Anonymous wrote:It would really have to be an awesome match between school and kid's passions for me to pay for ivy at any hhi.

Really? At some point the money doesn't really matter. Personally that number is around $750k. At that level, the marginal extra $30k isn't going to change anything for me so why not spend it on education?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my kid got into an Ivy I would make it happen even if we had to borrow $. It opens major doors. (I went to a good but not great university so I didn't experience this personally but I saw it from watching peers in the workplace.

This. I'd make whatever sacrificed were necessary to put my kid through an Ivy- any Ivy.

Same. My father was a college professor so I was forced to go to that university rather than the ivy of my dreams. I went ivy for grad school. The differences are startling.

This is a false dichotomy. There are almost 2,500 four-year colleges and universities in the country. There are differences among all of them - not just between your dad's university and an Ivy league one.

Anonymous wrote:If my kid got into an Ivy I would make it happen even if we had to borrow $. It opens major doors. (I went to a good but not great university so I didn't experience this personally but I saw it from watching peers in the workplace.

What field are you in?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I can't imagine not doing whatever was necessary to make it happen for my kid to attend an Ivy/Ivy equivalent. Not a question of income at all. That said, I went to an Ivy and it was a fabulous experience, so I'm admittedly biased.

I can. I will not go into debt for any undergraduate degree, or permit our DS to go into more than e.g. about $10K of debt. I will not jeopardize our retirement. I will not remortgage our house.

So yes, very much a question of income.

At our HHI of $220K, we neither qualify for need-based aid nor can pay $65K+/year/kid for our two kids to attend college. Given that, Ivies are out of the question.

I agree with you. We cannot afford 65K+ (it will probably be more in 10+ years) nor will I let my child take loans if we can avoid it. We'd also like to pay for graduate school. If we could, I would in a heartbeat but its not realistic.

Anonymous wrote:I can't imagine not doing whatever was necessary to make it happen for my kid to attend an Ivy/Ivy equivalent. Not a question of income at all. That said, I went to an Ivy and it was a fabulous experience, so I'm admittedly biased.

I can. I will not go into debt for any undergraduate degree, or permit our DS to go into more than e.g. about $10K of debt. I will not jeopardize our retirement. I will not remortgage our house.

So yes, very much a question of income.

At our HHI of $220K, we neither qualify for need-based aid nor can pay $65K+/year/kid for our two kids to attend college. Given that, Ivies are out of the question.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my kid got into an Ivy I would make it happen even if we had to borrow $. It opens major doors. (I went to a good but not great university so I didn't experience this personally but I saw it from watching peers in the workplace.

This. I'd make whatever sacrificed were necessary to put my kid through an Ivy- any Ivy.

+1

I don't believe that an Ivy education offers any material advantage to a kid from an upper middle class home, so for me a better question is: At what income would you be willing to pay full price at a private college/university?

We are a dual working couple currently making $230k. We are currently paying ~$32k/year out-of-pocket for a SLAC (DC has a generous merit scholarship). If we made $300k, we could easily be full-pay at this, or any, private college. So I guess that's my answer. But if we made that much money, I'm still not sure I'd think it was worth paying so much more than we'd pay at UVA or W&M.

We would pay for any ivy league school or other high tier colleges (e.g., Stanford, Caltech (DH's alma mater), MIT, University of Chicago, Northwestern (I was accepted to Chicago and Northwestern but chose Ivy over them), etc.). Our HHI is about $360K. Whether we pay in full (don't expect any help at our income level) or had to help out with loans (interest rates on student loans are so much lower than when I attended with some loans), we'd send them. OTOH, since DH and I both majored in science not sure how crazy we would be if the kids decided to major in women studies for example.

Anonymous wrote:I can't imagine not doing whatever was necessary to make it happen for my kid to attend an Ivy/Ivy equivalent. Not a question of income at all. That said, I went to an Ivy and it was a fabulous experience, so I'm admittedly biased.

+1

Ivy has to offer me something less expensive institutions do not.

We are at a similar HHI. We are planning on paying full freight to an ivy or another selective school if dd gets in (in 18 years) and makes the argument that it's a good fit of school and major.
I went to a state school on merit scholarship and DH went to an LAC that his parents paid for. I received a good education but I'm sometimes jealous of his experience at a school with different kinds of peers and more focus on learning.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my kid got into an Ivy I would make it happen even if we had to borrow $. It opens major doors. (I went to a good but not great university so I didn't experience this personally but I saw it from watching peers in the workplace.

This. I'd make whatever sacrificed were necessary to put my kid through an Ivy- any Ivy.

Same. My father was a college professor so I was forced to go to that university rather than the ivy of my dreams. I went ivy for grad school. The differences are startling.

I can't imagine not doing whatever was necessary to make it happen for my kid to attend an Ivy/Ivy equivalent. Not a question of income at all. That said, I went to an Ivy and it was a fabulous experience, so I'm admittedly biased.

I'd do whatever we could to find the school my kid wanted to attend/good fit/etc. we are at the point where the money saved is just going to be used for that kids inheritance anyway. We will never spend all of our retirement and savings and investments at this rate. If we were going to be sacrificing retirement or quality of life or something, that would be another story. But the decisions we are making now are between buying the $50k car instead of the $100k car.

I think 12:28 is right. I think the more cost-effective approach if kid is super student is to get them into a good state school (or some merit money at a good SLAC) and then help contribute to a graduate program at an Ivy.

Ivies do open doors in lots of places---but there's a lot of baggage and expectations associated with that as well.