Reply to Are privates that don’t offer merit aid still enrolling the best students?

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Are privates that don’t offer merit aid still enrolling the best students?"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]My kid is turning down an Ivy that’s $85k/year for a full ride at a flagship. According to my kid, they are far from the only one of their classmates making such a decision. Kids talk.

What are the consequences to this as the years go on & so many top students can’t afford elite privates?[/quote]

It is an intriguing question. The demographics at the elite colleges have changed significantly in the last 20 years and what are the long term implications of this?

There were already kids turning down Ivies for full rides at state universities or just attending a much cheaper flagship honors program in the past. But I can easily see how this would be far more kids now than 20 years ago due to the rise of the donut hole families. I do think that Ivy prestige has steadily weakened over time, they no longer have the perceived lock on the best and brightest, especially as the professional classes now really understands the cost/benefit analysis, and also that Ivy admission is hardly meritocratic and is based on very different factors that have little to do with achievement. And others are less impressed by the behaviors and attitudes of elite college grads, fair or not, especially with cancel culture and the growth of rigid ideological outlooks that these schools have embraced (with some exceptions, like Chicago). Then we do have that there are many more best and brightest chasing after a limited number of spots, which actually means they end up being dispersed among a wider range of schools.

All in all, I am no longer "impressed" when I see an elite college decal on a car. I do think nice kid, bit lucky, and not much more than that. When evaluating candidates, if I notice their college on the resumes, I don't give weight to elite college grads over lesser college grads once above a certain threshold. What they actually did is much more important, along with impression in the interviews. Having said that, the Ivies will still produce genuinely impressive graduates who go on to achieve great things, but this is probably no more than 1/4 - 1/3 of their student body, with the rest not really meaningfully different from comparable students at UVA or College Park or Vanderbilt or whatever.

[/quote]

I agree. Malcolm Gladwell makes the case that companies should hire from the top 1/3 of any school. I know people here will disagree and I invite you to go watch his talk on this topic.

[/quote]

Then you should go listen to the absolutely brutal takedown of Gladwell on the podcast If Books Could Kill. They really outted him as a hack. [/quote]

The podcaster who thinks Bari Weiss has anything useful to say? No thanks.[/quote]

It's possible for both Gladwell and Weiss to be trash.

Anyway, I think graduating with a little debt is fine if it means you had a fantastic college experience. I also think it's fine to decide that you'd rather have no debt than a perfect fit.

I know a lot of parents who take their kids on fabulous trips and as a result won't be able to offer as much help with college costs, and that seems like a reasonable choice. I also know people who lived very frugally in order to fund the 529, and that seems fine, too. What doesn't seem fine is parents who made the choice to travel, do home renovations, etc, who are now complaining about how unfair it is that their kid can't afford Dream School, when they could have afforded it if the parents had made different financial choices. Your choices were fine, sir and/or madam. But they were choices. [/quote]

CHOICES is the key.  Sure some cannot actually afford to save, but for the majority, they made a choice(s) along the way, which is fine, but now you need to live with the choices you made.  Nobody is entitled to a T25 education. [/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics