Amherst College COA $92,816 per year

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can get significant merit scholarship at Vanderbilt or USC, why ... pay twice as much at Amherst or Columbia or even Harvard or MIT.

Tuition is around $60K at these schools. Harvard and MIT have amazing connections. They also have some truly excellent departments. If you want your kid to go to school in NYC, Columbia is pretty great. Personally, I would prefer my child to attend an elite liberal arts college like Amherst or Williams.

USC is fine, but in a bad part of L.A. I suspect that funding cuts have hurt programs at UCLA. If your kid does not attend a nerd school like Caltech or Harvey Mudd, Pomona would be nice. I might balk at paying full price for USC, unless my spoiled kid really wants warm California weather.

Vanderbilt is great, like Washington University in St. Louis, Notre Dame, or Emory. I'm not sure I want my kid to develop friends and career contacts in the south or midwest. So yes, I would definitely consider paying an extra $120K to give my child friends, a spouse, and elite career connections in the northeast.

Interesting. FWIW, I know folks who've attended all the schools listed in the last 'graf and they have friends, spouses, and elite careers in the northeast.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can get significant merit scholarship at Vanderbilt or USC, why ... pay twice as much at Amherst or Columbia or even Harvard or MIT.

Tuition is around $60K at these schools. Harvard and MIT have amazing connections. They also have some truly excellent departments. If you want your kid to go to school in NYC, Columbia is pretty great. Personally, I would prefer my child to attend an elite liberal arts college like Amherst or Williams.

USC is fine, but in a bad part of L.A. I suspect that funding cuts have hurt programs at UCLA. If your kid does not attend a nerd school like Caltech or Harvey Mudd, Pomona would be nice. I might balk at paying full price for USC, unless my spoiled kid really wants warm California weather.

Vanderbilt is great, like Washington University in St. Louis, Notre Dame, or Emory. I'm not sure I want my kid to develop friends and career contacts in the south or midwest. So yes, I would definitely consider paying an extra $120K to give my child friends, a spouse, and elite career connections in the northeast.

DH attended one of the elite schools referred to here and none of his school contacts ever parlayed into a job/connections. Perhaps the diploma helped land him the very first job out of school (in a field he never worked in again), but his very successful career did not come out of his college network (though lots of fun gatherings and school reunions).

[Anonymous]

What's interesting is that all the colleges / aid estimators are ignoring inflation. Colleges are sneaking in price increases in the back door too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can get significant merit scholarship at Vanderbilt or USC, why ... pay twice as much at Amherst or Columbia or even Harvard or MIT.

Tuition is around $60K at these schools. Harvard and MIT have amazing connections. They also have some truly excellent departments. If you want your kid to go to school in NYC, Columbia is pretty great. Personally, I would prefer my child to attend an elite liberal arts college like Amherst or Williams.

USC is fine, but in a bad part of L.A. I suspect that funding cuts have hurt programs at UCLA. If your kid does not attend a nerd school like Caltech or Harvey Mudd, Pomona would be nice. I might balk at paying full price for USC, unless my spoiled kid really wants warm California weather.

Vanderbilt is great, like Washington University in St. Louis, Notre Dame, or Emory. I'm not sure I want my kid to develop friends and career contacts in the south or midwest. So yes, I would definitely consider paying an extra $120K to give my child friends, a spouse, and elite career connections in the northeast.

DH attended one of the elite schools referred to here and none of his school contacts ever parlayed into a job/connections. Perhaps the diploma helped land him the very first job out of school (in a field he never worked in again), but his very successful career did not come out of his college network (though lots of fun gatherings and school reunions).

PP was taking about an untalented kid who needs to freeload off their social network.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can get significant merit scholarship at Vanderbilt or USC, why ... pay twice as much at Amherst or Columbia or even Harvard or MIT.

Tuition is around $60K at these schools. Harvard and MIT have amazing connections. They also have some truly excellent departments. If you want your kid to go to school in NYC, Columbia is pretty great. Personally, I would prefer my child to attend an elite liberal arts college like Amherst or Williams.

USC is fine, but in a bad part of L.A. I suspect that funding cuts have hurt programs at UCLA. If your kid does not attend a nerd school like Caltech or Harvey Mudd, Pomona would be nice. I might balk at paying full price for USC, unless my spoiled kid really wants warm California weather.

Vanderbilt is great, like Washington University in St. Louis, Notre Dame, or Emory. I'm not sure I want my kid to develop friends and career contacts in the south or midwest. So yes, I would definitely consider paying an extra $120K to give my child friends, a spouse, and elite career connections in the northeast.

People who don’t attend Harvard or MIT don’t have friends or spouses. Just not possible. Few know about this, because these wretched inferiorities hide the shameful details of their shabby lives from their betters, who attended elite schools.

[Anonymous]

DH and I make around 200k, but I have a seven figure trust fund. No way we're paying full pay for these schools - it's not worth it even if we can technically afford it. A kid that can get into Amherst could get generous merit aid from LACs ranked in the thirties, maybe even the twenties. We're looking to spend 60k the first year, then pay the yearly increase.

[Anonymous]

So you all think Amherst doesn't know their applicant base and yield?

UMC people, you made it. Congrats!
You don't need to send your kid to an elite school to break into the UMC. So don't go. It's fine. You don't need them, and they don't need you

[Anonymous]

God, how?

Are there not, like, other schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not even 2000 students attend, why worry about this?

+100

Tiny college for $92k? Hard pass!

[Anonymous]

And yet, their acceptance rate is 9%. Someone is paying these rates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you can get significant merit scholarship at Vanderbilt or USC, why ... pay twice as much at Amherst or Columbia or even Harvard or MIT.

Tuition is around $60K at these schools. Harvard and MIT have amazing connections. They also have some truly excellent departments. If you want your kid to go to school in NYC, Columbia is pretty great. Personally, I would prefer my child to attend an elite liberal arts college like Amherst or Williams.

USC is fine, but in a bad part of L.A. I suspect that funding cuts have hurt programs at UCLA. If your kid does not attend a nerd school like Caltech or Harvey Mudd, Pomona would be nice. I might balk at paying full price for USC, unless my spoiled kid really wants warm California weather.

Vanderbilt is great, like Washington University in St. Louis, Notre Dame, or Emory. I'm not sure I want my kid to develop friends and career contacts in the south or midwest. So yes, I would definitely consider paying an extra $120K to give my child friends, a spouse, and elite career connections in the northeast.

You get connections on the golf course, not at schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:They expect upper middle class to pay almost a $100K per year per child.

https://www.amherst.edu/tuition

Notes that the actual cost per year of providing each student an education at Amherst College is $128,500, but the difference is funded by the school's endowment, grants, and gifts.

[Anonymous]

Considering the actual time a student is physically at college, paying ANY college a tremendous amount of money is mind boggling. But we do it, myself included.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's one way to be need blind, ignore legacy, and still get the traditional percentage of the top 1% elite SLACs desire

This this this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:That's one way to be need blind, ignore legacy, and still get the traditional percentage of the top 1% elite SLACs desire

lol touché