Over on the main brags page a discussion was started and I thought it would be good to move it away from the brags page.



WARNING: Major Rant Ahead.


Well, yes. DD does think she knows what she wants to do and yes, she knows that not going to DREAMY U has impacts on future plans and yes, she knows that some people ( a lot of them maybe) in the field she wants to go into will judge her based on where she goes to school. However, this is undergrad.

I repeat: this is undergrad.

If DD were to attend undergrad at DREAMY U she would have to borrow 200K . I have a news flash: really they won't loan that much to young adults with no credit history who are under age. Really, her parents would have to borrow it and really, we won't. We won't take on that debt and we won't recommend that she do it either. Why?

First, there is no guarantee that we would qualify for loans the second year, or the third, or the fourth. Our debt to income ratio would get worse each year and we would never know whether we could qualify for all four years. This could mean that we would owe tons of money and she still would not have a degree from DREAMY U. Let's just not talk about how this would impact us--her parent's ability to borrow money to buy a house or a spot in a retirement community-- shall we?

Second: The payments on that debt would be over $2000 per month for ten years. Go look it up:



Third: All of her decisions about graduate school would have to allow for this. If she goes to professional school (medical or law), she could need to borrow another 200-300K. Just the principle debt, without interest, would then be 400-500K.

Fourth: This debt would impact her child bearing years. Women and their partners already have to juggle the competing needs of graduate school and early career with deciding when and if they want to have children. If DD is paying 2000-4000/month for her student loans, how will she pay for all the other living expenses for herself and any dependents?

DD may experience some bias in getting accepted into graduate programs, but we have to hope it would be rare to see HIRING bias based on non-ivy, non-Stanford, non-Berkeley undergraduate degree after she has her terminal degrees.

MBAs and other financial fields do seem to have significant biases in this regard. I'm sorry your friend experienced this and I hope they were able to find another position with a more open minded employer. Most people cannot attend the top 10-20 undergraduate schools and most fields do seem to be able to deal with this reality. Additionally, undergraduates from mid to upper level schools do get in to graduate programs and get good jobs.

Look here for where CEOs went:
http://www.usnews.com/education/bes...2/where-americas-top-ceos-went-to-school

And here for tech professionals:

http://www.wired.com/2014/05/alumni-network-2/

Now note the almost complete lack of overlap between the lists.

My point is that what the best school would be is really field dependent.

Undergraduate debt is not a myth and it really can haunt people, DD's decision will allow her to graduate debt free from undergraduate and have a lot more freedom than many of her peers.

Still proud of DD. Still thinking she made a good, adult, well reasoned, decision.

Be proud of your DD. As a graduate of a Big 10 university who worked in small firms and later got my MBA from a top-tier (think top five) university, let me say it can work. I see it working for younger colleagues and the children of friends. So much has to do with one's experiences (academic, work, global, activities) and social skills. Not having the burden of debt opens up a whole world of possibilities. It likely will allow her to steer clear of more shallow employers and to take growth opportunities that others with debt will not take.

Good luck to her!

Consulting firms value degrees from the most prestigious schools. This may be in part due to shallowness or snobbery of the people working their who make hiring decisions. Another factor is that firms like McKinsey charge their clients a lot of money per consultant hour, even for consultants who just graduated and have no business experience. It may be easier for corporate clients to believe they are getting their money's worth when the 20-something consultants are from a "name" school. The shallowness of clients results in shallowness of consulting firm hiring practices.

I'd rather hire a 2400 SAT student from Rutgers than a 2100 SAT student from Princeton, but for some reason it is considered more gauche to ask about test scores than schools attended. The number of seats at the ten most prestigious schools is almost constant over time, whereas the U.S. population continues to grow, as does the population of foreign students that attend U.S. schools. Therefore the percentage of gifted students who are attending top 10 schools is declining, and employers should adapt to that.

As you know, our DD made a similar decision, cp-- forgoing the "Elite" school opportunities for the hometown option.


Still thinking she made a good, adult, well reasoned, decision.


I think so, too.

A free undergraduate education means that one is then free to actually explore (well, somewhat) and even to take some risks in terms of interests. Maybe you're free to follow your social justice leanings where they actually lead, rather than reassuring yourself that if you make enough to pay off your debt, you'll make good on all of that charitable inclination then.

Being a social worker or a teacher is NEVER going to come with the ability to pay off 200-300K in student debt. Not and live independently as an adult at the same time.



My own prediction is that employers are eventually going to get savvy to the reality, which is that the SMARTEST, and MOST MATURE students from middle class homes are opting out of crushing student debt-- it's not that they couldn't go to HYPS or other elite schools, but that they took a pragmatic look, took off the rose colored glasses, and decided NOT to do that.

Less pressure isn't an indicator that these students don't have the right stuff. In fact, maybe it's an indicator that they have MORE of it than those that buy what I like to think of as the hype of HYPS. (NO offense to alumni-- they are fine institutions, but there are many other fine institutions, too.)


It's not easy to swim upstream, however. Social pressure surrounding this circus is tremendous. We have felt a lot of it this past two years. NOBODY understood when DD simply opted "out" of continuing with her applications (about $1K worth) to those elite schools-- but there wasn't much point when she decided that following through wasn't something that was going to be kosher with her to begin with.


DD refused to even participate in the admissions frenzy, in other words. Oh, sure-- she was "in progress" initially at HMC, MIT, etc. But once she thought about it, she realized that by driving admission numbers, all of those places were intellectually being-- well-- they were part of the problem, and she wasn't going to help them with their strategy to look "exclusive" by even applying. Her odds of gaining admission were very good. But she knew that she wouldn't attend, and the entire industry-- as it is now, I mean-- disgusts her. She finds it morally offensive.



We talked to her about the choice she was making, but honestly-- this went against my daughter's core values, and we as parents could not-- and would not-- override that.

We're happy that she earned a scarce "full-ride" merit scholarship at her current institution, and hope that she can keep it. We're happy that she has found faculty and graduate students, and some junior/senior classmates to be interesting peers, and that she seems to be learning and growing as a person.

