<p>So, I'm a senior from Boston who has been offered the following</p>
<p>Stanford for $36k a year (with financial aid)
Harvard for $32k a year (also including financial aid)
or UNC CH for $0 a year (tuition, room, board, books, and fees)</p>
<p>Interests: Political Science, Creative Writing
Career Plans: probably a lawyer, but I'd like to write for the New Yorker or Esquire
My parents are able to pay for S or H, but not comfortably</p>
<p>What would you honestly want your kid to do?
(my parents are refusing to give me a straight answer)</p>
<p>I would want my kid to find out exactly how willing her parents are to pay, and how uncomfortable that will make us. I would want my kid to try (probably without much success) to negotiate a more generous aid package from H or S. </p>
<p>My kid would find out that her parents are perfectly happy to pay for H or S. I would want my kid to choose without regard to the money, but that is only because we have always expected to pay full price and can afford it. </p>
<p>Your case may be different. You also have to weigh how much you like UNC relative to H or S. And how much law school will cost you, if that is where you end up going.</p>
<p>You only go to college once. Money is not everything (but you only realize that when you have plenty of it).</p>
<p>You are much likelier to get a job at the New Yorker if you go to Harvard. If you can manage to get on the Crimson newspaper, it will be even easier (but I’ve heard it’s competitive.)</p>
<p>For a job like writing for a magazine, connections are important–especially to get a very job at a high-profile magazine/newspaper right out of school. </p>
<p>Also, humanities grad school requires tuition, so if your plan is to go to Harvard/Stanford for grad school, you will end up having to pay a couple of years of tuition anyway.</p>
<p>oh, I didn’t see that the OP wanted to be a lawyer. In that case, UNC might be the better option. If you are outstanding at standardized tests and are confident you will get an extremely high college GPA, then you will be able to get into Harvard Law later on.</p>
<p>Is the UNC scholarship the Morehead? If so, that is not just a full-ride.</p>
<p>And what is your definition of not comfortably?</p>
<p>The question is not what I would want my children to do, they knew very early in school what was expected of them and what they expected of me.</p>
<p>The question is what do you want to do, what are you willing to do for your education besides attending school? This is truly the start of adulthood and your decisions do not just affect you.</p>
<p>How do you know your parents aren’t giving you a straight answer? What makes you think they aren’t being upfront with you?</p>
<p>If you really believe they are not, my suggestion would be to approach them and ask them as one adult to another what their financial investment would be and how much of a hardship it would be…and REALLY listen. They are your parents, they want only the best for you. And the best for you does not have to be the most expensive. It is what you make of it. You might or might not end up in law school, but keeping that in mind for finances is important to discuss with your parents.</p>
<p>It is your future and you are calling the shots but not in a vacuum. If you as a family believe that the value you invest financially in Harvard/Stanford is worth the price tag than go for it and don’t look back. However, UNC-CH (NC resident here) also has value (esp as a Morehead) that can also open many doors for you and provide you with a world-class education.</p>
<p>pcrisp,
If you’d prefer not going to UNC, what sacrifices would you make to support your dream? Would you be willing to take out loans, work during the school year and summer, forgo studying abroad, to go to one of the schools that cost more than UNC? </p>
<p>Meanwhile, I know a lawyer who has a prestigious job at a top law school who got her undergrad degree from UNC. I also know an award-winning fiction writer who teaches at a top university who got his undergraduate degree from UNC. It has a lot going for it particularly if you get one of their top merit scholarships.</p>
<p>I think if you want connections to magazines Crimson or Advocate at Harvard would be invaluable. If you want to be a lawyer you might want to save money for law school. It also depends on how much your parents feel comfortable with. We planned to pay for our kid’s education and want them to go wherever they like best.</p>
<p>You need to find out how comfortable/uncomfortable your parents are. Not giving you a straight answer is a sign of their discomfort. How safe are their jobs? How have their investment accounts been doing. How close are they to retirement? How are their retirement savings? Can you commute to H? Can you get a job to help defray costs - even if it’s only several thousand?</p>
<p>It can be hard for parents to discuss this with their kids as they may feel some embarrassment or sense of failure if they can’t pull it off.</p>
<p>No one has mentioned this, but print journalism of all types is a really struggling field. Who knows what the magazine field will look like in two years let alone 4 or more?</p>
<p>If you were my child and those were my child’s goals, I would want to be able to help you financially after college so that you could reach your aspirations whether they are to be a struggling journalist or to go to law school. </p>
<p>If I covered the costs of either of those private schools, I would be unlikely to be able to do this.</p>
<p>I agree that print journalism is dying. If, though, you’re interested in being an excellent writer, UNC has a wonderful journalism program and student newspaper as well as excellent journalism professors. I know because I’ve visited the program. UNC also has excellent connections with the journalism profession. Saying all of this as a Harvard grad, who was on the Harvard Crimson, and has also recruited for print journalism companies.</p>
<p>This might help you decide. Another top student had a very similar choice 4 years ago- a full ride at Vanderbilt vrs Yale. He reported back to CC not too long ago about how his choice has worked out.</p>
<p>Personally I would prefer my child went to Harvard. One of our sons did, despite a free-rife offer from somewhere else. But we had been saving for college for a long time and while we’d have been happy to have more money we were happier to be able to let him go where he wanted.</p>
<p>OP, if it is the Morehead scholarship, you could be in for a great deal. I know a girl who took the Morehead over Yale and went on to medical school on another full scholarship. Morehead is much, much different than full ride at other comparable schools. Do you research. Talk to the the program participants etc.</p>