So a couple of takeaways from the consensus views imbedded in this thread:
1- Students at elite schools have no institutional advantage in terms of resources, alumni network, career support, reputation, etc vs a large state university
2- Students at elite schools don’t have to work particularly hard because of grade inflation having already achieved “the hardest part” being getting in.
3- Getting into an elite school is not merit based but largely like winning the lottery. Not just idiosyncratic but best case random or worst case rigged.
4- Those that buy into the “hype” of the benefits of elite schools are part of a “mass delusion”.
5- Seemingly the only people to not agree with items 1-4 are those with kids at elite schools and their experiences should be discounted as either an aberration or just plain wrong.
6- College is an ROI exercise and the decisions are black and white in nature. It is either worth it or not and individual results or situations don’t matter.
We periodically have these discussions about private elites vs state flagships. In some cases, the answer is clear: if a student is a full-pay at an OOS flagship when s/he also has an opportunity to attend a private elite where her/his intended major is at least as strong for about the same cost, for example. In many other cases, however, the answer isn’t clear, and certainly not definitive. It depends on the student and on her/his family’s finances.
I also believe a college education shouldn’t be driven purely by ROI. ROI calculation (or even rough estimation) presumes the student is an average student at each of those colleges. S/he isn’t and s/he can’t be at all of them. Numbers are often distorted, especially at elite colleges, by a few outliers. However, a few, very few, colleges do add some extra value (whether academically, socially, or culturally) and are worth paying some extra for. How much extra a family should be willing to pay again depends on the family and their student.
We need to pull Harvard, Stanford, Princeton, Yale and MIT, and maybe 3 or 4 others out of this discussion, because they warp the debate. It is like the College Confidential corollary to Godwin. If you have to invoke Harvard to win the debate, you have lost the debate.
There are a lot of well respected prestige privates that are very expensive and don’t provide much in the way of merit grants. How do those measure up against top state schools?
I think for some students (and certainly for students from low SES backgrounds) a prestigious college will pay off in terms of access to better opportunities and, potentially, greater success. And, of course, there is the actual experience of attending one of these schools with their vast intellectual and financial resources which is worth something in and of itself. At the same time, just attending an elite school is no guarantee of anything. I know many Ivy+ grads and most are working in normal jobs that aren’t any different than those of their non-Ivy league neighbors. Some, in fact, are less successful. A lot of success has to do with personal qualities that don’t have that much to do with where one attends college.
That is not at all what anyone is saying. Make your own value assessment. For our family, I made the assessment and didn’t see the value in spending $320k of my hard earned money compared to the full-ride options my DD had at a number of flagships. $320k is a lot of money for many families, including those that are full pay. It is not a drop in the bucket for me. For our family, that decision was an excellent one.
At the end of the day, “elite schools” don’t have a monopoly on excellent educational opportunities and excellent outcomes. They are great options for some fortunate students who get accepted and can attend at a price that is comfortable for their families or even a small stretch. No one is denying that. Those students are very small in number compared to the total number of college students. So why do some people refuse to accept that a very small number of school don’t have a monopoly is baffling to me. That is the delusion.
I have never suggested such a thing. In fact my other kids have benefited greatly from the “less elite” schools they attended. Never suggested there is a monopoly on great non elite schools or alternative and or better suited academic options given unique circumstances. Lastly money matters and everyone has different resources and values, but that doesn’t serve to invalidate conflicting opinions.
I am truly glad that your situation and decisions have yielded great results. I am however baffled as to why some people refuse to acknowledge the reality and validity of others first hand experiences even if it contradicts their personal narratives.
I don’t think there is a consensus. A lot of hesitation you hear about the benefits of elite education is due to the cost. At what price is it “worth it” - for example, should a student and his/her parents cash in their 401k, borrow $100,000+ etc to attend. I don’t think anyone would debate the value if a kid has very generous FA, his parents can comfortably foot the bill or if they only need to borrow a modest amount to afford it.
In terms of “lottery” - pointing out that many kids with similar qualifications to those accepted (discounting athletes, competition winners and the like) are turned away every year doesn’t take away from the accomplishment of getting in. No one is saying those kids didn’t work incredibly hard, because they did - just pointing out that for every fortunate kid there are 100s just like them that just didn’t match.
I think even absent the cost factor (which is huge) that lower SES students get intangible benefits that others do not - which makes perfect sense given that so many other students come from privileged backgrounds.
Every family makes their own decision on value, worth, etc. I fully respect other adults ability to make those judgments. But the reverse is not always true. I have neighbors who think nothing of buying a brand new car for their 17 year old (and guess how long the pristine new car stays pristine with a new driver at the wheel) and did not hesitate to tell me I was “nuts” to pay for private college for my kids when they could have gone instate for “practically nothing”.
I see the rampant consumerism (not everywhere, but in many places) where spending gobs of money on electronics, fancy kitchen equipment, ALWAYS new cars, ski trips to god knows where (hey, we have mountains in New England!) or beach vacations to exotic places (Hey, we also have beaches here!) is “acceptable” whereas “wasting” your money on your kids education is a fools endeavor.
To each his/her own. I was full pay- I never complained, I never regretted it, I never asked anyone else to subsidize my choices. But threads like these always paint picture of the “wise and thrifty” ganging up on the “deluded” who are too stupid to understand that private colleges are overpriced, overhyped, insane choices.
