Anonymous wrote:One thing that seems to be missing from this conversation is the concept of merit aid. Many of the "second tier" (by that I mean in the, say, 40-100 range of the USNWR liberal arts college rankings, if you care about those) colleges give merit aid to attract students, reducing the sticker price to a level that can be competitive with in-state tuition.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I went to an ivy league school and so did my spouse and so did our parents. But I am already encouraging my kids (both in private school) to apply to the VA state schools. I would be happy to see them to go to a top private college if they can get in (Which is now a complete crapshoot), but I would prefer to see them to go UVA or Tech or W & M over any of the second tier private colleges. I agree with the NYT article: just not worth it. Minimal "prestige" boost more than cancelled out by insane pricetag, and I believe the quality of the education at a good state school is every bit as good. If your kid goes to Harvard you are buying a network and a credential. If your kid goes to BU instead of UVa you are just getting ripped off.
This is so true. The problem is the kids don't believe it. They buy into all the marketing. No way we are letting them accumulat massive debt so early in life. This college spending bubble is going to burst in the not too distant future.
I'm not sure if kids believe the marketing as much as just fit.
For instance, UVA is a great school....and I really don't like UVA for its atmosphere culture, but i agree it is a superb school. Especially with instate tuition I feel UVA is a better option than places like Emory, Vandy and all the hot southern privates that have seen their popularity soar in the last 10 years.
However UVA is also huge in terms of population. There is definitely something to be said about going to a school with 14k UG's vs. 6k UG's (or less).
No, it's marketing. "Fit" is just a self-fulfilling result of niche marketing. 14k undergrads is by no means "huge" these days. UVA isn't even in the top five largest schools in VA.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I went to an ivy league school and so did my spouse and so did our parents. But I am already encouraging my kids (both in private school) to apply to the VA state schools. I would be happy to see them to go to a top private college if they can get in (Which is now a complete crapshoot), but I would prefer to see them to go UVA or Tech or W & M over any of the second tier private colleges. I agree with the NYT article: just not worth it. Minimal "prestige" boost more than cancelled out by insane pricetag, and I believe the quality of the education at a good state school is every bit as good. If your kid goes to Harvard you are buying a network and a credential. If your kid goes to BU instead of UVa you are just getting ripped off.
This is so true. The problem is the kids don't believe it. They buy into all the marketing. No way we are letting them accumulat massive debt so early in life. This college spending bubble is going to burst in the not too distant future.
I'm not sure if kids believe the marketing as much as just fit.
For instance, UVA is a great school....and I really don't like UVA for its atmosphere culture, but i agree it is a superb school. Especially with instate tuition I feel UVA is a better option than places like Emory, Vandy and all the hot southern privates that have seen their popularity soar in the last 10 years.
However UVA is also huge in terms of population. There is definitely something to be said about going to a school with 14k UG's vs. 6k UG's (or less).
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:I went to an ivy league school and so did my spouse and so did our parents. But I am already encouraging my kids (both in private school) to apply to the VA state schools. I would be happy to see them to go to a top private college if they can get in (Which is now a complete crapshoot), but I would prefer to see them to go UVA or Tech or W & M over any of the second tier private colleges. I agree with the NYT article: just not worth it. Minimal "prestige" boost more than cancelled out by insane pricetag, and I believe the quality of the education at a good state school is every bit as good. If your kid goes to Harvard you are buying a network and a credential. If your kid goes to BU instead of UVa you are just getting ripped off.
This is so true. The problem is the kids don't believe it. They buy into all the marketing. No way we are letting them accumulat massive debt so early in life. This college spending bubble is going to burst in the not too distant future.
Anonymous wrote:I went to an ivy league school and so did my spouse and so did our parents. But I am already encouraging my kids (both in private school) to apply to the VA state schools. I would be happy to see them to go to a top private college if they can get in (Which is now a complete crapshoot), but I would prefer to see them to go UVA or Tech or W & M over any of the second tier private colleges. I agree with the NYT article: just not worth it. Minimal "prestige" boost more than cancelled out by insane pricetag, and I believe the quality of the education at a good state school is every bit as good. If your kid goes to Harvard you are buying a network and a credential. If your kid goes to BU instead of UVa you are just getting ripped off.
Anonymous wrote:I went to an ivy league school and so did my spouse and so did our parents. But I am already encouraging my kids (both in private school) to apply to the VA state schools. I would be happy to see them to go to a top private college if they can get in (Which is now a complete crapshoot), but I would prefer to see them to go UVA or Tech or W & M over any of the second tier private colleges. I agree with the NYT article: just not worth it. Minimal "prestige" boost more than cancelled out by insane pricetag, and I believe the quality of the education at a good state school is every bit as good. If your kid goes to Harvard you are buying a network and a credential. If your kid goes to BU instead of UVa you are just getting ripped off.
Anonymous wrote:Anonymous wrote:So are the public universities stepping up their game? I went to a Top-10 private university, but also took some extra classes at a top-10 public near my home. It was like night and day; the private school's classes were so much more rigorous, while the public university didn't seem that much different than my public high school -- but hey, at least I got to be the smartest one in class again! Example: intro physics at my private was calculus-based while the intro physics at the public was not. Also, the tests were so different. The public uni had easy multiple choice and fill-in-the-blank where we just had to parrot back the info from the book or lecture, while at the private uni the tests were mostly short answer/essay or really difficult MC involving actual calculations &/or critical thinking.
I really would love my kids to be able to take advantage of the state universities, but I know that if I had chosen our state's public, I wouldn't have developed the critical thinking skills that I did, and I definitely became more worldly meeting so many different types of people. So now that more and more of the top-scoring students are choosing public for college, are those universities able to challenge these students?
Just wondering - what curriculum you were in? I went to a public university (not top 10), but the 2 semesters of physics that I had were calc based.