Does everyone on here with kids applying to top 50 schools really have the $80K per year to spend?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Funny you should ask this OP.

When I hit “submit payment” and a link to deduct $42,650 from our bank account last Tuesday- for ONE SEMESTER- I had the same thought. Who in their right mind really does this?

what does this cover? Thanks.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:OP here.
I get that $90K is a rounding error for some on here and two weeks' salaries for others.

But I bet that for most of us, $360K is not an insignificant amount.
And yet we're fighting each other for the privilege of paying it.

We are truly idiots for playing into this. Excuse my insult as I include myself in that group.

OP, you had many chances to get there with so little money. When Netflix raised their DVD monthly rental from $7 to $11, it was time to buy Netflix stock. When Apple came out with Iphone, you still had several years to buy the stock to get to $360k. When you were shopping on Amazon, you should have been buying the stock. All in all, ca $30k in any one of them, would have taken you there.
There are so many other companies that were clearly going to do well.
I started really late like in 2020 because of work and visa problems.Almost 20 years down the drain, and I still made it. My older one doesn't want me pay that much for college and wants to go to community college. Younger one is about to get $300k, but outside of 529 ofcourse. Younger DC has 10 years til college. We were never high earners. We had to make money work for us even if we knew nothing about it. Well, almost nothing. It's extremely good time to be in the market and/or enter the market now to forever. Not a financial advice.

First of all, not everyone is a savvy investor. And I'll go further than not many people know much about investing at all. So good for you? But you're expected a tremendous amount of financial know-all for most people. I grew up pretty poor and I can tell you I didn't have any sort of "investing" until I was nearly 30. Partly due to my debt (school) to income ratio and partly due to just not knowing.

Second, you imply that people should give up any sort of luxury, however small, to fund college. And I fundamentally disagree with that. Colleges are overpriced. Loans are predatory. And yet, despite what we say about "you can do well at any college" there aer many that will only hire from ivies, top tiers, etc. I saw that first hand in my own line of work. So people have valid reasons to want those schools.

Where did you work that would only hire from "ivies, top tiers, etc"? Because there really are not many areas that are like that. People do NOT have valid reasons to want those schools. There are literally only ~50-60K freshman matriculating at T25 schools each year. Yet millions of people are happy, succesful in their careers. Do the math, majority of them did not attend T25 schools.

At my aged agency- my incoming class I had 6 Ivy alum and me and two others with state university degrees. We all came in sane grade/step and all make the same 25 years later.

Do they still hire mostly from Ivies/T25 currently? Were those 6 Ivy alums hired because they had actual connections at your aged agency or just because they were Ivy Alums? Because it's very likely many Ivy alums have parent/family connections already and might have gotten that same job even if they went to State U

Ironically, you proved the point that you all make the same are at the same grade now, so really it doesn't matter where you went---quality workers come from any college.

That was my point!! They hire from everywhere. In my field, most have a graduate degree.

Except your example implied your odds were far greater to get the job from the start if you went to an Ivy League school.

No company pays their hires different salaries for the exact same job.

How do you calculate the odds fairly? Is it the school or is it the high performing student? Ivies just have a greater concentration of the latter.

I work for a major F500 consulting firm and in a high performing group within the firm. Most people on here would know my employer. At beginning of summer was the annual email welcoming all the summer interns for the group. Most were from flagship state universities and the rest from various private colleges. Ivies did not dominate. Nowhere close to it. Yes, this is anecdotal and it's just one firm, but people really, greatly overestimate and exaggerate the advantages of going to an Ivy.

-- double Ivy alum who figured this out long time ago.

Look at the size of the classes at different schools. Any Ivy representation each year means that they do have better odds.

dp.. but really smart kids from big flagships can get into the same internships as the few students from ivy league schools. I think the point is that a really smart student can go to a flagship at a fraction of the cost of an Ivy league, and do equally as well.

It really depends on the kid, not necessarily the school.

Pick your sought after employer in any field. Are they hiring 8 times as many Ohio State graduates as Harvard graduates each year?

