<p>Ty Mom. Very useful information.</p>
<p>The best boy/girl ratio.
The best rate of hooking up.
Are good measures,
better than most criterii.</p>
<p>MasterS - you are welcome.</p>
<p>new plan:
If they had to do it over, they can go to an inexpensive public. I am gonna take it with me when I go.</p>
<p>jk</p>
<p>You guys didn’t really answer my question. I knew it depended on a family’s circumstances,</p>
<p>but I wanted to know what choice YOU GUYS made given your circumstances.</p>
<p>Or perhaps consider that you had the ability to afford the colleges without going into debt, would you still pay 50k for tufts or RPI?</p>
<p>Some of us have attende more than “some college” and have already attended the schools on, or implied on our list.</p>
<p>As has been said ad infinitum, woudl never go into debt for an education, but if money were no object, then yup, absolutely.</p>
<p>“Would you buy 5CT diamond or 0.5CT diamond for your wife?
Would you pay $1500 for a first class airplane ticket or $500 for an economy one?
Would you pay $100000 for a Mercedes or $20000 for a Saturn?”</p>
<p>I would choose the 0.5ct diamond, the $500 coach ticket, and the 20K Saturn for me.</p>
<p>But I would pay full price for any of those schools listed for my kids.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>No. From a California perspective, the various state schools set a pretty high bar…</p>
<p>But even if in a state with unsuitable state schools, there are other options like the $30k/year schools that would receive strong consideration compared to the $50k/year schools.</p>
<p>What busdriver said. Don’t care about fancy cars or jewelry or first class travel. But DO care about a first class education. Its a priority.</p>
<p>If this a question solely about monetary return vs. investment (and not just that absorbing the atmosphere at, say, Yale is worth $200,000), then I would answer this way: There may not always be employment for Wall Street brokers or corporate lawyers, but we’ll continue to need doctors, nurses, plumbers, and HVAC service people. 
Some people may find, in the long run, that a good technical school education will be more of a guarantee of future employment than an Ivy League education.</p>
<p>Of course it’s not all about money, but if you’re paying $200,000 more for an education then that has to come to mind in some form.</p>
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<p>COMEX gold bar, coach ticket (I’ve lost a lot of weight), and I bought the $25K Toyota 12 years ago after buying a couple of Audis.</p>
<p>“Would you pay full-tuition for these schools?” </p>
<p>-We would not pay full tuition for any UG including Ivy and CC. CC have limited funds and I am not sure if they award Merit awards at all (I do not know, maybe they do). D. has applied only to UGs that would give her substantial Merit awards. She graduated last year. She was on full tuition+ Merit awards for all 4 years and the state UG that was a perfect match for her in all kind of aspects, academic and otherwise. She has visited it many times since graduation and always find it very rewarding.
Not paying UG tuition freed substantial funds to enable us to pay for D’s Med. School.</p>
<p>MiamiDAP-But what if it weren’t the “perfect match for her in all kind of aspects, academic and otherwise?” You were lucky it worked out for you and your D.</p>
<p>silly question…all depends how much $$$ someone has</p>
<p>my question was to MiamiDAP</p>
<p>^my answer was for the OP</p>
<p>MiamiDAP has said that her daughter did not want to go far away from home, and since they live in Ohio, that presented a limitation. As we know from the many, many times it has been posted, this scenario of a non-flagship state school worked out for MiamiDAP’s daughter and was a good fit. It’s just one person’s experience, however.</p>
<p>I would not pay full sticker price for my son’s current school. (Wake Forest) </p>
<p>However, since his scholarship paid for the equivalent of 2 semesters, and his unsub Staffords will pay the equivalent of 1 semester, I’m willing to justify full-pay for the 5 remaining semesters. </p>
<p>This cost sharing model means my share (~$130,000) is about $40,000 more expensive than if I were paying 8 semesters at UMd (~$90,000). We can accept that difference as the cost of “fit.”</p>
<p>To the OP question - I’d go bi-modal. Apply to the absolute reach schools for my field of interest and my top in-state publics. See what happens and decide from there, including fin-aid in the decision. If the in-state schools are considered peers of the name-brands, go in-state and save the $ for starting out or grad school. I attended one of the expensive name-brand schools when it was relatively cheap, and would find it very hard to justify attending today (assuming I could get in - much more competitive) vs. an excellent in-state alternative.</p>
<p>"MiamiDAP-But what if it weren’t the “perfect match for her in all kind of aspects, academic and otherwise?” You were lucky it worked out for you and your D. "
-First, it is NOT a silly question…and it does NOT depend on how much money one has, only to certain degree. Yes, Trump does not care how much he would pay for his kids UG’s. None of us are Trumps here (I assume that Trumps are too busy for CC). For most people here including people with money, it matters how much you pay for UG because there are always better ways to spend your money (in our case it was ability and desire to pay for Med. School).
-Second, to answer directly to the comments above, we have spent considerably time on research to make sure that UG WILL offer substantial Merit awards (we were looking for full tuition or close, and D. had choices of these type of offers) and UG match to personality and wide range (very very wide that actually expanded even wider during UG years) of my D’s interests. I am not sure if I consider myself lucky or being very thankful for my D’s hard work that resulted in her graduating #1 from private prep. HS that is well known in our region, which was primary reason for her Merit awards.
Everybody here should consider their own circumstances. However, we are asked about our personal reasons and opinions. There is no reason to state or critique somebody else’s reasons as everybody has their own.</p>