We're BEYOND pleased that she has lived at home this year, and not thousands of miles away, with the additional pressure of knowing how much we're spending or that her dad and I are having to live apart to make it possible.

Remember, our kids are all intelligent enough to realize what kind of hardship a 60K tuition bill is for most of the families on this board. That's an ENORMOUS amount of pressure to "be worth it."

What employers are we talking about here?

Awesome employers want employees from awesome institutions. It's more about being awesome than anything else. Since there are only a certain number of awesome jobs available, this is not going to change.

Normal, non-awesome, employers who actually do things rather than simply shimmer with awesomeness and attract wealth generally want someone who can do the job.

Yes, I am well aware of this -- having seen it at my grad school (which was visited by McKinsey, et al). I know (have just checked their site, to make sure memory wasn't fooling me) that they also recruit at some state schools that are considered a little more top-tier. However, I'm guessing (again, from memory of peer's experiences post-undergrad) that other firms, like Deloitte, hire from a broader range of schools. So a reasonable path for a very smart person who wanted to be a BCG/McKinsey/Bain consultant might be to go debt-free to a school that had good companies recruiting at it, have great experiences, get into a prestigious MBA program and then pursue those firms.

To sum it up, I've seen people get into those types of firms by paths other than attending a "prestige" undergraduate institution. I'm thinking of several right now.

Pretty sure that if you're awesome, being middle class doesn't really apply to you.

So I think that the awesome people don't need to think about this.

Yes, but if you end up in the middle class, you are irrelevant to the smooth functioning of the global financial hypereconomy, and nobody wants to be irrelevant.

I think that the problem is that you can't be awesome without an awesome education, so you are faced with the choice of throwing yourself into the middle class, which guarantees total life failure, or taking on a massive amount of debt, which only carries an extremely high risk of total life failure.

It's kind of like being in a burning building. You either stay inside and definitely burn to death or jump out of the 10th floor window and only suffer a 95% chance of death.

What if-- and I say IF here-- the building isn't ACTUALLY on fire, though?



Just a thought, that.

[quote=JonLawI think that the problem is that you can't be awesome without an awesome education, so you are faced with the choice of throwing yourself into the middle class, which guarantees total life failure, or taking on a massive amount of debt, which only carries an extremely high risk of total life failure. [/quote]

Unless there is a third option... which doesn't involve so-called awesomeness at all.

Personally, I find it hard to believe that a top-tier consulting firm would spend time and money on several rounds of interviews and then cut someone over a fact they should have seen on the application.

I would not want to work for a company that lax anyway - as it happens, I think that your friend lucked out!

I've checked my list of irrational abstractions and I was not able to find any third option.

It may have simply been the whim of one of the glorious awesome people.

When you reach a certain level of glory, you can indulge your whimsical playful side.

Totally get the bit about the sub patrician population being irrelevant too.

Top tier tertiary education institutions are businesses and they want rich benefactors and alumni - as money begets money their most rational choice is to select from the global patrician offspring.

Keeping tuition high to all but a tiny minority keeps out the riff raff, don't you know.

Really!

If you have borrow the money to pay for tuition at their school then they are going to be utterly ambivalent to your being there.

The way I figure it is that either way, there's a lot of uncertainty -- is this the career I really want, is this the school I really want, who will hire me, etc. Either way you don't know what will happen after college, or whether things will change by then. Add that to the fact that, as HK mentioned, the HYPS admissions race is, in many people's opinions, at least somewhat morally...questionable.
Yes, look at your options. Don't choose just off of finances, or prestige, or anything else for that matter. A college with a full ride might be not as good of a choice as a college requiring a small (like 10K small, or whatever) loan.
But in my opinion, I'd rather take a free or 10-15K chance than a 200K chance. That's what college choice, college admissions IS: it's a chance. You might choose the "wrong" school. However, it's hard (I hope?) to choose a college that will leave you with no job prospects and no education. If I'm uncertain, the free school sure seems like the safer bet to me.

It's possible that a factor in the elite college graduate preference is that many kids have to work like dogs to get into those schools and may have to work very hard to get a decent GPA at them. Consulting firms are known for the long hours they require, and many graduates of elite colleges have spent their youths being conditioned to the idea of working 70+ hour weeks. So picking people who won't question the hours could be a "rational" factor in the decision-making process. I don't know; I'm only speculating here.

As for the SAT scores, scores of 700 and 800 are separated by 3-ish wrong questions, and I'm not really sure that this is a real difference in terms of predicting how well someone will do in a job. There are way too many other factors influencing that outcome.

A family friend just made a very similar decision. OP's daughter should make the decision that is best for their family. I've known kids who have gone to elite school only to find out it's not working out for them for one reason on another. That can be a costly mistake if you have taken out huge loans. Making a decision now that would put a family in huge debt for some potential high paying job at some elite company sometime in the future seems risky.

Fruitydragons, that assumes that there isn't a fire, and that the people running around shouting about one are, erm--

well. That they have their own view of the world, which may or may not be completely aligned with what most people consider to be reality.




To be clear, I agree with you-- the college admissions game now is about whether or not you believe that the building is on fire, and that your survival (?) depends upon Doing The Very Bestest Thing Ever by Attending The Most Prestigious Institution.

It's not a simple thing, figuring out what is "right" with respect to a college education. Or any other major life decision. This is only the first of them, really.

It's just that it is nothing more than ignorance to claim that:

a) Everything about HYPS is, well-- hype. No. It isn't. The prestige is there for a reason. It is a premium education. Of course, it also comes at an extremely premium cost, so there is that.

b) The system is bimodal, with elite institutions on one side, and all the rest on the other. Well, no, actually-- it is POSSIBLE to get an incredibly fine and life-changing education at-- for example, University of Wisconsin-Stout. It really is mostly about what students bring into the environment as much as anything else.



