t. The only comparable area in my mind is health / medical treatment. If my kids were to have chosen less expensive schools than they did, well, I’d have more in my retirement account, go me. From a values standpoint, I don’t want to fund their lifestyles. I want to fund the investment that makes it possible for them to build the lifestyles of their own choosing.</p>
<p>My kids went to pretty good public schools. The high school won a blue ribbon the year my oldest was born, and his elementary school was awarded one the year he was in kindergarten. The town we chose to live in is not considered “the best” educationally, but it provides much, much more diversity - both economically and racially than some of the higher regarded towns. The top students in the high school do very well. Private schools around here cost as much as private colleges. Except for smaller classes, I’m not convinced that they actually provide that much better an education. (And I attended a very well regarded prep school back in the day.)</p>
<p>NJSue - You had commented about not giving a child $200K if they get scholarships and choose to go to UG very inexpensively. Your opinion was that a child might squander the money - of course if you have raised your child to not value money they may do that but I can almost guarantee that my DD would invest wisely - that is why she would also be the one to go to a quality school that offers her very good money! We have explained to her many times that the house we live in may not be the size of some of her friends but ours is paid off and it is paid off mostly because DH went to school on a scholarship and was able to put a large down payment on his first house that in turn gave us significant equity to buy our current house 15 years ago. So, yes, giving that money is an investment in their future that I believe equals paying for an elite school.</p>
<p>Again, I agree with Pizzagirl. I do not see it as my responsibility to guarantee my adult child a certain caliber of lifestyle. Not only that, I have noticed that adult children who live in expectation of parental money tend to be neither professionally successful nor economically self-sufficient.</p>
<p>She may want to be aware that even with 75+ going from her high school, a big state university is big enough that she probably won’t be encountering them every day (unless they are roommates or something like that).</p>
<p>Anscher – “Also, you neglect to mention that the Umass grad has an engineering degree from Princeton, and the NYU-Poly grad went to Columbia.”</p>
<p>If you don’t like the post, don’t ready it. </p>
<p>The discussion is about undergrad colleges and not grad schools, where almost all agree you go to the very best school you can get into, and so it would make no sense, in the context of this thread, to list the grad schools. </p>
<p>The point of the post is to note that at least by one measure – current female Fortune 500 CEOs, where at least I expected to see much more Ivy an other top schools that is not the case. Thus if you work hard and well in an industry for 20-plus years your undergrad school is unlikely to limit your options even for top positions.</p>
<p>There are plenty of ways to do this other than putting all the money down on full-pay undergrad. A child might be tremendously entrepeneurial. Having $200k to invest in a fledgling business might be what that kid wants more than the WK,EPS@FT Or, the kid might be interested in a career where you have to start out spending a few years doing unpaid or very low-paid internships. $200k could certainly help cover living expenses. Ditto a budding novelist/artist. Or taking the full ride and then sailing around the world solo. And so on. Not the right choice for many kids, but for others it might be the absolute best fit.</p>
<p>Everyone is missing the point. It’s not about if the private schools will get our kids better jobs than a good state university (they don’t). It’s all about bragging rights. </p>
<p>“Ooooh your son goes to [top 10 private school] your son must be really smart and you must be very rich!”</p>
Yes, we have discussed that with her, but she claims that the concentration is quite high in the pre-med and honors college crowds. We suspect that the usual teen desire to move away from home for college is in play (CH is just minutes away). Regardless, she already applied EA (result@end-of-Jan), and we are extremely lucky to have UNC-CH as an option/safety.</p>
<p>Yes, that’s exactly why we send D1 to a private school, though it’s not top 10 which of course infuriates us to no end because people must not think as highly of her. We are hoping to send D2 to a private school though not a highly ranked one, but at least then people will assume we are incredibly rich because we’re able to send two to private school. </p>
<p>Everyone is missing the point. It’s not about if the private schools will get our kids better jobs than a good state university (they don’t). It’s all about bragging rights. </p>
<p>“Ooooh your son goes to [top 10 private school] your son must be really smart and you must be very rich!” </p>
<p>I have to kind of agree with this but I will say…I sort of found myself falling into this trap when my dd decided she did not want to apply to any elite schools. She said “mom, what is the point in applying if it is not the right fit” - I guess she was a bit more mature than I was at that point!</p>
<p>Re: giving large sums of money ($200K) to one’s college-aged kids. An estate lawyer whom I recently met regarding estate planning, specifically recommended against allowing one’s offspring access to any large sums from his/her parents’ estate, before the age of 30 or so. The reason being obvious - it is a disincentive to achieving financial independence and success. If I were to decide to give the $200K to my child for choosing the lower-ranked full-ride, I think I would think hard about placing proper conditions on the receipt of it. It could easily do more damage than good, and this is based upon the opinion of an expert.</p>
<p>haha I agree. And I don’t think it should be expected that much more CEOs come from Ivies or other top schools. Many are even college dropouts. Graduating from somewhere won’t help you become a CEO, it mostly helps with getting your first job or first few opportunities. To be at the CEO level or billionaire entrepreneurship level, one’s gotta be…not sure how to say it, either really special, really lucky, or something like that…that’s not on our minds. The majority if us, we’re just ‘normal,’ ‘average’ people, looking to live ‘normal’ lives. For ‘normal’ people, an education experience from a top level school is different (will open different, if not more, doors, etc.).</p>
<p>Sorry, I think the bragging rights go to the person who trades in her BMW once the lease is up for an even newer version, or the guy on my street who just ripped out an 8 year old kitchen which he said looked “dated” and put in a new one.</p>
<p>There are many ways to consume. My kids didn’t go where they went so I could hear people tell me how smart they were and how rich I was.</p>
<p>I think they were just joking about bragging rights. Because seriously? Parents want the best for their children, they’re not going to spend insane amounts of money just to be able to say their kid goes to a school.</p>
<p>It really depends what you want to do after graduation if you should spend the money on an expensive school. For some entry-level jobs, only students from top schools are recruited, but for others and for some professional schools, it does not matter where you attended undergrad.</p>
Or, the kid might be interested in a career where you have to start out spending a few years doing unpaid or very low-paid internships. $200k could certainly help cover living expenses. Ditto a budding novelist/artist. Or taking the full ride and then sailing around the world solo. And so on. Not the right choice for many kids, but for others it might be the absolute best fit.</p>