Washington Post article on colleges that reduced tuition costs

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I've never understood why people bother to attend private colleges for schools that are outside of the top 150. Every state has public universities that rank the same or higher. Even families who are not paying the full sticker price of $45,000 are generally paying more than what they would pay for a similarly ranked state school Take Virginia Wesleyan for example. It's a non prestigious private college. Why would anyone choose to pay for that as opposed to schools that attract similarly qualified student such as Longwood or Radford. I just don't get it.

I can’t speak for outside the top 150, specifically, but most of the kids I’ve seen attend small private colleges did so because of wanting to play college sports, they attended private K-12, wanting a small setting, religious reasons, location, and wanting NOTHING to do with a frat boy U huge bureaucratic public experience.

OK maybe you don't get my point. I can understand why families who are well to do would be willing to pay more for these things. But I am talking about the population at large. The majority of middle class families make under $200,000 and have more than one kid. At this income, ANY college, even state schools are a significant expense. To be willing to pay an extra $40,000 for a similar caliber school (as far as admission standards, job prospects), just to play sports, live in a different state, etc. is not something families that earn under $200,000 can reasonably do.

Our HHI is $220K and our DC attends a SLAC in another state. DC was admitted to UMD-CP, which would have cost us $27K/year (or so), but we pay $39K/year (or so) for the SLAC. The schools are ranked similarly and the Common Data Set tells us that the incoming freshmen stats are similar.

The reasons we choose to pay more are: Smaller class sizes, a highly personal experience, strong connections to professors as mentors (which studies show is very important), small class sizes, undergraduate student experience focus (vs. large research university where undergrads are often beside the point), beautiful campus, strong alumni network.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-weinberg/thriving-in-college-the-p_b_8167578.html

The extra money is worth it to us and we will likely also pay more for DC#2 for the same reasons.

DP here. PP, I don't think you're going to be able to convince that poster about the merit of small liberal arts schools, but I'm with you! My daughter is looking for a small liberal arts school for just the reasons you cited below - small classes, interaction with professors, etc. But, I do wonder how you got down to $39K/year. Is that all through financial aid or is there merit involved?

My DC has a $26,000/year merit scholarship, contingent on maintaining a 3.0 GPA or higher.

Thanks, PP. I really appreciate your sharing. Do you have any advice on how you narrowed down your list of schools re affordability and fit?

PP here. I should add to the above, we do not qualify for need-based aid.

I started with the Colleges That Change Lives book, and a book called The College Solution.

The CTCL book is dated but contains descriptions of lots of small colleges that I thought might be of interest to DC. I added more schools which aren't in the book but which I thought DC might be interested in, e.g. Muhlenberg, Lafayette, U. Mary Washington, and some others.

We established geographic parameters and other parameters, e.g. the schools under consideration had to graduate at least 75% of their students in four years, freshmen retention rate, good departments in his potential major(s), etc.

I read The College Solution all the way through and then created a table of possible schools under consideration, including columns for e.g. 75th percentile of GPA and SAT/ACT scores for each school, strongest academic departments, location, cost information, merit aid information (average merit award), etc.

We made it clear that our maximum budget for college was $X and that we had to stay at or below that number in order for him to attend.

We worked from that list to look at schools online and create maps (literally) for a few road trips.

Those trips narrowed the field and DC identified 8 or 9 schools of interest - a couple of safeties and the rest matches - and applied to them. (If you are looking for merit aid, in general, "reach" schools are off the table because elite schools don't award merit aid, and schools that do award merit aid will give it to students who are highly qualified/in the highest tiers of applicants and not students who are reaching.)

In the end, he had a lot of schools to choose from and re-revisited his top two or three after acceptances and merit packages came in. All of them were at or under budget.

I hope this helps. There is a method to the madness!

Thank you! Very much appreciated.

[Anonymous]

I know many bright students who chose privates DCUM would consider ho-hum and it had nothing to do with their inability to get into a strong top 30 U or the state flagship. Generally the LAC is within a few hours from home, let them pay a sport and its size wasn't overwhelming. K-12 private families seem to prefer private college as well. This isn't rocket science...

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I've never understood why people bother to attend private colleges for schools that are outside of the top 150. Every state has public universities that rank the same or higher. Even families who are not paying the full sticker price of $45,000 are generally paying more than what they would pay for a similarly ranked state school Take Virginia Wesleyan for example. It's a non prestigious private college. Why would anyone choose to pay for that as opposed to schools that attract similarly qualified student such as Longwood or Radford. I just don't get it.

