Ivy worth full pay?

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:My DS got accepted to one of the Ivies—think Princeton, Yale, or Harvard—but we would have had to pay the full cost, around $100K per year. He also got accepted to University of Florida with a full ride (tuition plus room and board).

We told him that he could attend UF and have $400K+ (depending on investment growth) waiting for him at graduation, or he could attend the Ivy. Seven years earlier, one of his older brothers had been in the exact same situation and chose to attend an Ivy League school, which he later regretted. His $300K could have grown into several million dollars. We’re not wealthy, so while money isn’t everything, it’s important to be able to live a stress-free life.

My older DS advised his younger brother to take the $400K and attend UF, and he did. He’ll be a freshman at UF in a few months.

YMMV.

And your kid couldn’t have decided this before applying to the ivy? Just weird…

I still can't believe op's kid could have gone to H/Y/P and instead is getting a Florida degree. Just a complete waste.

I think I raised him well enough to be able to make his own decisions in life. His reasoning is that if he has what it takes to get accepted into HYP, then he can also succeed at UF. He may fail at UF, and he may also fail at HYP. At least if he fails at UF, he’ll still have several million dollars in the bank, versus nothing at HYP.

FWIW, he already wears a T-shirt that says, “I turned down HYP to attend the Gators for several million dollars.”

Smart kid because the AI job decline is real and HYP won't matter.

In a down job market, the better schools are always an advantage.
In AI, the jobs being taken over are entry level jobs that above-average university students used to get. The jobs that ivy grads tend to get are a couple levels above that and require thinking and processing that AI cannot do. Ivy and ivy+ (add 8-10 top privates that are not ivy) will have a larger advantage than they do now, over the typical T50-100 school. MBB and top tech recruiting on campus at ivy and other target schools was way up this year. Top schools have made industry partnerships and solicited private donations to make sure their students can continue to have advantages despite the federal funding fiasco.

UF has zero pathways to such jobs even for the very top student, never mind the significantly lowered path to top Med/phd/law.
hundreds of thousands or even a million in the bank at age 50 due to saving on undergrad will never make up for the opportunity cost of not having a shot at a top job. Who wants a lot of money to sit on and a boring job that does not use your brain and is not respected?

Blah blah blah. You're describing a very narrow and very specific trajectory that most HYP kids don't even do. Nor is the real world as rigid as you like to think.

High aptitude and capabilities make themselves known regardless of where the person went to college. If OP's kid has a talent for making money, it will be found out.

FYI no one knew who Brian Thompson was before Luigi Mangione (UPenn) assassinated him, but he was making a million a year plus stock options, total up to 10 million. Where did he go to college? Iowa. I only illustrate this to show the real world is filled with so many anonymous yet very successful people who didn't need a HYP degree.

-- double Ivy grad.

I agree with all of this. Many of my law partners who make way more than I do went to "no name" schools or large state schools for college and many of them went to so-so (not T14) law schools also. People who are good at what they do rise to the top.

- Also a double Ivy grad.

I also agree with this. I didn’t graduate from a prestigious school and I’m not a lawyer or a doctor but I guarantee I make more than the majority of their graduates/lawyers/doctors. Entrepreneurialism doesn’t care where you went to school. Started my own business and grew it into what it is today. My NW is $50M (no family money, all self-made).

That's awesome. Are you hiring and what are you looking for when you look at candidates?

We are not hiring at the moment. We’re an IT Security company. In fact, we just laid off two Junior level software QA engineers. One was a UC Berkeley grad and the other a UVA grad. They were replaced by AI. We didn’t want to do it but just found the work they did could be replaced very easily by another software engineer (VT grad) using AI. Don’t have to worry about the AI calling in sick, and we don’t have to fund its 401K or healthcare. And I’ll be honest with you, we kept the VT grad because she had a great work ethic and the quality of her work was so much better than the Berkeley or UVA grads. Where you go to school may open some doors but you have perform once you get there. No one cares where you went to school 2 years into a job.

