<p>I trust that quality of education is good anywhere "Somewhere". It more depends on individual than school. What do you think of very selective program that basically only Ivy caliber students are able to enter, if such a program exists at some low ranked state school? This is not a hypothetical question, there are plenty of programs like this out at schools that you will not consider because of their ranking. The kids in this programs are top of the top.</p>
<p>The problem with a lot of 18 year-olds today is they don't understand money. They don't understand what it takes to pay bills, or work because (just as another post states) everything is pretty much done for them. I believe this. Now...</p>
<p>I'm barely 18, and I don't have much of a right to say what I did above, but I see my parents and how hard they work just to put food on the table. If it is that hard, then how much harder will it be to pay for a school tuition of 20,000 dollars or more scholarship or no? If I go to college (whether CC, or four-year), I plan on working hard. To be honest, now that the economy is where it is, I'll have to work extra hard, but you know what? That is life. By the sweat of my brow will I pay for my college education.</p>
<p>I'll definitely value it more, and get a good dose of how the rest of the world lives. I'll welcome my parents' help, but I can't rely on them forever.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP,</p>
<p>I guess we disagree. You can find a number of private colleges that have poorly trained faculty, lousy facilities, weak course offerings and so forth. </p>
<p>Regarding "selective program that basically only Ivy caliber students are able to enter, if such a program exists at some low ranked state school?" Plenty of these programs? Surely you are kidding. Besides, who has anything against a "low ranked state school"? many of them are fine institutions for students who are a good fit. Surely you know that rankings and quality are not the same thing?</p>
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First off, my discussion is not simply restricted to those "bargain elites". How about getting a full-ride merit scholarship? That's what my brother did. It doesn't even necessarily have to be at a school the caliber of Caltech. You can go to a lower-ranked school that will give you a full ride. If you are a strong student, you should be able to get a full ride at some school. Maybe not necessarily at a top school, but somewhere. When you're talking about cheap costs, it's hard to beat negative costs. But, it doesn't even have to be a full ride. Even some sort of merit ride can greatly defray the costs. </p>
<p>That actually leads to my real point. I would 'politely suggest' that the real question is not so much about 'sound financial planning' but really about the willingness to put in hard work. If you're really worried about paying for college, then I have two words for you: study harder. Study harder so that you can get into one of the 'bargain elites' like HYPSM, and/or get a merit scholarship someplace. </p>
<p>I don't want to be overly harsh, but if you simply chose not to study hard such that you can't get some merit money someplace, even at a low-ranked school, frankly, it's hard for me to sympathize with you. Sorry to be blunt, but you should have studied harder.
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Um, where can people get a full merit scholarship with an SAT score of 1250 (cr+m)? It doesn't matter if you have a 4.0 at that point. Simply put, there are more academically capable students out there.</p>
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Um, where can people get a full merit scholarship with an SAT score of 1250 (cr+m)?
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<p>Well, that's part of my point. Study harder to get a better SAT score. </p>
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In other words, would one really want a full ride to Trinity University in Washington DC over attending Penn State or U Maryland? You would need to put a particularly high value on expenditures and a particularly low value on educational outputs to make such a decision.</p>
<p>Maybe you, Sakky, don't care about educational quality factors. Most people do. So the goal for most people is not "to get a full ride at some school. Maybe not necessarily at a top school, but somewhere" as you state, but rather to balance cost and benefit.</p>
<p>Quality does matter for most folks. "Somewhere" is just not good enough, certainly not for my kid.