I can’t speak for outside the top 150, specifically, but most of the kids I’ve seen attend small private colleges did so because of wanting to play college sports, they attended private K-12, wanting a small setting, religious reasons, location, and wanting NOTHING to do with a frat boy U huge bureaucratic public experience.

OK maybe you don't get my point. I can understand why families who are well to do would be willing to pay more for these things. But I am talking about the population at large. The majority of middle class families make under $200,000 and have more than one kid. At this income, ANY college, even state schools are a significant expense. To be willing to pay an extra $40,000 for a similar caliber school (as far as admission standards, job prospects), just to play sports, live in a different state, etc. is not something families that earn under $200,000 can reasonably do.

Our HHI is $220K and our DC attends a SLAC in another state. DC was admitted to UMD-CP, which would have cost us $27K/year (or so), but we pay $39K/year (or so) for the SLAC. The schools are ranked similarly and the Common Data Set tells us that the incoming freshmen stats are similar.

The reasons we choose to pay more are: Smaller class sizes, a highly personal experience, strong connections to professors as mentors (which studies show is very important), small class sizes, undergraduate student experience focus (vs. large research university where undergrads are often beside the point), beautiful campus, strong alumni network.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-weinberg/thriving-in-college-the-p_b_8167578.html

The extra money is worth it to us and we will likely also pay more for DC#2 for the same reasons.

DP here. PP, I don't think you're going to be able to convince that poster about the merit of small liberal arts schools, but I'm with you! My daughter is looking for a small liberal arts school for just the reasons you cited below - small classes, interaction with professors, etc. But, I do wonder how you got down to $39K/year. Is that all through financial aid or is there merit involved?

My DC has a $26,000/year merit scholarship, contingent on maintaining a 3.0 GPA or higher.

Thanks, PP. I really appreciate your sharing. Do you have any advice on how you narrowed down your list of schools re affordability and fit?

PP here. I should add to the above, we do not qualify for need-based aid.

I started with the Colleges That Change Lives book, and a book called The College Solution.

The CTCL book is dated but contains descriptions of lots of small colleges that I thought might be of interest to DC. I added more schools which aren't in the book but which I thought DC might be interested in, e.g. Muhlenberg, Lafayette, U. Mary Washington, and some others.

We established geographic parameters and other parameters, e.g. the schools under consideration had to graduate at least 75% of their students in four years, freshmen retention rate, good departments in his potential major(s), etc.

I read The College Solution all the way through and then created a table of possible schools under consideration, including columns for e.g. 75th percentile of GPA and SAT/ACT scores for each school, strongest academic departments, location, cost information, merit aid information (average merit award), etc.

We made it clear that our maximum budget for college was $X and that we had to stay at or below that number in order for him to attend.

We worked from that list to look at schools online and create maps (literally) for a few road trips.

Those trips narrowed the field and DC identified 8 or 9 schools of interest - a couple of safeties and the rest matches - and applied to them. (If you are looking for merit aid, in general, "reach" schools are off the table because elite schools don't award merit aid, and schools that do award merit aid will give it to students who are highly qualified/in the highest tiers of applicants and not students who are reaching.)

In the end, he had a lot of schools to choose from and re-revisited his top two or three after acceptances and merit packages came in. All of them were at or under budget.

I hope this helps. There is a method to the madness!

What state do you live in and did your son receive merit aid to his match schools?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I've never understood why people bother to attend private colleges for schools that are outside of the top 150. Every state has public universities that rank the same or higher. Even families who are not paying the full sticker price of $45,000 are generally paying more than what they would pay for a similarly ranked state school Take Virginia Wesleyan for example. It's a non prestigious private college. Why would anyone choose to pay for that as opposed to schools that attract similarly qualified student such as Longwood or Radford. I just don't get it.

I can’t speak for outside the top 150, specifically, but most of the kids I’ve seen attend small private colleges did so because of wanting to play college sports, they attended private K-12, wanting a small setting, religious reasons, location, and wanting NOTHING to do with a frat boy U huge bureaucratic public experience.

OK maybe you don't get my point. I can understand why families who are well to do would be willing to pay more for these things. But I am talking about the population at large. The majority of middle class families make under $200,000 and have more than one kid. At this income, ANY college, even state schools are a significant expense. To be willing to pay an extra $40,000 for a similar caliber school (as far as admission standards, job prospects), just to play sports, live in a different state, etc. is not something families that earn under $200,000 can reasonably do.

Our HHI is $220K and our DC attends a SLAC in another state. DC was admitted to UMD-CP, which would have cost us $27K/year (or so), but we pay $39K/year (or so) for the SLAC. The schools are ranked similarly and the Common Data Set tells us that the incoming freshmen stats are similar.

