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

[Anonymous]

College professor here. Your undergrad degree in 90 percent of careers means nothing. Save your money now and get the most prestigious masters/doctorate/law/nursing/business degree you can get into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College professor here. Your undergrad degree in 90 percent of careers means nothing. Save your money now and get the most prestigious masters/doctorate/law/nursing/business degree you can get into.

Thank you. You are absolutely correct. I went to a small less-than-prestige college then earned a graduate degree from one of the top universities in the US. The latter is the only thing potential employers focused on when it came to my academic credentials.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a huge mistake parents make all the time

People are so against community college on this board however it is a great way to save some cash and still end up with that four year degree. Given Gpa's restart when transferring also a win.

Parents need to talk about these financial implications when kids apply not after.

There is nothing wrong with an instate school.

Parents are afraid little jon or suzie or summer or apple will have to go go god forbid UMD or UVA LOL parents are absurd,

I don't think this is the choice that too many parents stress out about. It's more what to do when their kids don't get into UMD or UVA/WM/VT. Sometimes there's not an acceptance to a great in-state public fit for your kid but there's a great acceptance to a perfect fit that costs more. That's where the hard decisions lie.

Also, community college is great for kids who will persist through it and is a lifesaver for smart kids who didn't quite pull it together in HS or families who need the savings, but your likelihood to get a 4 year degree in a timely fashion when you start at community college is a lot less. You're often surrounded by people on a different life-track, the required courses can be difficult to get into in a sequential fashion and it ends up taking longer than you expected. Even if you make it, you'll also likely make fewer connections with peers and professors when you transfer compared to having started at school at the beginning. It can be harder to get in the swing of things socially and academically. If your finances are such that you CAN afford the 4 year school without too many loans/sacrificing retirement security it probably pans out better in the long run for your kid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College professor here. Your undergrad degree in 90 percent of careers means nothing. Save your money now and get the most prestigious masters/doctorate/law/nursing/business degree you can get into.

Understood, but do kids from better-ranked schools do better in the graduate school admission process? What do graduate schools look for in applicants?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We would have paid for MIT for CS if my Asian DS with the highest possible stats and very impressive ECs got in. But, he did not get in and he decided to go to UMD with merit money $$$.

While money is not an issue, we only thought of the following privates - MIT, CMU, and Stanford - as worthwhile to full pay for CS.

We prefer to pay as little as we can to get the best education for our DS's career goals and UMD gave him all the opportunities he wanted.

We do understand how hard it is for our children to save even $10k-$20k a year once they start a job. So, I told them that a portion of the money we have saved for their college will be theirs if they choose to go to UMD. Both my kids opted to use it to start their brokerage accounts.

There are going to be other schools better than UMD if people want some other majors than CS. Our choice was very clear.

/derail coming up

This sounds like the (very sound) deal some friends offered their two daughters: $10K towards a wedding or $15K cash for a down payment on a house and a JOP ceremony. One took the first, the other the second. Guess which one is already divorced?

/derail over

I really like the thinking, PP. We, too, would probably go crazy to pay for those three but neither of ours are interested in them (for a variety of reasons).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:This is a huge mistake parents make all the time

People are so against community college on this board however it is a great way to save some cash and still end up with that four year degree. Given Gpa's restart when transferring also a win.

Parents need to talk about these financial implications when kids apply not after.

There is nothing wrong with an instate school.

Parents are afraid little jon or suzie or summer or apple will have to go go god forbid UMD or UVA LOL parents are absurd,

I don't think this is the choice that too many parents stress out about. It's more what to do when their kids don't get into UMD or UVA/WM/VT. Sometimes there's not an acceptance to a great in-state public fit for your kid but there's a great acceptance to a perfect fit that costs more. That's where the hard decisions lie.

Also, community college is great for kids who will persist through it and is a lifesaver for smart kids who didn't quite pull it together in HS or families who need the savings, but your likelihood to get a 4 year degree in a timely fashion when you start at community college is a lot less. You're often surrounded by people on a different life-track, the required courses can be difficult to get into in a sequential fashion and it ends up taking longer than you expected. Even if you make it, you'll also likely make fewer connections with peers and professors when you transfer compared to having started at school at the beginning. It can be harder to get in the swing of things socially and academically. If your finances are such that you CAN afford the 4 year school without too many loans/sacrificing retirement security it probably pans out better in the long run for your kid.

