<p>dntw8up- of course. My point is that Edad is suggesting that it's worth spending the money to send a highly motivated, hard charging kid to an expensive school since that kid is likely to take advantage of all the great opportunities. I'm merely pointing out that not every slacker HS kid remains a slacker college kid. Had our son opted for the state school option I'm sure he'd have done fine and many of his classmates in HS did just that- some for financial reasons, some because they wanted a better sports scene, some because they preferred to be close to home, etc.</p>
<p>But it's hard to extrapolote from HS to figure out if your kid is "worth" spending the money.</p>
<p>So blossom MIT was something your son wanted and pursued? I never thought it before, but something about the combination of senior year and me hanging out on CC makes me notice a " lazy streak" in my D as well, and wonder if I should take her choice of small, expensive, but not especially prestigious LAC seriously. It's the only thing that lights her up in this college search process, and to be fair I see lots of qualities in the school, but she says its because of the rose garden....</p>
<p>To add to it, we all wanted, saved for, and were impressed by flagship state U until this LAC invited her to an overnight. I don't think we even knew what an LAC was. It guess they knew what they were doing.</p>
<p>Pay, or borrow? That is the issue for the majority of middle class parents. Borrow from the home equity, borrow from credit cards, borrow from retirement funds, etc.</p>
<p>Part of the reason why many got in trouble with their home mortgages these past two years is that they borrowed against their home equity to buy things they could not afford from their cash earnings .. they thought they were paying, but they were just borrowing even more.</p>
<p>I would caution parents against borrowing from another legitimate need, especially retirement, without any certainty of being able to replenish those funds. How is that really different from paying for college on credit cards?</p>
<p>
[quote]
There is no evidence that had your son gone to state U he wouldn't have worked just as hard, availed himself of just as many opportunities, found equally brilliant and high achieving peers, and been just as satisfied with his education and employment options. (And I too am an MIT grad!)
[/quote]
No, there isn't, but it's likely, just given the nature of a lot of kids (and adults). (No, I don't know the kid in question here.) If parents tell kid who really wants to go to MIT, no you can't, you have to go to State U, do you think the kid will be happy about it? Particularly if MIT fits the financial parameters that you set out in the beginning, but it's just that State U is cheaper? In such a scenario, I think it's more likely that the kid won't do as well because he's angry, upset, convinced himself that State U isn't any good, etc. And he'll resent his parents for the rest of his life. That's the situation we were in. Safety was more affordable, but we had told her that we could swing School B.</p>
<p>Now, I'm not talking about the situation in which parents have been up front and said, try it, but we can't afford MIT unless it gives us lots of financial aid, and it comes back truly unaffordable. I'm talking about the situation blossom posited. And it's also different than the situation in which the kid says, OK, I think I should go to State U because it's cheaper and I think I'll do well there.</p>
<p>I should say that part of changing mind setting is about willingness to dig deeper in our pocket. </p>
<p>We have submitted our FAFSA based on estimations and the official EFC is about $28K/year. If that is all we need to pay, we have cash sitting in the bank saving account to do it for 4 years. </p>
<p>In other words, if State U costs $14K and Duke costs $28K. I will be willing to pay $28K x 4 if she likes Duke.</p>
<p>If State U Honor costs $0 and Duke cost $28K, I will still go Duke.</p>
<p>If State U honor costs $0 and other U costs $35K/year, I will have to think about it.</p>
<p>blossom - curious. How does a lazy slacker 17 year old even get into MIT? Sounds like he had a great record (scores and GPA) but I thought it took much more than that to make the cut. Kid next door is AMAZING and he didn't make it (although he did get into Harvard, Yale, etc).
Hey, I like to watch our money but State U vs MIT? MIT hands down.
The tougher choices are State U vs Boston U or Syracuse or even State U vs Boston College. That's just me though...</p>
<p>Agree with tomeranger, i.e., the more diffcult decision is middle of road school (Boston U) vs state--I would pay for ivies and near-ivies, and thankfully, some of those schools are generous with need-based aid for middle incomers like our family. My D is a recruited student athlete who willl be attending an Ivy in the fall and it will cost us same or probably less than if she went to a state--though in-state might have been even less in her case due to the merit aid availabe).</p>
<p>toneranger that's what I was thinking, and wondering if parents (here?) judge their kids more harshly. Certainly NO one outside of my family would call my daughter anything close to lazy.</p>
<p>Ya know there really isn't an answer to this question.. only a set of rationalizations that make your own answer superior to others so it "fits" your concept. </p>
<p>I mean what is success? Lots of money? a generally happy life? One spouse? a couple kids? Would you consider you kid a success because he makes seven figures, but has a substance abuse problem and works harder on his job than his marriages and spends no time with your grandkids? </p>
<p>Would your kid be a failure if he never makes six figures, but has a lifetime spouse, a modest home, good kids that he has time for? </p>
<p>I know, I know we all want perfect everything and we all expect perfect everything for kids and totally ignore reality and it's signs. </p>
<p>I find these posts break down to merit vs pay and which is better? Is there a real answer? Just cause it's free doesn't make it poor and just cause you pay for it doesn't make it good. </p>
<p>That's advertising.... This summer we paid $25 for "the best prime rib in town" well... it musta been a very small town with lousy cooks. The $14 flatiron steak was much, much better.... </p>
<p>Good luck to the poster what ever you decide, the results you have to live with. Me personally, I like people giving my kids money for their fine work. I have always felt their education is in their own hands and up to their own efforts. Neither has disapointed me yet.</p>
<p>I think it depends on which state schools and if it's a Top 10 one, you are WAY overvaluing Duke. I might go $5000 tops. For many majors it would be $0. For some majors Duke would have to pay more. (Engineering, Comp Sci, some sciences, some arts and languages etc)</p>
