Is it responsible to spend 90K/yr in education?

[Anonymous]

My oldest DS was accepted to both Northwestern University (90K/yr), and University of Virginia (40K/year) in 2020, and he decided to attend Northwestern University. The total cost of attendance is around 360K. His cousin attended UVA in 2020 (he was also accepted by Northwestern), and both he and DS received the same job at the same company. They both studied the same major, but his cousin has 200K in savings for not going to Northwestern. He will take my DS a long time to save up to 200K in post-tax money.

My younger DS is a HS senior, and I explained to him that if he should go to UVA, if accepted, because it would set him up much better financially for the future. I will invest that 200K towards his retirement. Not sure if I am doing the right thing here. Thoughts?

[Anonymous]

Thoughts? You did the math. The math doesn’t lie. No need to ask people on this board to talk you out of what’s incredibly obvious and staring you in the face.

[Anonymous]

We have twins so it's all happening at once, but they are likely both going to stay in state. I feel a little bad about it for dd, who really likes a couple schools far away out of state, but for the same reasons you state, it doesn't make sense financially to go to the more expensive schools she likes, especially since they are ranked roughly the same as the in-state school both already got into, and better in-state options might be coming.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Thoughts? You did the math. The math doesn’t lie. No need to ask people on this board to talk you out of what’s incredibly obvious and staring you in the face.

This

[Anonymous]

If money is no object, and you can give your kid $200k for a down payment anyway, then Northwestern might be worth it.

If you were doing a particular, lucrative major where northwestern is much higher ranked than UVA it might also be worth considering.

But for most people, most of the time, the answer is obvious. $200k is a lot of money, and you won’t earn that higher return from Northwestern vs UVA over a lifetime.

[Anonymous]

It is incredible how expensive college is in this country. Even if you are a multi millionaire and money is not an issue, we should not normalize $100k/year for a college education.

[Anonymous]

UVA and Northwestern are both very good schools with good reputations. If you were talking about a comparison between a lesser quality state school and Northwestern, or UVA and a private university that isn't nationally known, it would be a different discussion.

[Anonymous]

I think it’s silly, no matter how much money you have.
If kid is brilliant, they will get merit scholarship.
If they are not, then college not for them.
Just my opinion.

[Anonymous]

If you have a child who is into engineering particularly electrical engineering consider yourself lucky from a financial point of view. There are so many state universities that have excellent electrical engineering programs and that are cheaper than some of the most expensive private universities. My son graduated from UMD as an electrical engineering major and he was out of state. He got a job 6 weeks post graduation and a very good starting salary.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s silly, no matter how much money you have.
If kid is brilliant, they will get merit scholarship .
If they are not, then college not for them.
Just my opinion.

The best schools either don't offer merit or only offer a couple a year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is incredible how expensive college is in this country. Even if you are a multi millionaire and money is not an issue, we should not normalize $100k/year for a college education.

too late

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is incredible how expensive college is in this country. Even if you are a multi millionaire and money is not an issue, we should not normalize $100k/year for a college education.

Blame the stock market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It is incredible how expensive college is in this country. Even if you are a multi millionaire and money is not an issue, we should not normalize $100k/year for a college education.

It's not normal. It's elite luxury.

Community college, state university, and private means-based pricing all cost far less than $100k/yr

It only costs $100k/yr if you are so rich you can easily afford it, or if you are upper middle class and are paying extra to try to fool people into thinking your kid is smarter than they are at a reach college where they are below average.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it’s silly, no matter how much money you have.
If kid is brilliant, they will get merit scholarship .
If they are not, then college not for them.
Just my opinion.

The best schools either don't offer merit or only offer a couple a year.

Well gosh, it sure is unfair that not everyone can go to to the "best" schools.

Wherever your brilliant kid goes is the best school, because your kid is there, getting top grade in advanced courses and working with brilliant professors who give special attention to your star.

[Anonymous]

I went to Northwestern (on finance aid) and I'm honestly floored at how expensive it is and I don't know I'd push my kid to go there at all. While I had a good experience at NU, the cost is just insane. I think UVA is a fine school and ultimately it will absolutely not hold you back. If the kid had a specific program they wanted to do or a professor they wanted to do research with, maybe? But even then, it being more than twice as much as another very good school is just shocking.