Looking back, do you wish your child attended the least expensive college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:It's pretty cringy when people throw around Cost of Attendance to exaggerate costs. Unless you're super rich you're not paying $85,000 a year for UChicago, nor are middle class people taking out "six figures" of loans for their child's undergrad. Most financial aid students at flagship state schools leave with $30k or so in loans. That's frankly not a big deal -- unless your kid flunks out. I believe the starting median salary for a bachelor's is now around $60k (?), so an average kid can easily pay off $30k in loans living at home for a year after graduation. Or even faster if they get an engineering degree or any other path that leads to a six-figure starting salary ex. nursing, tech, finance, or consulting.

There are such things as Parent Plus and private loans that allow you to take out more than that, and plenty families do.

Define plenty. I don't think it's that common for parents to take out loans, is it? For undergrad. When schools and College Scorecard report median loan sums of graduates, wouldn't the Parent Plus loans be factored in that as well? So the median is still about $30k for public U, right?

Looking at it, parent plus loan averages are about 30k and fed sub and unsub for public is 30k. Now the PP loans are split between private and public I guess, but I would say loans coming from school are reasonably higher than 30k

For UNDERGRAD is zero chance there are just as many parent borrowers with $30k as students with $30k. Last I looked only a small % of parents borrow on their name for undergrad. Only a fraction of the student borrowers.

How does 30k in student loans pay for 90k worth of tuition and living expenses?

Okay, $90k - $30k is $60k.

Does a parent contribute literally $0 towards that $60k? Does the kid contribute literally $0 of that $60k? A low impact work study gig alone is $5K each school year, so we're down to $40k. A college educated kid can make easily $5k freshman summer and $10k plus each summer after. If the kid is a CS or engineering major, internships can be more like $20k to $30k each summer.

And above and beyond work study, kids can get research assistant and other campus jobs to make far more than $5k per school year. I know rich freshman who are making $15+ hr on campus.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty cringy when people throw around Cost of Attendance to exaggerate costs. Unless you're super rich you're not paying $85,000 a year for UChicago, nor are middle class people taking out "six figures" of loans for their child's undergrad. Most financial aid students at flagship state schools leave with $30k or so in loans. That's frankly not a big deal -- unless your kid flunks out. I believe the starting median salary for a bachelor's is now around $60k (?), so an average kid can easily pay off $30k in loans living at home for a year after graduation. Or even faster if they get an engineering degree or any other path that leads to a six-figure starting salary ex. nursing, tech, finance, or consulting.

There are such things as Parent Plus and private loans that allow you to take out more than that, and plenty families do.

Define plenty. I don't think it's that common for parents to take out loans, is it? For undergrad. When schools and College Scorecard report median loan sums of graduates, wouldn't the Parent Plus loans be factored in that as well? So the median is still about $30k for public U, right?

Looking at it, parent plus loan averages are about 30k and fed sub and unsub for public is 30k. Now the PP loans are split between private and public I guess, but I would say loans coming from school are reasonably higher than 30k

For UNDERGRAD is zero chance there are just as many parent borrowers with $30k as students with $30k. Last I looked only a small % of parents borrow on their name for undergrad. Only a fraction of the student borrowers.

How does 30k in student loans pay for 90k worth of tuition and living expenses?

Okay, $90k - $30k is $60k.

Does a parent contribute literally $0 towards that $60k? Does the kid contribute literally $0 of that $60k? A low impact work study gig alone is $5K each school year, so we're down to $40k. A college educated kid can make easily $5k freshman summer and $10k plus each summer after. If the kid is a CS or engineering major, internships can be more like $20k to $30k each summer.