Can you get a "premium" education without paying for one? Well-- yes and no. No, your diploma from UW-Stout won't say Princeton. Will your education be as good? Maybe. There's no way to say, actually, because it is individual and largely unwritten until it's over, and because nobody can say what you'll value about your college education in retrospect-- not even YOU. It is true, however, that your education at UW-Stout will cost about 1/6th, on average, as much as it would at Princeton.

ROI is a thing, I suppose, but the trouble is that most people who go to college do so for reasons which aren't purely economic to start with.

It's not even clear to me what "education" is.

I still don't know why I had to endure the college experience, so I'm not really a fan of paying for it. It struck me as a form of torment and wasted years more than anything else.

In terms of financial benefit, it was definitely a big plus, so I tend to look at it as an ROI issue.

Yes. The problem is that it's not black-and-white, and it's hard to tell how things will work out just by looking at a college -- you really can't know until you get there. HYPS will get you a good, high quality education amongst a large quantity of intellectual peers. But so will, say, a small, private, liberal arts college, but (maybe? probably? not?) to a lesser extent.
That being said, there are plenty of people at prestigious universities with little student loan debt. And for them, assuming everything else is going well (which I guess is assuming a lot), that's a pretty good choice.
Furthermore, one could argue that a lot of it is the student, not the college, and that certain students flock to certain colleges.
One could argue a lot of things college related, for that matter, and never reach a clear conclusion.
However, I personally feel that loans of 200K (or 100K) plus are best reserved for things like houses, not college educations. To me, there are few things that could make Harvard -- or any school, for that matter -- worth that much more than our hypothetical, affordable universities. At some vague point the benefit to cost ratio is tipped too far, and I think many colleges of all types and ranks and tiers or what have you have reached that point. Honestly, I can't say I know what to do about it -- I don't think anyone knows what to do, but you can only try to know what's best.

Some people see education as meaning things like:

• Learning about philosophies and other ideas that formed societies
• Thinking about how those ideas influence us today
• Learning about how the great minds of the past made their discoveries and the challenges they faced
• Learning how and when to question the status quo
• Acquiring knowledge and applying it in a job and/or hobby

Unfortunately, more people see education as meaning things like the following and little else:

• How can I get certified to get a job in [insert job type]?
• If I study [insert topic] at [insert relative eliteness of school], what will my salary be?
• I will only hire someone with a BA for this menial job because the BA proves that s/he can complete something.
• How can we maximize our revenues? A lazy river might help draw more FTEs*.

*Translation: full-time equivalents, aka full-time students in this case.

These days, IMO, the second set of ideas dominates (to the detriment of a lot of things). It's a shame that reading Plato is now more of an excerpty-type learning task to be followed by multiple choice questions than a serious foray into the big ideas of the past and present. And math class has become a way to pass a standardized test for the school's benefit (apart from in college, where ideas are splatted out in outline form in "text"books and homework is completed online, thereby sparing the stressed-out adjunct teaching the class from having to correct homework for free).

Oh well.

Do we know that for sure? Will a student who gets into Harvard but chooses to attend the state flagship learn less over 4 years? I'd be interested to see a regression of GRE subject exam scores (or GRE general or MCAT or LSAT scores) on student SAT/ACT scores and on the average SAT/ACT score of the school attended (a measure of prestige). I would not be surprised if the coefficient on the prestige measure was not statistically significant and that only incoming SAT/ACT scores were needed to predict graduate school entrance exam scores.

These videos are amusing:
Harvard Graduates Explain Seasons
Roving Reporter: Canada,
although of course one does not know how random the sampling of students was.

Agreed, Bostonian-- but the larger difference is that everyone around you at Harvard also possesses high SAT/ACT scores and a similarly illustrious academic resume. That won't be true at the state flagship.

(DD has noted this fact already, btw-- unprompted.)

In that respect, then, yes-- I would argue that this could represent a "premium" environment in which to obtain a fine education.

Faculty at such institutions will similarly represent the very best of the best, in theory at least. Of course, I'd also argue that at the post-secondary level a lot more than "being an expert in my field" goes into truly excellent education, and that such a concept is inherently rather idiosyncratic relative to the learner in any event. No one professor is "The Best Ever" for all students. Of course, Premium College Education does avoid having most coursework taught by adjuncts.

Honestly-- that is where I'd encourage parents and prospective students alike to look hardest when choosing colleges. Look past the lazy river and climbing wall-- to what percentage of undergraduate courses are taught by adjunct faculty.

Has it changed dramatically? Is it going to? Or are faculty at the institution actually doing scholarly work AND spending time with undergraduates? Who does advising?

All of that matters a great deal, and tells you far, far more about the pragmatic and up-to-date mission of the institution than any shiny slogan on a brochure ever will.

I have to agree with Val-- there has been a large scale shift in priorities in higher ed into seeing students as customers, and frankly, the students don't really KNOW enough going into post-secondary education to understand that a climbing wall isn't as crucial as, say, a professional, caring and full-time professor to serve as an advisor who understands the various ways of achieving a genuine education in {insert interest area here}.

It is very upside-down, this new world, and it starts with College Admissions Frenzy.

In a previous thread I mentioned research finding that adjuncts teach as well as professors:
http://giftedissues.davidsongifted....college_acceptance_rates.html#Post199871 . If job security were the key to good teaching, the quality of teaching in our public schools would be uniformly high, but it is not.

I would want to know how much adjuncts are being paid. If they can make a decent living teaching 2-3 courses per semester, they may do a better job than if they need to teach 6.

At this point I am just glad my kids and I live in NZ. Sometimes I envy your education options (gifted schools, charters, magnets even the private schools I couldn't afford) but reading this I think we are probably lucky that our choices are so limited.

Adjuncts are poorly paid and don't get benefits like health insurance.

Adjuncts get 2K-5K per course


Adjunct earns 24K teaching 8 courses/year

Low pay, no offices

same

Be very careful with parallels between secondary and primary teaching and post-secondary. Remember, theoretically anyone teaching in post-secondary has, at a minimum, a terminal degree in the discipline in which they are teaching. They are also people who (again, theoretically) could be making a far better living outside of academia/teaching.

