Is there a tipping point , full pay?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you are full pay, Would you pay full price for
Emory
BC
UMiami
Villanova
GWU
….going down the rankings list, LMU?
Is there a cutoff for private colleges? Where you tell your kid to just take merit elsewhere, or go in state? What is your cutoff, or are you full pay so you will full pay anyplace ?

(If you are not full pay, and need FA, instate, or merit, please don’t respond, your considerations are different)

I'd pay for mine to go anywhere (except Dook).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont think anything beyond the top 5 are worth 400k.

I totally get the complaints of 30 year olds who say they will never be able to break into the housing market.

But .. I'm a lot less sympathetic if those same 30yo had basically a downpayment-and-a-half given to them at 18 and they spent it all on college.

If you have 5 million, fine. But for those of us who are full pay but not rich-rich, we need to have bigger conversations.

If we were talking about cars and not colleges, we'd all call you out on buying your kid a BMW "because it's what felt right to them". But because we've wrapped this other luxury product (college) in more esoteric clothes, we let it slide.

Again, if you're super rich, this doesn't apply to you. Buy the BMW (every year for 4 years). But if you think you may have a kid who will be 35 and locked out of home ownership, I'd make a more considered decision.

The problem with this is that most parents...I might say the vast majority...feel like giving their kid a college education with $0 debt is gift enough.

They are not giving their kid the difference between in-state vs. full pay private to purchase a home or any other purchase.

This is how I was raised. Lucky enough to have college paid for by parents and no loans. But no help after that. but I agree with PP that the math has changed. I'd much rather pay fully for college - but one of the many options that isn't 400k - and also help with a down payment.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in NYC and lately I hear a lot of talk shifting from paying for college to paying for an apartment. if you're making 25mm, this doesn't apply to you. but people who are donut hole are thinking they'd take Wisconsin, say, over BC and use 200k saved for a hefty payment on a 1 bedroom. otherwise, it's just too hard to get on a path to home ownership here. it also lowers expenses those first 5 years out of college when it can be hard to make it on your salary alone.

anyway, I'm hearing this a lot now.

if your kid wants to live in some other lower COL place, maybe this doesn't matter.

I don't disagree but I thought OP's question made clear it was for people who don't need to make these choices. It's for those who can well handle full pay tuition and plan to help out with a hefty home downpayment.

well, okay. if this is about people who can pay fully and then also pay for a hefty down payment? that's basically BC's population now. or U of Charleston. I mean, no school is off the table for these people.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I live in NYC and lately I hear a lot of talk shifting from paying for college to paying for an apartment. if you're making 25mm, this doesn't apply to you. but people who are donut hole are thinking they'd take Wisconsin, say, over BC and use 200k saved for a hefty payment on a 1 bedroom. otherwise, it's just too hard to get on a path to home ownership here. it also lowers expenses those first 5 years out of college when it can be hard to make it on your salary alone.

anyway, I'm hearing this a lot now.

if your kid wants to live in some other lower COL place, maybe this doesn't matter.

I don't disagree but I thought OP's question made clear it was for people who don't need to make these choices. It's for those who can well handle full pay tuition and plan to help out with a hefty home downpayment.

well, okay. if this is about people who can pay fully and then also pay for a hefty down payment? that's basically BC's population now. or U of Charleston. I mean, no school is off the table for these people.

As we’ve said.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I dont think anything beyond the top 5 are worth 400k.

I totally get the complaints of 30 year olds who say they will never be able to break into the housing market.

But .. I'm a lot less sympathetic if those same 30yo had basically a downpayment-and-a-half given to them at 18 and they spent it all on college.

If you have 5 million, fine. But for those of us who are full pay but not rich-rich, we need to have bigger conversations.

If we were talking about cars and not colleges, we'd all call you out on buying your kid a BMW "because it's what felt right to them". But because we've wrapped this other luxury product (college) in more esoteric clothes, we let it slide.

Again, if you're super rich, this doesn't apply to you. Buy the BMW (every year for 4 years). But if you think you may have a kid who will be 35 and locked out of home ownership, I'd make a more considered decision.

The problem with this is that most parents...I might say the vast majority...feel like giving their kid a college education with $0 debt is gift enough.

