Anonymous wrote:USNA is the #3 SLAC behind Williams and Amherst. Just saying, get a great 5 year work experience and the price is right!

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Anonymous wrote:Markets will adjust and Ivy-plus will begin offering more made or reducing cost of attendance in other ways.

+1 This!

At some point the 'bubble' will burst and even the Ivy-plus schools will have to adjust as there won't be enough people with the requisite stats and also wealthy enough to pay for 5%+ expense increases per year. Either they'd have to significantly lower standards to let in others who can afford it or get creative with pricing and aid (eg. do what Purdue U. is doing) in order to maintain standards. Bubbles eventually burst no matter how long it takes, circa 2008 Real Estate.

Ivy+ are need blind and meet 100% need. So don't hold your breath for anything to change.

You will have to be poor or rich to attend these schools.

They have made it impossible for the vast majority of middle income families that will get zero aid.

And, according to Selingo and this thread, these families are skipping on down to the 50 or 75+ tier where merit aid is plentiful. So don't hold your breath waiting for a bubble to burst so that donut hole families can well-afford T1-50.

Anonymous wrote:USNA is the #3 SLAC behind Williams and Amherst. Just saying, get a great 5 year work experience and the price is right!

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Anonymous wrote:So it’s surprising or newsworthy or forward-thinking to suggest that $200k families don’t/wont/can’t pay $400k for Villanova or Tulane?

Yes, because just a year ago those schools didn’t cost entirely that much. Tipping point reached.

Yes. Also test-optional makes these schools much less attractive. It’s one thing to stretch, financially, when telling yourself that your kid will be among his intellectual peers. Iron sharpens iron and all that. But if only 15% of students are reporting scores … what are you paying for, again? You can get a mix of students, including some very strong ones, at the flagship.

This. 100%.

https://www.tiktok.com/@supertutortv/video/7327004377451957547?lang=en

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Anonymous wrote:Truthfully, as a slightly higher than donut hole range family---it's hard to justify $85k-90k year at even the top 10 schools. It's gotten way out of hand!

If you haven’t saved for it, yes. But if you’ve been saving you would have 300k+ in a 529 and then you realize, this is exactly why we saved and let your kid attend if it’s their first choice

Anonymous wrote:In the 1990s, my father told me you get into an Ivy or you go to state u. Motivated me to get into an Ivy, which I did. Of course, that was when you really just needed excellent grades and high scores.

It sort of doesn't make sense to pay Cadillac prices for a Chevy when you've got a perfectly good Toyota at half the cost.

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Anonymous wrote:Truthfully, as a slightly higher than donut hole range family---it's hard to justify $85k-90k year at even the top 10 schools. It's gotten way out of hand!

This! I’ll never understand it. No place is worth that much.

It's worth it to us. You don't need to understand.

Care to elaborate? How is it worth it?

For one, stock market gains have greatly enhanced our kids' 529s, so the money is there. DH told them they could go to any college they could get into (they were A-/B+ high school students). 2 of them were accepted to 40-50 ranked colleges that were very reach-y. In state option would have been JMU at best. (The third was always a great student and thrilled to be accepted to UVA). For the 2 pricey full pays, they just love/d their college experience and I think the new environment really motivated them to push hard in college. They had better connections, better internships, better job opportunities. Overall, they were just much better-suited, better grades, better students and happier kids in college than high school. Sure, lots of factors, but that's why it was worth it for us. If it had been costing us our retirement or food on the table, they'd be going to JMU and hopefully grateful.

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Anonymous wrote:Markets will adjust and Ivy-plus will begin offering more made or reducing cost of attendance in other ways.

+1 This!

At some point the 'bubble' will burst and even the Ivy-plus schools will have to adjust as there won't be enough people with the requisite stats and also wealthy enough to pay for 5%+ expense increases per year. Either they'd have to significantly lower standards to let in others who can afford it or get creative with pricing and aid (eg. do what Purdue U. is doing) in order to maintain standards. Bubbles eventually burst no matter how long it takes, circa 2008 Real Estate.

Ivy+ are need blind and meet 100% need. So don't hold your breath for anything to change.

You will have to be poor or rich to attend these schools.

They have made it impossible for the vast majority of middle income families that will get zero aid.

And, according to Selingo and this thread, these families are skipping on down to the 50 or 75+ tier where merit aid is plentiful. So don't hold your breath waiting for a bubble to burst so that donut hole families can well-afford T1-50.

Anonymous wrote:Truthfully, as a slightly higher than donut hole range family---it's hard to justify $85k-90k year at even the top 10 schools. It's gotten way out of hand!

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Anonymous wrote:I agree - this is our plan.

I have been saying for a few years that I think grad school is the new college, so it makes sense to go to a state college and save some $ for grad school.

I honestly don't understand this logic at all. So many grad schools / grad degrees produce kids with poor outcomes. So many jobs/industries don't care about a grad degree whatsoever.

This is another skewed DMV perspective that worked for you, but you can't rely on it holding going forward.

I don't interact with too many people without post-grad degrees. Came to DC from NYC, so I guess it’s the crowd. My oldest is interested in engineering - and my dad and his dad were engineers and both had master’s. My dad’s company paid for him to get it (probably my grandfather’s did too). But I don’t think either of them thought it was worthless.

You are right...but unclear if they would have thought it worth paying for that master with their own nickel. I get anyone pursuing a grad degree for free. In which case...nobody had to save anything for their Masters.

Most CEOs have nothing more than a Bachelor's (60%) and of course, there are plenty of folks starting and running tech companies that either dropped out of college or never went to college at all.

I just don't understand the rationale that graduate school is the new college.

I don’t think college differentiates as much as it used to - because so many go now - I guess is my rationale. But I am aware of Mark Zuckerberg.

not just Zuckerberg, Steve Jobs & Gates. There's more of them than you'd think.
Dorsey-Twitter, Ellison-oracle, Park-Fitbit, Mullenweg-Wordpress, Collison-Stripe, Parker-napster, Koum-whatsapp, Ferdowski-Dropbox, Kalanick-Uber, Pittman-iHeartMedia, Karp-Tumblr, Dell-Dell, you get the picture. Could name another 20 off-hand.