Neither of those things is necessarily true in secondary settings, where often instructors lack even a regular undergraduate major in the discipline they are teaching. Take a look at the difference in the requirements to become a teacher of high school physics, for example, with being a regular physics major.


Also-- I also said nothing about the quality of the teaching from adjuncts. Some of them are quite good. But it tells me a lot about what an institution actually values when it decides to rely on temp workers rather than hiring those people on as members of a professional corps who are more or less permanently associated with the institution.

It also matters in that-- if a student is at an institution where adjuncts rotate in and out through the first 3 years of most major coursework-- and that student would like to apply for a prestigious internship during the summer-- how will they even FIND a professor to write a recommendation, hmm?

Maybe the local public assistance office, I suppose. Many adjuncts do seem to wind up there on a regular basis. I'm sure that while they fill out forms for food stamps or housing assistance, they won't mind writing up a nice letter of recommendation.

More about what modern adjunct teaching means


Opinions vary as to whether adjunct...ction, too. {pdf in link-- 2013 study}


A quick infographic about what "adjunct" means in functional and typical terms.

R. Schuman writes for Slate on the subject

There is a difference here between college and college education.

"College education" is an awesome thing that can round out a young person's mind - solidifying concepts and opening the student up to new ideas. It may also provide a certain level of training. "College," in the building on fire type of discussion is attainment of some level of prestige and access. Prestige probably equals more access.

At base, though, college in the US has devolved to being a pathway to being hired into a good job. The irony here is that being hired - even by a super high paying prestigious OMG you're going to have so much money company is still being HIRED.

Being a hired employee in a great-paying job - which I am - is actually the hallmark of the middle class. You can argue about what strata of the middle class you are in. Lower, Upper, Really Upper. I've-got-three-commas-because-I-was-employee-235-at-Google Upper. Whatever. You're still a hired hand, and you are middle class.

Which, I should repeat - I am.

I think people (other than Jon and a few others) miss the irony here. The middle class is vast and wide in the US, and not necessarily delimited by $$$. This is the essence of what has made life positive here in many ways. But I won't digress into that discussion.

I'll only add a summary of the single best response I ever saw about the ego associated with "elite schools." Kurt Vonnegut was giving a talk at Stanford and did a Q&A after. An oh-so-smug Stanford student got up and opened with a smarmy, wink-wink, aren't we special attitude. Vonnegut's response was short and stunning. Here - roughly - is the transcript:

Student: Mr. Vonnegut, thank you for being here tonight. You've given us all a lot to think about.

V: You're welcome.

Student (smirking): I'd like to think of myself as well above average, ...

V (cutting in): You're not.

Student stammered unintelligibly for a minute about the middle class and education. Then sat down.

I think about this exchange often. It's hard for me to explain why I found it so satisfying. I think because V's point was that, even if you put fancy dressing on your resume, even if you go to the right places and all that, you're not that different from your fellow humans. You're not that different from the laborer or waitress or whatever job you think of as below you (or your child).

I guess it goes back to the point above about wishing people would give up on more, MORE, MOST!!! as their goal in life. That's not what it's about.

I will never let DS weigh "prestige" in his choice of college. Never.

So you're saying that the building isn't on fire?

I disagree strongly. There comes a point in the life of a few lucky people when they choose to work because they want to, not because they have to. Employees with all those commas fit that description perfectly. If they stay at their jobs, it's not because they need that paycheck to pay the mortgage next month. It's because working is more fun than not working at the moment. They might decide next month to try their hands at [insert self-funded project name], or they might not. This freedom makes them very much NOT in the middle class.

Looking like something doesn't make it so.

Ah. Hmmm. I guess you did make the point a little bit more succinctly. I wrote more words though!

Bless you, suevv! I have a funny anecdote that you'll like.


My sister-in-law, whose boyfriend is doing a postdoc at Harvard, bought Harvard sweatshirts for her sister and father, who never attended the school. FIL wears his shirt around everywhere, and the receiving SIL (who is currently a student at our local--and good-- university) wears her Harvard shirt on campus. My in-laws are the kind of insecure people for whom titles are everything, and they spend family gatherings impressing themselves with talk about their credentials. I find it pathetic, though it can make for some fun sport. (Bad aquinas!) Case in point below:

When DH saw his sister and Dad in the shirts, he asked wryly, "Oh, did you buy that because I applied to Harvard?"

Chuckle. chuckle. giggle. laugh out oud. I like that DH of yours, I do.

That makes two of us.

The Wikipedia article on "middle class" says this:
If you accept this description, one can have a high income but still be middle class. An important respect in which many upper income people are middle class is that they expect their children to have independent careers rather than just living off of inherited wealth or managing a family business.

I think that fundamentally precludes awesomeness of the sort defined by Jonlaw, however.

So being middle-class means NOT being awesome.

This seems terribly unfair to Senators and the Cabinet members, I must say-- all of that only to be "middle class." It seems so nastily--


Bourgeois somehow.

You'd think that going to the right school for that kind of career would come with better awesomeness. And glory. Definitely seems like there should be more glory associated than merely being "middle class."

I'll be sure to let my electrician know that he's not middle class next time he's out. Right after I ask him how his dad is liking working for him these days. I'm sure that he will find it amusing that the Obamas are "middle class" and he-- isn't.

Coming into this late, but I made the same decision as the OP's daughter when I went to undergrad. I had the choice between a better than full ride scholarship at State U, or having my parents go severely into debt if I joined CalTech. I chose State U.

The education I received there was excellent. I was in the Honors program, and my peers there were every bit as strong as my MIT classmates in grad school. No surprise because most of my honors school classmates ended up at Columbia, MIT, Stanford, etc. for grad school.

The downsides are real though. I took some time between undergrad and grad, and the job opportunities before and after MIT were vastly different.

Another vote for being proud of those who value completing college without incurring burdensome debt.