They are not giving their kid the difference between in-state vs. full pay private to purchase a home or any other purchase.

This is how I was raised. Lucky enough to have college paid for by parents and no loans. But no help after that. but I agree with PP that the math has changed. I'd much rather pay fully for college - but one of the many options that isn't 400k - and also help with a down payment.

I get that...however, you are still a tiny %age of the population. I just find it odd to dump on the 30-year old as though they were given an offer by their parents to choose a cheaper school and get the difference for a downpayment.

Families can be really f**king weird. Have heard numerous stories where the grandparents said they will contribute to a 529, and then either took the $$$s back or basically lied about opening one up for the kid (note, I guess when grandpa offers, make sure they contribute to a plan that you control).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think that it's crazy to pay 400K for anything outside of the top 10 schools and it would be beneficial for everyone to think of college as more of a math problem now. We can afford to pay for our kids to go anywhere but 1 wants to get a Ph.D. eventually so they will look at schools where they have a chance to do research and where they get some merit aid and we can help pay for grad school.
2nd kid wants to be a nurse practitioner. I don't think it's worth 400K for an undergrad nursing degree, do you?

I recognize that there are circumstances where an individual kid needs to be in a specific environment but otherwise the price tag is just too high.

What if you’ve got plenty of money (think north of $25m)….

Kids educations are fully funded in 529s…
Then which of these would you pay for:

Wake
Tulane
Boulder
Indiana
Michigan
Wash U
Emory

Yeah of course. We make 400K per year so it's not the same equations for us.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are full pay, Would you pay full price for
Emory
BC
UMiami
Villanova
GWU
….going down the rankings list, LMU?
Is there a cutoff for private colleges? Where you tell your kid to just take merit elsewhere, or go in state? What is your cutoff, or are you full pay so you will full pay anyplace ?

(If you are not full pay, and need FA, instate, or merit, please don’t respond, your considerations are different)

We don't "need" in-state, can afford full pay, but our cutoff is "the school must be significantly better than Virginia Tech if we're going to pay more than VT in-state". Emory might fit the bill (which doesn't matter because DS does not want to go to Emory) but none of the others. Especially GWU, lol hell no.

"Significantly" is doing a lot of work there. Objectively, many people would argue that any of these schools are better than Virginia Tech.
But, sure, if my kid gets into VT and also gets into Ole Miss or similar -- then he's going to VT, no question.

Well yeah, a school has to be significantly better if we're going to pay significantly more for it. Maybe people think BC and Villanova are better than VT in terms of prestige/name recognition but I'm not sure the education at either place is $200,000 better. GWU, definitely not. Miami, doesn't matter because my kid hates heat and humidity.

and you're entitled to your opinion

Which is... what the OP asked for.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are full pay, Would you pay full price for
Emory
BC
UMiami
Villanova
GWU
….going down the rankings list, LMU?
Is there a cutoff for private colleges? Where you tell your kid to just take merit elsewhere, or go in state? What is your cutoff, or are you full pay so you will full pay anyplace ?

(If you are not full pay, and need FA, instate, or merit, please don’t respond, your considerations are different)

We don't "need" in-state, can afford full pay, but our cutoff is "the school must be significantly better than Virginia Tech if we're going to pay more than VT in-state". Emory might fit the bill (which doesn't matter because DS does not want to go to Emory) but none of the others. Especially GWU, lol hell no.

"Significantly" is doing a lot of work there. Objectively, many people would argue that any of these schools are better than Virginia Tech.
But, sure, if my kid gets into VT and also gets into Ole Miss or similar -- then he's going to VT, no question.

Well yeah, a school has to be significantly better if we're going to pay significantly more for it. Maybe people think BC and Villanova are better than VT in terms of prestige/name recognition but I'm not sure the education at either place is $200,000 better. GWU, definitely not. Miami, doesn't matter because my kid hates heat and humidity.

and you're entitled to your opinion

Which is... what the OP asked for.

If you doubt Emory could be worth full tuition over VT, I doubt that you can well afford private full pay.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Well we can certainly see why the schools charge exorbitant tuitions now. Parents who will pay any cost. Guess you don’t care that you are part of the problem.

You do know this is DCUM and DC has no state schools.

