Help Me Recommend Colleges for My Kids

In My Humble Opinion
1

The Kunilou twins will be graduating from high school soon and that means we’ll have three children in college next fall.

Thank you for your condolences.

Each of the twins is struggling to decide between academically solid, but uninspring state universities and glamorous, well-known prestigious institutions of higher learning. Despite scholarship offers from the well-known schools, they would still cost roughly 3x as much as the state universities.

Mrs. Kunilou and I have made it clear that we can only contribute X dollars to each of them, and after that, they’re on their own. They say they understand, but frankly I don’t think they have any concept of the difference between graduating with $10,000 in student loans to pay off versus $60,000.

And one of them is already talking about graduate school.

Fellow Dopers, which of these two viewpoints would you agree with:

  1. Go to the more prestigious school. Your degree will gi ve you an advantage with future employers/graduate schools, and after all, they’re more prestigious for a reason. You’re going to end up in debt anyway, so go for it.

  2. Go to the state school. The prestigious school is probably better known because of its graduate schools, not the undergraduate program. No one is impressed by a bachelor’s degree anymore, and future employers/graduate schools will look more at what you’ve actually done than where your degree came from. At the very worst, you can always transfer after you get your general education requirements out of the way.

2

How big are the schools they’re looking at? I went to a small state university (about 3,000 students), and loved it. Because it was so small, all of my classes, even the freshman intros, were taught by professors, not overworked grad students. The professors weren’t the best known in terms of research and publishing, but they clearly enjoyed teaching and interacting with the students. I had classes with 20 students in them, while friends who went to “prestige” schools had those same classes with 150 students.

Undergrad is mostly about getting a solid foundation in the basics. For graduate schools, you should be more selective about prestige/research facilities/etc. My gut would be to go with the state schools.

3

I agree more with going to a state school, especially if you can find one with established honors programs and undergraduate research programs. My state university practically churns out winners of prestigious scholarships and such just like the more prestigious private universities. If you’re a Rhodes scholar or have a Fulbright scholarship, it doesn’t really matter where you went for undergrad.

Of course, I’m still a college student myself, so I couldn’t say what’s better in the long run…but I know most people from my university honors college are leaving with an excellent education and plenty to put on a resume.

And they’ll probably get the hint about student loans once they have to sign the paperwork. That was one of the more terrifying things I did (“Oh god, I really am an adult! I’m in debt by $5000 already!”), though I certainly didn’t think much about it before then.

4

The state schools they’re considering each have about 10,000 students. Two are in small towns, while another one is in a mid-size city.

The more prestigious schools range from barely 4,000 students up to almost 40,000. They’re located in larger cities.

5

Well, I went for the best of both worlds. I did my first two years at an academically solid state school, which between state, federal and school grants ended up being essentially free, then transferred to a prestigious big name school. I ended up with only $16,000 worth of debt, and a diploma with a well-known name on it.

6

Have the kids considered going the junior college route for the first two years? In California, at least, 1) it’s a heck of a lot cheaper, and 2) you’re guaranteed transfer admission to a UC school if your GPA is above a certain level. Certainly not glamorous, but they’ll save money (possibly for grad school). My own personal father went this route (junior college -> UC Berkeley -> grad school), and his life went marvelously well.

7

And is STILL going marvelously well. (I don’t want to jinx it…) :slight_smile:

8

I suppose it might make a difference what field of study they’re considering. I expect a pre-med degree from Johns Hopkins might mean more than a similar degree from Wassamatta U. And perhaps in some companies, your alma mater matters, but for others, it’s the degree itself that counts. And once you get some work experience, the actual school means less.

As for personal experience, I’m an engineering graduate from Purdue. When people ask where I studied, it’s because they want to know what football team I supposedly root for. Like I care.

And being the parent of a student who’s going to a state university, you can take my word as authority! State schools rock! :smiley:

9

When I was in HS, in the 70’s, I went through this same thing. An MIT graduate I knew gave me this advice “You can get the same education at either place, if you want it, but you’ll have more fun at [Large state school].” I think he was right, but there is more to the story than that.

Graduate schools do care where your degree comes from, although the glamorous private school might not have the better reputation - it all depends on the field. Taking an obvious example, MIT has a better rep in engineering disciplines than most state schools, but for literature? Not so much. Less obvious are fields like veterinary science. If your twins really do know what they want to do, then they should go to the school that is best in those fields and that is located somewhere they want to live.

If they don’t know, or you think they might change, then the state school is likely to be the better choice. State schools tend to be solid in a wide range of fields, so your twins can experiment more. After which, if they so decide, they can transfer like Lucretia.

BTW, have times changed w.r.t. school loans? I did not have to start paying my undergraduate loans until after graduate school.