While some may place a higher value on the name of an "elite" college, other interviewers have clearly valued individuals who demonstrated having a realistic eye on the "bottom line" by managing their own budgets and personal finances in a cost-effective manner... similar to the manner in which the company strives to manage it's own Profit/Loss.

This brings to mind a post on a recent thread.

You forgot about college expenses and retirement.

By your definition, I left the middle class about 10 years ago.

However, I still have to pay for...college, which has nothing to do with day to day living expenses and costs as much as a house.

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.

The Federal government has been pushing income-based repayment, so not necessarily. IBR plans are especially generous for people working in "public service" https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/public-service or going to graduate school.

Beware Savvy Borrowers Using Income-Based Repayment

Of course, what's good for borrowers may not be good for taxpayers.

College admissions has become complicated enough that it helps to have a savvy parent. So has the financial aid system.

I think the entire process is nuts. My husband and I both attended state schools between us we have a Ph.D. and a MD, we are doing what we love and are both quite happy. I think it depends a lot on the field. For instance, if DD wanted to go to law school I would encourage her to try to get in a top school for grad because, given the employment rate of lawyers, it matters. I received a full ride in both my undergrad and Ph.D programs at a state school and am doing exactly what I want to without being bogged down by a ton of debt. I will encourage DD to attend in state public schools and really distinguish herself at those places. I think the entire system is nuts and I work in it. That is just me though;)!

Some of these messages make it sound like such a simple choice: do the right thing and go to a state public and don't be bogged down with debt, or make a mistake and go to a private college and be a debt serf in perpetuity. It's like there's a whiff of negativity about private colleges that's the same negativity people have about giftedness (i.e. "Elitism! Meh.")

Thing is, some elite colleges don't provide loans as part of financial aid. Meanwhile, that in-state tuition advantage diminishes every year (UC costs $35,000 per year now). Yes, there are scholarships, but the terms for keeping them every year can be onerous (e.g. needing a 3.5-3.8 average is common, as is a high credit load).

Then there is the fact that students tend to get a lot more attention at private colleges than at state universities. At my college (which is not much bigger now than when I attended), a giant lecture class like introductory chem had 50 students. Multiple choice tests were not used.

There is also the fact that private colleges won't cancel a class due to low enrollment or force students to take classes over the summer when they could be working at a summer job or in an internship in their field. Students definitely get more attention at a private college.

I'm not defending admissions practices that have led to crazy arms races in terms of GPAs and student extracurricular activity rosters by any means. I'm also not defending the obscene costs of college in this country. I'm just trying to point out that it's not so black and white.

I think that is a good point. I am thinking of a school like, say, Rice University, which I could see being as possibly being a good fit for a gifted kid (but does not have all the crazy Ivy League admissions craziness).

Maybe that is true for private colleges without graduate programs (Amherst, Wesleyan, Williams etc.), but I wonder if it is for the private research universities, for which the admissions mania is most intense.

Princeton has a big focus on paying attention to undergrads (e.g. see here).

I went to a small liberal arts college and see the huge benefit that I got by going there. The concept of taking summer classes because you can't get the spring section you need for your major is non-existent (this is presumably true at big places like Harvard, too).

Really, IMO, it's obscene to force students to pay $35K per year and then expect them to shell out another $6-8K* for summer school because all the sections of Chem 102 were full in the spring, and you'll end up staying an extra year if you don't take this course ASAP.

*My estimate for costs of tuition and fees, plus rent if you could be living at home for free, plus lost wages assuming 20 hours per week at $12 an hour lost (this would be more if you have a higher-paying job like lifeguarding or writing code).

So these costs would have to be added to the in-state public university cost at schools where the need for summer school is common (e.g. anywhere in California). Add a fifth year (very common) and a sixth year (common enough) and you could end up paying almost as much for that California public flagship as you would have for Williams: $35K * 5 years = $175K (assuming no inflation; yeah, right), and we haven't added in summer school yet.

Val,

Thanks for bringing some balance to the conversation. I would go further than that and say that for families not in the top 25% of income, the cheapest 4-year colleges are likely to be elite colleges that are need-blind. About 20% of Harvard students' families pay nothing. Stanford is tuition free up to a household income of $125K.

The cost for private schools rises rapidly from there, and I would estimate that the most pain (as a percentage of income) happens roughly around $200-250K. Families making considerably more than that can comfortably write a check without noticing, and that assumes the unlikely scenario they haven't already saved it ahead of time.

So as a percentage of the total population, it is a fairly small demographic where private schools are more painfully expensive than public schools. The reason this small demographic gets so much attention though is that they are the middle class strivers for whom sending their kids to college is important.

For those in this situation, I recommend sorting potential colleges based upon biggest endowment per student. The ones with the most endowment funds per student are more likely to provide scholarships over loans.

Actually-- if you have a household income between 90 and 200K, that's where I'd say you're in the very worst situation currently-- because you cannot realistically write those checks, and yet many institutions expect you to anyway, or, you know-- just borrow the difference.


The super-elite institutions that offer THAT much assistance at those income levels are few and far between, sadly-- and the competition is incredibly fierce for them.


Along with Val's remarks about an elite LAC, I'd add (and I expect that people may sneer at me, and that's fine) that regional public schools may also be worth looking at. Sure, they may not have the prestige of the giant state flagships like Michigan or UCLA, but some of those schools have individual departments which are STELLAR. They also (like the elite undergrad LAC's) tend to focus on undergraduate liberal arts education.

I graduated from one of them in a class of 5. Four of us went on to earn PhD's, and about 20% of graduates in the decade spanning when I was there went on to earn PhD's at places like MIT, Brown, Nebraska, Cal, UVA, etc. Powerhouses in the field.

I got a LOT of individual attention, was very well-educated, and the thing that seems to have separated my experience from Val's is twofold only, from what I've been able to tell:

1. Most of my peers were as poor as I was, and a lot of us were commuters who worked or had family obligations,

2. No, not everyone around me was super-bright, and yes, sometimes that was annoying, but in my STEM classes this effect mostly went away, because there my classmates were pretty darned bright.

