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<p>Coming from generations of Harvard graduates perhaps you wouldn’t see it, but I have lived in a number of states where the key qualification for jobs in a wide variety of sectors is a degree from the flagship public university.</p>
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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13586742-post62.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/13586742-post62.html</a></p>
<p>I don’t discount at all what Waverly is saying. For my kid, however, Harvard and the rest of the elite schools are unaffordable. Even with generous financial aid packages we are looking at a minimum of $30,000 per year. We are upper middle income and have saved for his college but are unwilling to pay that kind of a price tag when he can go to great schools like Pitt, Fordham, Minnesota etc. for $10-15,000 when merit aid is applied. I wish to save our resources for grad school. That is where I will be willing to stretch the budget if necessary and where he can possibly network a bit.</p>
<p>The defensiveness here is surprising.</p>
<p>Yes, yes, yes, many people have amazing careers from many schools. Many ivy grads just have OK careers. And many, many companies will never hire an ivy grad. Perhaps most. </p>
<p>The question was: does one have an advantage For elite jobs having gone to an ivy? Will it be easier to get highly sought after, high paying jobs? Will they have a wonderful network (I’m sure W. Point does too, it’s one of those pride of place schools!) compared to the vast majority of schools?</p>
<p>I’m sure Annasdad has had an amazing career as a consultant and has made as much as any ivy consultant. He’s in good company. But the question is did Bain show up at his college, take him out to a great dinner and assure him that joining them would yield intellectual rewards and riches beyond his wildest dreams? Were 6 alum in the room
Telling him he’d be welcomed with open arms, they’d help his future kids get into the best prep schools and give him an advance on bonuses if money got tight when his triplets hit Dalton? Frankly, I bet he’s had to work a lot harder to be a top consultant!</p>
<p>I just got into Stanford last week and I also received my financial aid letter. It turns out I have to pay less for Stanford than a University of California college (I’m from California).</p>
<p>It’s a no brainer for someone who can get FA that top colleges have great value. The question is for someone who would be paying full freight and not so well-off (yes, it’s possible), whether it’s still a good trade-off over a full ride state school.
I don’t believe it’s a good trade off but I am still paying for it.</p>
<p>There is no more amazing international in scope alumni network than UofM. I’m pretty darned impressed with the alumni network out of my S1s alma mater. The myth is that only a Ivy League education will open doors. Networks exist at a good number of colleges and universities these days. The banking industry has it’s go-to wells, the education industry has it’s go-to wells, the petroleum industry has it’s go-to wells, the software industry has it’s go-to wells and engineering in general has it’s favorites and to add to the complexity every region has it’s “go to” colleges for hiring and networking. It’s more industry specific and region specific and each has it’s pocket of brass ring schools. Most kids are going to sink or swim based on their own characteristics not their undergraduate school…for every Ivy League example of halo effect we can as a group unilaterally come up with an equal number of success stories from any 10 other colleges. If anyone could actually come up with a cost/benefit analysis that had teeth some schools would cost 10x more than they do simply because they could put a concrete value on the school specific degree. I feel sorry for people who think they have to go into heinous debt for a specific college and I feel equally sorry for young people that think that a particular college or education should make the path easier…those young people might find their twenties particularly frustrating.</p>
<p>Going to the most expensive college you can find is no more a guarantee of your future financial succes in the job market anymore then saying that going to a local community college guarantees failure.</p>
<p>For those who work in a medium to large size company, I would challenge you to name the college most of your co-workers attended. My experience in the real world is that most really don’t care and it has little/nothing to do with your on the job success.</p>
<p>Many colleges (regardless of what they charge for tuition) are clever at marketing that they offer a superior product.</p>
<p>Do NOT assume that your state college is the least expensive option. When financial pundits assume that, it makes my head explode.</p>
<p>And when students assume having a low EFC means someone will magically give them enough money to attend any school into which they get accepted makes my head explode.</p>
<p>I totally scratch my head over posts such as that by Freein2012. One can make over $200,000 today and still pay 10% of their income in most cases at Harvard.</p>
<p>In the end it’s all relative and all what you’re familiar with. No one can feel Harvard’s network vs. Yale’s vs. Michigan’s uless they’ve been up close to all, which few have.</p>
<p>I totally see Freein2012’s point, I feel like I have run the financial aid calculators at every college in America while helping D2 with college search :), we earn about 220,000 (AGI) with one kid in college already and every Ivy (and every other non-merit private school) came back with an estimate that we would be full pay. So I disagree that even people with making over 200,000 will only be asked to contribute 10% of income to Harvard.</p>
<p>AGI is not the same as income. We all get to choose what we do with our money, but many families don’t have much choice when it comes to college. In the end you get to choose, it’s not easy for the vast majority of parents to pay for college. With a $220K AGI you have a choice that all those with middle incomes just don’t have. Most kids at your income level have been to good schools to date, so a top college may not need to be your priority.</p>
<p>It isn’t 1/10 th of income for EFC.
