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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]OP, if you are real and not a troll ... DC attends a T50 private. DC worked hard and competed for a full tuition scholarship. DC likes the private school a lot, but make no mistake - the financial investment does not stop at tuition. [b]There's greek organization dues, going out with friends, trips, study and travel abroad, and general keeping up with the (wealthy) crowd when your student attends a private college.[/b] Our second child attends a state school, for which we pay more in tuition, but does not have the same level of additional financial pressures. [/quote]

Mine are at two different ivies. Not true there, they both spend far far less per month than our very good friends who have kids at UVA, UNC and UCLA. They spend $3-5k a semester on food outside of dining and all the parties and drinking. 
Ivies have so much stuff for free or minimal cost on campus and on weekends, dues for clubs have to be kept very small for the kids on aid(OVER half), and greek is not that common so when it happens it is not a $ dump like the 5k per semester other places. Going abroad was the cheapest semester we had. Elite privates are much less wealth centric than preppy publics and non-elite privates like SMU, BC, NYU[/quote]    But you pay so much for tuition. We're not rich but too rich for aid and I don't see how 80k/year with low expenses is possibly cheaper than 30k/year with higher expenses. I can see NYY due to housing, but not big publics.                                                                       [/quote]

DP
I spent 84k last year and 86k this year for my kid's ivy, all in. They have a paid job in their sci department that pays them 2k per semester and that is their spending though they save a lot because they do not need much extra $ there. Neighbor's kid is at UVA Engineering (50k in state!)and with frats and now expensive off campus housing second year and food points that do not cover any where near all meals, plus kid likes to drink a lot and parents buy it, and he does not have to have a job since he "saves them money"....They spent $67k last year and will be close to 75k this year. The dad complains all the time he wishes he got into an ivy where drinking and frat culture is not the center and where he would be among more intellectually invested kids. He had no job last summer, could not find one but did not even try to do an unpaid internship somewhere. My DC netted 5k last summer after paying for housing and food out of the salary and we let them keep it. They will likely earn far more this summer. They already have publishable data from their lab and have presented it twice, as a sophomore. They are getting a better education, more valuable experience earlier, already have 3 professors whom they know well enough to have recs, on and on it goes. Even at 86k vs 50k it is well worth it to us. 
[/quote]

Lol so many made up claims in this comment.[/quote]

+1. Plus they are comparing apples and oranges. I went to Harvard and DD went to UVA. Harvard is $86k; UVA Arts & Sciences (its largest college therefore what most students pay) is $40k, all in. We banked the difference of $46 a year; it compounded so now we can pay for law school, which is running $100k to $116 a year (no merit; no financial aid). What the PP fails to acknowledve in her rush to prove how smart their de ision to go Ivy is is that neighbor's kid is making expensive choices while her kid is a spendthrift. That does not make an Ivy a better or less-expensive option for many readers here.

Neighbor's kid CHOSE to attend UVA Engineering which is $10k more than regular tuition (but still a steal compared to most OOS programs or private). Neighbor's kid CHOSE to go Greek; he chose (and parents allowed) to move into "an expensive flat". The kid chooses to eat out a lot and drink a lot but how that comes to $3,000 extra a month is beyond me. There is simply no way this kid is racking up $27k extra a year (where are the parents in all of this? Even if he is dining at Charlottesville's finest weekly he can't run up a tab like that). Frat dues at UVA are only $500 to $1500 a semester - identical to Harvard's. Once in, the drinks are free which is the same system as Harvard's off-campus frats. PP also fails to acknowledge the costs of joining a finals eating club like Harvard's Porcellian and the extreme pressure of keeping up with the VERY wealthy there. So it's apples and oranges but pointing out neighbor's kid's conduct is irrelevant in comparing the actual real costs.

Finally, yes, 53% of Harvard's students get aid but that's because it IS $86k a year. UVA's aid and graduation debt figures are lower (and ranked in top ten for best financial deal in the US). UVA students don't take out as many loans because they don't need to to cover the nut. Also, Harvard's figures aren't actually aid being given by Harvard -that 50% figure includes all of the students who take out FAFSA loans from the feds like both of my kids did.[/quote]

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