<p>Child one is about $10,000 per year; she followed the money. Child two’s expenses are higher than that for high school.</p>
<p>I think we may start to see a bigger backlash in higher education from people who could be full pay, but ask: “Why should we be full pay?” The cost for higher ed is rising so quickly. Is a bachelor’s degree from a top fifty school that much worse than a bachelor’s degree from a top ten school? A $200,000 difference for a bachelor’s degree just doesn’t make sense for many people who have worked decades to save that kind of money.</p>
<p>MDMom: ^^^ We need to be reasonable as even a top 50 public university cost > $100000.
So the real difference between a full pay at a top private and lowest top 50 public will be around $100000.</p>
<p>Is it worth the $100000 difference?
For DD it seems to be worth till now, as she seems much happier than her friends at UCB.
Will it be beneficial in the long run? I don’t know and just can’t predict because a lot actually depend on what you do during your undergrad and where you end up doing post graduation or work.</p>
<p>It could be worse. We are paying for NYU and do not get a dime in merit (even though child’s stats far exceeded the “average” of admitted students).</p>
<p>Our total bill for D’s undergraduate degree will be about $17,000 ($4,250 per year) thanks to the prepaid tuition plan we purchased when she was younger.</p>
<p>Same thing today would cost us at least twice that.</p>
<p>My parents will pay about $12k/year after scholarships. However, much of that is covered due to a prepaid tuition plan, so really it’s more like $15k overall.</p>
<p>We are paying 9K a year for tuition only. His transportation costs another 1K. His books cost another 800-1k. The cost of his living expenses is probably around 500 a month since we would have rented a smaller house i he wasn’t living at home and he eats a lot too.</p>
<p>Ivyhope post #42. I was doing an actual comparison. DD was interested and accepted at Chicago ($58K X four) and Georgetown ($60K X four) and chose a full tuition scholarship at Pitt (R&B $10K X four), so by my calculations it is much closer to $200K. The OP was how much are you spending.</p>
<p>You have a smart daughter. In my opinion, the halo effect of a prestigous school wears off after a year or two and people are more interested in your work experience. Saving the money or forgoing loans for a cheaper school is usually a good investment in my opinion.</p>
<p>I’m not sure if the comparison is right because if the non tuition expenses (R&B) is $10K at Pitt why these will be $20K at Chicago or Georgetown.</p>
<p>Difficult to answer in today’s dollars.
I’ll give an answer in % of COA and you can plug in the numbers. </p>
<p>~25% real contribution based on inflated dollars. The remainder ~75% is investment gains. We happen to front load a UGMA and hit some big investment years and loan interest rates. At time of graduation 2006, net balance asset-liability~$0, however we chose to pay the scheduled amortization. </p>
<p>~70% of COA was from us plus investment gains and ~30 COA was from merit and minor scholarship.</p>
<p>If we had a kid that started in 2007, 2008, 2009, or 2010, based on current investment scenario, current COA, and possible scholarships, the college fund would be less than 30% and the remainder being financed. </p>
<p>The Economy has not been kind to the current in-college and near future college students. And those who were responsible take no blame.</p>
<p>Great friend of S attends NYU film school. He has had an unbelievable first year and while ridiculously expensive (maybe the most expensive school in the country), I really can’t see him getting the same kind of creative output somewhere else. He is ridiculously happy and saved his own money for how much he eats out (which is a lot!).</p>
<p>My parents will have paid around 22k. A education fund from my great-grandmother (RIP) paid about 4.5k and I’ve paid around 4k. So, a bit over 30k for all four years total. Not too bad.</p>
<p>We’re paying approx. 16K per year (everything- tuition, room, board, fees…) for our kid at one of our state u’s. He feels very fortunate to have the opportunity to get a great education (his program was recently ranked #1 nationally for undergrad) at that price. It also helps with costs as it is a 5 yr. program. Works for us.</p>
<p>I do not understand why to pay much for UG. We did not consider any place where D. would not get Merit $$. The most expensive private college gave her about $28,000/ year (combined with what she would get from our state), so we would end up paying about $5,000 in tuition if she ended up going there. We did not consider far away schools either because of cost of travel. Now she is at state school where her whole tuition is covered. This allow us to save for her Grad. School. It has always looked to me that families who decided to send kid s to expensive colleges can afford it. I am very surprised to find that it is not the case. Why not to go to affordable place?</p>
<p>There’s no easy answer to that question. Personally, I refuse to justify the cost of coffee at Starbucks, or manicures, or BMWs. But, I’m willing spend extra for college. Differrent strokes for different folks. I guess it’s the same principle that gives us store-brand cola as well as Pepsi.</p>