Ah, but then we're back to the whole "learn for the sake of learning!" dilemma. Only plebs consider ROI when choosing a major!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty cringy when people throw around Cost of Attendance to exaggerate costs. Unless you're super rich you're not paying $85,000 a year for UChicago, nor are middle class people taking out "six figures" of loans for their child's undergrad. Most financial aid students at flagship state schools leave with $30k or so in loans. That's frankly not a big deal -- unless your kid flunks out. I believe the starting median salary for a bachelor's is now around $60k (?), so an average kid can easily pay off $30k in loans living at home for a year after graduation. Or even faster if they get an engineering degree or any other path that leads to a six-figure starting salary ex. nursing, tech, finance, or consulting.

There are such things as Parent Plus and private loans that allow you to take out more than that, and plenty families do.

Define plenty. I don't think it's that common for parents to take out loans, is it? For undergrad. When schools and College Scorecard report median loan sums of graduates, wouldn't the Parent Plus loans be factored in that as well? So the median is still about $30k for public U, right?

Looking at it, parent plus loan averages are about 30k and fed sub and unsub for public is 30k. Now the PP loans are split between private and public I guess, but I would say loans coming from school are reasonably higher than 30k

For UNDERGRAD is zero chance there are just as many parent borrowers with $30k as students with $30k. Last I looked only a small % of parents borrow on their name for undergrad. Only a fraction of the student borrowers.

How does 30k in student loans pay for 90k worth of tuition and living expenses?

Okay, $90k - $30k is $60k.

Does a parent contribute literally $0 towards that $60k? Does the kid contribute literally $0 of that $60k? A low impact work study gig alone is $5K each school year, so we're down to $40k. A college educated kid can make easily $5k freshman summer and $10k plus each summer after. If the kid is a CS or engineering major, internships can be more like $20k to $30k each summer.

Ah, but then we're back to the whole "learn for the sake of learning!" dilemma. Only plebs consider ROI when choosing a major!

That’s a lot of work for a philosophy degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College prof here again, grad admissions look at 1. Gpa 2. Board scores 3. Letters of recommendation 4. Outstanding achievement as an undergrad either in reasearch, leadership, interning, community service 5. Whether the applicant's propsed graduate research agenda aligns with the university's offerings. The actual school your undergraduate degree is from means very little.

I'm a college prof too and mainly agree with this, but not 100%. We do think of GPA in relation to quality of undergrad institution. This is more at the edges than fine-grained distinctions though. If someone is coming from a school outside the top 80 or so national liberal arts colleges or top 150 or so colleges and universities, the evidence besides GPA needs to be particularly compelling and the GPA needs to be very high. And if someone is coming from a very strong school (say T30 in either category or a school known for being particularly rigorous in our major), that can outweigh a mediocre GPA.

This is in part due to our perception of the school and its rigor, but also goes into the letters of recommendation--the faculty at the very weak schools are not likely to be particularly active in the field and also may be less versed in what would constitute a very strong student so their letters carry less weight. Conversely the faculty at top schools are people whose work I am more likely to know and I know the caliber of students who have worked with them in the past, so their letters carry more weight.

Another college prof here who just did PhD admissions for a top program. Immediate PP is spot on. My advice to students who want to do a PhD in STEM is to make sure that you need to choose a school where get top-notch research experiences that lead to strong letters and ideally that also have research that will give you opportunity for poster sessions or maybe even a conference visit. That could be through a summer program but it's hard to really do enough to reach that level in one summer. You can save money though by going to state schools, flagships generally have strong programs with serious classes and you can find a strong research lab there.

The reality is that smaller , lower ranked schools with less "World class" research don't prepare students for PhD programs as well. I personally have seen these students struggle because they don't understand what the expectations are. Not all, but some. Not saying to go the expensive place (Ivies are also a waste for engineering often over flagship states for sure, and I say this as a prof at an elite private), but it's not like every school will be the same as long as they offer the same courses in this sense.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To most parents, college is basically a trade school to which you daily commute to get your free or cheap STEM degree from, preferably in three years. That's it.

I did this exactly lol!

