Deciding on a college

[baskin]

Am now at the point where a grand child is about to head off to college. Is there a forum around where parents discuss just how to choose a college? College A is offering $35,000 as sort of a sports scholarship. College B is a true Ivy League school at $80,000. Another possibility in MIT! Which to choose from, how? This is big money, is there a specialized forum to discuss this stuff?

 

[Sunset]

I would pick the College based on what field the child wants to get a JOB in.
If it's basket weaving, there is a great College in the Ozarks that we spent a day at. I even bought a basket made by one of the students. Nice this is a student graduates from there without any debt, if they work ~15 hours per week at the College, and all are eligible to work.
Other consideration is, how big a debt does the child want to be saddled with for the next 20 years or so... I know a Doctor (medical doc) that went to a cheap med school in the Southern States. He said he was working alongside Doctors that went to Ivy League schools for medicine, They all got paid the same rate, and he had zero debt, while the Ivy folks owed a few $100K.

 

[Osprey]

The forums at College Confidential had lots of info when I was helping my kids a number of years ago. But they focus a lot on the chase to get into prestige schools.

I agree with Sunset that cost considerations and fit are important factors to take into account too. One of my kids went on to get a PHD and the small college she attended was very nurturing for her and many of her classmates got into great graduate programs without incurring the cost of attending a prestige undergraduate school.

Good luck with the hunt

 

[Bamaman]

My best friend is a Wharton MBA. He sent his two children to the most elite private schools through high school and then to private universities "up east". The daughter just finished medical residency @ age 33 and went into a practice last week. The son was an Airborne Ranger but now just has a regular income job.

The father is still working at age 70 and he figures he's spent $2 million gross income on educations. All of his friends took Early Retirement 10-15 years ago. The children are obviously very smart, but they most likely would be at the same place going to public universities that didn't cost him $100K a year total x 2.

It all comes down to the student's future motivations. An Ivy School education is not for everyone--and can bring a very well to do family to their knees financially.

 

[The Cosmic Avenger]

It's such a personal choice, we just let our kid decide (they're very deliberate and mature...and a great saver!), and we asked some questions in the Grown & Flown Parents Facebook group and the parents' pages for the ones to which they actually applied, specifics about that particular school like campus life or visiting your student.

The other thing is, if they're mature and good with money, let them know you can pay $X, and anything more than that they'll have to figure out, and then they can evaluate the financial packages better. Our kid gets about $30K/year in a merit scholarship, and our share is about $34K/year. We knew we could pay that out of pocket rather than let them be burdened with loans for years or decades after school, and we're emphasizing that this is to give them a head start on saving for retirement and for big expenses of their own.

If you're choosing for them, though, I'd choose the lowest cost option, because I've seen quite a few college students find their passion and strengths while in college and find that it has nothing to do with what they came there to study. They can always transfer after a year or two. Heck, I went from a theater major to sociology after a few semesters (without transferring), and my grades got a LOT better.

 

[nap470]

Our only child (daughter) is a senior at a top 15 ranked private university in the Midwest. It is expensive but in line with other private schools and not that much more than public schools. During the college search, we did not put restrictions on her choices. She wanted private as she felt it would be more challenging than public. She graduated a competitive Catholic HS. After multiple campus visits, mostly on the East coast, she chose the Midwest school which we were thrilled about. Four-hour drive versus a flight away. Visiting the campuses and following a student around thru a few classes really helped her with her decision. Big things for her were status of the school in her academic study (medical), safety, campus life (she did not want Greek life and looked for a school that did not amplify it). We also think that after the visits to long distance schools, she realized she wanted to be closer to us. Good luck with the search.

 

[folivier]

Don't overlook smaller colleges. My alma mater has a pre-med program that is rated high enough where all graduates have automatic acceptance to LSU med. school.
Most doctors (and other professions) do not come from ivy league schools. Possibly so in NYC or other large cities.

 

[pacergal]

What does your grandchild want to study? Where were they thinking of going and why? Are you or your grandchild parents paying all or part of the cost?
How does your grandchild do in different environments?

Lots of things to discuss and look at besides cost. Perhaps his/her high school counselor may have some ideas, although it sounds like the college offers are already on the table.
So, why did your grandchild apply to those particular schools?

 

[eytonxav]

Since you mentioned MIT, I assume the major of interest is engineering or a science field. In my opinion, MIT is not the best place to go at the undergraduate level, as most courses are taught by teaching assistants/grad students. If Ivy League is the ticket and the grandchild is looking at engineering my recommendation would be Cornell or possibly Columbia if they can handle the neighborhood. Nevertheless, visiting the schools and getting a feel for what each offers and how it appeals the student to be are very important vs just the $ aspect.

 

[SnowballCamper]

I attended private colleges for undergrad and graduate school, and was an instructor at a military academy, and at a community college. My observation is that the main advantage to the competitive private school is the network of peers you develop in college, not so much the level of education. It's not that you don't get a network of peers at the state school, it's that the network tends to be more advantaged and aggressive from schools with highly competitive admissions. Just my observation...

 

[COcheesehead]

Read the book Freakanomics. There is a whole chapter about college degrees. In summary, a degree is your ticket into a career. It doesn’t matter as much where you got your ticket as long as you have the ticket. The rest is up to the individual.

 

[Sanstar]

Is a military academy an option? DD graduated West Point did her required time after as an Army officer. Not only is the school a free ride, she was paid a monthly wage while in school. Decided law school, then passing the bar exam, was her next step so knocked it out before marrying and starting a family. Cost to us was less than either of her two brothers who also have undergrad and grad school degrees.

 

[HarveyS]

It's probably best to be handled between the parent and the child.

