Middle class families - Are you willing to take on a ton of debt for a top college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia you're going to become friends with peers who will become very successful. At UVA you're going to meet a bunch of future SAHM, nurses, teachers, salesman, lawyers. Different levels.

That's all well and good but OPs kid won't be hanging out with them; as already mentioned, she'll be busy with work-study, and wont have the cash to prowl the very expensive city like her UMC and upper class classmates. The networking value will be very limited; the Ivy league does not work that way, the rich hang with the rich, and the poor with the poor. Only people who really crossed those boundaries were very attractive women (going from poor to rich).

This is an important, and often overlooked point when people start shaming middle class parents for not spending $200k+ to send junior to Elite U, when they can go to a school one tier below almost for free.

+1

This is true everywhere you go.

[Anonymous]

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List proves nothing. The low tier colleges are probably all boomers and/or equal opportunity hires.

Wrong.

Please stalk the web profiles again, removing non-Caucasians and those over 50 years old.

NP here. I don't have time to do this but PP said these are associates, so I doubt many (if any) of them are over 50. I just looked at the first few non-minority associates on the Williams and Connolly page and they were from UVA, Princeton, the University of Florida and the University of Texas. I'm sure if anyone has time to do the whole list they'll find similar results.

I'm the product of a state flagship myself, and have lots of friends and family who attended both state flagship and Ivies. Anecdotally, I just don't see a lot of difference in where they ended up in life.

[Anonymous]

No. Hell no.

[Anonymous]

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My husband has a graduate degree from Columbia. No, we would not pay those prices for undergrad. Would not be worth it.

Columbia might be a ticket-puncher in the Northeast, but out of the area, like we are now, it's just, "nice."

Absolutely. I thought Columbia was like Pepperdine. California here. We don't care about any big east names here, though.

Really? Take a look at the profiles of associates at the best venture capital firms or top law firms.

Exactly, look.

Done. Here's the undergraduate schools attended by every associate at Kirkland and Ellis DC:
Arizona State University (2)
Barnard College
Birmingham-Southern College
Boston University (2)
Brigham Young University (2)
Clemson University
College of William and Mary (3)
Columbia University
Cornell University (2)
Dartmouth College
Davidson College
Dickinson College
Duke University (3)
Emory University
Georgetown University (7)
George Washington University (7)
Gettysburg College
Harvard University (4)
Haverford College
Idaho State University
Johns Hopkins University
Louisiana State University
Loyola University of Chicago
Northwestern University
Ohio State University
Ohio Wesleyan University
Princeton University (2)
Stanford University (4)
UC-Berkeley
UC-Davis
UC-Irvine
UCLA (2)
University of Arizona
University of Central Florida
University of Chicago
University of Delaware
University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign
University of Michigan
University of Notre Dame
University of Pennsylvania (2)
University of South Carolina
University of Vermont
University of Virginia (3)
University of Washington
Vanderbilt University
Wake Forest University
Washington and Lee University
Yale University (5)

I love this list. It puts to rest so many college myths.

List proves nothing. The low tier colleges are probably all boomers and/or equal opportunity hires.

Uh, no. PP said these are all the ASSOCIATES at the firm...so pretty much by definition, no boomers whatsoever.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia you're going to become friends with peers who will become very successful. At UVA you're going to meet a bunch of future SAHM, nurses, teachers, salesman, lawyers. Different levels.

That's all well and good but OPs kid won't be hanging out with them; as already mentioned, she'll be busy with work-study, and wont have the cash to prowl the very expensive city like her UMC and upper class classmates. The networking value will be very limited; the Ivy league does not work that way, the rich hang with the rich, and the poor with the poor. Only people who really crossed those boundaries were very attractive women (going from poor to rich).

Eh. I don't think girls have to be "very" attractive (i.e. model beautiful) to make this kind of leap at an elite school. They just need to be thin with regular features, clean hair, and know how to do their makeup/dress their figure for maximum effect. A couple youtube videos can accomplish that.

One reason to send your kid to an elite school is that it gives them a better pool of potential dating and marriage partners. I mean, I hate to say but we all know this right? It's not PC and it's not necessarily how we want the world to work but that IS still how it works. You'd be a fool to ignore reality.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, I would not pick columbia and the debt. I can't think of any real world benefit other than bragging rights because you think the name sounds more impressive

$280k debt can ruin your life.

It's not $280. You pay college expenses in after-tax dollars. If you are in the 50% tax bracket, you have to make $140 per year to pay $70K. That's $560,000 for four years. More than 60% of our nation's college students are now taking five or six years to graduate (less so with the more prestigious schools, but WaPo did a story on this a year ago - many students have to take time off to work, or can't get the classes they need because they are blocked or have returned from a year abroad and can't finish), so that is $700K to $840,000 per student. We have two in college right now - one will be a five year student. So double, say, the $700K figure for a grand total of $1.4M to educate two kids. Both got into Ivies. Both are at UVA, thank God. And they love it!

And for those who say "you should have saved". We did. Massively. And both students' accounts were halved by the great recession as was our retirement. We are now truly a member of the "sandwich generation" taking care of elderly parents, still reeling from costs of taking care of one parent in assisted living for 8 years, trying to plan for retirement (hah) and putting our young through college. We haven't even gotten to grad school yet (law school is now $88K a year).

And for those who say "merit scholarships", there aren't any at the Ivy level, there aren't any at UVA except for Jefferson and Echols, and we are in the donut hole so get zero out of FAFSA save the $5500 loan that everyone gets.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I would not pick columbia and the debt. I can't think of any real world benefit other than bragging rights because you think the name sounds more impressive

$280k debt can ruin your life.

It's not $280. You pay college expenses in after-tax dollars. If you are in the 50% tax bracket, you have to make $140 per year to pay $70K. That's $560,000 for four years. More than 60% of our nation's college students are now taking five or six years to graduate (less so with the more prestigious schools, but WaPo did a story on this a year ago - many students have to take time off to work, or can't get the classes they need because they are blocked or have returned from a year abroad and can't finish), so that is $700K to $840,000 per student. We have two in college right now - one will be a five year student. So double, say, the $700K figure for a grand total of $1.4M to educate two kids. Both got into Ivies. Both are at UVA, thank God. And they love it!

And for those who say "you should have saved". We did. Massively. And both students' accounts were halved by the great recession as was our retirement. We are now truly a member of the "sandwich generation" taking care of elderly parents, still reeling from costs of taking care of one parent in assisted living for 8 years, trying to plan for retirement (hah) and putting our young through college. We haven't even gotten to grad school yet (law school is now $88K a year).

And for those who say "merit scholarships", there aren't any at the Ivy level, there aren't any at UVA except for Jefferson and Echols, and we are in the donut hole so get zero out of FAFSA save the $5500 loan that everyone gets.

I smell something fishy about this statement. First, when you know you're going to be needing the money soon, you are encouraged to move to 50% + cash positions. Did you do this?

Second, did you do something stupid after the balances started to fall, like sell and move to cash? Did you continue to invest? Because most people who held their positions were back to black by 2010. Why weren't you? If your kids are in college now, then you had a few years after the bottom in late 2008/early 2009 to regain what you had lost. So something screwy happened here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No, I would not pick columbia and the debt. I can't think of any real world benefit other than bragging rights because you think the name sounds more impressive

$280k debt can ruin your life.

It's not $280. You pay college expenses in after-tax dollars. If you are in the 50% tax bracket, you have to make $140 per year to pay $70K. That's $560,000 for four years. More than 60% of our nation's college students are now taking five or six years to graduate (less so with the more prestigious schools, but WaPo did a story on this a year ago - many students have to take time off to work, or can't get the classes they need because they are blocked or have returned from a year abroad and can't finish), so that is $700K to $840,000 per student. We have two in college right now - one will be a five year student. So double, say, the $700K figure for a grand total of $1.4M to educate two kids. Both got into Ivies. Both are at UVA, thank God. And they love it!

And for those who say "you should have saved". We did. Massively. And both students' accounts were halved by the great recession as was our retirement. We are now truly a member of the "sandwich generation" taking care of elderly parents, still reeling from costs of taking care of one parent in assisted living for 8 years, trying to plan for retirement (hah) and putting our young through college. We haven't even gotten to grad school yet (law school is now $88K a year).