Okay, the school sometimes lacked the most modern equipment, too-- but at least undergrads could learn by DOING, rather than watching someone else doing. Ahem.

When I looked at the difference between a relatively modest pair of LAC's within our state (34-46K annual tuition) and a small public directional (8K annual tuition), I found it difficult to justify the additional expense, knowing what I know about those smaller public institutions. To be clear, that difference would have amounted to about 20K annually given DD's profile and our income level, and the resultant aid offered at those schools, which accept something less than 50% of applicants. They are selective, just not super selective.

But no, it isn't simple by any means.


There are a lot of things to consider, and fit is a thing that is hard to place a value on, but it's very important. DH and I have the same graduate degree but came there via very different routes-- I wouldn't have succeeded at his undergraduate institution in classes of 500, and he might not have flourished at mine, living under a microscope.

As someone who attended State U for undergrad, I agree that you can get an excellent education at a good public university.

But since I brought up the private school endowments, I want to point out an article in the NY Times last year that ranked colleges by endowment per student: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/09/upshot/top-colleges-that-enroll-rich-middle-class-and-poor.html

There are a handful of colleges with endowments of $1M or more per student. They include HYPMS, Swarthmore and Ponoma. Not far behind are Amherst and Grinnell.

Grinnell? Apparently Grinnell is a college with a 25% admission rate and $850K in endowment per student, far above Columbia, Cornell, and UPenn that are languishing with about $200-$300K per student but which remain much more selective. Grinnell apparently puts its endowment money to use as well--about 25% of the incoming class gets a Pell grant, one of the highest percentages in the chart.

For women, Wellesley is at $600K per student with a 28% admissions rate. Richmond is above $400k per student with a 31% admissions rate. There is no guarantee that a large endowment automatically means generous financial aid. However as someone who works in finance and with some universities as clients, I know that the endowment strongly influences how much financial aid is possible.

Instead of speculating, it is simpler and more accurate to use the "net price calculators" that all colleges are now required to have.

I was not online over the long weekend and have just caught up on all the discussion. I perhaps should have been more clear that the 200K figure was over and above the amount we have saved. HowlerKarma is correct that as an out of state student attending one of the top California schools, the debt would have been substantially higher than that without savings.

HowlerKarma is also correct that the University of Washington is expensive for middle income parents. Taken from their website today, incoming IN STATE freshman can expect to pay $27,112, while out of state students will pay $48,231 per year. Not a lot of aid available either.

Harvard has the best aid, truly generous, and if she had gotten in there DD would have gone.

Most other schools have gone to primarily need based aid for in state students and no aid at all for out of state students. Private schools treat everyone the same. Like many other parents, we saved, and the interest and appreciation did not keep up with the 10-20% annual tuition increases seen in the last decade.

Some estimates (see link https://www.massmutual.com/planning...df94531cb3a4a110VgnVCM100000ee6d06aaRCRD) estimate that public universities will cost $107,244 per year in 2030 if there is 10% inflation in price. Not many families will have upwards of $428,000 saved and this rate of growth seems unsustainable to me.

This is a difficult decision for most families, and I appreciate the thoughtful discussion.

I was reading through all this and wanted to add my commentary - My DH went to a state school for undergrad and MBA. He had gotten out of the service and state schools were free due to a veteran grant. Post MBA he ended up getting hired by McKinsey - hired straight from a state school MBA program!! He graduated with minimal debt and a fantastic job. Yes, there were many McK coworkers that had graduated from top MBA schools but he found a large group that went to his state school for undergrad.

According to http://trends.collegeboard.org/coll...ge-rates-growth-published-charges-decade college costs have been rising from 2% to 4% above inflation. If inflation runs at 2%, the target of the Federal Reserve, that would mean 4% to 6% annual increases in college prices. There exist prepaid tuition plans, which allow you to pay for tuition at today's prices. The MA plan is at http://www.mefa.org/products/u-plan/ .

A college degree does substantially raise expected earnings over a 40-year career. Although college is too expensive, its affordability should not be judged solely on whether a student or his/her parents can easily pay the cost from current earnings. Students should be willing to take on some debt for an asset whose average value is several hundred thousand dollars, and parents should be saving for a known future expense.

As a parent of an elementary age child this post is making my head hurt and my wallet;)!

My wife and I will very much "notice" checks of $65K (times 12, for three children), regardless of what we are earning, and I don't think we are unusual.

There are a couple of other considerations that I haven't yet seen in this thread that have made a difference for us (2 kids now in high school in the US midwest).

One is that we made a choice to send our kids to public rather than private school. Although the public schools have not been perfect, overall they have worked out okay for our kids and I don't think the value added by the local privates would have warranted the expense. (Here is a link to a past post about what we like about the public high school our kids go to.)

Early on, we did save for private school tuition so we could have private school as a back up plan if the public school got too bad. It helped me in advocating to know I could walk away from the public school at a moment's notice. We eventually took those savings and put them into 529 (education) accounts in our kids names. Earnings in these accounts are tax free if used for college expenses. Our 529 funds have been invested in the stock market and have grown much faster than the rate at which college expenses have increased, although we were quite lucky in making a big investment in 2009, when the stock market was at its lowest.

The upshot is that our 529s can now more than cover the state flagship and can come close to covering privates.

Writing such checks enables a person to recognize that they are truly contributing to the global financial hypereconomy, as well as creating jobs.

Without such economic activity driven by private economic actors, we would eventually slide back into recession and nobody wants that.

Didn't want this to get lost in moderation-delay-- it's a great point!




I think that Tom Petty says it best, really--


If you don't know* where you're going, any road will take you there.

* I'd argue that probably nobody really does, either, life having this persistently random quality about it.

Of course, Jon is perceptive as ever. In a completely random moment this morning I was pondering the fact that I could have chosen MUCH better if I were interested in Glory and showered with accolades and fame. And then I started humming-- and laughing.

