How does your son feel about all of this?
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Poll: Prestigious Colleges Wonât Make You Happier In Life Or Work
A Gallup survey suggests the factors that should be guiding decisions on selecting a college are not selectivity or prestige, but cost of attendance, great teaching and deep learning â in that order.
"College debt also has a big impact, on the negative side. Only 2 percent of those with $20,000 to $40,000 in undergraduate loans reported they were âthriving.â Thatâs pretty troubling, since $29,400 is the national average for the 7 in 10 students who borrow. "
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The choice is a pretty easy one for us. We donât have the money to send our daughter to a prestigious school. Unless she gets a big scholarship, she goes in-state, like it or not. To be honest, thereâs nothing these prestigious schools offer that you canât get at an in-state school. Plus, $229,000 leaves you about $70k short for a 4 year degree at a private university, and you have 2 other kids to think of. So in reality, you only have around $75k to pay for college. Thatâll pay for an in-state university.
I promise, no one is judging you. If he doesnât like UT, thereâs always A&M, U of H, Texas Tech, UTD, UTA, Texas State, UTSA, UTEP, Tarleton State, A&M-Commerce and plenty more. Most of them will offer a scholarship and an honors program. Honors is something tangible you can put on a graduate school application. Prestige is really an illusion few can afford.
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Well, I love my dentist and I have no idea where he went to Dental school, much less undergrad.
I have never heard of someone choosing a dentist by their undergrad school. I would keep that in mind when weighing debt vs. school name. How much is that school name really going to matter in terms of his career path?
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Maybe academically. Coming from a blue collar/working class family, going to a T20 changed my life. My experience at my university was qualitatively different from my experience at my state flagship. I say this having taken six or seven classes, in a broad range of subjects, at my state flagship.
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Personally, I would choose the no debt option for undergrad. When I was 18, that was the choice I made for myself, taking the full-ride to my safety school, knowing that I was planning on going on for a doctorate degree. The freedom of not owing anything after graduation is a hard one to really describe; to not have a monthly required payment hanging over your head takes a huge load off your shoulders and allows you the budget to have some enjoyment in your life.
He might change his mind about being a dentist too, a lot can change during college. I can say Iâve never cared where my dentist(s) went to school, either undergrad or professional school, and have no idea of dental school rankings. I can also say in my own profession that clients donât care where I went to for professional school either, no matter how highly itâs ranked. If anything, I think clients in general seem to regard the local familiar school name more comforting to them. The âbedside mannerâ is probably more important than where one went to school.
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This is an easy problem to solve. STOP talking to friends and relatives about your sonâs college search. Ask him to stop talking to his friends. Our kids and we did this. When asked, we politely responded âlooking at lots of options and we will share our college choice decision with you when we make itâ. And yesâŠwe did have to repeat that multiple times for some people. But it completely took the comparison issue out of the picture, and allowed our kid and our family to deal with college choices without any other people making us feel like we werenât doing a good job.
AndâŠI vote for as little debt as possible, but do keep in mind your kid might change his mind and not be one a dentist at all. So help him choose a college where the prerequisite courses for dental school are offered, but where other majors he might be interested in have good programs too.
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OP I feel your pain as I have been hearing similar things from family members and the school guidance counselorâŠwho really should know better. We live in FL so any state school is going to be tuition free for him with some nice scholarships on offer to cover room and board. Going OOS anywhere makes zero financial sense. The guidance counselor told my son he really should be applying to the Ivys so now he has that in his head. Even looking in FL I keep hearing that UF is the only decent school so he âmustâ go there. I have an extremely low tolerance level for listening to anyone who isnât chipping in.
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I feel your pain as I have been hearing similar things from family members and the school guidance counselorâŠwho really should know better.
Yes!! They should know better!!
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But there are so many things you can do to get her (or any child) to really like it. Get them involved in the state schools long before high school. My kids went to 4th of july fireworks at the flagship, went to band camp (and stayed in the dorm and ate at the âall you can eatâ dining hall), heard about sports and met my friends from college. We didnât know where they were going, but they didnât have a negative view of any of the schools that were possibilities.
Neither ended up at my school, but they would have been more than fine at any school.
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I havenât read the whole thread, but I read an article by an orthodontist who did all of his schooling at NYU. All in, including residency, it was $1.2M.
As an optometrist who went to a state school undergrad and a state school for optometry, I vastly outearn my Ivy educated friends.