And for those who say "merit scholarships", there aren't any at the Ivy level, there aren't any at UVA except for Jefferson and Echols, and we are in the donut hole so get zero out of FAFSA save the $5500 loan that everyone gets.

I smell something fishy about this statement. First, when you know you're going to be needing the money soon, you are encouraged to move to 50% + cash positions. Did you do this?

Second, did you do something stupid after the balances started to fall, like sell and move to cash? Did you continue to invest? Because most people who held their positions were back to black by 2010. Why weren't you? If your kids are in college now, then you had a few years after the bottom in late 2008/early 2009 to regain what you had lost. So something screwy happened here.

In 50% tax bracket you don't need to save to pay 70k per year for education. Just use some of your vacation budget or household help/gardening budget or car budget.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I am really LOLing at all the VA boosters who think UVA is on par with Columbia.

Ask yourself this. If you had the money and the kid got into both schools, which would you recommend? Columbia is the kind of school that comes with a wealth of connections and opens doors to elite society in the Northeast.

UVA can't give you that except maybe in VA.

You have it backwards. People from elite backgrounds and a wealth of connections attend Columbia; they don't socialize with the kids on aid who have campus jobs and can't jet out to Killington every weekend or blow wads of money in NYC.

Well I disagree about but actually those weren't the connections I was referring to anyway. It's when you go to interview for an internship or entry level job and you get to talk to Columbia grads who would rather take a chance on you then on someone from another school. It's human nature.

You DO know that this same thing happens with grads from pretty much every school (when they encounter other alumni in the workforce), right? Obviously it's not in a similar realm academically, but my sister went to penn state and pretty much every career opportunity she's gotten there's been a penn state connection - penn state is a huge school with a proud, enthusiastic alumni base and they're kind of everywhere. Having that commonality is an easy discussion point. I'm not sure your argument makes any sense.

lol how many penn state grads are at The New Yorker? Maybe one? How many Columbia grads are at those kinds of magazines?

ok, so she gets that $35K/year job at The New Yorker, has a $1000 student loan payment to pay, NY rent to pay, etc. You don't see a problem with this?

Good point. Student loans actually need to be, you know, repaid. Exactly how is a student supposed to take a job in journalism, art, publishing, etc. in a high COL city if he or she has a high three or low four figure loan payment to make every month?

Think with your heads, people.

Think with yours. The OP said the PARENTS would be taking on the loans, not the student.

Well then the parents need to repay them. Will that hurt their ability to save for retirement? Will it mean retirement has to be delayed for a long time? My DH will be ready to retire when our youngest finishes college. Repaying loans does not work with that plan. Also, can they do the same for other kids in the family? Taking out exorbitant loans for one child's education and then not doing that for the rest of the kids is setting up for a lot of family problems.

We've told our kids we can cover the cost of in-state public universities. In reality, I'd probably be willing to stretch another $10K over that IF (big IF) a more expensive big brand name school would provide a real advantage for them pursuing a particular goal. But not $40K extra per year. This assume they have a particular passion that this one school can help them achieve. Otherwise, based on the many people I have worked with and been friends with over my life, I just don't see that the brand name schools offer some amazing advantage over state universities for undergrad. I do think it matters in a lot of fields for grad school so the calculus changes there, but, again, at that point the student should have a particular goal and know how that school will help them achieve it. I'm not going to delay our retirement for years just so my child can go to Columbia to explore and figure out her interests.

selfish

balanced

Many people (including me) believe we owe our kids a college education. Many such people (including me) also believe that "college education" does not mean, "the most expensive school DC can get into."

That's why you shoudl be saving ahead of time! The rule of thumb for middle class families is 1/3 savings, 1/3 cash flow, and 1/3 loans. Come on, anyone can do 1/3 savings for a 70k a year school. You have 18 years. You can't save up ~ 100k in that time?

We can and we have. We have robust savings accumulated over two decades and can afford to pay up to $50k/year/kid. Which is not chump change.

We cannot pay $70k and rising per year per kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia you're going to become friends with peers who will become very successful. At UVA you're going to meet a bunch of future SAHM, nurses, teachers, salesman, lawyers. Different levels.

