Now I wonder if op is a troll...

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I find this post extremely hard to believe. I also find it hard to believe your friends will turn down Ivy League finance students to give your kid a spot as an intern. And sure her Ivy League co-interns won’t notice at all and assume she’s completely unqualified and just had an in. I turned down a higher ranked law school for a full ride scholarship but both schools were top 15. Here they are far apart.

Just because someone doesn't go to one, they're automatically "unqualified"? These Ivy League schools sure pump their all kinds of weird ideas into people's heads.

OP here. My DD visited both UVA and WM. She didn't like either one of them. She visited Columbia and she likes it because it is in an urban area. She just questions the cost of the education at Columbia vs. Mason. I am fine if she wants attend Columbia if she chooses to. The money is for her education no matter what.

Things get a bit complicated in our family situation as well. DD is a accomplished pianist and artist. She is working on her Royal Conservatory Music (RCM) ARCT level and she does not want to leave her current piano teacher. She also has a very good relationship with her art mentor and does not want to leave her mentor either. We purchased a 100K grand piano for her two years ago and she wants to stay @home to practice on that piano for her ARCT music level. My wife and I also adopted a 1 year old baby girl so my DD wants to stay close to bond with her baby sister. DD is also very close to her mother. That's the reason why she applied to Mason.

I have enough to live so I don't need the money I save for DD. Whatever is left over, DD can decide what to do with it. If she does not need it, I will donate it to charity.

Isn't there something between George Mason and Columbia? Like maybe UVA?

DH and I both went to flagship universities and chose them over fancy private schools. Never regretted it and really enjoyed our big public university experiences. But they were good publics (Penn State and Michigan) not George Mason.

Anonymous wrote:To me, the big financial difference is graduating with loans v. without. It sounds like, either way, she will graduate without loans, or at least without significant loans. So I would treat the two options as fairly equal, and let her decide based on school quality, location, and post-graduate options. It's not like I'd be giving a recent college graduate $277K anyway.

And she shouldn't live at home just to save money, if you can afford to have her live on- or near campus. College is partly about developing the skills to live independently, and having her live at home will stunt those skills.

Plenty of places around the world where it's not the norm for kids to go off to live on campus. Us Americans aren't better developed socially than anybody else just because we do that.

OP is a loser dad.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Columbia will open up jobs GMU may not such as Wall Street jobs and certain high paid consulting jobs. If her goal is doing typical taxes yeah I can see your pt.

OP here. I really do not care about Wall Street jobs. I have many clients who work on Wall Streets and private equity and they will give my daughter an internship as a gateway into Wall Street jobs if she wants to. My daughter is also a "cheap skate". She has questioned the cost of attending Columbia University vs. George Mason in the past two weeks. She realizes that not everyone has 320k in the bank for college tuition.

She asked for my opinion and I've told her what I think but I said to her that she will have to decide herself. Whatever she decides will fine with my wife and I.

That’s fair but does that mean she doesn’t care either? If your posts reflect her views, I don’t understand why she even applied. What was her thinking to apply to Columbia?

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Columbia will open up jobs GMU may not such as Wall Street jobs and certain high paid consulting jobs. If her goal is doing typical taxes yeah I can see your pt.

OP here. I really do not care about Wall Street jobs. I have many clients who work on Wall Streets and private equity and they will give my daughter an internship as a gateway into Wall Street jobs if she wants to. My daughter is also a "cheap skate". She has questioned the cost of attending Columbia University vs. George Mason in the past two weeks. She realizes that not everyone has 320k in the bank for college tuition.

She asked for my opinion and I've told her what I think but I said to her that she will have to decide herself. Whatever she decides will fine with my wife and I.

Then why are you and your wife debating which school she should go to? You should tell her that either school is fine and let her decide.

To me, the big financial difference is graduating with loans v. without. It sounds like, either way, she will graduate without loans, or at least without significant loans. So I would treat the two options as fairly equal, and let her decide based on school quality, location, and post-graduate options. It's not like I'd be giving a recent college graduate $277K anyway.

And she shouldn't live at home just to save money, if you can afford to have her live on- or near campus. College is partly about developing the skills to live independently, and having her live at home will stunt those skills.

Anonymous wrote:I find this post extremely hard to believe. I also find it hard to believe your friends will turn down Ivy League finance students to give your kid a spot as an intern. And sure her Ivy League co-interns won’t notice at all and assume she’s completely unqualified and just had an in. I turned down a higher ranked law school for a full ride scholarship but both schools were top 15. Here they are far apart.

Just because someone doesn't go to one, they're automatically "unqualified"? These Ivy League schools sure pump their all kinds of weird ideas into people's heads.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Columbia will open up jobs GMU may not such as Wall Street jobs and certain high paid consulting jobs. If her goal is doing typical taxes yeah I can see your pt.

+1. But, since you have they money, if she goes to Mason, she should live on campus. You definitely miss a big part of the experience living at home. DH did that and it's a big regret for him.

That's just overhyped nonsense

Unless the experience is living with kids who have questionable hygiene, throwing up at 2AM in a toilet in a random frat house, learning bad habits from other kids, etc.

I find this post extremely hard to believe. I also find it hard to believe your friends will turn down Ivy League finance students to give your kid a spot as an intern. And sure her Ivy League co-interns won’t notice at all and assume she’s completely unqualified and just had an in. I turned down a higher ranked law school for a full ride scholarship but both schools were top 15. Here they are far apart.

I love cheap rich people. He wants to keep daughter tied to him at home but will set her up with Wall Street gig from his connections. No wonder socialism is in vogue.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Columbia will open up jobs GMU may not such as Wall Street jobs and certain high paid consulting jobs. If her goal is doing typical taxes yeah I can see your pt.

OP here. I really do not care about Wall Street jobs. I have many clients who work on Wall Streets and private equity and they will give my daughter an internship as a gateway into Wall Street jobs if she wants to. My daughter is also a "cheap skate". She has questioned the cost of attending Columbia University vs. George Mason in the past two weeks. She realizes that not everyone has 320k in the bank for college tuition.

She asked for my opinion and I've told her what I think but I said to her that she will have to decide herself. Whatever she decides will fine with my wife and I.

OP, I think you meant to say that you, rather than the daughter is a "cheap skate"? Why are you even debating this? Ivy league vs. GMU AND you have the $$ saved up. Something not right with this. Why did you bother to save all of the $$ and then had your daughter work her a$$ off to get into Columbia and now the "bait and switch". Shame on you.

Columbia

It will be a great experience for her

No way should she live at home!!!!

She needs this chance to grow and spread her wings.

1. If you can’t justify spending the money are you telling her she needs to pay for it?

2. If you are planning on giving her the money after college anyway, wouldnt you rather it go towards education? What will a 22 year old do with $277k?

3. I also don’t understand why you’d have her apply there if you can’t justify spending the money.

There should be no strings to the money if it exists in a 529 and you didn’t tell your kid upfront you wouldn’t really support Columbia.
Yep, it’s a lot more and maybe it won’t matter one way or another. But maybe it will. What school would she choose if both cost $11k?