<p>EmsDad, I do agree that one reason grads from some top programs may be successful in this field is that the students who attend those programs in the first place went through a highly selective process to be admitted and so it may be apples to oranges to compare those graduates to those at a school that is much less selective in the first place. </p>
<p>Cost is surely a consideration for most families. Remember, however, that the ticket price is not the final price at a school. Thus a school that may cost $45,000 but awards a $20,000 scholarship brings the price down to $25,000. So, students may wish to apply to more expensive schools and see what aid and scholarships they may receive. My daughter went to a very expensive college, though received a substantial scholarship. Families who are really needing to be careful about the costs, are often families who may qualify for aid too.</p>
<p>Every family also must weigh the costs based on their own finances but also their own value system. We did not have our children pick colleges by cost at all. We are a middle class family and my kids qualified for need based aid in fact. We let them pick the best fit schools. My older kid could have had a free ride to our state flagship (free ride to all valedictorians in the state) but that school did not fit any of her selection criteria. I realize in some families, the students take out loans and so that is a factor and a kid should not accrue lots of debt. In our family, we, as parents, are assuming all the costs and debts, as this is the gift we feel as parents, needs to be provided to our children. We can’t afford it out of pocket but have assumed the costs and debts ourselves, including for graduate school. Our kids know they must support themselves when not in school (I realize some parents continue to support young adult children after college, but we do not).</p>
<p>PS, I am not saying that other families should take on our value system when it comes to choosing colleges and putting cost aside. Some may think we are nuts. Yes, D1 could have had a free ride at UVM but went to Brown. The first time she went to grad school, she got into a number of top programs in her field, many with substantial scholarships and we allowed her to pick MIT, the only school that offered no scholarship, turning down schools like Columbia and Cornell, for example. However, in her second year at MIT, she was awarded a half tuition scholarship and so things change! Now, she is in a second round of grad school started this year and we let her pick Berkeley due to best fit, yet she was awarded four times the amt. of scholarship to Stanford. We are believers in best fit, particularly as we feel our kids worked hard to earn that and have taken full advantage of their college educations. But even this has changed because now D was selected as a TA at Berkeley and has had a reduction in tuition. And for next year, she may have an even bigger reduction if she gets a fellowship or obtains in-state status (which grad students can do, not undergrads) and so in the end, it is not costing as much as originally thought, just like at MIT. In fact, when she selected Brown for undergrad, the price went down by a lot starting in her second year when D2 entered NYU and so need based aid improves when you have two kids in college at the same time. So, in all these instances, the schools did not only not cost the price tag, but the costs went down over the years. Just one story.</p>