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<p>Well now we're talking about something different then, aren't we? Now we're simply talking about trying to balance cost vs. quality, which is a trivial point because everybody is always trying to do that. If I want a better type of good, I generally have to pay more for it, and that is harder to do when I have less money. So basically you're not really saying anything that we don't already know. </p>
<p>Look, not everybody can afford everything they want. Would I like to live in a nicer house? Would I like to drive a better car? Do I want to wear nicer clothes? Of course! Who wouldn't? But I don't because I can't afford it. Life is about making choices. You can't always get everything you want. If you have less money, then you will get less of what you want. What can I say? That's life.</p>
<p>But, I said it before and I'll say it again. A good student should be able to get a merit ride somewhere. Maybe not at a top school, but somewhere. Now, is it true that you will probably lose quality? Sure. What can I say? That's life. It would be nice to live in a world where everybody could always afford to get everything that they wanted, but that's not the world we live in.</p>
<p>If you are a B/C student with SATs running around the 1200 level, and your family just does not hae it for college. Just no way. Your choices are to go to a local state school and work part time and borrow. That includes community college. If your home situation is such that you feel you really should get out--abusive, neglectful, problem filled home environment, it may well be your best option to look at a school even though it is not well known where you can get a full ride. With a summer job, you could save enough to get to whereever such a school is and make your own life at age 18 earning a college degree as you do so.. No longer have to be living with the family, can focus on your academics, your new life. Pretty good deal in my book. If home environment is nurturing and there is money for colleges, the options are more plentiful.</p>
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Yeah, I agree. Even on this forum, the amount of people looking at the extremely elite colleges is still relatively low. I'd even surmise that the majority of people who are looking at elite college on this forum and have a realistic shot of getting in likely miss much of the financial aid. Double income families with two professional earners hits ~180K very rapidly.</p>
<p>For the vast majority, publics are likely to be a much cheaper option.
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<p>It is obviously true that the majority of people will not be competitive to get into the elite private schools, or for a merit ride at a reasonably good school. But that's precisely my point - why do you want to be like the majority? Why do you want to be just like everybody else? Why not just study harder and work harder so that you can be a better candidate than the majority and so that maybe you can be competitive for those elite private schools or one of those merit rides at perhaps a lower-ranked school. </p>
<p>In other words, I am offering a way out of the usual cost-quality tradeoff. If you work harder, you will be able to submit a more powerful application such that you really might be able to get a high quality education for relatively low cost. If you work hard enough, you may be able to get both high quality and low cost. </p>
<p>Again, that's what my brother did. He worked very hard in high school and got a full merit ride to Caltech. It's hard to get cheaper than a negative cost. Nor is he the only one. There are other good schools that give out full merit rides. Now, does it take a lot of hard work to get one of them? Of course! But that's the point. If you want to get the best things in life, you will have to put in hard work.</p>
<p>Besides, just think about the counterargument: that you want to get into a high quality school that costs very little, and you also don't really want to work hard to get it. If that's the case, well, I don't know what to tell you, for I too would like to enjoy great privileges without having to work for them. I'm sure we all would.</p>
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Well, that's part of my point. Study harder to get a better SAT score.
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Ummm, what if they've already studied and can't get higher than a 1250? Is it not unreasonable to assume some people simply aren't smart enough to get higher than a certain score on the SAT regardless of hours spent studying?</p>
<p>The fundamental argument is that full merit rides available at privates is an incredibly low number relative to college applicants. It is reasonable to assume that people who study hard and maintain good grades still will not be able to get full merit rides because they don't not have a high enough IQ (ie: what the SAT is actually measuring).</p>
<p>Well, now we are finally at the kernel of truth. Even after spending thousands of dollars and hours, some students are simply never going to get more than a 1200, or 1250. They are throwing good money after bad. It isn't a matter of working harder. It's a matter of innate intellect.</p>
<p>I can only speak from our own experience here but here it is. We are in CA. Our son is in his third year of school. He was accepted at UCs but we do not live close enough for him to commute. He ended up at a private where the merit scholarship makes the COA identical to what the UC would have been. He was not offered any full merit rides. </p>
<p>He had several friends who started out at CCs (most notably Santa Barbara CC) and have gone on to UCLA, UCB, etc.<br>
There are choices for everyone out there.</p>
<p>I would not say that, Allmusic. It just might be that there is not the time to work the necessary amount to bring up the scores to the point where it would make a difference in getting a full ride. There is quite a gap between those better known schools that are very selective in offering such packages and those schools that are known and offer such deals. If you waited till fall of senior year, you have an awfully full plate, and I don't know if you can find the time to bring up the numbers significantly.</p>
<p>Some folks have the innate intellect, special skill, ability to score well on certain tests without prep. Others need to work on it. But there is a balance as to how much time can be allotted to that endeavor as opposed to other things that are important in life. Some of the Asian schools have their kids prepping for exams to the point where that is their lives.</p>
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Some folks have the innate intellect, special skill, ability to score well on certain tests without prep. Others need to work on it. But there is a balance as to how much time can be allotted to that endeavor as opposed to other things that are important in life. Some of the Asian schools have their kids prepping for exams to the point where that is their lives.
