Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion College choices

You should do a search on this forum for posts by "JonLaw".

Having to borrow $200K is crazy high for an undergraduate education. Heck, I always thought it was too much for doctors to graduate medical school with $200k in loans.

If the disparity were substantially less, then it may be an issue of penny-wise and pound foolish. Decades ago, I did forgo an opportunity to attend a lesser reputed college (also out of state) on full-ride(tuition, room/board, books/fees, travel) plus. I don't regret choosing the elite but my total debt was only a small fraction of the $200k facing the OP's DD. Were my kids to face the same choices, I might well nudge them toward the full-ride.

College is now basically "high school that costs a lot of money".

I am going to be paying a significant amount for college in several years, of that much I'm certain. Kids = significant college expenses.

Unless my kids have some sort of magical non-college plan.

I'm not going to give them $100,000 in debt like my cousin received in addition to her *state school, in-state* degree.

I hated my (free) college experience, but that has nothing to do with college experiences in general, the much lower likelihood of my kids getting a free college degree, or the fact that a college education is now a high school degree, which makes it more, and not less required for basic employability.

I'm pretty sure my choice was $100k in debt for Ivy League vs. free, and that was decades ago, so it hasn't been pretty for a long time.

Just looked it up again from a 1990's article, to confirm:

"For many students, the amount of aid is a major factor in deciding to attend one of the eight Ivy League institutions, where tuition is the highest in the nation, averaging $25,000 this year."

http://www.nytimes.com/1993/09/22/e...idding-war-for-prospective-students.html

Yeah-- four years at the state flagship that my DD is attending now (full merit scholarship, which, to be clear-- is tuition-only, and that is just about as good as it gets anywhere now, unless you qualify for aid-- and by that I mean any kind of aid, usually including loans-- on the basis of income. Have I mentioned that our "expected family contribution" is over 50% of our household income?-- well, it is. WELL over it, in fact. More like 2/3rds our household income.):


Tuition: 10-11K a year plus about another ~2K in 'fees' of one type or another, and this is going to go up-up-up in the next few years since tuition increases are now back on the table in a big way

Board: 12-16K, depending upon the "plan" that you go with

Books and Misc. Supplies: 500-2500, depending upon your major and your savvy ability to scrounge bargains.



Yes, that's right-- it's about 25K a year for in-state attendance at this middle-of-the-road state flagship. It costs more like 26-27K to go as an Honors college student, or one in Engineering (tuition premiums). This college is regularly named a "best bargain in higher ed" by the way-- by multiple organizations. I mention that because this seems highly relevant here. For my child to attend UW as an out-of-state student would cost (including living expenses) about 55-60K annually. NOT joking. So realistically, 200K is, if anything, a gross underestimate of what a high-cost college costs without any financial awards. 100K for four years? That is cheap.



Okay, so assuming that parents can legitimately (as in, without requiring a lifestyle modification that includes indigence) contribute about 15-18K a year, that STILL leaves a shortfall of around 10K annually.

DD got about 40K in scholarships-- which, given that she is living at home, will wind up covering about 75-85% of the cost of the first four years of her education there. Not including summer tuition, which is more or less necessary given the stipulations associated with that scholarship (that is, how many hours they have to accrue each academic year-- and try fitting lab courses IN and make that value... yeah-right). Less than 1% of incoming students at this institution receive such scholarships, incidentally.



A kid could easily attend this institution and rack up debts in excess of 50K. EASILY. Given the relative difficulty of even graduating in less than 5y, since-- have I mentioned the new shell game involving not being able to actually register for the classes that you need at times that will permit one to earn the STEM credits for your major if you major in STEM? Yeah-- lab time SUCKS that way. Always has, and it's gotten worse-- WAY, WAY worse-- now that administrators want to run service coursework at something like 90-95% capacity. Why, open another section? Heavens no-- that M 6-10 PM/Tu 8-9:30am section still isn't FULL-- there are three seats left in that one! I have no idea why these students are whining... (Uh- maybe because it means that none of them can take that section and the calculus course that is a concurrent enrollment requirement??)

