Having 2 in top privates, I would say sometimes I regret that they turned down partial scholarships to top in-state publics that would have cost 1/2 as much (or less). Then again, sometimes I think how wonderful their schools are in some ways and glad to have given them the opportunity (did not take on debt but could have better funded retirements plans I suppose).
I think university size matters, there are small publics and large privates. One of my kids is at a very large but top tier private, and the bureaucracy can be a bit upsetting at times. The interest in high quality undergrad education can be poor, but the peers are all very bright, and there are endless opportunities. S2 is in a smaller private, and he gets more personal attention no doubt. Not as famous a school, but should be Both turned down our flagships State Unis, where they could have gotten a decent but not outstanding education with good but not great peers, compared to where they are now. Will it matter ? Consider their grades would have been higher in the state schools, which would have helped for grad school. But the connections of the people and name brand on the resume last for many years to help you get a career started. At least it helped me when I graduated from a large well known private.
Most students will not have the choice between a super-selective private and a less selective public, because they will not be admitted to the super-selective private.
The USC versus UCLA example was chosen to compare schools that are roughly comparable to each other in selectivity, prestige (both #21 in USNWR national universities), and cross-apply/admit students. Note that USC does claim to meet need (but on their definition of “need”): https://admission.usc.edu/firstyear/prospective/needbase.html .
Now, if you want to compare Yale to the University of Connecticut, you need to realize that most University of Connecticut students are not getting admitted to Yale, so they have no opportunity to compare financial aid offers between the two.
@wis75 there will always be small cohorts ( like I mentioned in my first post) at flagship uuniversities that are just as exceptional as those going to very top privates, but my salient point is that one if you can get admitted, and can afford it, it is really no contest. ( e.g. very few will choose a UC over Stanford if money isn’t an issue)
Our state publics were not particularly strong in the fields my kids were interested in. And their locations leave something to be desired as well. There were OOS publics that were good fits for my older son, but they cost as much as any private university!
I will say that in-state public flag ships are going to win out on a lot of applicants who are in the $100K to $250K income range, as it can be too much for some to put that much into a private school especially if their child can get a great merit scholarship.
With a kid who passed up University of Washington for Notre Dame, I sure hope it’s worth it in the long run. It will cost us a whole bunch of extra money. We just keep bumping into unemployed and horribly underemployed UW grads, while the ND grads we’ve met around here have exceptionally good jobs.
I haven’t looked at the UW common data set but I suspect ND gets smarter kids than does UW. So I would expect ND kids to do better in terms of the job market. Question would be how well the kids at UW do who had stats that could have gotten them into ND. I know a group of kids who went to various in-state universities who all had stats to get into higher ranked private schools. All of them are doing well with jobs (both during school and upon graduation – or getting into grad school).
I don’t expect you will find many (if any) parents who would say that they sent their kids to full pay private and think its a total waste of money. Nor will you find many (if any) parents who sent their kids to state schools who will say they messed up their kids lives forever. And there are no test cases so no matter how well your kid has done, things may have gone better at another school. And no matter how poorly things turn out, they may have been worse at all other options at the time. You do the best with what you have and move forward.
@saillakeerie - I agree with your point above. I think that people who choose private schools generally have reasons behind it. I think that people who choose publics generally have reasons behind it. Why does one have to automatically be the “correct” way? My kid could have gotten a high quality education at 1/2 the price we ended up choosing to pay, but we had reasons for picking a more expensive version. Our $$, our kid, our choice.
Every public university has as a core part of its mission educating a far wider range of undergraduate students than any “elite” private university does. And for that reason, there’s likely to be a wider range of outcomes at a public university than at a high-status private. That’s why the simple fact of having a degree from a top public university has a much weaker signalling function about a person’s intelligence, sophistication, and capacity for work compared to having a degree from a high-status private university. But that doesn’t mean that a student with an actual choice between a top public and a top private will have widely different outcomes based on which one he or she picks to attend. In fact, the landmark high-quality study of this very question tracking students who in fact had a choice found a minimal difference in economic outcomes for students in that situation.
Or, to put things simply and directly, if you are someone who gets accepted at Notre Dame, and you go to the University of Washington instead, your expected employment prospects after graduation will likely be more in line with the Notre Dame students than the University of Washington’s.
Also, I would guess that recent Notre Dame graduates don’t drift to Seattle much without a job, while a large number of unemployed or underemployed Washington grads live in and around Seattle because where else would they live? If you went to Indianapolis or Chicago, you would probably seem the opposite: a handful of Washington grads with good jobs (or else why would they be there?), and a much larger, more mixed bag of recent Notre Dame alumni.