Chilean government is thinking about making college/university free - in March 2106. I think they've been talking about it for a couple of years but it was posted on a ed tech blog (EdSurge) today.

(https://www.edsurge.com/n/2015-05-2...m_term=0_0f1ec25b60-9dc2ae973e-292106585).

Other countries, such as Finland, are still tuition-free for students - including international students. While this may not be an option for all, I would not be surprised to see more and more US students look abroad for a degree.(http://www.studyinfinland.fi/tuition_and_scholarships/tuition_fees)

This article, "Why Finland and Norway still shun university tuition fees - even for international students" (http://sciencenordic.com/why-finland-and-norway-still-shun-university-tuition-fees-%E2%80%93-even-international-students) makes some valid points:

1. "Yet perhaps the most important difference between the Nordic countries and countries such as the UK is the ethos of education as a civil right and a public service rather than a commodity. Degrees are not seen as commodities to be exchanged in the marketplace."

2. "A high level of education is beneficial for the development of society including business and industry, making it a collective economic issue. With this argument, education is defined neither as a private investment nor a commodity, but a civil right. So, individual human beings should not have to pay for it."

Fundamentally, I think many in the US (and many other countries too) still view education as a private investment and not as a collective economic issue or civil rights issue, which some of here might contest. Ironically, though, many Nordic countries, including Finland, do not provide g/t services per se.

That's just silly.

As the UK and other similar countries like the USA massively invest in the assets that are higher education degrees, ultimately the countries with the most assets will have enough financial value to simply purchase the Nordic countries.

I'm glad to hear from so many who went to state schools and were successful. I work in a science field with close ties to the local uni and most of the faculty in that department went to non-ivy schools for their terminal degrees. At other institutions I have been surrounded by ivy league level terminal degree holders. In my field what counts for admission to graduate school is grades, research experience, publications (the number of undergrads publishing is amazing) and the institution they attended. Students who went to Community College and have lower grades after transferring are looked at more harshly, as are students with good grades from places known to have grade inflation. At the junior faculty level it is all about who you trained with, your publication record, and your funding situation (grant in hand =job). Thus I conclude that these things vary by institution, field, and politics (the university kind, not the national kind).

On another note, this seems reminiscent of "grooming" your DC for college where you strive to guess what will impress (grades, test scores, letters of rec, working or volunteering in DC's intended field), each field will have admission criteria for the next level. The problem, IMO, with the big step up to the real world is balancing what you can help your DC achieve with what will actually help them move into the real world. In that regard it seems just like the college admissions game. Should they take piano, violin, or penny whistle (points for quirkiness)? How will this impact their future activity level and achievements? (competitions? orchestra? youth symphony? ) Should they work during undergrad? Will it hurt their grades, ability to volunteer, decrease time spent in the computer lab/writing an app/learning about the next big thing? For each decision, there is a balance between the investment of time and money vs. benefit and long term consequences.

For DD's undergraduate degree the calculation is not simple or straight forward, but it is clear: Investment (lots of money vs. debt free) + time (equivalent) = benefit (prestige+ degree vs. accomplishments + degree)

Yes, I'm throwing in accomplishments on one term because I think DD will be able to volunteer and maybe work in her field without worrying about pay levels since she will not be racking up debt.

Well-stated, CP!



Jon:

Like a sort of Midnight-Sun-meets-Club-Med?

I thought the goal was to purchase Boardwalk and Park Place, thereby having the option to build hotels. Does Finland have hotels?

Here is a link to a 2013 article about the University of Washington's tuition increases over the last 10 years at a rate 5 times that of inflation.

http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/uw-tuition-whatrsquos-behind-the-rising-costs/

"Free" university tuition was discussed at some length in a thread about a year ago.

Of course human beings are paying for it; Being "free" at point of service merely transfers the costs to other human beings.

No, but if you buy four houses, you can trade them for a hostel.

Tiny houses? Or is there a minimum square footage requirement? Must they be owned outright?

Who cares if they have hotels?

The important thing is that the the sheer overwhelming financial power present in higher education diplomas can buy entire Nordic countries.

*That* is reason enough for every citizen to take out $1,000,000 in student loans and load up on as many degrees as possible.

Anyway, I'm certain that they have hotels. And ice. And hotels made of ice. That we can buy with our college educations. And live in. Even if they are made of ice.

Chile's education system is the most expensive in the world due to Pinochet; not the US as others may think (http://www.attn.com/stories/836/chile-makes-college-tuition-free).

Perhaps Chilean students are having the last laugh here because the students protested for the tuition free. It's worst than the US with student debt.

Last I looked, Chile is not a Nordic country and maybe offers another example to follow. Then again, does American exceptionalism rule here?

I'm surprised nobody has mentioned the book Excellent Sheep by William Deresiewicz. It is a must read for anybody making this important decision (state school vs elite), especially for gifted students who have more depth and creativity than most.

You know, I read once about this guy who budgeted for Christmas presents by assigning each family member a number from 1 to 10 (not ranking per se, like each kid was a 6 or whatever), then adding it all up, dividing his budget by that total, and multiplying the resulting number by each person's... shall we say, gift index.
Sometimes I feel like you almost have to choose a college that way: cost index times learning index times best fit index (and times prestige index, if you're that sort of person). Better than putting them all in a hat, I guess.

On a side note, I thought the quote, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there" was the Cheshire Cat, but I was wrong -- although sometimes it feels like this whole mess just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. :-\

Yes, good book, it was quoted two weeks ago, in a post on a related topic: Colleges ranked by value added.

It wasn't the cat? Who said it? Alice?

Can't resist: http://cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=83796

I'm hoping this is going to work for our family, but I have no idea. What do colleges do if you actually quit your job or reduce hours before filling out the FAFSA or whatever it is? Do they look askance? I realize this sounds nuts, but my employment is grant-based and/or freelance and thus, I have the ability to ramp my income up and down. We are also used to this.

