@FlaParent This is a good list, but I’d like to add a few more, which have been covered a lot already in this thread.
Prestige - I guess this is one of the major reasons why we agonize over private elites vs. honors public in the first place. Is prestige worth $240k? That’s up to inidividual families to decide.
Expeirence - To step on the campus of Yale or Princeton is quite a majec experience. Who doesnt’ like to attend a school that is like Hogwarts? I don’t mean just the physical appearance of campus. Of course, if what you want is big ten football games, you make your choice accordingly.
Peers - All your peers are as smart as or smarter than you are at private elites, whereas at public schools it is hit and miss I believe this is the greatest benefit of atending a private elite. Elite schools don’t have a monopoly on top notch professors and scholars, but it is the super charged academic enviornment that propells one ahead.
Well, I agree with that! If we’re comparing all schools in the top 100, which is really like the top 5% of colleges and universities in the nation, I think that’s fine. They’re all excellent schools and he can get a good education at any one of them. I’m not saying that there won’t be resourcing differences between them - I went to a top 100 liberal arts college and have seen ones that were more like in the top 25, and believe me, there are differences in the resources there, and the peers. But generally speaking all will provide a great education and post-college opportunities.
That’s true, but who your peers are and who you meet is going to be heavily shaped by the type of students your college attracts. There are many honors colleges that attract the same kinds of top students as the ones who go to schools like Vanderbilt, Georgetown, Tufts, Northeastern, etc. And students don’t necessarily need to be around the first bassoonist in the state orchestra to grow - it’s all about their personal goals and desires. There is something to be said for being around a peer group of strivers, though. But they don’t have to be elite school strivers - my top 100 (but not top 50) liberal arts college was full of ambitious women who aspired to high-level professional careers.
@wchatar2 the big advantage to going somewhere like Columbia, Harvard, UPenn etc. is if you go into finance/banking. That’s where the top firms like JP Morgan, Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley, etc. recruit all of their people from. If your kid wants to do something else, I do not see how there would be any advantage at all really to going to a top college. I don’t think it would make him that more competitive looking for a job out of undergrad, and if he wants to go to grad school, even top grad schools accept from everywhere. He would just have to do well, and honestly there would probably be less competition.
People have different expectations around the purpose and experience of a college education and it sounds like @wchatar2’s son is very pragmatic, so there’s nothing wrong with his making his choices as he sees it.
I strongly disagree that the education is the same everywhere which is why I made sacrifices to send my S and D far away to boarding (high) school, and then I applied similar criteria to helping them select colleges. I was much more ignorant in my S’s case but knew and understood much more when D’s turn rolled around.
In our family, education is a thing in and of itself, career preparation is secondary and can be developed later. My oldest D and her husband both ended up with multiple degrees ranging quite far from their first undergraduate degrees, and I think it’s quite common that people end up in different careers than they anticipated as 18 or 20 year olds.
Some things a person can look at to answer the question “is the education/experience the same everywhere?” are alumni giving and freshman retention rates. Retention rates are an indicator of student satisfaction and there really aren’t very many colleges with >90% retention. Alumni giving is a more long range indicator of the same thing.
@alooknac I went to boarding school and my oldest son went to an “exclusive” private school. My younger son feels that, as you say, education is a thing in and of itself. I think his take is that he has seen relatives that graduated from Harvard etc who were singular in their ability to get in but were honestly lost once they were there. They came out with a Harvard degree but werent “well educated”. I think things like that have contributed to his perception that education and knowledge come from self motivation and that one is either a self starter or not. And the rest is all about labels and pedigree.
He seems to think environment has no effect on education, a point with which I don’t agree. But as I said, if that’s his take and he sees his path, he should go for it.
My children went to well-respected boarding schools but not tippy top. Each was in the perfect environment for them and they flourished, something much less likely to happen at home in the local public HS, a very good public HS, mind you.
I’m a big fan of the unsung excellent middle tier whether it’s boarding school or college. We don’t go after “brand,” we go for an environment conducive to true education and personal growth.
But I do realize others have different goals. I just think your son sounds like he might thrive in that middle tier and might get merit aid to boot. And somehow it seems you are somewhat concerned about his outlook.
In the end, he really can’t go wrong. There are many paths to a degree and he seems to know what he wants.
“His feeling is that college is all about branding and that some schools brands are worth $250k but most aren’t.”
@wchatar2 - To the extent that you think college is about the branding, then I think it is reasonable to consider whether you can purchase the quantity of branding you need at a discount at the graduate level. It is probably not an accident that I see many colleges (especially colleges with great brands) are moving to monetize the value of their brands to students who have the financial resources to add a graduate degree after their name. To point to one obvious example, just look at all of the terminal Master of Engineering degrees (vs. traditional Master of Science in Engineering degrees) that are now being offered by schools like Duke, Cornell, Dartmouth, and UIUC. On the liberal arts side, isn’t the Duke brand the real value proposition behind Duke’s MALS degree? All of these graduate degrees are going to be much less expensive than an undergraduate degree simply because they are shorter.
From this perspective, the combination of an honors public college at a steep discount + branded grad program looks like a very savvy strategy indeed.
Elite vs. Honors public is a complex issue and the right answer depends on the kid.
Never forget that choice of major is usually more important than choice of school.
It is difficult to separate the discussion of schools and majors. They are interwoven like space and time.
Know where your kid is on a scale of “life of the mind” vs. “hands-on doer.” This has a big impact on both school selection and major selection. There are elites in both camps. Chicago and Swarthmore are “life of the mind” focused, MIT and Penn are hands-on. Many kids have a strong preference for one over the other.
The average student in this situation should not count too heavily on going to an elite later. It is definitely doable, but the percentage that actually do it is not that high. It takes the right student and a plan.
Another key question is around the students ability to capture all of the benefit of an elite. There are incredible opportunities, but the student has to be willing to engage hard, and go the extra mile. It is exhausting. Will they give up their Spring break, Fall break or Summer for unique and differentiated opportunities? Will they really engage in clubs, go to see speakers, and make the most of their time? The more these things are true, the more value an elite school can add.
Is the student more about learning or grads. Elite school students who have their identity and grades linked often struggle. Especially in more difficult majors, this can be a real shock. For many of the very best students the grades are just an outcome, but not what they are focused on. They would rather get a B and learn more in classes with real peers. Some of them really dislike an easy A and being a standout student because it makes them feel like they are waisting their time. Kids like this will say things like, “If I am the smartest kid in the class, I am in the wrong class.”
Understand that Honors programs vary a lot at State U’s. It will take time and knowledge to investigate these and understand the differences.