Anonymous wrote:I know two kids from the DC area who left 'Bama after the first semester/year. They couldn't get past the casual use of the N word or gay slurs by their fellow students.

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Anonymous wrote:OP, you are making what I strongly suspect are multiple socio-demographic assumptions that are informing your choice. And you are making a severe mistake that will do a generation's worth of damage. An undergraduate degree from UA is of effectively no value, and earning it will impart no breadth, compared to a degree from a top-20. If you complete the forms and make a convincing case, you can easily receive a nearly-free ride if your son is admitted to Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia or Penn. Your comment to the effect that you just don't believe it reveals what seem to be other priorities and assumptions on your part. Please don't damage your child.

You clearh care about OP's child future more than she does. And it was already explained, multiple times, that financial aid at "need based" only schools is essentially nill for middle class families.

A student from a family of 4, with 1 in college, making the median family income for MD ($105,000) would be given a grant of $46,775 a year at Harvard, according to their netprice calculator. That's pretty far from "nil"

You probably have no savings.

I didn't enter in my own numbers. I entered the average numbers for income and savings for MD, because that's where I live. I initially entered $5,000 because it was closest to the national average household savings of $3,800, but the grant didn't actually change until I got over $100,000.

Many families with older children have over $100k in retirement savings. Maybe that's not technically middle class but it sure feels that way in this area.

Retirement savings are not included in financial aid calculations.

The reality is that if a family is making the kind of income that qualifies them for no financial aid ($225,000 or above for a family of 4) at Harvard, then either they've been making that amount for a while, in which case they had the option of putting away significant amounts for college, or they just started making it recently, in which case they should be able to choose to put the extra towards tuition. That isn't to say that they should, or that it isn't a totally valid choice to buy a fancy house, or send your kids to private high school, or take them on nice vacations instead of savings for college. But families with incomes above $225,000 can afford college, barring something like a medical expense. They have choices available to them. Again, there's nothing wrong with deciding to spend your money on something else, and telling your child to go to 'Bama or in state or somewhere with merit aid, but acknowledge that it's a choice.

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Anonymous wrote:OP, you are making what I strongly suspect are multiple socio-demographic assumptions that are informing your choice. And you are making a severe mistake that will do a generation's worth of damage. An undergraduate degree from UA is of effectively no value, and earning it will impart no breadth, compared to a degree from a top-20. If you complete the forms and make a convincing case, you can easily receive a nearly-free ride if your son is admitted to Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia or Penn. Your comment to the effect that you just don't believe it reveals what seem to be other priorities and assumptions on your part. Please don't damage your child.

You clearh care about OP's child future more than she does. And it was already explained, multiple times, that financial aid at "need based" only schools is essentially nill for middle class families.

A student from a family of 4, with 1 in college, making the median family income for MD ($105,000) would be given a grant of $46,775 a year at Harvard, according to their netprice calculator. That's pretty far from "nil"

You probably have no savings.

I didn't enter in my own numbers. I entered the average numbers for income and savings for MD, because that's where I live. I initially entered $5,000 because it was closest to the national average household savings of $3,800, but the grant didn't actually change until I got over $100,000.

Many families with older children have over $100k in retirement savings. Maybe that's not technically middle class but it sure feels that way in this area.

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Anonymous wrote:OP, you are making what I strongly suspect are multiple socio-demographic assumptions that are informing your choice. And you are making a severe mistake that will do a generation's worth of damage. An undergraduate degree from UA is of effectively no value, and earning it will impart no breadth, compared to a degree from a top-20. If you complete the forms and make a convincing case, you can easily receive a nearly-free ride if your son is admitted to Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia or Penn. Your comment to the effect that you just don't believe it reveals what seem to be other priorities and assumptions on your part. Please don't damage your child.

You clearh care about OP's child future more than she does. And it was already explained, multiple times, that financial aid at "need based" only schools is essentially nill for middle class families.

A student from a family of 4, with 1 in college, making the median family income for MD ($105,000) would be given a grant of $46,775 a year at Harvard, according to their netprice calculator. That's pretty far from "nil"

You probably have no savings.

I didn't enter in my own numbers. I entered the average numbers for income and savings for MD, because that's where I live. I initially entered $5,000 because it was closest to the national average household savings of $3,800, but the grant didn't actually change until I got over $100,000.

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Anonymous wrote:OP, you are making what I strongly suspect are multiple socio-demographic assumptions that are informing your choice. And you are making a severe mistake that will do a generation's worth of damage. An undergraduate degree from UA is of effectively no value, and earning it will impart no breadth, compared to a degree from a top-20. If you complete the forms and make a convincing case, you can easily receive a nearly-free ride if your son is admitted to Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia or Penn. Your comment to the effect that you just don't believe it reveals what seem to be other priorities and assumptions on your part. Please don't damage your child.