[Anonymous]

When I had my first kid 15 years ago, I assumed college would cost 100k a year. So we saved that amount. We have 3 kids total and a million dollars in college savings. Plus some time left for the younger 2.

We intend to pay for the best school they can get into. I actually hope being full pay helps with admission.

[Anonymous]

If you want to compare like for like student, Dunn and Kruger is no longer the most recent large scale study (much to the dismay of mediocre schools everywhere).

"Using a new research design that isolates idiosyncratic variation in admissions decisions for waitlisted applicants, we show that attending an Ivy-Plus college instead of the average highly selective public flagship institution increases students’ chances of reaching the top 1% of the earnings distribution by 60%, nearly doubles their chances of attending an elite graduate school, and triples their chances of working at a prestigious firm."

...

"Using this design, we find that being admitted to an Ivy-Plus college increases students’ chances of
achieving upper-tail success on both monetary and non-monetary dimensions. Relative to those rejected
from the waitlist, applicants admitted from the waitlist are significantly more likely to reach the top 1% of the income distribution, attend an elite graduate school, and work at a prestigious firm. In contrast, we find a small and statistically insignificant impact of admission from the waitlist on mean earning ranks and the
probability of reaching the top quartile of the income distribution; the causal impacts of Ivy-Plus colleges are concentrated entirely in reaching the upper tail of the distribution, consistent with the predominance of students from such colleges in positions of leadership that motivated this study"


https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

You can do ok with a degree from a state flagship, but if you want to be really successful, the school matters

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I had my first kid 15 years ago, I assumed college would cost 100k a year. So we saved that amount. We have 3 kids total and a million dollars in college savings. Plus some time left for the younger 2.

We intend to pay for the best school they can get into. I actually hope being full pay helps with admission.

That's an odd way of saying you make enough money to save $1 million over 15 years

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

You can do ok with a degree from a state flagship, but if you want to be really successful, the school matters

I would argue that it depends on the degree, nowadays: CS or engineering degrees from good state schools are probably more valuable than most non-STEM degrees from Ivy League schools. The only exception would apply to non-STEM graduates landing jobs in consulting, finance, and big law.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

You can do ok with a degree from a state flagship, but if you want to be really successful, the school matters

I would argue that it depends on the degree, nowadays: CS or engineering degrees from good state schools are probably more valuable than most non-STEM degrees from Ivy League schools. The only exception would apply to non-STEM graduates landing jobs in consulting, finance, and big law.

So the only exception are the the really successful graduates?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When I had my first kid 15 years ago, I assumed college would cost 100k a year. So we saved that amount. We have 3 kids total and a million dollars in college savings. Plus some time left for the younger 2.

We intend to pay for the best school they can get into. I actually hope being full pay helps with admission.

it does for a lot of schools, but not the top 20

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:If you want to compare like for like student, Dunn and Kruger is no longer the most recent large scale study (much to the dismay of mediocre schools everywhere).

"Using a new research design that isolates idiosyncratic variation in admissions decisions for waitlisted applicants, we show that attending an Ivy-Plus college instead of the average highly selective public flagship institution increases students’ chances of reaching the top 1% of the earnings distribution by 60%, nearly doubles their chances of attending an elite graduate school, and triples their chances of working at a prestigious firm."

...

"Using this design, we find that being admitted to an Ivy-Plus college increases students’ chances of
achieving upper-tail success on both monetary and non-monetary dimensions. Relative to those rejected
from the waitlist, applicants admitted from the waitlist are significantly more likely to reach the top 1% of the income distribution, attend an elite graduate school, and work at a prestigious firm. In contrast, we find a small and statistically insignificant impact of admission from the waitlist on mean earning ranks and the
probability of reaching the top quartile of the income distribution; the causal impacts of Ivy-Plus colleges are concentrated entirely in reaching the upper tail of the distribution, consistent with the predominance of students from such colleges in positions of leadership that motivated this study"


https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

You can do ok with a degree from a state flagship, but if you want to be really successful, the school matters

The real world is laughing at this.