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How do you work on it if you don't have the innate intellect? Take pills which make you smarter?</p>
<p>Lets face it: people have different intelligences. Effort being equal, smarter people are going to get the best scores. Therefore, the smartest people are going to be getting full merit rides to CalTech. These anecdotes have virtually no relevance to those with a 115-125 IQ, who are surely college material, but will likely not be getting full merit rides at private institutions. Therefore publics are the option that is of least cost. Simple. As. That.</p>
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Ummm, what if they've already studied and can't get higher than a 1250? Is it not unreasonable to assume some people simply aren't smart enough to get higher than a certain score on the SAT regardless of hours spent studying?
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Well, now we are finally at the kernel of truth. Even after spending thousands of dollars and hours, some students are simply never going to get more than a 1200, or 1250. They are throwing good money after bad. It isn't a matter of working harder. It's a matter of innate intellect.
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<p>I would argue that it's still a matter of hard studying. </p>
<p>Note, by that, I don't just simply mean that you can study for just several months before the exam and hope to get a high score. This is a long-term effect. For example, to get a high CR score, you basically need to have been doing extensive reading starting from a relatively young age. Similarly, to get a high math score, you need to have been learning rigorous mathematics from a relatively young age. If you haven't been doing that, then, sure, you probably won't get a super-high score. But, that's the point. You need to have been studying these things for a long time. </p>
<p>But, ok, fine, guys, we can have it your way. But then what are we really talking about then? Are you saying that somebody who really isn't that smart nevertheless still deserves to get into a top school and/or a merit scholarship? </p>
<p>Well, if that's how you feel, well, hey, I don't know what to tell you. Some people are born with innate abilities that others do not get. Brad Pitt is far more handsome than I am, and that's why he's a millionaire movie star and I'm not. That's life.</p>
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Lets face it: people have different intelligences. Effort being equal, smarter people are going to get the best scores. Therefore, the smartest people are going to be getting full merit rides to CalTech. These anecdotes have virtually no relevance to those with a 115-125 IQ, who are surely college material, but will likely not be getting full merit rides at private institutions. Therefore publics are the option that is of least cost. Simple. As. That.
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<p>Nope. Not. Simple. As. That.</p>
<p>First of all, I never said that you required full merit rides. I simply said that you required enough of a ride to make the total cost of one school less than that of another (presumably a public). Again, presuming that you've gotten top grades in high school as well as done good EC work - which I think we can all agree is a clear product of hard work - I strongly suspect that you can get some sort of merit ride from somewhere such that the total cost is less than that of your state public school. Granted, maybe that ride does not come from a great school. But from somewhere. After all, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of schools out there. </p>
<p>Secondly, it's not clear to me that IQ has much to do with the matter anyway. Let's be honest - the SAT questions are really not that hard. We're not asking you to complete some famous unsolved math theorems. We're not asking you to generate some brilliant new insight into Shakespeare. The math questions are basic algebra, geometry, prob/stats, and basic number theory & data analysis. The CR questions are basically about your reading/comprehension skills. The writing section asks you about grammar. These are all things that can be learned through hard work. Granted, having great natural intelligence may make it easier for you to learn these things, but, unless you're truly mentally deficient, you can still learn them through hard work. {And if you really are truly that mentally deficient, then college probably isn't the place for you anyway.}</p>
<p>Lest you disbelieve me, just think of it this way. Grab any SAT prep book. How many questions have you ever seen in there where you absolutely have no chance of ever possibly understanding them at all? I think the number is pretty small. The questions are really not that hard, conceptually. Yes, during the test, you are going to get a lot of these questions, and you will be under intense time pressure. But, again, that speaks to the fact that you can properly prepare through hard work. </p>
<p>Bottom line - the SAT is not really a test of your innate intelligence. If that's what they wanted, they could just run an actual IQ test. Rather, it's a test of your basic mathematics and English skills, and these are things that you can improve through hard work.</p>
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First of all, I never said that you required full merit rides. I simply said that you required enough of a ride to make the total cost of one school less than that of another (presumably a public). Again, presuming that you've gotten top grades in high school as well as done good EC work - which I think we can all agree is a clear product of hard work - I strongly suspect that you can get some sort of merit ride from somewhere such that the total cost is less than that of your state public school. Granted, maybe that ride does not come from a great school. But from somewhere. After all, there are literally hundreds and hundreds of schools out there.
