ocean view
Full time employment: Posting here.
DS was fortunate to have been accepted by 7 universities. Now he has less than 2 weeks left to make a decision. All of the schools at the top of his list are out of state, and his #1 choice (Univ. of Washington) is very competitive for admittance so they only give academic scholarships if you walk on water (we do not qualify for need based scholarship). Several of the other out-of-state schools have offered meager ($10k/yr) to very generous ($27k/yr) scholarships. He wants to study social psychology (research type work), and will need a Masters at a minimum and possibly a Phd.
For the undergrad degree, is $37K/yr for tuition ($53k/yr tuition+living) too much to spend on college? I run every spending decision through a cost vs value decision in my head and this one is really hard for me to swallow. DS is feeling this as well, which is why he hasn't committed yet. We've had many discussions about possibly needing student loans, or doing his graduate work part-time while he works. Are we paying for the name recognition? For comparison, the other schools range between $23K-44K/year for tuition+living expenses, after scholarships.
We have about $155K in 529s and the additional cost wouldn't be a major hardship, my question is more about the future value of his education. How do you know if you are over buying? Does anyone have real world experience on what a research psychologist can earn? What I find online is about $110K on the high end and, in my opinion, it would seem that this school would be too much. But I really don't know. I don't want my kid to the one who spent $300K on college for career that pays $65K/yr.
btw, WA makes gaining residency extremely difficult in order to be eligible for in-state tuition, so that is off the table for us. The school does, however, offer academic scholarships for sophomores on up, so (fingers-crossed) he could get some of those, but I don't want to bank on that.
If he chooses Univ of WA, I guess I'll be posting in the Blow That Dough thread!
For the undergrad degree, is $37K/yr for tuition ($53k/yr tuition+living) too much to spend on college? I run every spending decision through a cost vs value decision in my head and this one is really hard for me to swallow. DS is feeling this as well, which is why he hasn't committed yet. We've had many discussions about possibly needing student loans, or doing his graduate work part-time while he works. Are we paying for the name recognition? For comparison, the other schools range between $23K-44K/year for tuition+living expenses, after scholarships.
We have about $155K in 529s and the additional cost wouldn't be a major hardship, my question is more about the future value of his education. How do you know if you are over buying? Does anyone have real world experience on what a research psychologist can earn? What I find online is about $110K on the high end and, in my opinion, it would seem that this school would be too much. But I really don't know. I don't want my kid to the one who spent $300K on college for career that pays $65K/yr.
btw, WA makes gaining residency extremely difficult in order to be eligible for in-state tuition, so that is off the table for us. The school does, however, offer academic scholarships for sophomores on up, so (fingers-crossed) he could get some of those, but I don't want to bank on that.
If he chooses Univ of WA, I guess I'll be posting in the Blow That Dough thread!