Work at a F200. 90+% of senior leadership from C-suite down to the MDs and SVPs and VPS did not go to Ivy schools. Many went to utter no name schools. You'd be shocked.

--Double Ivy grad.

[Anonymous]

But to back up: a person with a college degree outlearns a person without a college degree by a million dollars over a lifetime.

That's a lot.

Unless you're paying 400k upfront.

Because then the money doesn't make sense at all.

If you had two choices: 400k now or 1mm over the next 50 years, you'd say give me that aftertax 400k cash rn. Because you understand Net Present Value.

These colleges are brand name luxury items, full stop.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No company pays their hires different salaries for the exact same job.

Not even close to true. Should be, but is not.

Most companies pay new hires/straight out of college hires the same thing when they start out....Facebook does not pay Harvard grads more than GMU grads for the same job, it just doesn't happen. Now 1-2 years in, yes, there will be pay differences, and those are based on your on the job performance reviews, not where you attended college.

What's your evidence for that claim? And let's use MIT grads instead of Harvard.

+1

Certain companies only hire from specific schools. This is true of many different vocations/fields.

Please list the evidence for this! FAANG hire from many places, including GMU which is maligned on DCUM.
So I'd love to hear which companies only hire from specific schools. It's actually not true for many different vocations/fields.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to compare like for like student, Dunn and Kruger is no longer the most recent large scale study (much to the dismay of mediocre schools everywhere).

"Using a new research design that isolates idiosyncratic variation in admissions decisions for waitlisted applicants, we show that attending an Ivy-Plus college instead of the average highly selective public flagship institution increases students’ chances of reaching the top 1% of the earnings distribution by 60%, nearly doubles their chances of attending an elite graduate school, and triples their chances of working at a prestigious firm."

...

"Using this design, we find that being admitted to an Ivy-Plus college increases students’ chances of
achieving upper-tail success on both monetary and non-monetary dimensions. Relative to those rejected
from the waitlist, applicants admitted from the waitlist are significantly more likely to reach the top 1% of the income distribution, attend an elite graduate school, and work at a prestigious firm. In contrast, we find a small and statistically insignificant impact of admission from the waitlist on mean earning ranks and the
probability of reaching the top quartile of the income distribution; the causal impacts of Ivy-Plus colleges are concentrated entirely in reaching the upper tail of the distribution, consistent with the predominance of students from such colleges in positions of leadership that motivated this study"


https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

You can do ok with a degree from a state flagship, but if you want to be really successful, the school matters

The real world is laughing at this.

Work at a F200. 90+% of senior leadership from C-suite down to the MDs and SVPs and VPS did not go to Ivy schools. Many went to utter no name schools. You'd be shocked.

--Double Ivy grad.

THIS^^^^

Partner is a CEO, has been at 3 companies. At all 3 companies, only 1 person at each had an Ivy degree or a T25 degree. Majority went to no name or their state schools, so not even 25-50 ranked. So how did they get to their positions? By hard work, drive and determination. It's what you do with your knowledge and degree and the relationships you build over time in the workforce that enable you to be successful---it's not attending Harvard or Yale.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to compare like for like student, Dunn and Kruger is no longer the most recent large scale study (much to the dismay of mediocre schools everywhere).

"Using a new research design that isolates idiosyncratic variation in admissions decisions for waitlisted applicants, we show that attending an Ivy-Plus college instead of the average highly selective public flagship institution increases students’ chances of reaching the top 1% of the earnings distribution by 60%, nearly doubles their chances of attending an elite graduate school, and triples their chances of working at a prestigious firm."

...

"Using this design, we find that being admitted to an Ivy-Plus college increases students’ chances of
achieving upper-tail success on both monetary and non-monetary dimensions. Relative to those rejected
from the waitlist, applicants admitted from the waitlist are significantly more likely to reach the top 1% of the income distribution, attend an elite graduate school, and work at a prestigious firm. In contrast, we find a small and statistically insignificant impact of admission from the waitlist on mean earning ranks and the
probability of reaching the top quartile of the income distribution; the causal impacts of Ivy-Plus colleges are concentrated entirely in reaching the upper tail of the distribution, consistent with the predominance of students from such colleges in positions of leadership that motivated this study"


https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

You can do ok with a degree from a state flagship, but if you want to be really successful, the school matters

The real world is laughing at this.