Our family is very financially weird. We have a rather low income, but also a very cheap mortgage and no other debt. College savings are not huge, but on the other hand, we have quite a bit saved for retirement. We are probably doing everything wrong.

I wonder if the solution is to purchase a really big house (with cash) to live in and then cut your income to below $65K, or whatnot, a year.

The Florida bankruptcy approach.

Ah, they don't look at your house? There you go. Take all our savings and upgrade! (while the kids are moving out...hmmm)

I guess I'd need to quit well before we apply since they look at the prior year's income. Oh hell, I don't know. I worry because my income is annoyingly unpredictable, making it hard to know how much we can save or what to expect at the time we will actually apply for aid.

From yesterday's UK Guardian paper, Bernie Sanders is looking to make debt-free (not tuition-free) college the key campaign for 2016 - http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/27/democrats-debt-free-college-bernie-sanders

I'll add here that I have family in VT; one of whom recently finished doing a doctorate in physical therapy at UVM. She had to take out over $100,000+ in student loans to do it. However, IF she stays in VT, then the loan is forgiven. So there are deals with loan forgiveness if you're doing certain degrees in certain states.

My point here is that parents should cast a very wide net with their college searches - beyond local, regional, and national. Others may differ, but the savings and benefits can be substantial.

Ultramarina - I have a friend who recently filed for bankruptcy. She has a 17-yr-old who was applying to various schools in MA (not top ones). She told me that he got into every single school and got quite a bit of financial aid as well. She said all her friends who saved like the devil for college and who made much money barely got anything or not even a penny. I'm not saying anyone wants to file bankruptcy or does so deliberately to get financial aid for their children to study at college. However, there is a silver lining here and hope for those of us on quite a bit less than $90K.

Thanks to DD's private school tuition and expenses related to her music lessons, we have nothing left to save so we will qualify for financial aid unless someone dies beforehand.

I know it's completely impolite to talk about but this has happened to people we know. Their inheritances is going straight into paying for college.

No, it was the cat. He was expressing the same sentiment, but with different words.

Regarding the purchasing of Nordic countries, I read about a Finnish system where every baby got this adorable box of things that even transformed into a bed. It really only works because there's a decreasing birth rate and less than 60,000 births yearly, but...lovely country, Finland.
Also, I keep on hearing commercials telling me to BUY BELIZE!! (just call our 1800 number), and I always vaguely wonder how one can buy a whole country, and how the people of Belize feel about the matter. I always wait for them to say, "But wait! There's more!" or to throw something in free, but they never do.

I don't know whether an offer of steak knives would have the same appeal as, say, an option to purchase Guatemala. Fine coffee growing region, Gautemala, which could appeal to vegetarians far more than the steak knives would.

I'm no longer worried all that much about paying for either college or retirement.



I got a great investment deal in my e-mail, see. I expect to be getting my payment from Nigeria any day now.


I wonder if IKEA makes college degrees...

Any of you who have adopted children from DCF, or whose children have ever been in DCF custody (foster care), should look into whether your state provides tuition-waivers at state universities for them. I believe CA, TX, FL, and MA do, and there may be others.

And HK, I bet IKEA does. They're flat, yk.

Sadly, most universities seem to look only at income and number of students currently in or about to be in college. Money saved as cash or stocks did not seem to impact the cost estimator very much. FAFSA has to be filled out every year, so decreased income would have to last at least four years (the calendar year before high school graduation until senior year of college).

That is a really awesome tip, aeh. I'm looking to see if it applies in my state, because I have friends that it could apply to.


ETA: (It does-- but stipulates when the foster care had to have occurred-- and it's during the teen years, not early childhood. That's too bad.)

Bankruptcy it is!

If you still have a teenager at home, there is still plenty of time to engage in behavior egregious enough to get them tossed into the foster care system.

I think I just finalized my college savings plan.

LOL. That is the best plan so far!

Maybe, I will upgrade my house and work pro bono for a nonprofit for a couple of years before my child goes to college

Some college look into home equity and others don't:

http://www.thecollegesolution.com/will-your-home-equity-hurt-financial-aid-chances/

I have no idea how accurate the article is but it doesn't contradict what I have been hearing about college financial aid packages.

Well, and the nice thing is that this can work even AFTER they enroll in a post-secondary institution if you accelerate them a bit.


Yay! I knew that radical acceleration would pay off handsomely in the end. {/snark}

The First-Ever National Survey of College Graduate Outcomes is interesting.

I just posted this June 3rd BBC article "How US students get a university degree for free in Germany (http://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-32821678?post_id=10204472521873542_10204472521833541#_=_) - on another thread.

I think the BBC gives a good breakdown on the costs for US students. Interesting that most of the classes are in English. Now, I wonder how much the situation is different in Denmark, Finland, Norway, Sweden, Iceland, Argentina, and other places - to Germany.

At the moment, England and Wales have fees for university students; students from Scotland do not pay fees at Scottish universities (I'd move to Scotland in two seconds IF I could or dh could get A job). However, the fees for universities in England and Wales are still considerably cheaper than in the US.

I do like the idea of having an annual report on what recent grads do in their first year post-graduation. However some may say that the initial enthusiasm for the report quickly fades when one reads that approximately 200 programs provided data for the report. Unfortunately, this seems an extraordinarily small, self-selected sample which is highly unlikely to be representative of college/university outcomes as a whole.

The members of the National Association of Colleges and Employers (NACE), the creators of the report, are listed here, and do not appear to be separated by colleges and employers.

I find the concept of knowledge rate, rather than survey response rate, to be fascinating: Research sources may include employers, social media... Cyber-stalking, much?

It's not as simple for a U.S. student to take advantage of some of these free universities as it seems. A friend of DD's wanted to apply to a school in Finland. Classes would be in English, tuition free but there would still be travel & living costs. But she figured out that to get in she needed to pass an exam where the closest place it was administered was in Europe. She would have needed to fly to Europe to take this exam to hopefully get into a "free" university. Probably would have been cheaper in the long run but it was logistically difficult and she didn't have the money or the time that spring to follow through.