[Anonymous]

OP I'm not sure if you're still on this thread - it is so long!
We have 2 kids who will be going to college at the same time. If they go to one of several excellent state schools available to us, they should each cost about $30-40K per year total. If they choose to go private, or if private ends up being their only options this obviously doubles at least which would be crippling. We are flagging the state options now before they apply by about 1 year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty cringy when people throw around Cost of Attendance to exaggerate costs. Unless you're super rich you're not paying $85,000 a year for UChicago, nor are middle class people taking out "six figures" of loans for their child's undergrad. Most financial aid students at flagship state schools leave with $30k or so in loans. That's frankly not a big deal -- unless your kid flunks out. I believe the starting median salary for a bachelor's is now around $60k (?), so an average kid can easily pay off $30k in loans living at home for a year after graduation. Or even faster if they get an engineering degree or any other path that leads to a six-figure starting salary ex. nursing, tech, finance, or consulting.

There are such things as Parent Plus and private loans that allow you to take out more than that, and plenty families do.

Define plenty. I don't think it's that common for parents to take out loans, is it? For undergrad. When schools and College Scorecard report median loan sums of graduates, wouldn't the Parent Plus loans be factored in that as well? So the median is still about $30k for public U, right?

Looking at it, parent plus loan averages are about 30k and fed sub and unsub for public is 30k. Now the PP loans are split between private and public I guess, but I would say loans coming from school are reasonably higher than 30k

For UNDERGRAD is zero chance there are just as many parent borrowers with $30k as students with $30k. Last I looked only a small % of parents borrow on their name for undergrad. Only a fraction of the student borrowers.

How does 30k in student loans pay for 90k worth of tuition and living expenses?

Okay, $90k - $30k is $60k.

Does a parent contribute literally $0 towards that $60k? Does the kid contribute literally $0 of that $60k? A low impact work study gig alone is $5K each school year, so we're down to $40k. A college educated kid can make easily $5k freshman summer and $10k plus each summer after. If the kid is a CS or engineering major, internships can be more like $20k to $30k each summer.

While that is possible, that can be a fairly extraordinary. I would applaud anyone who does that for college, but this doesn’t change the fact that college tuition has exploded at an obscene rate. I wouldn’t encourage my child to work their butts off like that for a religious studies degree.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty cringy when people throw around Cost of Attendance to exaggerate costs. Unless you're super rich you're not paying $85,000 a year for UChicago, nor are middle class people taking out "six figures" of loans for their child's undergrad. Most financial aid students at flagship state schools leave with $30k or so in loans. That's frankly not a big deal -- unless your kid flunks out. I believe the starting median salary for a bachelor's is now around $60k (?), so an average kid can easily pay off $30k in loans living at home for a year after graduation. Or even faster if they get an engineering degree or any other path that leads to a six-figure starting salary ex. nursing, tech, finance, or consulting.

There are such things as Parent Plus and private loans that allow you to take out more than that, and plenty families do.

Define plenty. I don't think it's that common for parents to take out loans, is it? For undergrad. When schools and College Scorecard report median loan sums of graduates, wouldn't the Parent Plus loans be factored in that as well? So the median is still about $30k for public U, right?

Looking at it, parent plus loan averages are about 30k and fed sub and unsub for public is 30k. Now the PP loans are split between private and public I guess, but I would say loans coming from school are reasonably higher than 30k

For UNDERGRAD is zero chance there are just as many parent borrowers with $30k as students with $30k. Last I looked only a small % of parents borrow on their name for undergrad. Only a fraction of the student borrowers.

How does 30k in student loans pay for 90k worth of tuition and living expenses?

Okay, $90k - $30k is $60k.

Does a parent contribute literally $0 towards that $60k? Does the kid contribute literally $0 of that $60k? A low impact work study gig alone is $5K each school year, so we're down to $40k. A college educated kid can make easily $5k freshman summer and $10k plus each summer after. If the kid is a CS or engineering major, internships can be more like $20k to $30k each summer.

