
That is the problem. They want to live a very comfortable lifestyle, not save and have someone else pay for college for their kids. |
There are 200 LACs. Tier 5 is the middle. |
She is too busy being miserable, but at least her kids got a "top tier" education! Now they can be miserable sad people, too. |
Let your naive middle class family get scammed and go into massive debt! Who cares! ![]() |
There are a lot more than 200 private colleges. |
+1 There is a big range in LACs. Looking at a bunch of colleges in the 1000-2500 student size, 60%+ acceptance rate, there are schools with 80%+ freshman retention rates & 75%+ graduation rates but there are also schools with <50% retention, <40% graduation. Schools in the first category can definitely be worth looking at as alternatives to mid-range state colleges but I'd stay away from the 2nd category regardless of price. I'd say the same about regional public Us with poor retention/graduation rates. For example, just in VA & MD...Ferrum College has a 49% retention rate and 29% graduation rate vs. Washington College's 84% retention and 73% graduation rate. Those are going to be very different experiences. |
Middle class incomes are not kicking off so much money. Many people save but it is not keeping up with higher ed inflation. |
So I was just looking at the National Science Foundation report on the 50 colleges and universities with the highest rate of alums earning Ph.D.s in science and engineering. There are plenty middle-of-nowhere merit-aid LACs on that list, including a bunch that many DCUMers would dismiss as "no-name."
For example, Kalamazoo and Hendrix both rank higher on the list of S&E doctorates than Dartmouth, Columbia, Bowdoin, RPI, Rose-Hulman, and WUSTL. (Plenty of DCUM faves don't make the list at all.) Meanwhile, over the last three years alone, Kalamazoo produced more student Fulbright scholars than several NESCACS, CMC, Caltech, Georgia Tech, and Case Western, among others. In the last 4 years, Hendrix appears to have produced more Watson Fellows than Bates, Williams, or Middlebury. Meanwhile, a kid can go to either of these schools for (literally) a third-to-half the cost of east coast LACs. For the record, I don't have a kid at either of these schools, nor am I an alum. But I'm definitely paying attention. And if my LAC-inclined kid should wind up at either, I'd be delighted. Not because we've been "bamboozled," either. |
I think the Tiers need to be defined...I would actually look at the total universe of LACs (let's just use the USNews universe) and then divide by 5. That probably puts 50 colleges into each Tier. I know Kalamazoo and have heard good things about it. Is it really ranked say 200+? I will admit I have not heard of Hendrix (is it named after Jimi?). |
agree and btw UMD is not globally recognized! Haha not even nationally, really. |
Most kids at LACs / SLACs go to grad school. |
Kalamazoo is in the 50-100 ranking tier of National Liberal Arts colleges. It's long been regarded as a solid LAC with an experiential bent. |
This is Stanford's strategy when pursuing top recruits in football and basketball, despite being outgunned by the big-time programs. It usually doesn't change anything but sometimes works. |
NSF list if anyone is interested -- you'll find the list of top 50 adjusted for institutional size in Table 6:
https://ncses.nsf.gov/pubs/nsf22321 |
That is simply not true. |