Do many people pick publics because of money?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We chose private because after merit aid, it was the cheapest option. If public had been the cheapest, we would have sent our kids to public. It was ALL about the $$.

good for you but most parents reading this will not receive merit offers. You are not gping to get merit frim the top schools. You must drop down in the rankings to get merit.

We didn't care about a "top" school. We were happy for a run of the mill private where our kids could attend for cheap. We couldn't afford more and weren't going to do loans. Again, for us, price was the top factor. Same reason why we bought a house for half the mortgage we qualified for, why we drive a 15 year old car and why we don't do a lot of vacations.
The OP seemed to look down on publics cause they are less expensive. I was making the point that many private schools are even less expensive than publics after merit. The reality is that MOST people attend the school they can afford and there's nothing wrong with that.

But you didn't admit up front that you had to settle for a second or third tier private in order to do this. It's important for parents reading this to understand that if you are chasing merit, you aren't going to be applying to T20. We had the same decision but weren't willing to compromise on the reputation of the school. Our kid was exceptionally high stats and going for Ivies and UVA. Because of his test scores he was offered, unsolicited, free rides but by SLACs you've never heard of. The schools he had applied to didn't offer any merit (no surprise) and our FAFSA gave us zero financial aid. That's simply the current system we are working within.

THIS!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Virginia has some fantastic state schools. Why pay for private when you can get a better education, with a larger alumni network, at a public?

VA state schools are good at some things but overall mediocre in STEM.

Virginia has schools that are among the tops among public schools in top pay in STEM fields, top feeders on a percentage basis to STEM PhD programs, and are among the best in admissions to medical schools and other medical programs.

Agree, Virginia’s top schools are better than almost all publics as far as STEM and non-stem PhD, MD, Law placement. Berkeley and Georgia Tech have a slight edge in Stem. William&Mary is the only public school in the country that provides the ivy/private top10 feel with small classes, undergrad research potential in all fields , and overall that ideal ivy-size. It is excellent at physics and chemistry. The only schools that truly out-perform Virginia Publics are the Private schools at the very top: ivies/Stanford/JHU/Duke/Chicago/Northwestern. All have a liberal arts(arts&Sciences) education as well as Engineering and all are “feeders” to med and top law as well as send their Engineers to top phDs or tech careers , &have a start-up culture. Virginia schools and even Berkeley and GT do not provide the setting these schools do, where you can do many things across disciplines and achieve top outcomes. That is why people who can afford the top schools go there, and thankfully they have amazing financial aid so the vast majority of families making less than 200k get a better deal at these schools than Virginia publics.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Virginia has some fantastic state schools. Why pay for private when you can get a better education, with a larger alumni network, at a public?

VA state schools are good at some things but overall mediocre in STEM.

Virginia has schools that are among the tops among public schools in top pay in STEM fields, top feeders on a percentage basis to STEM PhD programs, and are among the best in admissions to medical schools and other medical programs.

Agree, Virginia’s top schools are better than almost all publics as far as STEM and non-stem PhD, MD, Law placement. Berkeley and Georgia Tech have a slight edge in Stem. William&Mary is the only public school in the country that provides the ivy/private top10 feel with small classes, undergrad research potential in all fields , and overall that ideal ivy-size. It is excellent at physics and chemistry. The only schools that truly out-perform Virginia Publics are the Private schools at the very top: ivies/Stanford/JHU/Duke/Chicago/Northwestern. All have a liberal arts(arts&Sciences) education as well as Engineering and all are “feeders” to med and top law as well as send their Engineers to top phDs or tech careers , &have a start-up culture. Virginia schools and even Berkeley and GT do not provide the setting these schools do, where you can do many things across disciplines and achieve top outcomes. That is why people who can afford the top schools go there, and thankfully they have amazing financial aid so the vast majority of families making less than 200k get a better deal at these schools than Virginia publics. [/quot

HHI is just one factor in the financial aid picture. If you have even moderate assets you will get zero aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Virginia has some fantastic state schools. Why pay for private when you can get a better education, with a larger alumni network, at a public?

VA state schools are good at some things but overall mediocre in STEM.

Virginia has schools that are among the tops among public schools in top pay in STEM fields, top feeders on a percentage basis to STEM PhD programs, and are among the best in admissions to medical schools and other medical programs.

