Reply to Washington Post article on colleges that reduced tuition costs

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Washington Post article on colleges that reduced tuition costs"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote]
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. [/quote]

[b]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. [/quote][/b]

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.  [b]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[/b].  [/quote]

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.[/quote]

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. [b]But, I do wonder how you got down to $39K/year. Is that all through financial aid or is there merit involved?[/b] [/quote]

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

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?[/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