This! My company just laid off 10K employees. They said it was due to overhiring during COVID but in truth it was really due to efficiencies resulting from the use of AI. Laid off employees were graduates of all types of Universities including the top-tier schools. Choose your professional wisely and attempt to AI proof it. The financial and legal professions are next.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I did Ivy undergrad and state school for PhD, so it's not a one-to-one comparison because I couldn't possibly have done both for undergrad. Ivy is awesome, and not because it will improve your job prospects, but because of the exposure to many smart people for four years. I can't sugar coat it, Ivy is on another level, period. The intellectual interactions I had at my Ivy were deeper and much more numerous. State was fine, and there were some really smart people too, but Ivy has the volume. It's all about the volume of smart people. Not demeaning state, because I did it too.

Roughly what percentage of the people there were truly brilliant, taught-themselves-calculus-and-Latin-at-10 types people, and what percentage were just normal smart people with some moxie?

I’m asking because I’ve always assumed that parents should stretch to send their kids to HYPSM+Caltech+UChicago+Columbia because those are the natural destinations for people with IQs over 165 or the culturally adjusted equivalent. So, for example, roughly at the level of the most academically smart three or four high school seniors in the Washington area in any given year.

But is that really true, or does holistic admissions mean that students with that kind of raw academic intelligence are not that more common at than at the University of Maryland?

My benchmark is an undergrad school like Emory. I think about 1 in 300 students might have been at the shockingly smart level.

Everyone can only offer their anecdotal experience. Mine is that I graduated from a middling Ivy 25 years ago. When I first entered in freshman year, I did anticipate every day would be late night philosophical debates over pizza with your dorm mates, and all classes would have teachers like John Keating in Dead Poets Society. And I'd be surrounded by brilliance everywhere and students from interesting, unique backgrounds. I do remember saying this to an upperclassman at the same school the summer before I matriculated and how his noncommital and vague "yeah" was the first hint that, no, it wasn't going to be like that.

And it wasn't. Most kids were pleasantly intelligent, hard working, but not brilliant. The midnight pizza and philosophy happened maybe twice in all four years. The campus cliques were real, rich kids hanging out with other rich kids, athletes with athletes, minorities with minorities, and people like me with the other UMC kids, meaning my social life wasn't terribly different from my high school friends, just from different states. Had great professors and ordinary professors but none were dramatic. And then the four years were over.

I can't say I look back with a feeling of wow, what an amazing time. If there really was a special, amazing, only at an Ivy experience, it bypassed me completely. I do pretty well in life and across the last 20 years have worked with some genuinely impressive people and they came from all sorts of backgrounds.

well, i had tons of late night pizza and pot discussions at my Ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:is Duke worth full pay?

Yes of course it is. There are articles and studies on the ivy+ being worth it, especially at the leading edge in career groupings: getting into T5 Law, T10 med, top 10 phD, MBB/top consulting, quant, top tech such as spaceX, Tesla, nvidia, merck, etc.

Ivy+ by definition in these studies includes the eight ivies plus Stanford MIT Duke and Chicago.

Most likely the next best schools, Northwestern JHU CMU Rice WashU UCB Williams Amherst also provide a large boost, just has not been studied with those specific schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:is Duke worth full pay?

Yes of course it is. There are articles and studies on the ivy+ being worth it, especially at the leading edge in career groupings: getting into T5 Law, T10 med, top 10 phD, MBB/top consulting, quant, top tech such as spaceX, Tesla, nvidia, merck, etc.

Ivy+ by definition in these studies includes the eight ivies plus Stanford MIT Duke and Chicago.

Most likely the next best schools, Northwestern JHU CMU Rice WashU UCB Williams Amherst also provide a large boost, just has not been studied with those specific schools.

The official definition of Ivy Plus (aka T15) includes Caltech, Northwestern, and Johns Hopkins. I told DC I would be happy to pay full freight for any of these schools, or the equivalent of in-state tuition of our public flagship for anything else, so it’d be up to them to secure whatever internal/external merit scholarships required to make their choice work since we don’t qualify for need-based FA.