10

I went to both a state-owned university and then transferred to a smaller, more prestigious private school (and much more expensive).

Financially speaking, as someone who worked in the financial aid office of the private college, your kids may actually be better off going to the more prestigious school as they may have more funds to distribute. You didn’t say which prestigious schools they are considering, but most “glamorous and well-known” schools are privately owned. I would almost guarantee you that your kids would be offered a much higher percentage of financial aid based on tuition and expenses than they would be offered at the state uni.

You can submit a copy of your income tax return to the financial aid offices of the schools in question and ask them to give you an estimate of what kind and amounts of aid you can expect. Then compare them and see what amount of expenses are left for you to cover.

Good luck.

11

It really depends on your kids.

I went to MIT undergrad, and Illinois for grad school. Going to MIT really helped me throughout the years, not the least in getting a good research assistanceship. Illinois is a very good school, and an undergrad can get very involved, but they’d need to push. Places like MIT, even more so now, make it easy for you to meet professors and get involved in research. But, if a kid wants to sit back and get a degree, and isn’t very interested in research or academics, it’s a waste of money.

My older daughter went to Berkeley her senior year of high school and hated it. She went
to the University of Chicago and loves it, and has taken advantage of what is there. My younger daughter is very different, and would be very happy in a state school, not having outlandish academic ambitions.

BTW, I had plenty of fun at MIT. However it seems that the admissions office now thinks my class was dumb but interesting, as opposed to recent classes who are smart and boring.

12

So far, the only financial aid the kids have been offered is scholarships.

The glamorous, well-known private school has offered a package equal to about 1/6 of the annual tuition/fees/books/room and board.

The uninspiring state university has also offered a scholarship equal to about 1/6 of the annual cost, so the incentives are even.

However, the out of pocket cost after scholarship for the glamorous school will be three times as much as for the state school. I can’t see how the private school can possibly make up that difference.

13

It depends a great deal on their major/career/graduate school aspirations, what part of the country/world they want to live in (both for school and afterwards) and how close to home they want to be.

I chose a local state school (KU) because I

  1. had no aspirations for graduate school,
  2. wanted to live close-ish to home and
  3. had a major in a field (film production) where your degree doesn’t matter as much as your skill.

My best friend from high school chose a large expensive private university (U. Penn, after a stint at a small private women’s college that didn’t work out) because:

  1. she wanted to go to grad school from the beginning
  2. she wanted to live farther from home
  3. her degree (anthropology) is better looked upon with a big name attached.

So there is more than money involved. My gut says state school for at least two years. Find out before starting if credits can be transferred. Let your counselors know from the beginning that you are planning on transferring and have them work things out with the other school. Plus, if they get to school and find out (insert major) isn’t for them, they may have many many more options than at the smaller universities. My boyfriend came to college to be an astronomer. Now he’s studying film and anthropology.

-Visit each campus. Look at the dorms. Cost of living for off-campus? How much is a one bedroom or a studio?

-Can they do the kind of work they want to do at this school? I wouldn’t have gone to Harvard had they paid me because they don’t have a film production program.

-Can they live in the town where the school is? Location means a lot. I didn’t go to NYU because I don’t like NYC. My brother went to a great school, but in a town where the big college hang-out was the wal*mart and there were no coffee shops.

I personally don’t have any college debt due to going to a less expensive school and having a scholarship that covered about half the cost of tuition (not books or anything else). My friend from above has about $100,000 (I think).

14

All I can say is that I had the grades and the test scores to go to all but the top, top schools…and I went to Penn State.

Best decision I ever made. I had great fun, got a great education, and I had no student loans. And that made my first job out of college that much better! The bigger schools also have excellent job placement programs for grads. I turned down job offers out of college!

And my wife went to Penn State as well and now she has a Master’s from Penn and is currently working on a Phd at Penn. And I expect to start grad school in another year or two (when my wife finishes up).

I don’t regret not going to a Private school for one second.

15

I’ve done both. I spent 2 years at the private, high-priced school and, after dropping out and working a while, I’m now in the big state university.

I’d say Big State University all the way. The only time the school your degree comes from really matters is when you’re lining up your first job, if that. Frankly, I wish I’d gone to a BSU from the start instead of wasting my time at the private school.

In my experience, the small private school was more homogenous. If you didn’t fit in that particular culture, you were just an outsider. Whereas there is no real “culture” at Big State University, you have so many different groups of people that one doesn’t dominate. The professors at BSU are more forward-thinking, more in tune with technology, less prone to the giant egos of the Small Private School professors. At small private school, they might’ve had three sections of a class you needed, all at 8am. At BSU, there are 10 sections of the same class, all at different times. Life is just plain easier. There’s just more at my BSU: More teams, more activities, more (and different) people, more classes, more sections of classes…

16

As much as I am pro state-school and would love to say skip the private universities all together, I really recommend that your kids visit each school of interest. There are, of course, the regular day tours, but if possible, see if there are overnight programs. I did one of these–it was some sort of special honors weekend or something. Your twins may know immediately if they want to go to a particular school based upon the ‘feeling’ they get.

