<p>“Unfortunately, of the schools on that list, few to none have the prestige of either USC OR St. John’s”</p>
<p>^ I respectfully disagree. </p>
<p>A whole pile of the schools on the tuition exchange scholarship list are also ones that are on the Reed PhD productivity list (along with St. Johns, and often ahead of it): Beloit, Texas Lutheran, Wabash, Wesleyan, Bennington, Sarah Lawrence, Marlboro, Goddard…</p>
<p>Do you mean as in reputation to employers? or academics? or partygoers in California? your family? or graduate school commitees in a particular area? </p>
<p>I am not sure what my D will do when she has to choose between a great school with free tuition, or another one that would cost us 100-200k. But I DO know that if she had a choice between 200 free and highly-regarded schools or me spending 100-200k because she doesn’t like one of those 200, the answer would be a no-brainer. You are lucky I’m not your mom :)</p>
<p>(Re: ‘free’: shorthand for free tuition, assuming comparable living/books/other expenses costs across the school options being compared). .</p>