The Ultimate Dilemma

Colleges and Universities A-Z Boston College
21

Since my essay on the previous page, I have been intrigued by the discussion points between Boston College and Bentley. The decision criteria seems to include cost concerns, impact on future college attendees (younger children), liberal arts versus business, dorming versus commuting, “make it fit” versus natural fit, and finally, coin tossing. Ultimately, some type of rubrik is needed to make an intelligent choice.

If the money is not available to cover a Boston College education, the decision is already made. If such funding would make it impossible for other children to have anything close to the same opportunities, the decision is already made. It seems that those are the first two gating criteria.

Next comes the general topic of “fit” which to me translates to major and fields of study. Ultimately, what is the intended major and what is the level of commitment to that field of study? If the major has been chosen in the last three to six months, you can be relatively sure that it will change in the opening two years of college as the student’s mind is “expanded” into other areas of interest.

I do agree with @bluebayou here that considering Boston College’s College of Liberal Arts and Sciences alongside Bentley’s business curriculum compares two orthogonal approaches to education. CAS would tell you that an undergraduate education at Boston College is about the whole individual while Bentley will press for business career placement. Both approaches will result in jobs, but which approach will be more malleable in a world where the graduates from the Class of 2019 will likely hold 5 or more “careers” according to current statistics as opposed to many of us where 2 careers represented the average.

After major, it would seem dorming versus commuting becomes the next criteria to consider. Commuting can impact a student’s engagement with the campus, but that question can vary.

Once you go down the list, at least as ordered here, you most certainly must come up with an answer short of a coin flip.

22

Hi scottj. The coin toss analogy isn’t a cavalier toss the coin, then so be it. It is meant to represent something much deeper, namely what the person who is tossing the coin truly wants the outcome to be, to this effect. It’s not meant to be taken literally. Guess I didn’t articulate that very well. :slight_smile:

P.S.: Why were you gone so long. You were dearly missed

23

We’re going through a similar dilemma. My son’s into several great schools (BC, Michigan, UVa, etc). Right now BC is number one but they offered zero financial aid. Some other “lower” ranked schools have offered about $25k per year in merit scholarships, making them about $100k less than BC over 4 years. So, I guess the question becomes, do you like BC more than School X + $100k? We’re trying not to let money influence the decision, but it’s obviously a factor. My overall advice to the person who posted this is to go where you want UNLESS you’ll have more than, say, $50k in personal debt. It also depends on what you want to do in the future. If you want to be a teacher or social worker, you definitely don’t want debt.

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Dear collegecarla : Thank you for the warm welcome. Early in June 2013, I posted here on College Confidential saying that after some 1000 posts, it was time to “pass the torch” to allow a new generation of on-site parents to offer their contributions and observations regarding Boston College as time would decay the authenticity of my information. While the post was certainly longer than that sound bite, it was deleted from the Boston College board as the moderators prohibit “farewell” messages as being off-topic. While some Boston College loyalists saw the post, many did not; hence, to many, I disappeared. (Truth is that I had little new to say.)

Fast forward to mid-2015 : Recently, I accepted an Associate Professor position at a major New York university that is at the intersection of the academic business squeeze of attracting students, determining discount rates (scholarships), decreasing available student pools on a regional basis, and competing to provide new and exciting on-campus facilities and relevant coursework.

WIthin the last four years (two at Boston College, two post-BC in this new academic role), I have seen some tremendous changes in the business of academia :

[1] the spotlight on a national debt load of $1.3T which will potentially prevent this entire generation of college graduates from participating in the general economy (housing, autos, consumerism),

[2] the unintended “double bubble” created by need-blind and financial aid driven models where classic middle class families ($100,000 cash assets, $150,000 income, own home) are forced to downgrade their college expectations while higher and lower income families are less impacted,

[3] despite a perceived very slow economy (regardless of revised measurements on unemployment), the cost of college education has continually risen at a rate substantially above CPI during the last five years,

[4] defining a three-year BA/BS program to contain full costs, along with an increasing use of on-line education for core courses, serving to create a more streamlined delivery of a major field of study at the cost of well-rounded liberal arts education,

[5] the role of the NCAA and the business implications of “student-athletes” which undermines obtaining a true education, and

[6] the investments made to run a campus at the expense of faculty, the increased usage of adjuncts designed to fill gap after gap in scheduling, and the ultimate wandering from delivering core degree competency.

