Anonymous wrote:If you can swing the cost, yes, definitely.

I am paying full price for an Ivy and feel great about it. I pay half tuition for another child’s lower ranked school and though it’s a “good” school I feel that the value isn’t there, even at a discounted cost. There is a huge dropoff in resources.

To add on - EVERY college is pinching pennies right now and making cuts. At a rich school there’s still so much leftover. At a less-rich school the food is noticeably worse than it was two years ago, dining hall hours are shorter, classes are harder to get, cool programs have been cut or “paused,” hiring is on hold and departments are short-staffed. The students feel the cuts and the overall experience is not what it was even a year or two ago.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS got accepted to one of the Ivies—think Princeton, Yale, or Harvard—but we would have had to pay the full cost, around $100K per year. He also got accepted to University of Florida with a full ride (tuition plus room and board).

We told him that he could attend UF and have $400K+ (depending on investment growth) waiting for him at graduation, or he could attend the Ivy. Seven years earlier, one of his older brothers had been in the exact same situation and chose to attend an Ivy League school, which he later regretted. His $300K could have grown into several million dollars. We’re not wealthy, so while money isn’t everything, it’s important to be able to live a stress-free life.

My older DS advised his younger brother to take the $400K and attend UF, and he did. He’ll be a freshman at UF in a few months.

YMMV.

let's see what he thinks of his decision later.

i was full pay at HYP. no regrets!

PP here. Did you fully read what I wrote before commenting? DS older brother paid full tuition at HYP and regretted the decision.

Yes I read it. Did you miss that I am a HYP grad with a lot more career years behind me than your son, and I disagree with him? I would never advise anyone to go to U Florida over an Ivy unless the Ivy was truly unaffordable.

If you can swing the cost, yes, definitely.

I am paying full price for an Ivy and feel great about it. I pay half tuition for another child’s lower ranked school and though it’s a “good” school I feel that the value isn’t there, even at a discounted cost. There is a huge dropoff in resources.

I’m going to say yes. I was a first gen college kid at an ivy and found that it opened opportunities and leveled the playing field in important ways. Not full pay but it was tight, and I had significant loans afterwards. Was able to repay them on schedule, in addition to grad school loans. Some things are worth it. No regrets at all.

Yes if you are already paying half at other place

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My DS got accepted to one of the Ivies—think Princeton, Yale, or Harvard—but we would have had to pay the full cost, around $100K per year. He also got accepted to University of Florida with a full ride (tuition plus room and board).

We told him that he could attend UF and have $400K+ (depending on investment growth) waiting for him at graduation, or he could attend the Ivy. Seven years earlier, one of his older brothers had been in the exact same situation and chose to attend an Ivy League school, which he later regretted. His $300K could have grown into several million dollars. We’re not wealthy, so while money isn’t everything, it’s important to be able to live a stress-free life.

My older DS advised his younger brother to take the $400K and attend UF, and he did. He’ll be a freshman at UF in a few months.

YMMV.

let's see what he thinks of his decision later.

i was full pay at HYP. no regrets!

PP here. Did you fully read what I wrote before commenting? DS older brother paid full tuition at HYP and regretted the decision.

It sounds like your entire family has bad judgment. Passing on H/Y/P for Florida, however, borders on criminally bad decision making. But here you are bragging about it.

DCUM never disappoints. WTF...

Anonymous wrote:Dartmouth seems to no longer use the waitlist due to insane yields. They offer the best FA of the ivies which has a lot to do with it.

Probably Columbia which I would pass on. Your cost will be inanely higher in NYC on down the line. Any other ivy I would do it.

Good point about COL

Dartmouth seems to no longer use the waitlist due to insane yields. They offer the best FA of the ivies which has a lot to do with it.

Probably Columbia which I would pass on. Your cost will be inanely higher in NYC on down the line. Any other ivy I would do it.

