My DC graduated last month from Bucknell at the cost of over 320k in four years, and is still unemployed. Just saying…

Anonymous wrote:Because the private was actually much more reputable in the major my kid wanted.

You aren’t bright are you?

I do private college counseling and I start with, "where did you go to college and how did you feel about it?"

Anonymous wrote:What you often get for the extra money is:

smaller classes

more personal attention all around

more opportunities to participate in school team sports, music programs, theater, etc.

Greater ease in making friends if you struggle with this, b/c you see the same people more frequently

These all can have great value, but you also give up a lot:

more variety of classes and professors

greater diversity of students

stronger sports teams to root for

greater variety of facilities to use, events to attend

and, of course, lower cost

I experienced both and preferred the latter, but I could see paying the extra if it's not going to put you in too much debt and you think the kid is going to profit from the benefits of a smaller school.

Just a note that the above factors seem to be a comparison between small-private and large-public. There are medium and large privates, which may have most of the benefits of both.

I have an older kid and a rising senior as well. The problem these days is that it is so hard to predict where they might actually get in. My oldest applied broadly: Virginia state schools and all level of privates, from top 20s to those that were clearly safeties. The hope was that he would get some merit money from some of the "target" privates. Until you apply and get acceptances - and really think hard about it - it's hard to predict where the kid will get accepted, where merit money might come into play, how a department reputation might tip a scale. Also, going on the admitted student visits give a lot of insight into the actual experience and whether the money is worth it in the end.

What you often get for the extra money is:

smaller classes

more personal attention all around

more opportunities to participate in school team sports, music programs, theater, etc.

Greater ease in making friends if you struggle with this, b/c you see the same people more frequently

These all can have great value, but you also give up a lot:

more variety of classes and professors

greater diversity of students

stronger sports teams to root for

greater variety of facilities to use, events to attend

and, of course, lower cost

I experienced both and preferred the latter, but I could see paying the extra if it's not going to put you in too much debt and you think the kid is going to profit from the benefits of a smaller school.

Anonymous wrote:If you're considering this, can you help me understand your thinking?
Rising senior twins here and we're trying to hammer out lists.

Why pay $90K for Syracuse or Bucknell vs. paying half this for Pitt or Penn State?

It depends on many things from your finances to what your kid wants. If you can't afford the private, you need to tell them ahead of time what you CAN afford, so they can figure out options.

Think about what your kid wants to study and where they want to live. If they want to be in a major city (Boston for example), they aren't going to get the low rates. And if their major is strong at an expensive private, that's where you send them.

We can easily afford it, that’s why.

- Having a bright, lively, reasonably healthy kid who enjoys learning is one of the greatest privileges a person can have, and it seems like a desecration to make a decision about what could be a fun, important, soul-enriching experience for a great kid based solely on financial ROI.

The kid can just as easily have a fun, important, soul-enriching experience at an affordable state school as at an expensive private.

how dare I repay the universe for all the kindness bestowed on me by nickel and diming my kid over something as wholesome as college tuition?

Well you could always repay your kid for attending a $150k school instead of a $350k school by giving your kid $200k for a down payment on a house.

"Don't overspend on luxury items" is one of the important life lessons that a parent should impart.

- Most of the people talking about college ROI don’t know anything about economics and have no idea how to calculate ROI. Because of their ignorance, they just take some magazine’s ROI figures and run with that. If they have a little more sense than God gave a turnip, maybe they use the ROi figures for specific majors.

The FREOPP site does exactly that.

https://freopp.wpengine.com/roi-undergraduate/

- Grave uncertainty over what majors will make money. When I was in college, pre-law liberal arts majors were hot and engineering was stone cold. I told people I might consider going into engineering, and they asked, “How can you get a job in that?” All they knew was that the end of the Cold War had killed aerospace jobs.

It's not hard at all to find salary trends by major that stretch back decades. Liberals arts has been heading consistently downward all that time.

Yeah your liberal arts kid might go to law school and do well, but that requires a lot of things to go right - get into a top law school, get hired at BigLaw, make partner. Talk about a soul-crushing grind.

The odds the kid will get a degree in a particular major within four years. Kids who go to the wrong school or pick an unsuitable major have to build two or three extra years of tuition and underemployment into their lifetime financial performance stats.

The FREOPP site calculates ROI based on 6 year graduation as well as 4 year.

They may also run the risk of getting no degree and no good career prep of any kind. You have to build the risk of bad outcomes into the ROI projections, and the bad-outcome adjustment will strongly favor even moderately selective private schools over public universities that take big freshman classes and focus on weeding kids out.

FREOPP calculates "counterfactual earnings" (the amount that the same student would have earned over the course of her life had she not pursued the credential or flunked out).

And if your kid is going to flunk out, they might as well flunk out of an affordable public school than an expensive private. If you think your kid may have a bad outcome, you unquestionably should not send him to an expensive school.

The impact of educational choices on cost of living. People who follow certain education paths tend to live more standard, suburb-oriented lifestyles and probably have higher lifetime living costs than siblings who take other routes and have an inner city or inner suburb kind of life. In other words: Business majors at big state schools may make more than music history professors majors who come out of SLACs, but suits, big cars and lawn service might eat up a lot of the difference without having a big impact on happiness.

lol it's more likely that the music history professor will be bitter because they wound up teaching at Podunk State and they can't afford to shop at Whole Foods which is a two-hour drive from their 1500 sq ft shoebox built in 1955.

