<p>vicariousparent- That’s an interesting observation (about justifying choices) and probably true to a great extent. Don’t we all go through life trying to justify our choices?
I’ve been thinking quite a lot about our family’s decision to send WildChild to one of the elites at full-fare. That decision was made before the economy crashed, but wasn’t going to be easy anyway. Given the state of the economy and the job prospects for grads, I have really been examining our decision and have asked him the question “Was it worth it?” Some of you might recall that he hated his school so much freshman year that he briefly went AWOL. As a senior, he says it was worth it and he’s glad he is graduating from this college. He says he has met a lot of influential people, had some awesome professors (and some terrible ones) and “learned a lot about how things work in the world.” All that for a mere $52K a year! He has a job-a good one- for after graduation, and, frankly, the prestige of his school helped him land that job over a number of other good candidates. So- there is light at the end of the tunnel and he WILL be off our payroll shortly. If I were making the decision right now, in this economy, with a high school senior, I am not at all sure I would make the same choice or that I would tell another family “It’s worth it. Suck it up and pay the $52K for the elite school.” There are so many variables, which we’ve discussed month after month here on CC.</p>