I wouldn’t call the Krueger studies high quality if that’s what you’re referring to. The second Krueger study found students who APPLIED to highly selective schools did just as well as those who attended, even if they were rejected, after controlling for other factors. This is stunning, but it’s not at all obvious why a student who applied to Harvard and was rejected should be more successful than the kid who never applied, after controlling for stats. I think Krueger’s theory from interviews is that kids are better judges of their own potential than the adcoms, and reveal their self-assessment of their potential through where they apply. Hence, we can learn more about a kid from where they apply than where they are accepted or attend. I think many people on CC would find that idea ridiculous.
There are a substantial number of kids (and I expect the number to increase as tuition costs are expected to grow faster than inflation) who do not apply to elites for financial reasons.
I think that, and have already alluded to, the fact that there will be top students at public universities. That is not really what I was getting at, the original question, is it worth it? My personal belief is based on the cohort of students you have associations with at top privates, it is. Also not concerned about outcomes as you can be a well respected in a field and not have a compensatory salary, (non profit work, social work, academia (sometimes), etc.)
@ucbalumnus There is one other group, those who make around $200K +/- 50K who are unwilling/unable to give up a quarter of that yearly income so their child can go to a top private. Often referred to as those within the donut hole for FA at top privates.
Guess I am a little confused because in your OP, you noted that top privates increase the changes of success but not you are saying you are not concerned about outcomes. If not outcomes, what is the benefit of the cohorts?
@roethlisburger Yes, Krueger et al. I think that's pretty good for this field.
Applying to top colleges: I posit that, as among kids with similar intelligence and socioeconomic status, the group of kids who apply to HYPS (or similar), even if they get rejected, compared to the group of kids who don't do that, will on average (a) be more ambitious, (b) think further ahead, (c) have higher self-esteem, (d) feel like they have more to prove, and (e) have less fear of failure. Not every kid / every quality, of course, not by a long shot. But as groups, that's a pretty good bet. So it's hardly surprising that, even if both groups attend the same college, the HYPS applicants may consistently outperform the others later in life.
It’s instructive, though, that their performance is similar to those who applied and were accepted. It’s a reminder that what determined your success is primarily your own character, not the college you attend. HYPS have the luxury of cherry-picking classes of kids who are overwhelmingly likely to be winners, but they don’t come close to having all of the kids who are overwhelmingly likely to be winners.
I agree with @CU123 that compensation is not the be-all and end-all of measuring outcomes, but I am not certain at all that if you could measure success more comprehensively the results would differ much from what you see looking at compensation. My spouse is a double-Ivy degree person in a public-interest field where, in her generation at least, that made her practically unique. She was low-pay, high-prestige, high-impact, and that was great; she was very, very successful. But she was hardly the only successful person in her field. There were (and are) people with un-fancy degrees who have good intellects, work hard, lead others, think critically, accumulate expertise, and are ambitious to accomplish more.
When push came to shove, I did the same as @CU123 . We paid a lot extra for that cohort effect. I have no complaints at all; I loved my kids' college education so much I am still writing about it here a decade later. But I am not convinced now -- and I wasn't really convinced then, either -- that we made a rational choice.
And in the past decade, the cost of the cohort premium has increased significantly. Which, from everything I have seen, leads more families to say its not worth it.
I agree with everyone (seriously, all of the arguments are potent given the circumstances of individual kids and their families).
But I want to throw out there that there are still LOTS of families who are borrowing and scrimping and saving-- not to send their kid to U Chicago or Michigan or Swarthmore where-- arguably- some of what makes those places special might (I said might so don’t jump on me) make the sacrifice worthwile. These people are borrowing to send their kids to Hofstra and Pace and Adelphi and Stonehill and Quinnipiac- fine institutions all- but in many cases, significantly more expensive than a public option.
And that’s what has me scratching my head. Is Harvard worth it? I can’t tell you that. But I can pretty much promise you that given the price differential between Hofstra and Harvard, Harvard is “more worth it” than Hofstra. I know families who would bankrupt themselves (not all the way, but certainly put themselves at risk) for Villanova and Fairfield and a bunch of other comparable schools.
So sure- let’s talk about whether Harvard is worth it if Michigan is instate and you have a kid who can get admitted to both. But there are thousands of families who don’t seem rattled whatsoever by price point- even when they can’t afford it.
Both turned down our flagships State Unis, where they could have gotten a decent but not outstanding education with good but not great peers, compared to where they are now. Will it matter ? Consider their grades would have been higher in the state schools, which would have helped for grad school. But the connections of the people and name brand on the resume last for many years to help you get a career started. At least it helped me when I graduated from a large well known private.