<p>Some hourly workers do make a lot of money.</p>
<p>Tell me about it. Met a working man on the golf course while we watched our kids at a tournament. When he went to his car, he had a brand spanking new high end Tesla. He went to a state U and owned 20+ chain restaurants around the Midwest. He is an average Joe who earns much more than I do with the free time to show it. But you go to his restaurants and he looks like an hourly worker.</p>
<p>I would like to remind CCer’s that kids of doctors are still kids. Just like other kids, doctor’s kids have many reasons for choosing their schools. My DH is a pediatrician and we always thought our kids would want to go away for college, but low and behold our first one is applying right now and wants to go no further than 4-5 hours from home. We have told our kids we will pay for undergrad school but they have to pay for grad school. Our oldest wants our flagship state school and asked us to take some of the savings by not going to a private school and give it to her for grad school so her loans will be less. A lot of doctors are just starting to get out from under their own debt when their kids are starting college. Keep in mind this is a personal decision families are making. While technically we could pay 50K a year that would require DH working many more years. We have worked very hard to get where we are and look forward to retirement. Our kids have lived their entire lives watching the financial crisis and are some of the first who will preach a no debt lifestyle. Many middle class families around us have really struggled. Our kids all have friends who’s parents have lost jobs and when they finally get work its for a lot less than what they were making before.</p>
<p>Don’t tell that to the people paying for a full ride at UM. Even at the typical tuition discount rate, it markets itself as a great school to justify its huge costs. It does have selective SAT and GAP requirements</p>
<p>My kids are doctors’ kids. One attends a top 10 LAC, the other a top 20 research university. The fact that medicine is a fairly “flat” field prestige-wise (unlike law or business school) didn’t change the fact that my H and I strongly valued the opportunity to send them to the best schools they could get into. Frankly I don’t see what “doctor’s kids” has anything to do with anything. It’s just a subset of upper-middle-class – attitudes among doctors are going to run the gamut.</p>
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<p>Wouldn’t people who married in the 80s have kids who are college age by now? The dual physician couple that I know (both are in their mid-50s and met at medical school–Dartmouth) and have one kid who graduated from college and another who is a junior.
Both kids went to Amherst–where he went got an undergraduate degree as did he father and grandfather.</p>
<p>Duke and Loyola Marymount. </p>
<p>I went to Howard and husband went to Columbia, and we met in the ER at Yeshiva!</p>
<p>I had a military scholarship, husband had/has a butt load of loans, and I got a second job in '08.</p>
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<p>On set of kids I cited were from a dual physician couple. They have three out of college and the youngest now attending.</p>
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<p>Yeah, I asked the same question but haven’t received an answer yet.</p>
<p>*Quote:
Frankly I don’t see what “doctor’s kids” has anything to do with anything. It’s just a subset of upper-middle-class – attitudes among doctors are going to run the gamut.
*</p>
<p>I thought that the question may have been asked because many doctors’ children go into medicine. At my son’s White Coat Ceremony, they asked all the “physician parents” to stand up…I was shocked to see how many of the students had doctor parents.</p>
<p>^^Agree. I think doctors send their kids places that other professional people send their kids and lots and lots of kids go to public institutions by choice… Probably a significant number of those have a doctor parent or doctor/doctor parents and some percent go to private schools. In Michigan alone well over 80,000 kids are at our two flagship universities…both which have med schools.</p>
<p>My kids are doctor’s kids. H never made anything remotely like the numbers thrown around here–inner city clinic doc.</p>
<p>Our kids went to Wesleyan and Columbia.</p>
<p>My doctor’s kids are/were full pay at a private school. If they had any interest in med school they would have accepted the full ride at the state flagship.</p>
<h1>36–H’s employer actually pimps him out to another–and keeps most of the $. Talk about being “owned”…</h1>
<p>Sis and her H are dual primary care, have 6 kids (3 to college so far) and both work about 2/3 time. They live a modest lifestyle, but they spend a lot of time together and with their kids because they both work shifts. They actually make their kids take loans and pay for college (state u) themselves! My b-i-l grew up in the school of hard knocks. He wants his kids to pay their own way. So far none of sis’s or my kids is interested in medicine.</p>
<p>Agree - Doctors will have a range of situations, although most (like many parents here) don’t qualify for FA… plus I suppose there may still be med school loans. In lower income families, the cost to attend State U might not be much different than private schools.</p>
<p>I can think of 2 local doctors that sent kids to college. One sent his only child to State U, using 529 savings plan. The other sent one to LAC and the other (a Val) to prestigious Private U… but parents agree that would not have been possible w/o the grandparents underwriting most of the cost.</p>
<p>I completely agree with the “who cares?” opinion. I don’t know why doctors would have any special expertise about how much to pay for a kid’s education,</p>
<p>That said, IMO, doctors don’t send their kids to state schools at any higher rate than any other highly educated, upper middle class group. My best friend in HS was the child of a doctor married to a doctor (in the midwest, no less.) She went to Tufts and med school at Wisconsin. She married a doctor and her kids both went to Ivies, then one went to Georgetown law; the other to Northwestern Med school. I know another doctor/doctor couple (one Carleton, one UC Santa Cruz): they have a kid who graduated from a UC and one at a private LAC. My H’s college roommate is a doctor (Oberlin BA, Yeshiva med school). His kids went to Ivies.</p>
<p>Doctors would tend to have kids at older age. I have a hs friend that is a 1984 college grad, now an MD. She’s my age, but her kids (twins) are about 11 years old. Mine are 21 and 24.</p>
<p>My wife and I are both physicians. I attended a top 10 national ultra-selective private undergraduate school and graduated at the top of my class. My wife attended a state flagship often ridiculed by my classmates. We both attended state medical schools on our own dime. From observation and personal experience it is indeed a rational choice to attend a state flagship rather than an elite private school; in fact my son turned down several top 10 schools to do just that by his own volition. Why you ask? For starters, private schools by and large simply do not offer as much value for those who must pay full price. My son will be able pay for both undergraduate and professional school at our state flagship for the cost of undergraduate education alone at my alma mater. That said, money had nothing at all to do with his choice. The students attending our state flagship seem to be relatively traditional in their values, and although there is plenty of diversity, it is not in-your-face, and perhaps less cliquish than observed at many elite private institutions. The students on average seem better grounded, less elitist, and less entitled. My school friends are scattered around the world; I rarely see them after we departed the town where our elite institution is located. In contrast, my neighbors and colleagues have an enviable camaraderie, with many common experiences and memories. Many make the two-hour drive for football games together. While I am well-respected, I feel like an outsider. I am definitely not more economically or socially successful for my pedigree. My son made a wise decision in my estimation.</p>
<p>I have never noticed that a lot of doctor’s kids become doctors but I sure know a lot of engineer’s kids who have gone into engineering.</p>
<p>I think this thread is valuable. It’s brought a lot of people into the discussion who are rarely heard on CC, and it’s interesting to hear their perspectives. And I do think docs and their kids do have some things in common, such that it’s interesting to hear a profession-specific perspective.</p>
<p>I, too, am somewhat surprised to hear that so many children of docs become docs. I was under the impression that job dissatisfaction is quite high in the medical profession and that many advise their own children not to enter the profession. Is that just off-base? Or have things changed? Or do the children of doctors become doctors despite the best advice of their parents/</p>