These topics are not Boston College centric although schools in BC’s cohort group with smaller endowments than Ivy League competitors will certainly get caught in many of these situations over time.

As a result, collegecarla, I have rejoined the discussion to not only offer continued positive advice about Boston College, but to bring the needed evolution of college as we know it into the discussion. Something must change when quality schools like NYU announce a $72,000 per year freshman year price tag. NYU is not an outlier but a leading edge as others will follow. The challenge for private education will not end with this essay. Over time, we will offer ideas to the BC and broader community in line with these six challenges.

So, you can argue that I have a self-created “revised mission” to continue to inform the BC community with intelligent well-informed discourse. However, the impact of that spend, immediately after your student receives that sheep-skin, also deserves our attention. That new perspective is what I can offer first hand to the community.

25

So BC has just reduced the small subsidized loan to less than a thousand, while 'Nova is offering over $2500 more in subsidized loans. My son loved Nova about the same as BC, but he took it off his list because they are so much alike to him and so he picked the one closer to home. I don’t know if all colleges start reducing the aid in April just before the deadline date, but we are not trusting of BC with this new change in aid. Nova is definitely back on the table as well as Bentley!

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I’m sending my 3rd and last child to college. @bluebayou made a point about name recognition that echoes something I’ve mentioned to my kids (first went to a top-tier school, 2nd went to state flagship and 3rd is deciding). I take the perspective that you should always look at quality of education first, but for employment purposes, also think about the broad name recognition of your school. Even if the school you choose is known because they have a competitive sports team(s), you have something to converse about in an interview. Generally, people like and respond favorably to what they know and recognize, so discussing Nova’s basketball season could be a talking point. I live in PA and have never heard of Bentley. I imagine it has a strong regional name recognition, but I don’t know whether the recognition extends beyond those borders. Just a thought if you’re in a tie-breaker situation. As an aside, I work for Silicon Valley startups and am surprised at how few people have heard of Carnegie Mellon University, so that probably casts doubt on my argument.

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@premature_gray That is a very good point about name recognition, but remember the name needs to be recognized by the employers. My daughter graduated from Bentley which is heavily recruited by some of the top accounting firms, finance and banks. When my daughter went people were like “where?, I’ve never heard of it”. Thankfully, she received many job offers and accepted a job by November of her senior year. I am aware this happens at all schools, I am just pointing out just because you have never heard of Bentley, doesn’t mean they won’t get a job. I think, as with most schools, the jobs are in the local area (Boston) and New York, but she had friends who received jobs all over. I wont say its better than another school, just there are plenty of jobs and the people that matter in your job search are aware of Bentley.

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@momtoo3 I’m glad to hear that!

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scottj, that’s fascinating and these issues are ones about which I and many here are concerned. I’ll find a couple of links I have recently come across that pertain to this area; much to contemplate. So happy for your posts again. You helped me so much as my family started out in the college process, thrilled that you are back to help others as well.

Learners, since your son also loves Villanova, that seems to be the perfect solution for you and yours!

Perhaps it’s best that this thread now be ended since it’s been rather exhausted and has turned into “this school is better than that school” thread. All of these schools are great. Time to move on I think, as this is no longer productive.

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Learners - Nova may be in your future, but don’t look down on BC for making an adjustment. We experienced it three times in the spring. It happens regularly; I’m guessing based on budgets. But it is also final review of your 2014 tax return, once filed.

In our case, it wasn’t a lot either, but any grant is better than a loan. One college even offered a small merit ‘stipend’ to help adjust to Frosh life, but this was a school that officially did not offer merit aid.

The question for BC – or any need-based college for that matter – is whether they would maintain that level of grant for the next four years if your income/financial situation doesn’t change. Some schools pull a virtual bait and switch with one time grant money for Frosh and less aid in future years – not BC – but there are some out there.

Congrats to your S and his fine choices.

31

That’s refreshing to know about BC, @bluebayou , thank you. We are visiting Villanova this weekend and then making a final decision.It’s been quite a wild ride this year, but we are grateful to have choices.