The reasons we choose to pay more are: Smaller class sizes, a highly personal experience, strong connections to professors as mentors (which studies show is very important), small class sizes, undergraduate student experience focus (vs. large research university where undergrads are often beside the point), beautiful campus, strong alumni network.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-weinberg/thriving-in-college-the-p_b_8167578.html

The extra money is worth it to us and we will likely also pay more for DC#2 for the same reasons.

DP here. PP, I don't think you're going to be able to convince that poster about the merit of small liberal arts schools, but I'm with you! My daughter is looking for a small liberal arts school for just the reasons you cited below - small classes, interaction with professors, etc. But, I do wonder how you got down to $39K/year. Is that all through financial aid or is there merit involved?

My DC has a $26,000/year merit scholarship, contingent on maintaining a 3.0 GPA or higher.

Thanks, PP. I really appreciate your sharing. Do you have any advice on how you narrowed down your list of schools re affordability and fit?

PP here. I should add to the above, we do not qualify for need-based aid.

I started with the Colleges That Change Lives book, and a book called The College Solution.

The CTCL book is dated but contains descriptions of lots of small colleges that I thought might be of interest to DC. I added more schools which aren't in the book but which I thought DC might be interested in, e.g. Muhlenberg, Lafayette, U. Mary Washington, and some others.

We established geographic parameters and other parameters, e.g. the schools under consideration had to graduate at least 75% of their students in four years, freshmen retention rate, good departments in his potential major(s), etc.

I read The College Solution all the way through and then created a table of possible schools under consideration, including columns for e.g. 75th percentile of GPA and SAT/ACT scores for each school, strongest academic departments, location, cost information, merit aid information (average merit award), etc.

We made it clear that our maximum budget for college was $X and that we had to stay at or below that number in order for him to attend.

We worked from that list to look at schools online and create maps (literally) for a few road trips.

Those trips narrowed the field and DC identified 8 or 9 schools of interest - a couple of safeties and the rest matches - and applied to them. (If you are looking for merit aid, in general, "reach" schools are off the table because elite schools don't award merit aid, and schools that do award merit aid will give it to students who are highly qualified/in the highest tiers of applicants and not students who are reaching.)

In the end, he had a lot of schools to choose from and re-revisited his top two or three after acceptances and merit packages came in. All of them were at or under budget.

I hope this helps. There is a method to the madness!

What state do you live in and did your son receive merit aid to his match schools?

We live in Maryland. DC got merit aid from every school he applied to, except UMD-CP, where he was admitted but without merit aid.

Every school came in at or under budget, so he was free to choose from among all the schools that accepted him.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardly anyone pays sticker price.

That’s just not accurate. At top 20 schools typically 50-60% of students are not receiving aid. And at the next tier it’s 40-50% (more merit aid comes into play).

I've never understood why people bother to attend private colleges for schools that are outside of the top 150. Every state has public universities that rank the same or higher. Even families who are not paying the full sticker price of $45,000 are generally paying more than what they would pay for a similarly ranked state school Take Virginia Wesleyan for example. It's a non prestigious private college. Why would anyone choose to pay for that as opposed to schools that attract similarly qualified student such as Longwood or Radford. I just don't get it.

I've never understood why people would decide who should educate their children based on how some magazine ranks them.

+1

Because there are thousands of colleges and families are trying to figure out which ones to apply to? Because they are trying to use some metric to distinguish between them and not be overwhelmed?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think the bubble is popping and a lot of more or less degree mill crap colleges — public and private — are destined to close. Enrollment is way down at so many schools, there’s just no way they’re in strong financial shape. Many on the brink, I think. And nothing will be lost when they go under.

Demographic changes mean enrollment will continue to shrink. Also, we're not in a recession right now, so fewer people enrolling as a.stopgap while unemployed or to improve their resumes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I've never understood why people bother to attend private colleges for schools that are outside of the top 150. Every state has public universities that rank the same or higher. Even families who are not paying the full sticker price of $45,000 are generally paying more than what they would pay for a similarly ranked state school Take Virginia Wesleyan for example. It's a non prestigious private college. Why would anyone choose to pay for that as opposed to schools that attract similarly qualified student such as Longwood or Radford. I just don't get it.

I can’t speak for outside the top 150, specifically, but most of the kids I’ve seen attend small private colleges did so because of wanting to play college sports, they attended private K-12, wanting a small setting, religious reasons, location, and wanting NOTHING to do with a frat boy U huge bureaucratic public experience.