<p>"I find these posts break down to merit vs pay and which is better? "</p>
<p>I haven't found that to be the case. I feel reading others personal experience has helped me better clarify our evolving experience. It seems few are takimg sides. but rather elucidating what entered into the "fit" for their families.</p>
<p>We often try to evaluate the value of an elite education based on money. Will the graduate do better? Will they have a better career, make contacts and earn more money? It is pretty hard to find any reliable studies that will demonstrate any of these rewards. IMO, we need to look at education as being an end in itself. If you have a kid who is turned on by learning then they gain value which goes beyond financial success. Clearly not that many people have that level of value for education, but also not that many kids even come close to qualifying for the elite colleges.</p>
<p>One very good indicator is the quality of the students in the program. DD was caught in the Katrina mess. For one semester she attended a school where the average student SAT score (old) was >200 points below hers. It was ugly, as she was often harrassed by upperclass students piqued that a freshman was ruining the curve.</p>
<p>IMHO, where you find high quality students you will find high quality undergraduate education.</p>
<p>These are tough decisions--and ones many of us have had to make with our kids with a lot of hand-wringing and second-guessing about whether the decision is right.<br>
In fall of 2004, our daughter needed to choose between a free-ride (and then some!) from our state university located right in our hometown, an Ivy League school, and a top-ten university in her field located out-of-state. We looked at finances, proximity to home, perceived rigor, and decided on the out-of-state school.
Things have worked out wonderfully for her as this school seemed to be the right "fit" -- enough of a challenge but not so much that she was totally overwhelmed, great kids from all walks of life, time for some great EC activities, and wonderful research opportunities and internships along the way. Would she have thrived just as well at one of the two other schools she was seriously considering? Perhaps--but we'll never know. Unfortunately, we cannot run a control experiment on something like this.</p>
<p>The best fit might not always be the most expensive option. In my son's case, he wholeheartedly chose a school that gave him a nice merit scholarship over seven other top schools that offered little or nothing. He's very happy there and the extra $$ in his college fund can go to graduate studies.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I just felt it will be better to have DD in a school where majority of the students are in the same range as her. For both in and outside the classroom, I would think a more driven and challenging environment will help DD to grow.
[/quote]
It is a lot more complicated than that, unfortunately... which is why I think that the "fit" decision needs to be made ultimately by the student, though of course in the end the financial decision is one for the parent. But I don't think a parent should push a reluctant kid toward the "more challenging environment", or overvalue the concept of the capabilities of the peer students - especially if the choice is between an elite school and a big state U. I say that because a large state university has enough students so that numerically, it may very well have MORE highly capable students than the small elite school -- essentially, it will have a larger, more diverse student body in all respects. In this context, I am using "diverse" to refer to diversity of interests, qualifications and background, as well as diversity in academic interest and ability. </p>
<p>I think that "diversity" keys into why my son was ultimately unhappy at a small, elite (first tier) LAC and why my daughter is very frustrated at her own Ivy-level college. You do not necessarily gain more from being surrounded by same-age, same-type (highly competitive, high achieving academic focus) students -- it is a one-dimensional aspect to the education, and my d. misses the environment she had at an arts high school with a more varied peer group. In hindsight, the slacker poets offered a lot of stimulation, even if they didn't do much to raise the bar in class. </p>
<p>There is no question that the academics at my d's college is far, far stronger and better than the academics at my son's transfer college, which is 3rd or 4th tier state public. But given the opportunities that my son has had via his college, I'm not so sure that the ultimate educational value is better at the elite. It's not simply what takes place in the classroom; and classroom discussions among smart students are not all that valuable if everyone's perspective is the same. </p>
<p>I ran into the same problems that my daughter speaks of when I attended an elite, top-5 law school. There is a difference between book-smarts and world-smarts, and I think there are places where everyone is "too smart" to ask the intriguing questions.... and then something is lost.</p>
<p>calmom makes some great points--I think similar to Loren Pope's arguments in Colleges That Change Lives. Over and over he talked about how intimidated students in some "top colleges" could be and how this might limit the questions that might be raised in classroom discussion--if there even is classroom discussion.</p>
<p>Life isn't one neat linear homogeneous trip, why should college be any different?</p>
<p>My S visited one of the HYPS and his remark was this would be just like 4 more years at his private prep HS. He said he couldn't shake the idea that to go there for him would predetermine the path his whole life would take and he didn't want that.</p>
<p>DadII, Just as "youth is wasted on the young", colleges are pretty much wasted on students. Most colleges offer educational opportunities that are barely utilized by students, even by those that are highly motivated. In this sense, it matters little which college or university one chooses to attend. That said, the elites do offer a bit more intangible outside the class room. The D of a friend received fellowships for two consecutive years from the elite LAC she graduated from. She spent a year at the Ecole Normale Superieur and another year at Cambridge. In essence, she recovered two of the four years fee.</p>
<p>Seriously, it never struck me from reading your posts that you can't afford the fees, no matter where, and it has always been quite clear to me what has been your preference. So quit agonizing it before a decision needs to be made and celebrate with your D when she makes her choice.</p>