[Anonymous]

My employer recently laid off 30,000 employees, and my entire department was eliminated. Ten colleagues in my group were graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Penn, the University of Chicago, Yale, Brown, and Cornell, and they were all laid off.

I graduated from Clemson University, and I was spared because a manager from another department happened to be a Clemson alumnus. He graduated two years before I did, and when I reached out to him, he allowed me to transfer to his department.

The rest of my former colleagues are still looking for jobs.

The moral of the story is that attending an Ivy League school is not necessarily going to help you when it comes time for a reduction in force (RIF).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My employer recently laid off 30,000 employees, and my entire department was eliminated. Ten colleagues in my group were graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Penn, the University of Chicago, Yale, Brown, and Cornell, and they were all laid off.

I graduated from Clemson University, and I was spared because a manager from another department happened to be a Clemson alumnus. He graduated two years before I did, and when I reached out to him, he allowed me to transfer to his department.

The rest of my former colleagues are still looking for jobs.

The moral of the story is that attending an Ivy League school is not necessarily going to help you when it comes time for a reduction in force (RIF).

Feel pretty smug about that, don't we?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My employer recently laid off 30,000 employees, and my entire department was eliminated. Ten colleagues in my group were graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Penn, the University of Chicago, Yale, Brown, and Cornell, and they were all laid off.

I graduated from Clemson University, and I was spared because a manager from another department happened to be a Clemson alumnus. He graduated two years before I did, and when I reached out to him, he allowed me to transfer to his department.

The rest of my former colleagues are still looking for jobs.

The moral of the story is that attending an Ivy League school is not necessarily going to help you when it comes time for a reduction in force (RIF).

The fired Ivy+ grads will get new jobs before the fired Clemson grads.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My employer recently laid off 30,000 employees, and my entire department was eliminated. Ten colleagues in my group were graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Penn, the University of Chicago, Yale, Brown, and Cornell, and they were all laid off.

I graduated from Clemson University, and I was spared because a manager from another department happened to be a Clemson alumnus. He graduated two years before I did, and when I reached out to him, he allowed me to transfer to his department.

The rest of my former colleagues are still looking for jobs.

The moral of the story is that attending an Ivy League school is not necessarily going to help you when it comes time for a reduction in force (RIF).

The fired Ivy+ grads will get new jobs before the fired Clemson grads.

Please tell that to my 25 year-old Cornell grad who got laid off from Cisco Systems six months ago, and is still looking for a new job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My employer recently laid off 30,000 employees, and my entire department was eliminated. Ten colleagues in my group were graduates of Princeton, Harvard, Penn, the University of Chicago, Yale, Brown, and Cornell, and they were all laid off.

I graduated from Clemson University, and I was spared because a manager from another department happened to be a Clemson alumnus. He graduated two years before I did, and when I reached out to him, he allowed me to transfer to his department.

The rest of my former colleagues are still looking for jobs.

The moral of the story is that attending an Ivy League school is not necessarily going to help you when it comes time for a reduction in force (RIF).

The fired Ivy+ grads will get new jobs before the fired Clemson grads.

Ivies provide privileged access to first jobs in certain prestige industries like IB, consulting, etc. That's a big leg up if you can get it.

For those not going into such industries, major matters more than school. If you're a Harvard English major not recruited to McKinsey, NYT or the like, you're in pretty much the same boat as an English major from Purdue.

For surviving layoffs, the most effective thing is actually a double major, according to recent research.

https://www.nber.org/papers/w32095

[Anonymous]

No. If you are rich enough that you really don't care about 100k+ your year, then you are set for life anyway and should go somewhere fun and interesting rather than hanging out with STEMbots and DCUM try-hards and strivers.

If paying the 100k makes you wince or strains the family budget a bit, then you are merely a sucker for paying an inflated price while all the lower-middle class and FGLI kids go for free.