OK maybe you don't get my point. I can understand why families who are well to do would be willing to pay more for these things. But I am talking about the population at large. The majority of middle class families make under $200,000 and have more than one kid. At this income, ANY college, even state schools are a significant expense. To be willing to pay an extra $40,000 for a similar caliber school (as far as admission standards, job prospects), just to play sports, live in a different state, etc. is not something families that earn under $200,000 can reasonably do.

Our HHI is $220K and our DC attends a SLAC in another state. DC was admitted to UMD-CP, which would have cost us $27K/year (or so), but we pay $39K/year (or so) for the SLAC. The schools are ranked similarly and the Common Data Set tells us that the incoming freshmen stats are similar.

The reasons we choose to pay more are: Smaller class sizes, a highly personal experience, strong connections to professors as mentors (which studies show is very important), small class sizes, undergraduate student experience focus (vs. large research university where undergrads are often beside the point), beautiful campus, strong alumni network.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-weinberg/thriving-in-college-the-p_b_8167578.html

The extra money is worth it to us and we will likely also pay more for DC#2 for the same reasons.

DP here. PP, I don't think you're going to be able to convince that poster about the merit of small liberal arts schools, but I'm with you! My daughter is looking for a small liberal arts school for just the reasons you cited below - small classes, interaction with professors, etc. But, I do wonder how you got down to $39K/year. Is that all through financial aid or is there merit involved?

My DC has a $26,000/year merit scholarship, contingent on maintaining a 3.0 GPA or higher.

Thanks, PP. I really appreciate your sharing. Do you have any advice on how you narrowed down your list of schools re affordability and fit?

PP here. I should add to the above, we do not qualify for need-based aid.

I started with the Colleges That Change Lives book, and a book called The College Solution.

The CTCL book is dated but contains descriptions of lots of small colleges that I thought might be of interest to DC. I added more schools which aren't in the book but which I thought DC might be interested in, e.g. Muhlenberg, Lafayette, U. Mary Washington, and some others.

We established geographic parameters and other parameters, e.g. the schools under consideration had to graduate at least 75% of their students in four years, freshmen retention rate, good departments in his potential major(s), etc.

I read The College Solution all the way through and then created a table of possible schools under consideration, including columns for e.g. 75th percentile of GPA and SAT/ACT scores for each school, strongest academic departments, location, cost information, merit aid information (average merit award), etc.

We made it clear that our maximum budget for college was $X and that we had to stay at or below that number in order for him to attend.

We worked from that list to look at schools online and create maps (literally) for a few road trips.

Those trips narrowed the field and DC identified 8 or 9 schools of interest - a couple of safeties and the rest matches - and applied to them. (If you are looking for merit aid, in general, "reach" schools are off the table because elite schools don't award merit aid, and schools that do award merit aid will give it to students who are highly qualified/in the highest tiers of applicants and not students who are reaching.)

In the end, he had a lot of schools to choose from and re-revisited his top two or three after acceptances and merit packages came in. All of them were at or under budget.

I hope this helps. There is a method to the madness!

Thanks, this was very helpful.

[Anonymous]

I have a pay wall for Washington Post, can anyone tell a few of the noteworthy, or "most prestigious", ones they mention?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

I've never understood why people bother to attend private colleges for schools that are outside of the top 150. Every state has public universities that rank the same or higher. Even families who are not paying the full sticker price of $45,000 are generally paying more than what they would pay for a similarly ranked state school Take Virginia Wesleyan for example. It's a non prestigious private college. Why would anyone choose to pay for that as opposed to schools that attract similarly qualified student such as Longwood or Radford. I just don't get it.

I can’t speak for outside the top 150, specifically, but most of the kids I’ve seen attend small private colleges did so because of wanting to play college sports, they attended private K-12, wanting a small setting, religious reasons, location, and wanting NOTHING to do with a frat boy U huge bureaucratic public experience.

OK maybe you don't get my point. I can understand why families who are well to do would be willing to pay more for these things. But I am talking about the population at large. The majority of middle class families make under $200,000 and have more than one kid. At this income, ANY college, even state schools are a significant expense. To be willing to pay an extra $40,000 for a similar caliber school (as far as admission standards, job prospects), just to play sports, live in a different state, etc. is not something families that earn under $200,000 can reasonably do.

Our HHI is $220K and our DC attends a SLAC in another state. DC was admitted to UMD-CP, which would have cost us $27K/year (or so), but we pay $39K/year (or so) for the SLAC. The schools are ranked similarly and the Common Data Set tells us that the incoming freshmen stats are similar.