That's all well and good but OPs kid won't be hanging out with them; as already mentioned, she'll be busy with work-study, and wont have the cash to prowl the very expensive city like her UMC and upper class classmates. The networking value will be very limited; the Ivy league does not work that way, the rich hang with the rich, and the poor with the poor. Only people who really crossed those boundaries were very attractive women (going from poor to rich).

Eh. I don't think girls have to be "very" attractive (i.e. model beautiful) to make this kind of leap at an elite school. They just need to be thin with regular features, clean hair, and know how to do their makeup/dress their figure for maximum effect. A couple youtube videos can accomplish that.

One reason to send your kid to an elite school is that it gives them a better pool of potential dating and marriage partners. I mean, I hate to say but we all know this right? It's not PC and it's not necessarily how we want the world to work but that IS still how it works. You'd be a fool to ignore reality.

No. That is not how "we all" see higher education.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I am really LOLing at all the VA boosters who think UVA is on par with Columbia.

Ask yourself this. If you had the money and the kid got into both schools, which would you recommend? Columbia is the kind of school that comes with a wealth of connections and opens doors to elite society in the Northeast.

UVA can't give you that except maybe in VA.

You have it backwards. People from elite backgrounds and a wealth of connections attend Columbia; they don't socialize with the kids on aid who have campus jobs and can't jet out to Killington every weekend or blow wads of money in NYC.

Well I disagree about but actually those weren't the connections I was referring to anyway. It's when you go to interview for an internship or entry level job and you get to talk to Columbia grads who would rather take a chance on you then on someone from another school. It's human nature.

You DO know that this same thing happens with grads from pretty much every school (when they encounter other alumni in the workforce), right? Obviously it's not in a similar realm academically, but my sister went to penn state and pretty much every career opportunity she's gotten there's been a penn state connection - penn state is a huge school with a proud, enthusiastic alumni base and they're kind of everywhere. Having that commonality is an easy discussion point. I'm not sure your argument makes any sense.

lol how many penn state grads are at The New Yorker? Maybe one? How many Columbia grads are at those kinds of magazines?

ok, so she gets that $35K/year job at The New Yorker, has a $1000 student loan payment to pay, NY rent to pay, etc. You don't see a problem with this?

Good point. Student loans actually need to be, you know, repaid. Exactly how is a student supposed to take a job in journalism, art, publishing, etc. in a high COL city if he or she has a high three or low four figure loan payment to make every month?

Think with your heads, people.

Think with yours. The OP said the PARENTS would be taking on the loans, not the student.

Well then the parents need to repay them. Will that hurt their ability to save for retirement? Will it mean retirement has to be delayed for a long time? My DH will be ready to retire when our youngest finishes college. Repaying loans does not work with that plan. Also, can they do the same for other kids in the family? Taking out exorbitant loans for one child's education and then not doing that for the rest of the kids is setting up for a lot of family problems.

We've told our kids we can cover the cost of in-state public universities. In reality, I'd probably be willing to stretch another $10K over that IF (big IF) a more expensive big brand name school would provide a real advantage for them pursuing a particular goal. But not $40K extra per year. This assume they have a particular passion that this one school can help them achieve. Otherwise, based on the many people I have worked with and been friends with over my life, I just don't see that the brand name schools offer some amazing advantage over state universities for undergrad. I do think it matters in a lot of fields for grad school so the calculus changes there, but, again, at that point the student should have a particular goal and know how that school will help them achieve it. I'm not going to delay our retirement for years just so my child can go to Columbia to explore and figure out her interests.

selfish

balanced

Many people (including me) believe we owe our kids a college education. Many such people (including me) also believe that "college education" does not mean, "the most expensive school DC can get into."

That's why you shoudl be saving ahead of time! The rule of thumb for middle class families is 1/3 savings, 1/3 cash flow, and 1/3 loans. Come on, anyone can do 1/3 savings for a 70k a year school. You have 18 years. You can't save up ~ 100k in that time?

You realize that 1/3 savings needs to include retirement too? And saving for emergencies, major purchases, etc. And childcare is an exorbitant expense? Most families I know didn't start seriously saving for college until after the daycare bill started.