Ah, but then we're back to the whole "learn for the sake of learning!" dilemma. Only plebs consider ROI when choosing a major!

This thread is for loan-phobic low and middle class families. These students ought to major in something as challenging and marketable as they can handle, which creates the best earning opportunities during the school year, summers, and after graduation. Programs like CS, petroleum eng, chemical eng, and selective business college students coast into $15,000+ summer internships and $80,000+ starting salaries, which is excellent money for a 22-year-old kid. That said, most American kids don't have the academic chops for engineering, CS, statistics and other STEM departments. And if you're low income, you're even less likely, because you probably went to a mediocre k-12 which didn't prepare you very well for university. I saw many peers try to pursue and wash out of engineering and pre-med and they sort of ruined their gpa, which can permanently harm those summer and full time job hunts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty cringy when people throw around Cost of Attendance to exaggerate costs. Unless you're super rich you're not paying $85,000 a year for UChicago, nor are middle class people taking out "six figures" of loans for their child's undergrad. Most financial aid students at flagship state schools leave with $30k or so in loans. That's frankly not a big deal -- unless your kid flunks out. I believe the starting median salary for a bachelor's is now around $60k (?), so an average kid can easily pay off $30k in loans living at home for a year after graduation. Or even faster if they get an engineering degree or any other path that leads to a six-figure starting salary ex. nursing, tech, finance, or consulting.

There are such things as Parent Plus and private loans that allow you to take out more than that, and plenty families do.

Define plenty. I don't think it's that common for parents to take out loans, is it? For undergrad. When schools and College Scorecard report median loan sums of graduates, wouldn't the Parent Plus loans be factored in that as well? So the median is still about $30k for public U, right?

Looking at it, parent plus loan averages are about 30k and fed sub and unsub for public is 30k. Now the PP loans are split between private and public I guess, but I would say loans coming from school are reasonably higher than 30k

For UNDERGRAD is zero chance there are just as many parent borrowers with $30k as students with $30k. Last I looked only a small % of parents borrow on their name for undergrad. Only a fraction of the student borrowers.

How does 30k in student loans pay for 90k worth of tuition and living expenses?

Okay, $90k - $30k is $60k.

Does a parent contribute literally $0 towards that $60k? Does the kid contribute literally $0 of that $60k? A low impact work study gig alone is $5K each school year, so we're down to $40k. A college educated kid can make easily $5k freshman summer and $10k plus each summer after. If the kid is a CS or engineering major, internships can be more like $20k to $30k each summer.

While that is possible, that can be a fairly extraordinary. I would applaud anyone who does that for college, but this doesn’t change the fact that college tuition has exploded at an obscene rate. I wouldn’t encourage my child to work their butts off like that for a religious studies degree.

I didn't describe anything extraordinary. $5k school year work study is literally nothing. And working full time in the summer is normal. It's not like work study gigs are slaving away at Burger King for 40 hours a week.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College prof here again, grad admissions look at 1. Gpa 2. Board scores 3. Letters of recommendation 4. Outstanding achievement as an undergrad either in reasearch, leadership, interning, community service 5. Whether the applicant's propsed graduate research agenda aligns with the university's offerings. The actual school your undergraduate degree is from means very little.

I'm a college prof too and mainly agree with this, but not 100%. We do think of GPA in relation to quality of undergrad institution. This is more at the edges than fine-grained distinctions though. If someone is coming from a school outside the top 80 or so national liberal arts colleges or top 150 or so colleges and universities, the evidence besides GPA needs to be particularly compelling and the GPA needs to be very high. And if someone is coming from a very strong school (say T30 in either category or a school known for being particularly rigorous in our major), that can outweigh a mediocre GPA.

This is in part due to our perception of the school and its rigor, but also goes into the letters of recommendation--the faculty at the very weak schools are not likely to be particularly active in the field and also may be less versed in what would constitute a very strong student so their letters carry less weight. Conversely the faculty at top schools are people whose work I am more likely to know and I know the caliber of students who have worked with them in the past, so their letters carry more weight.