We will cover the last year or two, since she seems determined to do a triple major (and naturally, not a one of them in the SAME college... LOL). Because we can. Now, could we cover 65K a year? Well, yes-- if I returned to work full time at something that paid what my skills are worth, and we changed our lifestyle not a bit, then-- yeah. But it wouldn't be EASY.

I guess what I'm saying is-- it's all well and good to sneer at taking the full-ride at a "state" school-- rather than an Extremely Elite Education that comes at twice (or more) the price--

but bear in mind that perspective is a great thing here. "Debt-free" anywhere is no longer chump change, relative to what college costs now-- even at the LOW end of the expense scale. It's also all well and good to rely upon "merit aid" but that money is also falling shorter and shorter of covering the costs, too, and frankly, there is a lot less of it to go around.

Debt-free is going to become a mirage for almost all families sometime within the next decade. There's almost no way to save this much unless you are nearly no longer "middle class" (whatever that means), and investing doesn't work because your returns can NOT keep up with rates of inflation in this sector. Our financial advisor basically told us that it was a no-win situation and we'd be much better off saving like MAD for our own retirement, then scaling back and diverting that cash toward out of pocket payment at the time when college expenses became a thing.


Maybe the building is on fire. Then again, it feels increasingly as though this building might actually be in Dresden. In 1945. So maybe there isn't a way to exactly escape from it. Pretty sure that jumping out the window isn't the answer, though.

This is basically my thinking.

Except for the "scaling back" part, since I never "scaled up" in the first place.

Well, technically, that's not true. I "scaled up" in high school and early college, then "scaled down" after law school once I larded myself up with $120k in debt or whatever it was.

Latest I've heard is that it's $70K for full cost at top private schools next year. (That includes schools like BU, NYU and USC. not just the Ivy's.) That is tuition, fee's and room & board. This doesn't count books, supplies, or transportation costs or other miscellaneous costs.

Not all private schools cost that much. And as HK said in-state Universities can still run 30-35K. It's not just the private schools where the cost of attending has gone up exponentially.

The way I figure it, you don't know what will happen in the future. You can't predict it. The elite education might not get you the dream job. The high-priced university might not work out. Something might happen that keeps that perfect life plan from rolling out like a red carpet from your feet.

But you can predict that all that student loan debt will be with you (or your kids) for a really long time.

Maybe I'm too practical. I really do believe in the value of a classical liberal arts education. But that doesn't help you when you can't afford a house of your own because you can't swing it with your college debt.

Looking back on my own life (it's been just about 20 years since I go my degree) I see a pretty labyrinthine path. I'm where I'm at due to a combination of timing, luck, intelligence (never underestimate raw brain power), and work. But I had no idea that I'd be here when I graduated.

Wasn't online over the long weekend, but thought I'd chime in with another, more recent reassurance. Both my dds chose the cheaper option for undergrad (good, but not top-ranked schools). One especially had her heart set on prestige, but thank God, her practical side came through. Next year, she'll be entering one of the holy trinity of law schools, and yes, taking on lots of debt (because HYS don't offer merit aid). In the case of law school, rankings really do matter, and she, and one of her closest friends, who also went to a state school, were both accepted at many highly-ranked schools. When you look at these schools' websites, they accept students from a WIDE range of schools (in fact, some that left me scratching my head! . So, I actually don't think your dd will necessarily experience bias on being accepted to graduate programs. My other dd was accepted into a highly-ranked, full-ride PhD program a few years ago, but ended up hating it and is following a different path now. Point being though, you can save money (LOTS of money) on undergrad and still get into an amazing grad school. If dd had lots of debt, I don't think she'd have felt comfortable choosing her dream school for law school. They both have thanked us numerous times for steering them to the no-debt option.