You clearh care about OP's child future more than she does. And it was already explained, multiple times, that financial aid at "need based" only schools is essentially nill for middle class families.

A student from a family of 4, with 1 in college, making the median family income for MD ($105,000) would be given a grant of $46,775 a year at Harvard, according to their netprice calculator. That's pretty far from "nil"

You probably have no savings.

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Anonymous wrote:OP, you are making what I strongly suspect are multiple socio-demographic assumptions that are informing your choice. And you are making a severe mistake that will do a generation's worth of damage. An undergraduate degree from UA is of effectively no value, and earning it will impart no breadth, compared to a degree from a top-20. If you complete the forms and make a convincing case, you can easily receive a nearly-free ride if your son is admitted to Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia or Penn. Your comment to the effect that you just don't believe it reveals what seem to be other priorities and assumptions on your part. Please don't damage your child.

You clearh care about OP's child future more than she does. And it was already explained, multiple times, that financial aid at "need based" only schools is essentially nill for middle class families.

A student from a family of 4, with 1 in college, making the median family income for MD ($105,000) would be given a grant of $46,775 a year at Harvard, according to their netprice calculator. That's pretty far from "nil"

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Anonymous wrote:I dated a man who was a Kennedy School grad. Has a very good job in politics (not a politician but comms). He made under $60k/year. Not quite the impressive Harvard salary being discussed here. I'm quite sure his Harvard connections helped him get his job, he just chose a low paying career.

KSG is considered a black sheep by HBS attendees up in Cambridge. It's a LOT easier to get into for a reason compared to HBS, HLS, or HMS

Anonymous wrote:I dated a man who was a Kennedy School grad. Has a very good job in politics (not a politician but comms). He made under $60k/year. Not quite the impressive Harvard salary being discussed here. I'm quite sure his Harvard connections helped him get his job, he just chose a low paying career.

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Anonymous wrote:OP, you are making what I strongly suspect are multiple socio-demographic assumptions that are informing your choice. And you are making a severe mistake that will do a generation's worth of damage. An undergraduate degree from UA is of effectively no value, and earning it will impart no breadth, compared to a degree from a top-20. If you complete the forms and make a convincing case, you can easily receive a nearly-free ride if your son is admitted to Harvard, Yale, Chicago, Stanford, Princeton, Columbia or Penn. Your comment to the effect that you just don't believe it reveals what seem to be other priorities and assumptions on your part. Please don't damage your child.

You clearh care about OP's child future more than she does. And it was already explained, multiple times, that financial aid at "need based" only schools is essentially nill for middle class families.

A student from a family of 4, with 1 in college, making the median family income for MD ($105,000) would be given a grant of $46,775 a year at Harvard, according to their netprice calculator. That's pretty far from "nil"

That's right. But I think the OP has already told us that they aren't going to qualify for that kind of grant. They make too much money.

Not to mention the fact that we are making some pretty big assumptions here--like the one that this kid is guaranteed to get into Harvard?

Which is an indication that the OP isn't middle class. Not that elite schools don't give aid to middle class families.

For a family who can afford full pay, but at significant sacrifice, whose child has the credentials to even discuss a place like Harvard, and scores that will guarantee them the full ride at 'Bama, there is a lot of middle ground. Many fine selective schools, although not the super elite, offer generous merit aid. I'd explore a range of options, have my kid apply widely including to schools with good merit aid and 'Bama, and probably end up somewhere in the middle.

Anonymous wrote:Fine, but the point is someone from Harvard could get one of those high-paying jobs, do it for a few years, and probably come out with more money than the extra 42,000 thee pp cited.

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Anonymous wrote:There are many empirical studies on the value of an elite school and I would urge you to look at them rather than rely on people's perceptions here. In general, they pay off over the course of a lifetime pretty substantially. Alabama is not a top tier public university -- it is a good state school for Alabama residents and I suspect somewhere in the neighborhood of 80-90% of the students are from Alabama and stay in Alabama (you can find that data easily enough). There are always exceptions, and doing well there may propel one to a decent or excellent grad school but in general, you should be playing averages rather than hoping your child is the exception. I also think you should listen to those who have stories about students who lasted a short time. Alabama is very Southern, and I would think most students from MD or No. Va. might have a tough time there; again, not everyone and you know your child best but this seems like a highly risky choice, especially if aid might be in the wings at a more desirable school. Personally I would do pretty much everything I could to ensure my child did not have to make this choice.

Perhaps you should look at those studies a bit more closely yourself. One of the best designed and most well-known studies of the value of an elite education actually concluded that it conveys relatively little value--except for certain specific types of students: minorities, low-income, and children whose parents didn't go to college. Here's a nice summary of the study (which was conducted by two Ivy alums):

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/21/revisiting-the-value-of-elite-colleges/?_r=0

As the author of this article notes, it would be nice, though, if we could measure the value of careers by something other than earnings.