"Alas, business majors are often not truly happy despite their wealth" - next you'll be quoting that asinine Richard Corey poem.

- The nature of the kid. A kid who has a strong urge to major in music or comparative literature rather than business may not be a high-starting-income business major. Simple tables that give earnings by major don’t really show how much of the income difference is due to major and how much to people’s abilities and personalities.

That kid can major in music or comparative literature at a state school rather than being full pay at a private LAC. Desire to major in something useless strengthens the case to send them to a state school rather than a private.

- The kid’s projected lifetime earnings trajectory. A kid with a liberal arts major or social sciences major from a T30 through T150 school might have flatter but steadier earnings level and earn at around the peak level for a lot longer than a typical CS major from comparable school s.

Well they might but that's not the way to bet. And lifetime earnings by major goes into the ROI calculation at FREOPP.

- Having a bright, lively, reasonably healthy kid who enjoys learning is one of the greatest privileges a person can have, and it seems like a desecration to make a decision about what could be a fun, important, soul-enriching experience for a great kid based solely on financial ROI.

The kid can just as easily have a fun, important, soul-enriching experience at an affordable state school as at an expensive private.

how dare I repay the universe for all the kindness bestowed on me by nickel and diming my kid over something as wholesome as college tuition?

Well you could always repay your kid for attending a $150k school instead of a $350k school by giving your kid $200k for a down payment on a house.

"Don't overspend on luxury items" is one of the important life lessons that a parent should impart.

- Most of the people talking about college ROI don’t know anything about economics and have no idea how to calculate ROI. Because of their ignorance, they just take some magazine’s ROI figures and run with that. If they have a little more sense than God gave a turnip, maybe they use the ROi figures for specific majors.

The FREOPP site does exactly that.

https://freopp.wpengine.com/roi-undergraduate/

- Grave uncertainty over what majors will make money. When I was in college, pre-law liberal arts majors were hot and engineering was stone cold. I told people I might consider going into engineering, and they asked, “How can you get a job in that?” All they knew was that the end of the Cold War had killed aerospace jobs.

It's not hard at all to find salary trends by major that stretch back decades. Liberals arts has been heading consistently downward all that time.

Yeah your liberal arts kid might go to law school and do well, but that requires a lot of things to go right - get into a top law school, get hired at BigLaw, make partner. Talk about a soul-crushing grind.

The odds the kid will get a degree in a particular major within four years. Kids who go to the wrong school or pick an unsuitable major have to build two or three extra years of tuition and underemployment into their lifetime financial performance stats.

The FREOPP site calculates ROI based on 6 year graduation as well as 4 year.

They may also run the risk of getting no degree and no good career prep of any kind. You have to build the risk of bad outcomes into the ROI projections, and the bad-outcome adjustment will strongly favor even moderately selective private schools over public universities that take big freshman classes and focus on weeding kids out.

FREOPP calculates "counterfactual earnings" (the amount that the same student would have earned over the course of her life had she not pursued the credential or flunked out).

And if your kid is going to flunk out, they might as well flunk out of an affordable public school than an expensive private. If you think your kid may have a bad outcome, you unquestionably should not send him to an expensive school.

The impact of educational choices on cost of living. People who follow certain education paths tend to live more standard, suburb-oriented lifestyles and probably have higher lifetime living costs than siblings who take other routes and have an inner city or inner suburb kind of life. In other words: Business majors at big state schools may make more than music history professors majors who come out of SLACs, but suits, big cars and lawn service might eat up a lot of the difference without having a big impact on happiness.

lol it's more likely that the music history professor will be bitter because they wound up teaching at Podunk State and they can't afford to shop at Whole Foods which is a two-hour drive from their 1500 sq ft shoebox built in 1955.

"Alas, business majors are often not truly happy despite their wealth" - next you'll be quoting that asinine Richard Corey poem.

- The nature of the kid. A kid who has a strong urge to major in music or comparative literature rather than business may not be a high-starting-income business major. Simple tables that give earnings by major don’t really show how much of the income difference is due to major and how much to people’s abilities and personalities.

That kid can major in music or comparative literature at a state school rather than being full pay at a private LAC. Desire to major in something useless strengthens the case to send them to a state school rather than a private.

- The kid’s projected lifetime earnings trajectory. A kid with a liberal arts major or social sciences major from a T30 through T150 school might have flatter but steadier earnings level and earn at around the peak level for a lot longer than a typical CS major from comparable school s.

Well they might but that's not the way to bet. And lifetime earnings by major goes into the ROI calculation at FREOPP.

If you can qualify for financial aid, better privates will give mostly grants while OOS publics will give all loans. In the end, your actual cost may be similar.

My kids can go where they want to, period, and I can pay. That is why.

Anonymous wrote:Bucknell is competitive and sends a ton of grads to The Street -- way more than Pitt or Penn State on a parentage basis. Syracuse also has some competitive programs like Newhouse (though I'm not sure I'd recommend journalism as a career in 2024).

This is an adorable mommy who clearly has no idea what she is talking about. "The Street", LOL!!

"But, if you have a lot of money, and the only question is value, then one question is whether you think that financial ROI, based on current conditions, should be the main factor you use to pick a college for your kid. "


I read your entire post. Im a bit confused. ROI has never ben our concern. Rather the health of our kid and his wellbeing.

I went to a state flagship and graduated with a Liberal Arts degree. I made roughly a million a year and retired 6 years ago.

I'm certainly bragging, but you may not know what your kids are capable of!

Because the private was actually much more reputable in the major my kid wanted.