Work at a F200. 90+% of senior leadership from C-suite down to the MDs and SVPs and VPS did not go to Ivy schools. Many went to utter no name schools. You'd be shocked.

--Double Ivy grad.

THIS^^^^

Partner is a CEO, has been at 3 companies. At all 3 companies, only 1 person at each had an Ivy degree or a T25 degree. Majority went to no name or their state schools, so not even 25-50 ranked. So how did they get to their positions? By hard work, drive and determination. It's what you do with your knowledge and degree and the relationships you build over time in the workforce that enable you to be successful---it's not attending Harvard or Yale.

The example of CEOs and even VPs is pretty pointless. Most people, even most Ivy grads, are not CEOs. More useful is comparing salaries for the same major at various schools.

For example, salary at age 45 for economics major:
Harvard: $181k
Yale: $210k
Amherst: $180k
Ohio State: $79k
Penn State: $99k
UVA: $127k
W&M: $98k

Significant difference between (Ivy or elite SLAC) and (state flagship or good in-state school).

[Anonymous]

^ my husband was an Econ major from Hopkins and was making $350-450k at 35. But he went into software right after graduation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If you want to compare like for like student, Dunn and Kruger is no longer the most recent large scale study (much to the dismay of mediocre schools everywhere).

"Using a new research design that isolates idiosyncratic variation in admissions decisions for waitlisted applicants, we show that attending an Ivy-Plus college instead of the average highly selective public flagship institution increases students’ chances of reaching the top 1% of the earnings distribution by 60%, nearly doubles their chances of attending an elite graduate school, and triples their chances of working at a prestigious firm."

...

"Using this design, we find that being admitted to an Ivy-Plus college increases students’ chances of
achieving upper-tail success on both monetary and non-monetary dimensions. Relative to those rejected
from the waitlist, applicants admitted from the waitlist are significantly more likely to reach the top 1% of the income distribution, attend an elite graduate school, and work at a prestigious firm. In contrast, we find a small and statistically insignificant impact of admission from the waitlist on mean earning ranks and the
probability of reaching the top quartile of the income distribution; the causal impacts of Ivy-Plus colleges are concentrated entirely in reaching the upper tail of the distribution, consistent with the predominance of students from such colleges in positions of leadership that motivated this study"


https://opportunityinsights.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/07/CollegeAdmissions_Paper.pdf

You can do ok with a degree from a state flagship, but if you want to be really successful, the school matters

The real world is laughing at this.

Work at a F200. 90+% of senior leadership from C-suite down to the MDs and SVPs and VPS did not go to Ivy schools. Many went to utter no name schools. You'd be shocked.

--Double Ivy grad.

THIS^^^^

Partner is a CEO, has been at 3 companies. At all 3 companies, only 1 person at each had an Ivy degree or a T25 degree. Majority went to no name or their state schools, so not even 25-50 ranked. So how did they get to their positions? By hard work, drive and determination. It's what you do with your knowledge and degree and the relationships you build over time in the workforce that enable you to be successful---it's not attending Harvard or Yale.

The example of CEOs and even VPs is pretty pointless. Most people, even most Ivy grads, are not CEOs. More useful is comparing salaries for the same major at various schools.

For example, salary at age 45 for economics major:
Harvard: $181k
Yale: $210k
Amherst: $180k
Ohio State: $79k
Penn State: $99k
UVA: $127k
W&M: $98k

Significant difference between (Ivy or elite SLAC) and (state flagship or good in-state school).

I don’t think you take much from this. This is “average” and Econ majors go many different directions- like the software guy. Some teach, etc.

Fwiw, I’m a Bio major (gen low paying degree) from VT and was making $180k at 45.

Where you live matters too.