Agree, Virginia’s top schools are better than almost all publics as far as STEM and non-stem PhD, MD, Law placement. Berkeley and Georgia Tech have a slight edge in Stem. William&Mary is the only public school in the country that provides the ivy/private top10 feel with small classes, undergrad research potential in all fields , and overall that ideal ivy-size. It is excellent at physics and chemistry. The only schools that truly out-perform Virginia Publics are the Private schools at the very top: ivies/Stanford/JHU/Duke/Chicago/Northwestern. All have a liberal arts(arts&Sciences) education as well as Engineering and all are “feeders” to med and top law as well as send their Engineers to top phDs or tech careers , &have a start-up culture. Virginia schools and even Berkeley and GT do not provide the setting these schools do, where you can do many things across disciplines and achieve top outcomes. That is why people who can afford the top schools go there, and thankfully they have amazing financial aid so the vast majority of families making less than 200k get a better deal at these schools than Virginia publics.

VA's STEM schools are in the T30+. Not all that spectacular.

[Anonymous]

I think you’ve posted this before. Like years ago. I think you’re trolling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We chose private because after merit aid, it was the cheapest option. If public had been the cheapest, we would have sent our kids to public. It was ALL about the $$.

good for you but most parents reading this will not receive merit offers. You are not gping to get merit frim the top schools. You must drop down in the rankings to get merit.

We didn't care about a "top" school. We were happy for a run of the mill private where our kids could attend for cheap. We couldn't afford more and weren't going to do loans. Again, for us, price was the top factor. Same reason why we bought a house for half the mortgage we qualified for, why we drive a 15 year old car and why we don't do a lot of vacations.
The OP seemed to look down on publics cause they are less expensive. I was making the point that many private schools are even less expensive than publics after merit. The reality is that MOST people attend the school they can afford and there's nothing wrong with that.

But you didn't admit up front that you had to settle for a second or third tier private in order to do this. It's important for parents reading this to understand that if you are chasing merit, you aren't going to be applying to T20. We had the same decision but weren't willing to compromise on the reputation of the school. Our kid was exceptionally high stats and going for Ivies and UVA. Because of his test scores he was offered, unsolicited, free rides but by SLACs you've never heard of. The schools he had applied to didn't offer any merit (no surprise) and our FAFSA gave us zero financial aid. That's simply the current system we are working within.

THIS!

+1.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We chose private because after merit aid, it was the cheapest option. If public had been the cheapest, we would have sent our kids to public. It was ALL about the $$.

good for you but most parents reading this will not receive merit offers. You are not gping to get merit frim the top schools. You must drop down in the rankings to get merit.

We didn't care about a "top" school. We were happy for a run of the mill private where our kids could attend for cheap. We couldn't afford more and weren't going to do loans. Again, for us, price was the top factor. Same reason why we bought a house for half the mortgage we qualified for, why we drive a 15 year old car and why we don't do a lot of vacations.
The OP seemed to look down on publics cause they are less expensive. I was making the point that many private schools are even less expensive than publics after merit. The reality is that MOST people attend the school they can afford and there's nothing wrong with that.

But you didn't admit up front that you had to settle for a second or third tier private in order to do this. It's important for parents reading this to understand that if you are chasing merit, you aren't going to be applying to T20. We had the same decision but weren't willing to compromise on the reputation of the school. Our kid was exceptionally high stats and going for Ivies and UVA. Because of his test scores he was offered, unsolicited, free rides but by SLACs you've never heard of. The schools he had applied to didn't offer any merit (no surprise) and our FAFSA gave us zero financial aid. That's simply the current system we are working within.[/quote

Nice try at a slam about "having to settle". Again, most people don't give a sh*t about prestige or top 20 or whatever. Most people do care about $$.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We chose private because after merit aid, it was the cheapest option. If public had been the cheapest, we would have sent our kids to public. It was ALL about the $$.

good for you but most parents reading this will not receive merit offers. You are not gping to get merit frim the top schools. You must drop down in the rankings to get merit.

We didn't care about a "top" school. We were happy for a run of the mill private where our kids could attend for cheap. We couldn't afford more and weren't going to do loans. Again, for us, price was the top factor. Same reason why we bought a house for half the mortgage we qualified for, why we drive a 15 year old car and why we don't do a lot of vacations.
The OP seemed to look down on publics cause they are less expensive. I was making the point that many private schools are even less expensive than publics after merit. The reality is that MOST people attend the school they can afford and there's nothing wrong with that.

