Is there a tipping point , full pay?
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Anonymous
A degree from BC is worth a little more than a degree from VCU and a little less than a degree from VT or UMD. Or a lot less if you are studying STEM. |
Anonymous
| We have 3 kids and 400K hhi. We will discourage but not prohibit full pay for anything outside of an Ivy or equivalent. We hope to have 4 years of private tuition in each of their 529s, but then there is also room&board plus potential grad school to consider, and we would want to be able to help with that to some extent. We are in the midwest, so fortunately the kids are not caught up in college prestige / rankings, and I don't think any of my kids would be upset not to go Middlebury, say, over Denison with merit aid. |
Anonymous
This is us as well. Our kid has absolutely thrived at a $$$ SLAC whereas he struggled at a huge HS. He’s graduating in May and every penny we spent was worth it. |
Anonymous
This is great to hear. (And this success is what bugs me about pps who insist “you’re wasting your money”) |
Anonymous
Both Midd and Denison are prestigious and have low admit rates. So, yes, they/you are concerned concerned with college prestige. Now if you had said Midd and Denison v. U. of Toledo or Akron, that may have made your point w/o being a hypocrite. |
Anonymous
| Daughter got instate UVa and W&M but is full pay at Georgetown. She absolutely loves it. Only three miles away but a totally different world. |
Anonymous
Nonsense |
Anonymous
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The question here rests upon some specific assumptions: first, that full pay is equivalent to 85k in all cases (which in itself is indicative of the fact that to most posters on this site, attending college means attending a comparatively small subset of U.S. schools and quibbling over the relatively minor differences between them); and second, that the in-state option is a public institution in VA or MD (which given the site is perfectly reasonable and to be expected).
First, there are some "schools" for which I would not contribute a single dime of spending money even if my student were to matriculate at one of them on an otherwise full ride scholarship: these institutions include Liberty, Hillsdale, High Point. Second, except in the case of extenuating circumstances (e.g. the need to attend a school in close proximity because of health issues or professional ambitions that require a specialized program available only on an otherwise undistinguished campus), I would not be willing to pay full freight over the cost of in-state tuition for a school whose undergrad student body is academically weaker than those of the in-state schools to which my student had gained admission (and to be clear, when I say "weaker," I am not referring to, say, a mere 30 point difference between one school's 75th percentile and another's. The higher the scores are, the less meaningful difference there is between them; in addition, measuring the academic strength of a given school also involves consideration of qualitative factors such as intellectual curiosity). Assuming that the student bodies of the OOS/private colleges under consideration are on par with or academically stronger than those of the in-state schools, however, my student would have to weigh pros and cons specific to his/her/their priorities and tolerance for the long-term consequences of tradeoffs. One poster here, for example, said s/he would not pay for UCLA over, I think, in-state UVA. If, say, my student were in-state for UVA but hell-bent on a career in film and had already shown sustained, demonstrated interest in the subject, I'd be wiling to shell out for UCLA. But if, say, that same student wanted to major in English and then go to grad school in the same subject, well, I happen to know that both schools offer very strong undergrad and grad programs in English, so I'd encourage him/her/them to consider what s/he/they could do with the extra 529 savings if it weren't spent on undergraduate tuition alone, although as someone who really values diversity--including and especially economic diversity--I think that spending four years at a school where a third of one's classmates qualify for Pell grants yet are still amongst the most academically competitive students in the U.S. is well worth the difference between in-state UVA tuition and out-of-state CA tuition. If, say, my student wanted English, were choosing between Michigan and in-state UVA and decided on the former, I'd be less enthusiastic but remind myself that college, if one has the luxury of being able to do so, is an excellent opportunity to live where one has never previously lived. |
Anonymous
For us it would really depend what the other options are and the reason DC wanted the more expensive option. |
Anonymous
You have the money to send him to Colgate or Vandy AND pay for medical school no problem. You’ll be very lucky if your kid doesn’t resent you for making him go to VCU. |
Anonymous
| Told my kids if they get into Ivies, any Ivies, we would be full pay. They did and we did. |
Anonymous
Well, money is the consideration. Even it you are wealthy. Multiple kids. Someone might want to go to med school. Another grad school. Another law school. That's easily a million plus. Do you really want to throw $500,000 at your stoner party boy to be mediocre at Miami? Is that doing him any favors? Is that going to make him a good man? Do you want to throw $400,000 so that your girl gets into the popular sorority at Tulane? Is that going to make her a good person and succeed at life? We gave our kids choices. There's the public flagships. Totally good schools. They have duel citizenship - so there are those schools. Also very good. And there are about forty schools in the US that are extremely good. From MIT to Bowdoin. We will cover all of that. But we are not dropping a gazillion dollars on Franklin and Marshall or Pepperdine or Landmark College. Choose how you want to go about things. We will take care of things. But it's their initiative. |
Anonymous
Not to quibble…but yeah your kid getting into the top fraternity/sorority could impact their success in life. Way more than getting a 4.0 or any number of things at State U. |
Anonymous
You can find smaller schools that offer the same environment that will give your kid merit $$$. I do agree it can be worth it...but IMO, only if you can easily pay the bill. Otherwise, search for the environment you think is ideal but one that gives merit. There are plenty of smaller, enriching schools that offer the same as a top SLAC that don't cost $85K+/year. if you don't have $320K+ readily available, then find one of those so your kid can thrive and not be debt free after college. There are also plenty of mid size schools (for me, that's 5-8K undergrads) where the profs/staff care about undergrads, most classes are smaller and can be a great environment for someone not wanting a huge school. |
Anonymous
DP (in a similar boat): I think people who say things like that assume everyone's kid is just like theirs or would be if everyone parented just like they do. It is a failure of observation and imagination. |