Another college prof here who just did PhD admissions for a top program. Immediate PP is spot on. My advice to students who want to do a PhD in STEM is to make sure that you need to choose a school where get top-notch research experiences that lead to strong letters and ideally that also have research that will give you opportunity for poster sessions or maybe even a conference visit. That could be through a summer program but it's hard to really do enough to reach that level in one summer. You can save money though by going to state schools, flagships generally have strong programs with serious classes and you can find a strong research lab there.

The reality is that smaller , lower ranked schools with less "World class" research don't prepare students for PhD programs as well. I personally have seen these students struggle because they don't understand what the expectations are. Not all, but some. Not saying to go the expensive place (Ivies are also a waste for engineering often over flagship states for sure, and I say this as a prof at an elite private), but it's not like every school will be the same as long as they offer the same courses in this sense.

What’s your cut off for a lower ranked school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty cringy when people throw around Cost of Attendance to exaggerate costs. Unless you're super rich you're not paying $85,000 a year for UChicago, nor are middle class people taking out "six figures" of loans for their child's undergrad. Most financial aid students at flagship state schools leave with $30k or so in loans. That's frankly not a big deal -- unless your kid flunks out. I believe the starting median salary for a bachelor's is now around $60k (?), so an average kid can easily pay off $30k in loans living at home for a year after graduation. Or even faster if they get an engineering degree or any other path that leads to a six-figure starting salary ex. nursing, tech, finance, or consulting.

There are such things as Parent Plus and private loans that allow you to take out more than that, and plenty families do.

Define plenty. I don't think it's that common for parents to take out loans, is it? For undergrad. When schools and College Scorecard report median loan sums of graduates, wouldn't the Parent Plus loans be factored in that as well? So the median is still about $30k for public U, right?

Looking at it, parent plus loan averages are about 30k and fed sub and unsub for public is 30k. Now the PP loans are split between private and public I guess, but I would say loans coming from school are reasonably higher than 30k

For UNDERGRAD is zero chance there are just as many parent borrowers with $30k as students with $30k. Last I looked only a small % of parents borrow on their name for undergrad. Only a fraction of the student borrowers.

How does 30k in student loans pay for 90k worth of tuition and living expenses?

Okay, $90k - $30k is $60k.

Does a parent contribute literally $0 towards that $60k? Does the kid contribute literally $0 of that $60k? A low impact work study gig alone is $5K each school year, so we're down to $40k. A college educated kid can make easily $5k freshman summer and $10k plus each summer after. If the kid is a CS or engineering major, internships can be more like $20k to $30k each summer.

While that is possible, that can be a fairly extraordinary. I would applaud anyone who does that for college, but this doesn’t change the fact that college tuition has exploded at an obscene rate. I wouldn’t encourage my child to work their butts off like that for a religious studies degree.

I didn't describe anything extraordinary. $5k school year work study is literally nothing. And working full time in the summer is normal. It's not like work study gigs are slaving away at Burger King for 40 hours a week.

The difference is people used to be able to do that in order to leave with no student loans. Now they have to do that to leave with 30-40k in student loans.

Again that’s a lot of work to leave with a degree in English and 30k in loans. I wouldn’t recommend that.

People are avoiding these degrees because the juice isn’t worth the squeeze. I think Marymount just cut a bunch of these degrees because most people are seeing it as not worth it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty cringy when people throw around Cost of Attendance to exaggerate costs. Unless you're super rich you're not paying $85,000 a year for UChicago, nor are middle class people taking out "six figures" of loans for their child's undergrad. Most financial aid students at flagship state schools leave with $30k or so in loans. That's frankly not a big deal -- unless your kid flunks out. I believe the starting median salary for a bachelor's is now around $60k (?), so an average kid can easily pay off $30k in loans living at home for a year after graduation. Or even faster if they get an engineering degree or any other path that leads to a six-figure starting salary ex. nursing, tech, finance, or consulting.