But, sure, lets say parents decide they want to cover a college that costs $70K at the time they start saving and they start saving when Jr. is a baby. Assuming college costs don't rise faster than the returns on their investments (not always a safe assumption), a basic college savings calculator says they'll need to put aside about $1300 per month for one child. The average family is 2 kids and you don't want to deprive either one so now you are saving $2600 per month or $31,200 per year. And you haven't saved yet for retirement. On a "middle class" income of $100-$150K you'd need to be saving more like half or more to save at that level for college plus a reasonable level of retirement. Must be nice to live in your little bubble where "anyone" has an extra $2600 to stash away each month.

+1

We have saved like crazy and with a HHI of $210K, hoped for some help from Harvard for DC. We can pay about $40/year.

Harvard gave DC $0, but with the option of a lot of loans. We are unwilling to allow him to go into that much debt, or to take it on ourselves as we are approaching our retirement years.

So, no.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia you're going to become friends with peers who will become very successful. At UVA you're going to meet a bunch of future SAHM, nurses, teachers, salesman, lawyers. Different levels.

This. I would not underestimate the power of the cohort. At Columbia, you will be surrounded by top students from all over the US and the world. At UVa, by definition, you will be surrounded by a majority of VA students - some high stats, some less so. My ds, who is at another top 10 ivy, says that he is surrounded by over achievers. I thinks he gets as much benefit from them as he does from the academics and overall environment at his ivy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia you're going to become friends with peers who will become very successful. At UVA you're going to meet a bunch of future SAHM, nurses, teachers, salesman, lawyers. Different levels.

This. I would not underestimate the power of the cohort. At Columbia, you will be surrounded by top students from all over the US and the world. At UVa, by definition, you will be surrounded by a majority of VA students - some high stats, some less so. My ds, who is at another top 10 ivy, says that he is surrounded by over achievers. I thinks he gets as much benefit from them as he does from the academics and overall environment at his ivy.

I don't know about UVa, but at UMD, you'll be surrounded by super smart first generation immigrants who will teach you strong work habits.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia you're going to become friends with peers who will become very successful. At UVA you're going to meet a bunch of future SAHM, nurses, teachers, salesman, lawyers. Different levels.

That's all well and good but OPs kid won't be hanging out with them; as already mentioned, she'll be busy with work-study, and wont have the cash to prowl the very expensive city like her UMC and upper class classmates. The networking value will be very limited; the Ivy league does not work that way, the rich hang with the rich, and the poor with the poor. Only people who really crossed those boundaries were very attractive women (going from poor to rich).

This is an important, and often overlooked point when people start shaming middle class parents for not spending $200k+ to send junior to Elite U, when they can go to a school one tier below almost for free.

+1

This is true everywhere you go.

Not weighing in on whether it's worth the $70K per year price tag (and, if so, for whom and under what circumstances), but the exceptionally smart, hard-working ambitious kids hang out with each other and become upwardly mobile through achievement rather than marrying into wealth.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At Columbia you're going to become friends with peers who will become very successful. At UVA you're going to meet a bunch of future SAHM, nurses, teachers, salesman, lawyers. Different levels.

1. I don't believe this. "Very successful" people come from all kinds of schools.

But, even if true..

2. This seems to assume that everyone should want to be the kind of "very successful" to which an Ivy league school supposedly provides some magic gate. I'm sure it is shocking to the "Ivy league or bust" folks but success looks different to different people. I know "very successful" teachers, nurses, sales people etc. They love their work, are very good at it, and can support themselves. To me that is what 'very successful' looks like.

I'm sorry but being a nurse is a tough, thankless, poorly paid job. Its not successful.

Wow. So, by your definition, nurses are "failures"?

Success for you is apparently all about money and status. You can't take it with you. A humble nurse can look back at her (or his) life and know that she did honest work that directly helped countless people. That's something she has over an IB bro or biglaw bigshot.

I didn't say they were failures, I said they were not "successful" and they are not in any sense. Its not a job about success, its about tolerance and fortitude, which they have and its about helping others, endlessly. That is not the definition of "success". The definition of success is according to all dictionaries, inclusive of financial prosperity and material and public gain. I didn't write the dictionary but at least I understand the language I'm using. You're just not well educated enough to know the difference.