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I suspect that you are wrong. I think that full rides comprise less than 5% of all spots within schools (it's probably far less than that, but I'm overestimating). That means that 95% will not get that. Which means that publics are the better option. Not only that, I suspect that publics give away far more free rides than privates anyway. Just look at the University of Alabama program makes that abundantly clear. Publics are just far superior to privates in terms of cost.</p>
<p>MrPayne, that depends on personal circumstances. There is no one true answer to which is the better option. For us, the private is less expensive than the public flagship. For others, it is not. Just like there is no best school, there is no for-sure least expensive option between public & private.</p>
<p>I'm surprised that no one here has mentioned yet the contrast between total cost of attendance after all financial aid sources are considered and instructional spending per student. That's been implicit in a few of the replies, but if one can afford a college at all, why not go to the one that offers the best value?</p>
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I suspect that you are wrong. I think that full rides comprise less than 5% of all spots within schools (it's probably far less than that, but I'm overestimating). That means that 95% will not get that.
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<p>Again, first of all, we're not necessarily talking about full rides. We are just talking about rides that are sufficiently large to make them cheaper than your state school. </p>
<p>But secondly, nobody is disputing that most people are not good enough to get good merit aid, or get into the top private schools that offer substantial financial aid. But that's exactly the point I'm making: do you want to be just like most people? I would think that you would want to be * better qualified* than most people. </p>
<p>Let's be bluntly honest - most American high school students don't really study that hard. I went to one of the better high schools in the country, and even so, the vast majority of student were not really interested in studying, but were far more interested in partying, gossiping, talking about the latest fashion and music trends, and basically managing their social lives. It's really not that hard to outstudy them. I would estimate that at most only 10% of the students were truly interested in doing well academically. And this was at an above-average high school. Imagine how unmotivated the students are at an average high school. </p>
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Not only that, I suspect that publics give away far more free rides than privates anyway. Just look at the University of Alabama program makes that abundantly clear. Publics are just far superior to privates in terms of cost.
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<p>Nobody is saying that public schools don't also give away some rides. Of course they do.</p>
<p>I am simply making the point that kelsmom has stated: we can't generalize that people who are looking for the cheap option will all be moving to the public schools. Some will and some won't. For some people, the public school is indeed the cheapest best option. But for others, it is the private school that is the cheapest best option.</p>
<p>"Let's be bluntly honest - most American high school students don't really study that hard. I went to one of the better high schools in the country, and even so, the vast majority of student were not really interested in studying, but were far more interested in partying, gossiping, talking about the latest fashion and music trends, and basically managing their social lives."</p>
<p>Is that a bad thing?</p>
<p>There is plenty of time to get serious. You're only young once. There should be a time in a person's life when he or she should let go, explore, have fun, live in the moment. </p>
<p>There is plenty of time to study and work hard later.</p>
<p>What society does to teenagers in this country is awful.</p>
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What society does to teenagers in this country is awful
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<p>Let's get real. It's not "society". What % of teenagers are we speaking about here?</p>