I completely agree with you. Essentially community college works best for the smart kid who would have done well at a 4-year institution, but for whatever reason, financial or otherwise, was unable to attend one right off the bat. For the others, well, they're going to have to make do with an Associate's degree and get a job.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The most expensive private turned out to be life-transforming for one kid and OOS public was just what was needed for the other kid.

guess who go into the T10 B school? The one from the expensive private.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:College professor here. Your undergrad degree in 90 percent of careers means nothing. Save your money now and get the most prestigious masters/doctorate/law/nursing/business degree you can get into.

Thank you. You are absolutely correct. I went to a small less-than-prestige college then earned a graduate degree from one of the top universities in the US. The latter is the only thing potential employers focused on when it came to my academic credentials.

This was the case for me. I went to a small lower ranked LAC that offered a lot of merit instead of a T20 that offered none. I ended up at an Ivy for a PhD. The Ivy is what got me great opportunities and neither school cost me hardly anything (I had tuition + stipend for the PhD). I don't think I would have felt comfortable doing a PhD with the loan burden I would have had had I gone to the expensive T20. I also might not have stood out as much among the other applicants.

[Anonymous]

Nope. We made saving for college a priority so they could have any choice they wanted, without the burden of loans. They passed up some significant merit money at 'lesser' schools, chose the 80K one. They're happy. We're happy.

[Anonymous]

I guess I disagree. An expensive but prestigious undergrad might cost more, but nobody can ever take degree away from you. You don’t know whether you’ll go to grad school or straight to work. I’d go for the best school you can get into.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We would have paid for MIT for CS if my Asian DS with the highest possible stats and very impressive ECs got in. But, he did not get in and he decided to go to UMD with merit money $$$.

While money is not an issue, we only thought of the following privates - MIT, CMU, and Stanford - as worthwhile to full pay for CS.

We prefer to pay as little as we can to get the best education for our DS's career goals and UMD gave him all the opportunities he wanted.

We do understand how hard it is for our children to save even $10k-$20k a year once they start a job. So, I told them that a portion of the money we have saved for their college will be theirs if they choose to go to UMD. Both my kids opted to use it to start their brokerage accounts.

There are going to be other schools better than UMD if people want some other majors than CS. Our choice was very clear.

This is us exactly. UMD CS with merit is a no brainer, other than CMU, MIT, Stanford.

We told DC we would buy them a car after graduation, or, pay for graduate school, or maybe even both. The money we will save can pay for both.

[Anonymous]

Mine is at private w/ 2nd best offer, which happened to be her first choice. It came in at 10k under our budget (40k/year). In state public would have been better financially - got lots of merit + in state rate, so would have been about 15k, but she would have committed to a program she wasn't sure about, and the top choice offered a lot of flexibility and excellent academics/rep. The lesser cost private was only about 2-3k less than the one she chose, and the public school just wouldn't have been the best fit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess I disagree. An expensive but prestigious undergrad might cost more, but nobody can ever take degree away from you. You don’t know whether you’ll go to grad school or straight to work. I’d go for the best school you can get into.

I am a generally frugal person but I at least take this into consideration. If both options are affordable to me (i.e., I'm not taking on loans and it isn't compromising my ability to pay for college for my other kids or retirement security) and one has a stronger reputation, I'd rather encourage my kid to go to the school with the strongest reputation over chipping in the saved $ for a car or wedding. A degree--and the education you received-- lasts your whole life and no one can take it away. But if the school my kid preferred was just a lot more expensive but not any reputation/educational difference I would try to lure them with the freedom to use the saved money for other things or insist they make a better decision with my money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I guess I disagree. An expensive but prestigious undergrad might cost more, but nobody can ever take degree away from you. You don’t know whether you’ll go to grad school or straight to work. I’d go for the best school you can get into.

They can't take away from you your dignity, your self-respect, or your sense of morality. I wouldn't exactly put a diploma on that level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:College professor here. Your undergrad degree in 90 percent of careers means nothing. Save your money now and get the most prestigious masters/doctorate/law/nursing/business degree you can get into.

I disagree. The most prestigious masters/doctorate/law etc. are going to look at where you got your undergrad education