TL;DR: Paying full price at an Ivy isn't worth it, because it means you are either too rich to derive any benefit from attending an Ivy, or you are a sucker getting taken advantage of by wealthy institutions who want you to pay for someone else's kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. If you are rich enough that you really don't care about 100k+ your year, then you are set for life anyway and should go somewhere fun and interesting rather than hanging out with STEMbots and DCUM try-hards and strivers.

If paying the 100k makes you wince or strains the family budget a bit, then you are merely a sucker for paying an inflated price while all the lower-middle class and FGLI kids go for free.

TL;DR: Paying full price at an Ivy isn't worth it, because it means you are either too rich to derive any benefit from attending an Ivy, or you are a sucker getting taken advantage of by wealthy institutions who want you to pay for someone else's kid.

interesting take on this

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. If you are rich enough that you really don't care about 100k+ your year, then you are set for life anyway and should go somewhere fun and interesting rather than hanging out with STEMbots and DCUM try-hards and strivers.

If paying the 100k makes you wince or strains the family budget a bit, then you are merely a sucker for paying an inflated price while all the lower-middle class and FGLI kids go for free.

TL;DR: Paying full price at an Ivy isn't worth it, because it means you are either too rich to derive any benefit from attending an Ivy, or you are a sucker getting taken advantage of by wealthy institutions who want you to pay for someone else's kid.

What a weird thing to say. I am rich enough (i.e., I saved like crazy since my kids were born) that I can easily pay 100k+ per year per kid. So yes, I am "set for life" as long as I keep working for at least 15 years to fund my retirement.

My kids are not "set for life" - their summer jobs pay minimum wage and they have no careers to speak of. So absolutely they should hang out with and hopefully become "STEMbots and DCUM try-hards and strivers."

Sorry to tell you that being called a striver is not an insult. Being ambitious and making your way up to the top of your field is what funds a fun and interesting life.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:This is strange to me, I have a stem kid at Brown who absolutely loves it and the student body is a very happy one. They are also not elitist. Seems like it was a bad fit, mine definitely would not like UF or similar. Tough pill to swallow I’m sure at full-price.

I agree, DC at a different ivy has a few Stem friends at Brown and they are well adjusted, most on some type of aid, not elitist.
Most kids at ivies or similar especially stem kids would hate UF and all similar schools, not due to elitism, due to peer mismatch.
I wonder if PP is trolling. It makes no sense to say the kid hated ivy and should have transferred, then why didn't they?

I went to HYP and I would have been miserable at Florida. It was 100 worth full pay for the peer group alone. I have never been with such a remarkably talented group of people and never will be again. Would I have gotten a decent education elsewhere? Probably. Would I still be successful? Probably?

Would I be the person I am today without the Ivy? Very hard to tell.

Would I absolutely pay for the Ivy again? You bet I would.

+100 agree. I could have gone to our state school for free, put the 200K tuition in an IRA, and would probably be MUCH wealthier today, but I would pay it 100 times over for the experience I had. Made friends for life at school and it changed me fundamentally as a person. It’s not always just about the post-graduation opportunities.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No. If you are rich enough that you really don't care about 100k+ your year, then you are set for life anyway and should go somewhere fun and interesting rather than hanging out with STEMbots and DCUM try-hards and strivers.

If paying the 100k makes you wince or strains the family budget a bit, then you are merely a sucker for paying an inflated price while all the lower-middle class and FGLI kids go for free.

TL;DR: Paying full price at an Ivy isn't worth it, because it means you are either too rich to derive any benefit from attending an Ivy, or you are a sucker getting taken advantage of by wealthy institutions who want you to pay for someone else's kid.

I used to think the same way, but I've changed my mind. If a student is highly capable, taking on some level of debt is not necessarily a major concern.
The reason people ask this question is usually one of two things:
1. They are not in a financial position where spending half a million dollars on college is an easy decision.
2. Confidence level of the kid to take advantage of the eduction and turn the spreadsheet to positive outperform SPY

[Anonymous]

If you can afford it.

I would do it if my child wanted to attend. But I’m also paying $95k/year each for 2 kids who attend other T20 schools and feel it’s money well spent. Depends on what you value.