@nianello perfect, concise response that says it all.
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I may have missed it in the thread, but have you researched bs/dds programs? Iām always a fan of zero debt, but I think you look at every option.
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I was also going to suggest looking into GAP for dental school. I know I always recommend Pitt, but I think for all things medical they are hard to beat!
Donāt worry. Reality will set in for many.
And he will be just fine and ahead of the game if you talk about this openly. Also go talk to a new dentist together in your communityā¦it is student loans plus the costs of being in business with cutting edge technology or buying into a practiceā¦more loans.
Remember, statistically the majority of his peers will not get into T2O schools, others will be trying to back out of ED acceptances based on the financial aid packages that include $40,000+ per year in parent plus loans, and others will realize the ROI is just not worth it.
My daughter was also a high-achieving student. She applied to a few ātop-rankedā public colleges, as well as several ācompetitiveā private colleges. Because of her academics, she ended up with great merit-scholarship offers. Naturally the top-tier schools didnāt have to bother.
Soā¦ maybe one way to manage this is to ādeferā the finance-topic for now, until after acceptances come in. Let him apply to two or three expensive āreachā schools that likely will offer nothing, but make a deal with him, that he must also research the same number of highly-ranked public āmatchā schools, as well as find the same number of sensible yet still attractive private āsafetyā schools.
The āpeer pressureā will fade over the next few months, as everyoneās busy with writing applications. Eventually, once the acceptances come in, reality will set in for his peers (and their parents): Many will not receive offers for the ābig namesā they are throwing around now, everyone will start facing the facts. Friends will revisit colleges and end up liking different ones than the ones they had originally imagined.
With dollar figures on the table, and everyone being a bit more mature, that will be the time to find out whatās more important: Being able to afford Dental school due to getting merit scholarship at a good undergraduate school, or foregoing/delaying Dental school because he āthrew awayā substantial scholarship money just so he could walk around high school in āpick-your-brandnameā sweatshirt.
My dentist went to the University of St Thomas in Houston. Then UT in SA for DDS and then Baylor (now A&M) in Dallas for residency. UST is ranked #323 by WSJ/THE. S22 would get an $18k Presidential Excellence scholarship out of $32k tuition and fees. Many paths along this journeyā¦
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Iām not sure that is always the case. It was much worse after results came in and kids were celebrating the end of senior year. At the end of year sports events the coaches would introduce the seniors individually and say which college they were going to. For Stanford or Georgetown youād get loud applause and āwowā, for UCs youād get much less applause and for unknown colleges (eg Gonzaga) youād hear āwhereās thatā under peopleās breath. The irony was that we knew the smartest kids had generally picked Berkeley or UCLA (great value instate) and that most of the kids going to top private colleges were less clever but had hooks. The kids knew it too: those voted most likely to succeed went to UCs.
D took a full ride over admissions at much higher ranking colleges (and it was well known she got into Berkeley, UCLA, etc) and she got a lot of negative comments the last few months of high school, not helped by her less smart BF getting into Stanford because his parent worked there.
However, now 3 years later many of those parents have a large bill and are jealous that D gets to go to college for free.
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I couldnāt agree with this more. He needs to be sure he can sustain a career as a dentist. Dentistry offers little professional flexibility. You can specialize, but ultimately your job is still a person to person event.
If he cannot feel a sense of satisfaction from repeating a task over and over and doing it well, or from the interpersonal interaction, dentistry may not be for him. There is a reason that dentists have a high suicide rateāas sad as it is to say.
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Letās be clear: taking on debt makes perfect sense for certain groups of families. For many poor and working class families, taking on a modest amount of college debt makes sense, if thereās a reasonable chance that it will lead to life-changing prospects in life. For upper-middle-class families, the calculus is a little different because so much of its human capital has already been accumulated before the child is old enough to go to college. The benefits of taking on further debt to attend a T20 college are marginal when compared to families at the median income level in this country. And, btw, Iām old enough to remember when going to dental school was considered the pathway of choice out of the working-class - so the economics of going to Harvard or Wesleyan- even at near full-pay tuition - was extremely advantageous.
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Are the friends / teasers / critics paying off the loans for you ?
Iād be worried about you, not what people heāll likely never see again think.
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What if he changes his mind, never goes to dental or grad school, and the 529 just sits there? How certain can an 18 year old be? Has he shadowed a dentist?
What a tragedy it would be to have the downpayment for your first house already sitting there in the bank!
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I donāt know much about 529ās. Believe it or not I thought it had to be used for education.
You can withdraw the amount of any scholarship without the 10% penalty and just pay tax on the earnings. With appropriate planning that can be at the kidās lower tax rate. In our case we worked out that the effective rate would be about 10% of the overall balance.
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Thereās grad school, other kids, grand kidsā¦itāll get used somehow someway.
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Still, decisions are being made based on the plan to go to dental school, so I just wondered where the sonās commitment to that path came from, how certain it is, and whether he has shadowed a dentist to test it out.
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I know full pay T30 parents who saved in 529s and donāt regret paying OOS public or private tuition. They may have hoped for big payoffs but seem glad their kid got a great education and have alumni connections. They had the money saved and could also fund some from current earnings. If the kids had gone to a much lower ranked school for free, and had a so so outcome, I believe they would have regretted not spending the money.
I doubt a top 100 flagship public would cause any regret, especially when the kiddos can afford a better than average experience - luxury dorma/apartments, Greek, study abroad, etc.
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We paid more than the cheapest option for our son, but we knew what we were buying, not necessarily ROI, but a different experience. In his specific, N=1, scenario it paid off in a big way, because he landed a job as the first new grad at a startup and gets paid very well, for a job he loves. That was more about his work ethic, horsepower and serendipity than proactively having known that we bought that opportunity.
That said, we set a hard upper limit of $200K in 2014, and would probably stick to a similar number today.
As @circuitrider is alluding to, many of his advantages were baked in long before he went off to school.
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If the kids had gone to a much lower ranked school for free, and had a so so outcome, I believe they would have regretted not spending the money
Yes, I should have mentioned that if the fit isnāt snug and the kid starts self medicating or drops out, then as my mother would say, āBuying something you donāt like is throwing away good money.ā
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The majority of the time I look up a potential doctorās stats, they only list the medical school and where they went for residency. Sounds like you have a fabulous option at UT-Austin or others in Texas- Iād take advantage of it.
My kid goes to a super competitive high performing high school in a well-to-do area. Less than 35% are white with the majority Asian (prob 45%), Indian, and Middle Eastern. I understand culturally the peer pressure- I have changed my mindset after reading CC. OOS honors colleges or private with merit (lower ranked) are amazing opportunities as well.
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