The reasons we choose to pay more are: Smaller class sizes, a highly personal experience, strong connections to professors as mentors (which studies show is very important), small class sizes, undergraduate student experience focus (vs. large research university where undergrads are often beside the point), beautiful campus, strong alumni network.

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/adam-weinberg/thriving-in-college-the-p_b_8167578.html

The extra money is worth it to us and we will likely also pay more for DC#2 for the same reasons.

DP here. PP, I don't think you're going to be able to convince that poster about the merit of small liberal arts schools, but I'm with you! My daughter is looking for a small liberal arts school for just the reasons you cited below - small classes, interaction with professors, etc. But, I do wonder how you got down to $39K/year. Is that all through financial aid or is there merit involved?

My DC has a $26,000/year merit scholarship, contingent on maintaining a 3.0 GPA or higher.

Thanks, PP. I really appreciate your sharing. Do you have any advice on how you narrowed down your list of schools re affordability and fit?

PP here. I should add to the above, we do not qualify for need-based aid.

I started with the Colleges That Change Lives book, and a book called The College Solution.

The CTCL book is dated but contains descriptions of lots of small colleges that I thought might be of interest to DC. I added more schools which aren't in the book but which I thought DC might be interested in, e.g. Muhlenberg, Lafayette, U. Mary Washington, and some others.

We established geographic parameters and other parameters, e.g. the schools under consideration had to graduate at least 75% of their students in four years, freshmen retention rate, good departments in his potential major(s), etc.

I read The College Solution all the way through and then created a table of possible schools under consideration, including columns for e.g. 75th percentile of GPA and SAT/ACT scores for each school, strongest academic departments, location, cost information, merit aid information (average merit award), etc.

We made it clear that our maximum budget for college was $X and that we had to stay at or below that number in order for him to attend.

We worked from that list to look at schools online and create maps (literally) for a few road trips.

Those trips narrowed the field and DC identified 8 or 9 schools of interest - a couple of safeties and the rest matches - and applied to them. (If you are looking for merit aid, in general, "reach" schools are off the table because elite schools don't award merit aid, and schools that do award merit aid will give it to students who are highly qualified/in the highest tiers of applicants and not students who are reaching.)

In the end, he had a lot of schools to choose from and re-revisited his top two or three after acceptances and merit packages came in. All of them were at or under budget.

I hope this helps. There is a method to the madness!

Thanks, this was very helpful.

We did pretty much the same thing with those two books for our three DCs (though we did not limit them geographically) and had the same results for each one as she and her son did. We are in Virginia, though. Each one of my kids had excellent public and private options that were all affordable, with the private SLACs costing roughly the same as in-state thanks to merit-aid, other than the travel costs. In the end two of my DCs decided to attend UVa and the other (who wanted to get far away from northern Virginian type A people) attended a SLAC that is a College that Changes Lives college. Hands down he got a better, more personal education, with numerous opportunities to explore his field outside the classroom, small class sizes, professors who were there to teach and mentor rather than focus on research, etc. I suppose there is still time for one of the two at Uva to have similar experiences but given class size and advisors who barely know them, I'm not too hopeful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a pay wall for Washington Post, can anyone tell a few of the noteworthy, or "most prestigious", ones they mention?

St Johns College in Annapolis.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I have a pay wall for Washington Post, can anyone tell a few of the noteworthy, or "most prestigious", ones they mention?

St Johns College in Annapolis.

Thanks!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Hardly anyone pays sticker price.

That’s just not accurate. At top 20 schools typically 50-60% of students are not receiving aid. And at the next tier it’s 40-50% (more merit aid comes into play).

I've never understood why people bother to attend private colleges for schools that are outside of the top 150. Every state has public universities that rank the same or higher. Even families who are not paying the full sticker price of $45,000 are generally paying more than what they would pay for a similarly ranked state school Take Virginia Wesleyan for example. It's a non prestigious private college. Why would anyone choose to pay for that as opposed to schools that attract similarly qualified student such as Longwood or Radford. I just don't get it.

There are lots of reasons, of course. As I look ahead to my kid going to college, I often think about my former boss, who referred to his alma mater and large public university as "13th grade," meaning that he and his peer group just assumed they would automatically go there, without regard for whether it was the right environment, would lead to good jobs, would be a personally meaningful experience. He happened to be one of the the least engaging, least empathetic, and least imaginative people I have ever met. Perhaps I should not correlate his college selection experience to his later personality traits, but I do.

That's one of the main reasons I want my kid to consider the top in state schools, but also look more broadly. I want college to be a meaningful experience for him, not 13th-16th grades.