There are such things as Parent Plus and private loans that allow you to take out more than that, and plenty families do.

Define plenty. I don't think it's that common for parents to take out loans, is it? For undergrad. When schools and College Scorecard report median loan sums of graduates, wouldn't the Parent Plus loans be factored in that as well? So the median is still about $30k for public U, right?

Looking at it, parent plus loan averages are about 30k and fed sub and unsub for public is 30k. Now the PP loans are split between private and public I guess, but I would say loans coming from school are reasonably higher than 30k

That's only federal data. Lots of parents borrow in other ways -- home equity loans, private student loans, borrowing from 401ks.

https://money.usnews.com/loans/student-loans/articles/parent-student-loan-borrowers-survey

Right. The actual cost of college is not just some 30k of student loans. PP scoffed at the idea of 100k in loans for public school. Students aren’t paying 60k in tuition and 20-30k in living expenses with 30k in student loans and their pt job at the dining hall.

+1 I was advising a student last year who got into VT. Very low income, qualified for Pell Grant. All he got in free aid was the Pell and the VA state grant, VT offered nothing else. He and his mom would have had to take out nearly $20k/year in loans, maybe a little less in later years if he could get cheaper off campus housing or work as an RA. I strongly advised that he not take on 100k in loans and consider CC first.

Correction - $80k in loans (if he made it through in 4 years)

He might have been able to go to Alabama for free. SO much better in every way than CC.

Except you're in Alabama.

[Anonymous]

Top law school admissions are the most equitable. PhD and med school admissions require access to research experience that isn’t available at the cheapest schools. Top MBA admissions require job experience from employers who only hire from elite schools.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's pretty cringy when people throw around Cost of Attendance to exaggerate costs. Unless you're super rich you're not paying $85,000 a year for UChicago, nor are middle class people taking out "six figures" of loans for their child's undergrad. Most financial aid students at flagship state schools leave with $30k or so in loans. That's frankly not a big deal -- unless your kid flunks out. I believe the starting median salary for a bachelor's is now around $60k (?), so an average kid can easily pay off $30k in loans living at home for a year after graduation. Or even faster if they get an engineering degree or any other path that leads to a six-figure starting salary ex. nursing, tech, finance, or consulting.

There are such things as Parent Plus and private loans that allow you to take out more than that, and plenty families do.

Define plenty. I don't think it's that common for parents to take out loans, is it? For undergrad. When schools and College Scorecard report median loan sums of graduates, wouldn't the Parent Plus loans be factored in that as well? So the median is still about $30k for public U, right?

Looking at it, parent plus loan averages are about 30k and fed sub and unsub for public is 30k. Now the PP loans are split between private and public I guess, but I would say loans coming from school are reasonably higher than 30k

That's only federal data. Lots of parents borrow in other ways -- home equity loans, private student loans, borrowing from 401ks.

https://money.usnews.com/loans/student-loans/articles/parent-student-loan-borrowers-survey

Right. The actual cost of college is not just some 30k of student loans. PP scoffed at the idea of 100k in loans for public school. Students aren’t paying 60k in tuition and 20-30k in living expenses with 30k in student loans and their pt job at the dining hall.

+1 I was advising a student last year who got into VT. Very low income, qualified for Pell Grant. All he got in free aid was the Pell and the VA state grant, VT offered nothing else. He and his mom would have had to take out nearly $20k/year in loans, maybe a little less in later years if he could get cheaper off campus housing or work as an RA. I strongly advised that he not take on 100k in loans and consider CC first.

Correction - $80k in loans (if he made it through in 4 years)

He might have been able to go to Alabama for free. SO much better in every way than CC.

Except you're in Alabama.

Tuscaloosa is like a college resort town. And it’s only four years.

[Anonymous]

Commuting is an option but the American family ideal is to get rid of Larlo at 18.