Save the money. Prestige buys nothing in medicine, with the subtle exception of practicing in NYC or Hollywood, and then only a little.
I can say with 100% confidence that the latter will ad nothing to his paycheck. What makes successful healthcare providers is how competent they are, which is usually just assumed, probably not justifiably, and how likable they are.
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Google âhow student debt altered my lifeâ. Read some of the stories. Youâll get over prestige within 5 minutes.
Itâs your money. Not your friends or guidance counselor. Theyâre not paying the bills.
You live in Texas. You have some great public universities at a bargain price. Be thankful.
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My kids went to a mediocre high school and never knew their GPAâs, because the environment wasnât one of pressure like the one your son is experiencing. They did a lot of artsy stuff outside of school. This was more than 10 years ago and social media has become a big big factor in peer pressure.
I wanted one to go to the state U for CS and another to go to a small LAC for a performing art, but both ended up at âtopâ Ivies. (This felt kind of accidental.) For us, this was the most cost effective choice, so that is very different than the OPâs prospective cost. I mean, at Harvard, you can make $150k or even more and pay about 1/2 of what a state U costs.
So now that I have admitted that two of mine went to Ivies (and one went to community college and is thriving btw), I agree with @ChezCurie that attending these schools can be âlife-changingâ especially for kids who donât come from communities where people make a lot and where their high school is anti-intellectual. Faculty and peers alike had a significant impact, and I am quite sure that where they went did, in fact, affect their opportunities. I feel like I need to apologize for saying that, but in the context of our lives, and their interests, yes, made a difference.
Now if I had a kid who wanted to be a dentist, and state U was more affordable than a âtopâ school (and I would define âtopâ in many ways), I would hope my kid would go to the state U.
But are you sure he is going to stick to being a dentist? Is this career choice strictly about money? Does he have other interests? Is he a kid who might like to explore other areas of interest or is he practical and focused on one path? I always wonder when a kid is young and has their whole life planned, but on the other hand, many really do stick with their plan. Is there a reason he picked dentistry?
One drawback to Ivies and many large schools is that grad students teach sections and grade, while the professor does the lecture. I personally like smaller classes with the professor doing all the teaching, as happens at LACâsâŠ
We also looked into âvibeâ and social life aspects of college. The house system was a big plus, but many state Uâs have honors colleges or dorms centered around interests and most schools have a way to break down the largeness into smaller communities.
If he is sure and you are sure about dentistry, by all means, do affordable undergrad. But also be aware that for many other types of grad schools, there is funding.
At one of the Ivies I was concerned about even a small loan and asked their financial aid about financing grad school and they told me not to worry about it because the kid would get fellowships. I donât think that happens with dentistry but I wouldnât know.
I also like the Colleges that Change Lives website. I know that Clark gives merit scholarships for community involvement.
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Ivyâs are simultaneously the best and the worst deal going. It all depends on EFC.
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The OP has saved $220k in the 529 so the family could probably do full pay for undergrad at any school. The question is whether itâs worth it. If the son wants dentistry, no. If the son doesnât want dentistry and has some intellectual interests to explore, then there might be some arguments for applying to âtop 10â schools. Even better applying to some private LACâs with merit. But for dentistry the state school may be best, or wherever there is a pre-dentistry program.
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This assumes they donât have anything better to spend it on. Thatâs a VERY big assumption.
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Whatâs the target spend for undergrad with the potential that S22 goes to dentistry school?
The three dental schools in Texas are all public. One each in Houston, SA and Dallas. UT in Houston is ~$140k in costs over four years, not including R&B. I guess specialties add onto that cost.
I donât understand your interpretation of âthe question is whether it is worth it.â That seems to be the topic of the thread, right? I made no assumptions whatsoever about whether there was anything else to spend it on. Honestly mystified.
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So many posts already!
Bottom line, undergrad prestige can make a huge difference for a number of prospective fields. Dentistry is not one of them.
The more certain he is of his career choice now, the more certain you as a family should be that debt-free is a lot more important than college name.
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He wants to be a Dentist
Have you ever asked your dentist where he/she did undergrad at?
or your doctor?
Save the money especially for undergrad
S21 Poly Sci / International Relations wants to go to Law School. He is at instate Public for undergrad FSU.
He is currently studying his first year abroad in Italy and loving it
( FSU offers OOS tuition waiver for top students)
D23 wants to go to Med School Will be in state or chase merit for undergrad