My husband’s alma mater is on that list, and its his choice for a target school for our kids. So we’ve been planning and saving like crazy to be able to afford $50k+ a year for two kids (halfway there!)
BUT, there is no reason why they NEED to go to a $50k a year school. Many of those schools don’t have a better reputation than the state school. And if you are majoring in anthropology, the benefits are arguable. I want to drive an Audi TT turbo. I can argue that it handles better than my Prius. Its cuter. Its better engineered. But at the end of the day - what I NEED is a car that gets me 28 miles to work and back - and fits two kids and a dog - and still lets me save for those kids. That isn’t the TT.
If you want your kids to have the “best opportunities” then SAVE to give them the “best opportunities” - that’s going to take sacrifice. Or say “oh, I wish we could afford to send you to Loyola, but unless you get some great scholarships, its out of the question.”
But I think the grant and scholarship plays in as well. People assume there is a lot of grant and scholarship money out there - so they don’t save. But for the middle class, that’s drying up. My husband’s alumni fund is basically saying “fewer kids will get a lot of money.”
I think the student loan debt bubble is another one that will eventually burst. People are paying too much for their educations - on credit.
So, what if your kids don’t want to attend college, but would rather attend a cooking school or a trade school or even just start a business with an idea they had right out of high school? Is that saved money earmarked only for Good College" or would you being willing to let them use it for seed money for a business, or for two years of cooking school and rent in the city? Would you try to talk them out of their plans?
If they become mechanics, they can use it for trade school and setting up their own business. If they go to a state school, the remainder can be used for grad school - or a downpayment on a house when they graduate if they decide not to go to grad school. If they don’t use it for education and business, we’ll stick it in trust to dole out to them over time (I don’t think 18 year olds - or even 22 years olds - should get handed $200,000).
But its OUR money, not theirs. We get to veto the purpose they put it to. And we might decide that we need that money more to travel in our retirement than to let them become folk musicians.
A lot of my husband’s college friends are still our friends (and some of the people he went to college with are my friends and not his). Its a small, insular world I live in socially
My husband has done pretty well. But if I were a betting woman and working odds off the success of people who went to his small spendy liberal arts college, and the friends who went to the University of Minnesota…I’d say you got more bang for your buck at the U. Nothing like going to a $50k a year school (it was only $30k or something back then) and ending up an English teacher, a delivery driver, a SAHM, a community organizer, or the aforementioned folk musician…all very worthy jobs, all which they enjoyed doing and found satisfaction in (well, the delivery driver thing turned into a 15 year long stopgap that ended in grad school) - none of which are opportunities that you really loose from going to a mediocre state school.
Now, I wouldn’t mind if my kids end up there. A small liberal arts school is a little like sending your kids to summer camp - or to spend a year abroad. The experiences they get are really special, not the same as you are going to get at most State schools - I’m just not convinced its a good investment from a financial standpoint - and I wouldn’t want to see my kids $80k in debt on leaving school for it.
I think what continually boggles my mind is the sheer amount of debt that kids pile up these days. I finished my four year degree in five years (I had to work full time and then some in order to pay for things, which meant I couldn’t carry quite enough credits a semester to do it in four) and still only had about 6K in debt when I left, all of which I was able to pay off on my own while supporting myself on my own. Even if I hadn’t been able to get a job right out of college, 6k of debt is something almost anyone can pay off given 5-10 yeas and a modicum of self-discipline.
If I had left school with $60k in debt? It would have stunted my entire adult life, I think.
And are those survey’s positive toward the $50k a year schools no one has ever heard of?
I have a friend whose son is going to Stanford. I think that is worth every penny they are spending to get him there (and they are paying for it out of pocket - no grants or scholarships). I know a Harvard grad or two (or twenty), and just being a Harvard grad opens doors. But, as someone said upthread, is Santa Clara University really worth $50k a year?
The thing though is, that these schools aren’t necessarily “career schools” - my husband’s alma mater is Macalester - a fantastic small liberal arts college where most people I know majored in something like Sociology, Psychology, History or Theatre. They don’t offer a business degree - but you can major in Global Citizenship. People go on to law school, get a masters in education to teach, go onto grad school or flounder for a few years wondering what to do with a bachelors in Media Studies. If you are going to major in History, is it really important to do it at Boston University - if you are going to take out loans to do it? And if you are going to go to Law School (more loans!), is the choice of undergrad that important? As I said, its a great school, its a wonderful experience - and its like spending a summer abroad. Wonderful if you can afford it.
Here’s a list by Kiplingers. Mostly Ivy League and other expensive (and therefore prestigeous) schools as one would expect.
My personal opinion is that if you are going to pick a liberal arts major like History, you probably do want to go to the best school you can get into. A History major from Harvard is a highly educated intellectual. A History major from Random University is some kid who studied a fluff major. At least that is the perception.
List the firms interviewing at Stanford. They are better than the local state school. If you ranked the top interviewing firms for management jobs, you will get better jobs coming out of Stanford than a Cal State. It is a toss-up with some of the UCs, though Cal picks up great jobs thanks to its high ranking and well-deserved reputation.
Graduate programs like to brag about where their students earned their undergrad.
A “Name” on the resume will get you into the short pile for interviewees.
Indeed, I went to a private, ostendibly very expensive school, but one that happens to be among the top five in that list from Kiplingers. I think it has been well worth it. I was specifically told by someone at one company I worked at that the reason they decided to give me a chance was because I had that university on my resume.
As did I, although my school is in the top 30. Still pretty good when you consider how many schools there are.
What I am finding on this board is that many people don’t share the view that the way to get ahead and be successful in your career is to go to a good school and get in with the right sort of company. It may involve significant cost. And afterwards, it may involve a lot of long hours and hard work for demanding bosses and clients. For a lot of people, they just don’t feel it’s worth it. And then they find themselves later on in life, stuck in jobs they hate without a lot of options.
That’s value - as in who has the best students for the money, but it isn’t long term ROI. There isn’t anything there that says you are better off getting an Engineering B.S. from Stanford than from UW-Madison in terms of long term earnings potential (although I believe you are - what I question is if you are better off getting your History degree from Grinnell rather than Iowa State).
So it seems like the discussion has migrated towards the point that was made earlier in the thread which is: The education isn’t what is most valuable at a college, it’s the connotations which come along with it.
All the more reason to say f*&k college…bunch of elitist bastards.
But…I won’t way that. So…college is not for everyone - can you imagine someone like one of Danny McBride’s movie characters ( there’s really people like that ) going to Yale? Or any named college? It would definitely be said that “College just isn’t for him”. Plumber, maybe. Pyrotechnician, sure. College educated businessman, I don’t think it would be a good fit. Plenty of ways for anyone to make money. But college just aint the way for a lot of people. Open doors are useless if you haven’t got the desire to live on the other side of those doors.
Yeah, that’s sort of the point. The idea is to hold yourself to a higher academic and professional standard than most people. If you don’t have the desire to open those doors, that’s your decision. But then don’t expect the rewards either.
The need for massive amounts of remediation is no surprise to me; I help to score assessment essays, and we are placing more and more students into the remedial courses all the time–though I doubt very much that we have enough such courses to meet the need.
But…should there be so much remediation in college? Should there be any?
Well, I don’ think there should be a need for remedial classes, but policies like NCLB (or the Spanish equivalent, the US isn’t the only country with that kind of idiocy) appear to favor “giving everybody a piece of paper” over “educating everybody”.
I’ve always said that there are three paths you can take, none better than the others after high school: College, the workforce, or military. Each teaches you something valuable.