But you didn't admit up front that you had to settle for a second or third tier private in order to do this. It's important for parents reading this to understand that if you are chasing merit, you aren't going to be applying to T20. We had the same decision but weren't willing to compromise on the reputation of the school. Our kid was exceptionally high stats and going for Ivies and UVA. Because of his test scores he was offered, unsolicited, free rides but by SLACs you've never heard of. The schools he had applied to didn't offer any merit (no surprise) and our FAFSA gave us zero financial aid. That's simply the current system we are working within.[/quote

Nice try at a slam about "having to settle". Again, most people don't give a sh*t about prestige or top 20 or whatever. Most people do care about $$.

DP. It wasn't a slam. The PP had claimed that they chased merit and were able to do private cheaper than in-state public. They didn't admit that they had to drop down in prestige/rankings to do that. That is critical info for every parent here who us new to college admissions. It's the same story here when a parent here claims their 28 ACT kid with a B+ average in Fairfax Public Schools got into Ivies but much later in the thread confesses their kid is URM/First generation. Those kinds of omissions confuse new readers and aren't helpful

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We chose private because after merit aid, it was the cheapest option. If public had been the cheapest, we would have sent our kids to public. It was ALL about the $$.

good for you but most parents reading this will not receive merit offers. You are not gping to get merit frim the top schools. You must drop down in the rankings to get merit.

We didn't care about a "top" school. We were happy for a run of the mill private where our kids could attend for cheap. We couldn't afford more and weren't going to do loans. Again, for us, price was the top factor. Same reason why we bought a house for half the mortgage we qualified for, why we drive a 15 year old car and why we don't do a lot of vacations.
The OP seemed to look down on publics cause they are less expensive. I was making the point that many private schools are even less expensive than publics after merit. The reality is that MOST people attend the school they can afford and there's nothing wrong with that.

But you didn't admit up front that you had to settle for a second or third tier private in order to do this. It's important for parents reading this to understand that if you are chasing merit, you aren't going to be applying to T20. We had the same decision but weren't willing to compromise on the reputation of the school. Our kid was exceptionally high stats and going for Ivies and UVA. Because of his test scores he was offered, unsolicited, free rides but by SLACs you've never heard of. The schools he had applied to didn't offer any merit (no surprise) and our FAFSA gave us zero financial aid. That's simply the current system we are working within.[/quote

Nice try at a slam about "having to settle". Again, most people don't give a sh*t about prestige or top 20 or whatever. Most people do care about $$.

DP. It wasn't a slam. The PP had claimed that they chased merit and were able to do private cheaper than in-state public. They didn't admit that they had to drop down in prestige/rankings to do that. That is critical info for every parent here who is new to college admissions. It's the same story here when a parent here claims their 28 ACT kid with a B+ average in Fairfax Public Schools got into Ivies but much later in the thread confesses their kid is URM/First generation. Those kinds of omissions confuse new readers and aren't helpful

This. I knew what you meant.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Virginia has some fantastic state schools. Why pay for private when you can get a better education, with a larger alumni network, at a public?

UVA is definitely better than SUNY.

+1

I grew up in NY and live in VA now. Never considered SUNY schools. My family scrimped to pay for me to go to
an Ivy. But school is much more expensive now and my own kids are strongly considering UVA, VT, W&M. These schools are on a different level than SUNY. Also major matters too. Not everyone is going into i banking.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You understand that tuition rates have grown astronomically faster than wages since you were in college, right?

Of course I understand. We can easily afford to pay tuition. However, even if we couldn’t, I would encourage my children to apply and attend the best college possible.

I know many kids going to UVA and W&M could have gone to “better” schools. I’m sure this is more from public high schools, not private. If you are already paying 50k for high school tuition, paying 80k for college tuition probably would not be a factor in deciding where to go to college.

1. If you couldn't afford to pay, then why would you encourage your children to apply and attend the "best college possible"?

2. Your statement about a person paying $50K being able to pay $80K (and rising)(It's actually $90K now, generally) makes assumptions and is erroneous.

3. Yes, people pick publics and privates with merit aid over "better" brand-name schools because of money.

Dh and I want to HYP grad schools. I earned high six figures and Dh now earns seven figures. I don’t think it would have been possible without our education.

You mean you don't think it would have been possible without being lifted into that elite social class.

HYP do not teach anything different that leads to that income.

How would you know?