We never found a forum, but learned a great deal from neighbors and friends. FWIW, in the case of both my kids (HS grads post 2015), we had no idea what the university would cost until they applied and were accepted. My suggestion; have the parent and child figure out what schools to apply to and then worry about selecting the school after they get accepted and know what the cost will be. And be sure to visit the school before committing to attend. My kids axed several schools after the visit.

Lastly, I agree with COcheesehead. It's what you learn, not where you learn it.

 

[ncbill]

Is a military academy an option? DD graduated West Point did her required time after as an Army officer. Not only is the school a free ride, she was paid a monthly wage while in school. Decided law school, then passing the bar exam, was her next step so knocked it out before marrying and starting a family. Cost to us was less than either of her two brothers who also have undergrad and grad school degrees.

Yes, one of mine did the same though USNA instead.

My kid wanted to go to med school and so chose a pre-med major.

But his test scores weren't good enough to qualify for the dozen or so slots out of a graduating class of around 1,000, so he ended up going pilot.

 

[Gumby]

I attended private colleges for undergrad and graduate school, and was an instructor at a military academy, and at a community college. My observation is that the main advantage to the competitive private school is the network of peers you develop in college, not so much the level of education. It's not that you don't get a network of peers at the state school, it's that the network tends to be more advantaged and aggressive from schools with highly competitive admissions. Just my observation...

A good point. With the benefit of hindsight, I can see that I should have spent as much time developing and maintaining that network as I did getting good grades.

 

[Koolau]

Since you mentioned MIT, I assume the major of interest is engineering or a science field. In my opinion, MIT is not the best place to go at the undergraduate level, as most courses are taught by teaching assistants/grad students. If Ivy League is the ticket and the grandchild is looking at engineering my recommendation would be Cornell or possibly Columbia if they can handle the neighborhood. Nevertheless, visiting the schools and getting a feel for what each offers and how it appeals the student to be are very important vs just the $ aspect.

Or to really save money yet go to a school with a great reputation in engineering, you might consider Purdue. Tuition has been frozen for 10 years. Pretty much unheard of these days.

https://www.purdue.edu/newsroom/pur...ates-trending-drop-in-college-going-rate.html

 

[OldShooter]

You have shared very valid thoughts. Many young people are now really chasing prestigious colleges instead of focusing on their desires and aspirations. It is much more important to decide what you want to do, how to grow professionally, and to make a plan with a realistic assessment of your capabilities. I wish everyone a successful choice!

Yes. One paradox I see is this: The kids are being told that people with college degrees make more money, so they should go to college. But just because there are more kids with degrees, why would we expect the number of better-paying jobs to increase proportionately?

IMO the real opportunity now is for people who are willing to work with their hands. Plumber, electrician, carpenter, equipment operator, etc. We just built a house well into the boonies in a thinly populated county. The electrician billed at $100/hour including travel time to/from the job site! Give the company he works for as much as half that, and he is still taking home $100K in a LCOL area. Both the GC and the HVAC/plumbing company owners have sons who will be taking over their businesses and I'm sure neither has a college degree. And, of course, no student loan debt for these kinds of jobs.

 

[copyright1997reloaded]

Yes. One paradox I see is this: The kids are being told that people with college degrees make more money, so they should go to college. But just because there are more kids with degrees, why would we expect the number of better-paying jobs to increase proportionately?

IMO the real opportunity now is for people who are willing to work with their hands. Plumber, electrician, carpenter, equipment operator, etc. We just built a house well into the boonies in a thinly populated county. The electrician billed at $100/hour including travel time to/from the job site! Give the company he works for as much as half that, and he is still taking home $100K in a LCOL area. Both the GC and the HVAC/plumbing company owners have sons who will be taking over their businesses and I'm sure neither has a college degree. And, of course, no student loan debt for these kinds of jobs.

THIS.

The world is a changing place, and as I tell my computer science students, if you can be doing your job remote, that remote can be anyone else anyplace else in the world. Now the remote might soon be an algorithm running on a parallel processing system w/massive data store (aka AI).

There will be those making coin in this brave new world, those who are the creators of such technology. But the number of those who are talented enough to make hay will be reduced, and many of the not quite top notch may be displaced.

But the world will still need those who know how to do real things, as you say work with their hands.

I am thankful for my career in high tech, and now teaching it. yI was able to jump into a new field, ride it, and have a comfortable lifestyle and retirement because of it.

I am also very cognizant that it is much easier to think about jobs that will be displaced than to imagine the new types of jobs that will be created. This has certainly been true in my field and has been made possible because of faster and faster systems (smaller/more parallelism). It wasn't that people didn't want to work on speech recognition or image processing forty years ago, the issue was that the systems weren't fast enough/enough storage to do so. So as we progress new applications and things we can't even imagine become possible.

Having said that, I can't help but agree with OldShooter - if I were 18 all over again would that career choice be the right one...I'm not sure it would be (even though some of those I worked with considered me to be at/near the top of the talent pool.

 

[Koolau]

THIS.

The world is a changing place, and as I tell my computer science students, if you can be doing your job remote, that remote can be anyone else anyplace else in the world. Now the remote might soon be an algorithm running on a parallel processing system w/massive data store (aka AI).

If anyone doubts this, simply visit a fast food joint or a Costco. Most fast food and merchandise is now ordered or checked at a kiosk/self check - not from a kid at the counter or clerk at a cash register. Many j*bs are being replaced by technology and it's happening fast. Some fast food drive-through order takers are now remote as well! If kids at McD's can be replaced, so can formerly highly-paid "white collar" w*rkers. So glad I'm FIRE'd.

 

[OldShooter]

Yup. Current news is that McD's and Wendy's are testing AI based order takers. Sounds like all is not going well, but it is certainly a harbinger.