We are paying full freight for one kid, who knows for our senior. But, will absolutely pay for their top choice, even if they choose something without merit aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We’re full pay no matter what and in fact 3 of those schools are at the top of my juniors list. What I’m now questioning is if there’s any advantage to being full pay. I kind of thought it would give you a bump but now that I can see our school’s scattergrams, it doesn’t look like it. You still have to be pretty near perfect to get into BC and Villanova (and probably the others). Still need a 4.0+, right? Is there any advantage?

If may give you the edge -- with all other things being equal with another applicant. But your full pay kid still needs a weighted 4.0+ to get into BC and Villanova.

Villanova and BC are both need blind, so any full pay thumb on the scale wouldn't come into play unless there was a waitlist.

FYI, my 3.9UW/1480 kid was rejected ED1 from Villanova (and we are full pay.)

Sorry but 3.9/1480 was just not competitive enough at any price. You only might get a full pay edge if the application is in all other respects equal to another.

Lol, apparently not, but he's also a 4.4weighted, max rigor, top 5% of class, 550+ service hours, pilot's license and a bunch of other extracurriculars. Gold medals 3 years straight in French Grand Concours, I could go on. Oh, well. He has already been accepted EA at IU Kelley (Hutton Honors College + merit money) so Villanova's loss.

Congrats! Definitely sounds like their loss. College admissions since the TO wave has become a free-for-all with applicants shooting for the moon and application fee waivers "leveling" the playing field.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Well we can certainly see why the schools charge exorbitant tuitions now. Parents who will pay any cost. Guess you don’t care that you are part of the problem.

We're subsidizing your kids. You're welcome.

thank you

[Anonymous]

My spouse works at a school in the Tuition Exchange, which tend to be a step (or more) down in the rankings from the top tier. So I guess in my head, the TE colleges (and others like them) are the ones I would not want to go full-pay for.

https://telo.tuitionexchange.org/schools.cfm

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are full pay, Would you pay full price for
Emory
BC
UMiami
Villanova
GWU
….going down the rankings list, LMU?
Is there a cutoff for private colleges? Where you tell your kid to just take merit elsewhere, or go in state? What is your cutoff, or are you full pay so you will full pay anyplace ?

(If you are not full pay, and need FA, instate, or merit, please don’t respond, your considerations are different)

I'm just going to say it: none of those schools impress me. They're fine schools, but aside from accepting a lot of ivy cast-offs, I don't see the appeal.

I would full-pay for Williams, Pomona, Amherst. Possibly Wesleyan, Haverford, Vassar, etc. It may just be that I expect different things from an undergraduate education.

You're entitled to your opinion but I'm not sure many would agree that Vassar and Haverford are substantially more impressive than Emory.

Depends on your values. We don't all want to be finance bros.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you are full pay, Would you pay full price for
Emory
BC
UMiami
Villanova
GWU
….going down the rankings list, LMU?
Is there a cutoff for private colleges? Where you tell your kid to just take merit elsewhere, or go in state? What is your cutoff, or are you full pay so you will full pay anyplace ?

(If you are not full pay, and need FA, instate, or merit, please don’t respond, your considerations are different)

We don't "need" in-state, can afford full pay, but our cutoff is "the school must be significantly better than Virginia Tech if we're going to pay more than VT in-state". Emory might fit the bill (which doesn't matter because DS does not want to go to Emory) but none of the others. Especially GWU, lol hell no.

"Significantly" is doing a lot of work there. Objectively, many people would argue that any of these schools are better than Virginia Tech.
But, sure, if my kid gets into VT and also gets into Ole Miss or similar -- then he's going to VT, no question.

Well yeah, a school has to be significantly better if we're going to pay significantly more for it. Maybe people think BC and Villanova are better than VT in terms of prestige/name recognition but I'm not sure the education at either place is $200,000 better. GWU, definitely not. Miami, doesn't matter because my kid hates heat and humidity.

and you're entitled to your opinion

Which is... what the OP asked for.

If you doubt Emory could be worth full tuition over VT, I doubt that you can well afford private full pay.

I didn’t say that though. Try again. 🙄

[Anonymous]

For everyone weighing what they can afford, please be careful that you have enough, to make it fair, for the younger kids in the family.