It depends on the program and how much money you have set aside for college

My kid is at a top 10 school that allows a dual degree in two very different programs (a stem and an arts) that are both in the top 10 in the country for that program. Both the stem program and the audition based program are exceptionally difficult to get accepted to. Both have strong post graduation job placement rates

I wound never do it if it involved loan sourcing six figures to get the degree, saddling my kid with a lifetime of debt.

I would only do it for specific job producing programs like STEM, Financ, ot a music conservatory.

I would not do it for soft programs like history or womens studies, or for practical programs like education that result in jobs, but not jobs that will ever generate enough money to pay back the education.

If it's a soft or low paying program, the degree is what matters, not the nearly 6 figure school name. Go to a cheaper state school instead.

OP, you don’t want to tell us the schools so it’s hard to choose based on merit.

So we can only opine based on financials:
1) how much do you have saved for college for this DC?
2) how many more DCs do you have who want to go to college and how much have you saved for them?
3) how much have you saved for retirement and when do you want to retire?
4) how much debt do you have now before paying for college?

Pretty easy decision after you answer these questions honestly. The question is not whether an ivy is worth it, it depends who’s asking. A Ferrari is worth it for a Goldman Sachs senior partner but not for someone making $70k a year with credit card debt. Plenty of Ivy grads make under $150k a year more than 10 years out. Don’t go into debt to pay for it if you can’t really afford it. It’s not some magic wand to made your DC instantly happy and rich.

Anonymous wrote:Which T30? Major? Probably not worthy if engineering

You do not understand the differences between a regular engineering job and a top-level engineering job that leads to real innovation. The top ones are much easier to get from top schools , MiT CMU UCB Stanford and yes the ivies with real engineering plus hopkins, northwestern.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on which Ivy and which major. Not saying either and asking if it's worth it doesn't make much sense.

+1. It also depends on your personal financial situation, child’s ambitions, etc. A kid who wants to be a Supreme Court justice someday and they just got into Yale? Sure, stretch for it. A kid who seems like a natural-born engineer who wants to work for NASA someday and they just got into Cornell? Sure. A kid who isn’t sure what they want and is planning to major in English and they got into Dartmouth? Well, I probably wouldn’t.

That’s the kid who needs the brand name that a top school offers. State school job outcomes have been decimated over the past 2 years. It’s crabs in a bucket, and a laid back kid like this will get eaten alive.

+1

Ivies and similar are worth it for the humanities majors perhaps more than other majors, if one is not sure what they want to do.
It is also goal dependent not merely major:
If one is 99% sure they want to be a teacher or social worker, no need for the ivy
If one is merely over 50% interested in phD, MD, JD, finance, consulting, starting their own tech company, then they will significantly benefit from being at an ivy/T10. Below average students (3.5+) can achieve any of thtoae goals from an ivy. 3.9+ which is Top-quarter to top half depending on the ivy, become in range to make it to top-20 phd or MD, T14 law whoch open doors to the top levels of research, academic and rarer specialties in med, and top law careers. Most peers will be chasing similar goals and most will get there. That environment has no pricetag.

I find these questions sort of impossible to answer as everyone has different finances and priorities. Also, if you never went to an Ivy or had a child attend then how do you really know what you did or didn’t miss out on. Some view worth as only job outcome, others it’s prestige network, maybe finding a spouse, peer group that led to growth, other factors that made it “worth it”.

Which T30? Major? Probably not worthy if engineering

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Depends on which Ivy and which major. Not saying either and asking if it's worth it doesn't make much sense.

+1. It also depends on your personal financial situation, child’s ambitions, etc. A kid who wants to be a Supreme Court justice someday and they just got into Yale? Sure, stretch for it. A kid who seems like a natural-born engineer who wants to work for NASA someday and they just got into Cornell? Sure. A kid who isn’t sure what they want and is planning to major in English and they got into Dartmouth? Well, I probably wouldn’t.

That’s the kid who needs the brand name that a top school offers. State school job outcomes have been decimated over the past 2 years. It’s crabs in a bucket, and a laid back kid like this will get eaten alive.