For most people making over$30,000, it is closer to 1/3 or 1/4 th of before tax income just for FAFSA EFC. PROFILE may be even higher.</p>
<p>Where you go for undergrad school does matter in some cases, though not your typical case. For example, if you’re interested in investment banking/consulting on Wall Street (as I am), you can bet that you’ll have to attend a top-20 schools to break into the field. These financial firms only recruit at certain schools, so if you’re attending, say, Ferris State University (I’m using this as an example because there’s an advertisement to my left), then good luck even getting an interview, because you’re not getting it. </p>
<p>For the most part I agree that where you attend DIDN’T matter so much. My dad went to a Cal State and he’s working a really good six-digit job. Same goes for my friend’s dad who also went to a Cal State. But in today’s uncertain economy and foreign competition, I believe you SHOULD opt for a brand school, even if it means taking on debt. My cousin recently graduated from a Cal State (I guess it runs in the family, hmm) and it took her two years to get a near-minimum wage job. Same for a lot of my friends – they’re working odd jobs here and there because they can’t break into the field they want simply because their school wasn’t very good in the first place.</p>
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<p>Which is exactly the reason you shouldn’t take on big debt- it’s a massive gamble in this economy.</p>
<p>It is much more likely that your friends and relatives are having trouble finding jobs because the economy is lousy than simply because their college/university not being “very good in the first place”. There are plenty of graduates of “brand schools” that aren’t employed in the fields that they’d like to be in too.</p>
<p>^^ I agree. And even if you unwisely take on a huge debt and/or your parents shell out more then they can really afford for a really expensive school, will you even fit in with those who have a LOT more disposable income then you??? College is also about more then just attending classes and studying. If you have very little in common with those around you, how enjoyable will your college experience really be?</p>
<p>Attending college X is no gurantee of finding a job after graduation.</p>
<p>Harvard accepts such a small percentage of the tens of thousands of applicants, it’s almost not worth arguing over. It’s like arguing with your spouse over where to spend the lottery money you plan to win.</p>
<p>Just to throw in my two cents… I gave up a substantial merit scholarship at Johns Hopkins in order to attend Yale with no financial aid. It was a tough choice, but at the time, Yale didn’t seem like a problematic decision because there is enough in my 529k to cover the four years of undergrad. I have greatly enjoyed my time here and feel I am getting a lot out of it personally, as I expected I would, and my undergrad won’t cause me our my parents any debt. Now, however, I’m seriously looking at applying to veterinary school (which wasn’t my plan before). Had I known that when choosing between JHU and Yale, and fully realized the ridiculous amount of debt I will almost certainly have to take on during vet school, I would not make the same decision again. 5-10 years down the road, I’m sure I’ll regret even more how financially naive I was. And I would certainly recommend the opposite of most of the advice I received when making my choice - most people said Yale was so superlative I should choose it despite the money, but frankly for the field I’m looking to enter, I wouldn’t exactly have been compromising anything by attending JHU.</p>