Honestly, when all is said and done, this is a place where your children will spend presumably the next four years of their lives, and they need to feel that the environment is one that they can be both comfortable and challenged in. (Does that seem strange to say?)

17

As I’m sure you’ve gleened from the previous posters anecdotes and advice, there is no right or wrong answer to your question. You will find that people will argue either option. In my opinion though, the only valid answer is “it depends”. It depends on what your kids want; what they value.

I feel that college is hard enough without the kid preferring to be elsewhere. I wanted my kids to be enthusiastic about heading off to school, and I felt that if I could send them to a school that they liked, the more successful they’d be and the more they’d enjoy their college experience.

Some people have made the connection that when you state “prestigious”, you mean “private”. This is not necessarily so. There are many, many prestigious public institutions.

Ignoring cost for a moment, there is less of a difference between public and private than there is between large and small. To my kids, size was what made the difference for them. They each wanted a school where there was a lot “happening”; where the school’s sports teams were a big deal and appear on ESPN (my son in particular wants to be able to do what I have done – cheer for my alma mater when they appear on TV); and where there was a diversified student body. A big school gave them more of these things than a smaller school.

My son is a senior at Michigan State University, and my daughter is a freshman at the University of Wisconsin - Madison. They had the option of smaller state schools (LaCross, Oshkosh, Eau Claire) and smaller private colleges (Washington University in St. Louis for example), but they decided that they wanted to attend a bigger school.

My daughter even had a partial scholarship for the University of Southern California (which would have helped to offset their horrendous fees!), but even that campus wasn’t big enough for her.

Cost? Private schools can be VERY expensive, but as was mentioned by someone already, they often have the most money to grant. I could’ve actually sent my daughter out-of-state to Washington University for less out-of-pocket costs than I’m spending in-state at Madison, because of the grants (not loans) they are able to provide. And in-state is a whole lot cheaper than what I’m spending at Michigan State.

Bottom line? Figure out what is important, and make the decision for those reasons. Is that easy? Nope.

Good luck.

18

Oops. There is one more thing that I wanted to reinforce from GMRyujin’s post.

At a bigger school you get more choices of classes and majors. As an example, USC offers about 90 majors (of which about 30 are in Entertainment or Arts). Madison offers about 140 majors.

My daughter doesn’t know what she wants to major in yet, so it made a lot of sense for her to pick a school where she has lots of options. Since she knew she didn’t want the Arts, then Madison offered more than double the number of possible career paths that USC could offer her.

19

I agree it really depends on what your kids want to do and what majors they want.

Sorry, but I’m apparently the complete opposite of GMRyujin. I went to a small, private (but only prestigious in this area - basically unknown everywhere else) school for 3 years, then finished my degree at a state school. For me, the smaller private school was the best choice I ever made, because the academics there are extremely rigorous and campus life was scads of fun. The state school I went to was Penn State, and I absolutely effing hated it because I felt the academics were not up to par, I hate the ‘sink or swim’ ethos, and there were other various and sundry reasons I won’t get into so as not to bore.

Really, instead of framing the question as “state vs. private,” advise them to choose the school where they fit best. Whatever their priorities are, they should pick the school that fulfills them best.

20

Did you mean the opposite of slu?

I think the key is choose the school where you fit in best. I had the test scores, but not the high school grades, to get in anywhere. I went to Penn State, in part because I had no idea what I wanted to do, and I most certainly didn’t want any oversight. I ended up in my original area - physics, and added math, which made PSU seem a smaller school from the stand point of interactions with professors, because even at really big schools, very few people major in those fields. However, I was free to consider almost any field. My graduate school choices would have been broader going to MIT or Harvard, and the latter would certainly have been better at almost every field I considered (ancient history, math, physics, biology), but not if I had switched to an agricultural or engineering field. One friend switched from Meterology to Petroleum Engineering, because he discovered a talent for organic chemistry.

In the majority of fields, large schools definitely are what you make of them. You can get a rigorous education almost anywhere the subject matter is taught. But is that what your kids want or need? Do they want a small school, where everyone knows your name, or a large school where they can easily disappear after some indiscretion? Do they want a city school, with all that offers, or an ag school? (Me, I like the outdoors and would be bored stiff in NYC. Not many New Yorkers are going to relish State College or Boulder.)

If they want an MBA, places like Harvard are hard to beat, and the extra cost can be a worthwhile investment. If they want to teach, there are many fine teaching schools. Ultimately, they have to make the call.