Of the top private colleges, which ones do you think are worth $57,000 a year?

[Anonymous]

I am starting to feel not any of them. What do you think? It feels like back in 2005 when we were looking to buy a house and they all felt over priced.

[Anonymous]

None. Unless you can pay full freight for them or get a full scholarship, not worth the years of crushing debt IMO.

[Anonymous]

Zero. They think we'll pay anything to ship our kids off.
Enough is enough already.

[Anonymous]

None.

[Anonymous]

It's actually starting to look really stupid to take on that kind of ridiculous debt. Smart people try to avoid doing stupid things.

[Anonymous]

Which ones cost this much? Ivies?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Which ones cost this much? Ivies?

http://www.forbes.com/pictures/eddf45ikjm/methodology/

[Anonymous]

Ugh, 3 or 4 of these schools are on DD's college list. For us, it's not the tuition keeping her out. It's DD's GPA.

[Anonymous]

That was not inspiring.

[Anonymous]

Then: people use to worry the college their child was going to was not prestigious enough

Now: people worry they overpaid!

[Anonymous]

This question came up on another recent thread: http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/20/your-money/measuring-college-prestige-vs-price.html?pagewanted=2&_r=1&ref=your-money&

The short version was that none of these schools is worth $60K if you're going into acting or the culinary arts. The very top schools might possibly be worth that for the connections, especially if you're going into finance. So yes to Columbia or even NYU if you want a job on Wall Street.

[Anonymous]

I have kids at two schools on the Forbes list. They each borrow 3,500/year in subsidized loans. We pay 10K for one and 12K for the other. The rest is covered by the schools in scholarships and need-based aid. It's doable.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have kids at two schools on the Forbes list. They each borrow 3,500/year in subsidized loans. We pay 10K for one and 12K for the other. The rest is covered by the schools in scholarships and need-based aid. It's doable.

+1 very few people pay full freight. Ask the admission office what the discount rate is and how much aid you can expect, then go from there.

[Anonymous]

Well, I can afford full freight and it isn't worth it.

[Anonymous]

Absolutely none. And I went to one of those $55,000 a year schools (then $4,000) a year.