Hey- I was smart enough to launch in a career (and keep my job through four recessions and counting) which allowed me the cash to be full pay. It is safe to assume that I know how to evaluate ROI for my family/kids. And since I read resumes (and interview, and lead teams which have hired tens of thousands of people in all sorts of roles and functions) I can pretty well determine which colleges are “worth” it and which ones are not based on my kids innate talents, interests, ambitions, etc.
This is the 683rd time a thread has been started with some variation of the “is it worth it” subject in the 7+ years I have read this site. And the 1,489th time this discussion has come up in a thread during that time (often times threads that do not start as “is it worth it” discussion evolve into it at some point (something of the 6 degrees of Kevin Bacon – how many pages will it take before a given thread will dive into the “it is worth it” abyss).
Although subjective, there is an answer to the question. But its an answer that involves 2 words with which many on this site struggle mightily: it depends. On a multitude of factors many of which were very subjective.
Nothing changed since the last time the subject was discussed. Or any of the other times the issue was raised. But it always starts with a de novo approach as if its never been discussed before. Maybe if we discuss it two thousand more times, a consensus will be reached. LOL
There is a dissertation/thesis in there somewhere in terms of human psychology.
I think one of the the issues is that too many people automatically think Elite = HYPSM when for certain majors, that just simply is not the case.
We only have one child, and we had planned and saved for being full pay for a private college (our whole family went to Cornell and that was what we budged for and frankly assumed that is the type of school she’s choose).
After touring 15 colleges, my kid liked the big state schools better for engineering. Purdue and Michigan were her #1 and #2. It had 0% to do with economics for us. Purdue is tied with Cornell for undergraduate engineering rankings (if we are going by rankings to measure “prestige”). Michigan is ranked even higher. She flat out liked the vibe better, felt students were happier, more collaborative, and there was more flexibility in what classes to take for electives. Also wanted to dive into engineering classes from the get go. Purdue got the leg up because of more established co-op program and she liked the campus better. Added bonus that she was admitted to Honors College.
D is hands down having a better undergrad experience than H and I had at Cornell back in the day (H also engineering). She’s closer to her professors, is having amazing job experiences both with internships and her coop (she was able to do both), she went abroad, was able to get certifications because Purdue accepted all her AP/DE courses so she had much more flexibility than she would have had at Cornell, she’s involved in ECs she loves, has a bunch of leadership roles in HC, etc…
Zero regrets that she choose a large state flagship over a more “prestigious” school.
The judgment definitely goes both ways. I had plenty of people who couldn’t believe I would not pay for Harvard after my DD got accepted.
Also, didn’t your kids graduate when COA was much lower? Would your calculus be the same at today’s prices? I know for me, at $40-45k/yr, I would have left every college on the table, but not at $80k+/yr.
And btw, my DD did get a new car at 17 and it is still pristine. (The used one she got at 16 only lasted a year before it needed overly expensive repairs). She takes excellent care of it and has never been in an accident (knock on wood). And yes, we like nice beach vacations and ski trips. All of that and she still got an excellent education without me spending $320k.
I will also point out that this thread was revived 3 days ago after a year of dormancy. But many of the posters in the last 3 days are the same posters making the same circular arguments from a year ago.
Repeating my earlier comment on this thread,quoting forum rules, " If you find yourself repeating talking points, it might be time to step away and do something else… IIf a thread starts to get heated, it might be closed or heavily moderated."
I’m not sure what the dividing line is between “prestigious” and “public flagship.” I would consider UC Berkeley prestigious based its low admissions rate and reputation, though it’s a public university. A “flagship” in my mind is the top school in its state with active research programs (e.g. UW Madison or UMD College Park) but more realistic for students who may not have unblemished transcripts, impressive extracurriculars, and noteworthy essays.
That said, I’m not even sure the “flagship” comparison is the pertinent one. I have interviewed many software developers and seen many resumes over the years. A typical resume will often include undergrad degrees at universities that I’ve never heard of in other countries, followed by a masters degree in the US, not always at a “flagship.” I do a technical interview, and this tells me a lot more about their ability and thinking process than their resume did. There’s a weak correlation between degrees and ability, and also a weak correlation between interview performance and how things turn out on the job. Also, the kind of resumes I see in the first place varies by company.
A top student in their high school may want to go to an Ivy League school as a matter of pride and accomplishment (either internal or driven by family). That’s fine with me if they can pay for it, and I think it’s the main reason to go that route.
If they’re looking at monetary ROI, what’s the right comparison here? Not only the money they spend compared to first 10 years of salary, for instance, but that same money (the amount above a less expensive university) put into a diversified portfolio over the same time period. There’s of course a risk of losing that investment in the stock market, but there’s equally a risk that the expensive college education won’t pan out.
A family who can afford to ante up an investment like that may still send their kids to an elite school (and possibly without much financial aid if they’re that rich), and some (not all) would probably be insulted or horrified at the suggestion that they plunk down the money for real estate even with all the charts comparing it to starting salary. The reason they’re sending their kids to a prestigious school is not primarily financial.
Glad your D is a safe driver. Reflects so well on her.
Judgment is only judgey when it’s YOUR choices on the table?
If I lived in one of about 5 states, our state flagship would have been a terrific option (different states for different kids, depending on what they wanted). Since our own flagship came up short on the academics, the margin was not “instate for X, private for Y”, but was a much smaller gap of “someone else’s state flagship at out of state rates vs private”. And COA was lower, as was my income, as was my 401K. It’s all relative. I could have bought a Hershey bar for a nickel, yadda yadda yadda.
I wouldn’t presume to tell you how to spend your money.
