College Admissions

[ProGolferWannabe]

Below is an article from CNN.COM that addresses the issue/concerns of high seniors who did well in their studies, were accepted into their colleges of choice, but were apparently not able to afford attending based upon the financial aid packages they were offered. My son graduated from college last year, and our youngest daughter is graduating from college next week; I recall going through a similar issue with both kids when they were evaluating college offers. Both kids ended up going to schools that were not their first choice because of financial issues, but it is remarkable to me to see how "adaptable" kids are....both of them were very happy with their experiences, and neither one regrets their "choice", feels "cheated" or otherwise deprived. So while I understand that the kids interviewed for this piece are not getting to go where they want, I suspect that if you talk to them in 4 years, they will feel pretty good about there decision and college experience.


I got into my dream school, but can't afford to go - May. 11, 2015

 

[Dash man]

"No, you can't always get what you want
But if you try sometime,
You just might find
You get what you need"
- Rolling Stones

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Is it really tragic to have to go to a higher ROI school? (I only looked up the first student).

From the article:

"Everything we've done since the kids were born was to provide them with everything they want." (italics added)

 

[Jay_Gatsby]

Is it really tragic to have to go to a higher ROI school? (I only looked up the first student).

From the article:

"Everything we've done since the kids were born was to provide them with everything they want." (italics added)

Reminds me of the expression - "if you work hard enough, you can have anything you want, but you can't have everything you want."

 

[imoldernu]

Good article.
Should be mandatory reading for all young college bound kids.

 

[Bamaman]

My best friend put his daughter and son through the best private high schools in a major southern city--$400K total. Then both went to private universities "up east"--and he spent another $450K. The money spent was "after taxes."

He found out after two years that his son was a criminology major. Such graduates don't have the highest paid professions. His son went into the U.S. Army as an E-4 after OCS classes are presently on hold. He deployed yesterday for some unknown place as a Army Ranger.

At least the daughter graduated from a top medical school last week.

And the parents sold their big house and are now renting. But there are no student loans hanging over the kids' heads.

 

[LOL!]

Life is not fair.

OTOH, the article only mentions income of the parents and not their assets. I know our taxable income was in the mid-5-figure range in the year that my youngest started college and our FAFSA derived Expected Family Contribution (EFC) was more than 100% of that.

As an aside, it also seems that the kids in the article picked the expensive school based on location and not at all based on academics nor outcomes.

 

[scrinch]

Geez, all of those kids are ending up going to good schools. The article should be describing how lucky they are to be able to go to $10-30k schools, not bemoaning the fact that they can't attend $50-60k schools. My youngest son selected (with help from us) his second choice school a couple of years ago because with financial aid it cost $20k less than his "dream" school. He is very happy in his second choice school.

 

[sengsational]

I gave my kids the choice...graduate debt free with a new car if you go with the state school, or graduate with student loans and no free car if you go to the private U. One took plan A, the other took B.

 

[Big_Hitter]

Below is an article from CNN.COM that addresses the issue/concerns of high seniors who did well in their studies, were accepted into their colleges of choice, but were apparently not able to afford attending based upon the financial aid packages they were offered.

call them a waaaaambulance

I got into Brown but couldn't get financial aid - my dad gave me the financial finger when I handed him the $12K bill for the year - that was a lot of scratch in 1982 (I think he was making about $60K at that time with two more kids after me to put thru college)

ended up going to a local college, turned out okay - you get out of it what you put into it

hey, I didn't get to hang out with brooke shields, Mondale's kid or John John but that's life

 

[imoldernu]

The whole situation is very strange to me. The rise in cost seems inexplicable.

In trying to make sense of the cost, I look back at my own college years... 1954 to 1958.

Median HH income 1954 $4,500
Median HH income 2013 $52,000

My college costs (annual)
1954 $1,300... (Room board & tuition)
2015 $62,000

Lest it seems that the actual cost would be relative, in 1954 it represented 35% of the HH Income... Today, 84%.

 

[LOL!]

The rise in cost has been explained before. It comes from several sources:

1. Tax breaks. If a college sees parents getting a tax break, they raise their rates accordingly to capture the tax break. For instance the American Opportunity Tax Credit gives some people $2500 a year for college. 529 plans give some people money, too.

2. Government regulation. Colleges have to hire administrators to make sure all the government laws about education and research are being followed.

3. State budgets used to pay for a lot of their state university expenses. That's not the case anymore.

4. Etc.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

I just realized I put the wrong link in my post above. The payscale college ROI chart is here:

http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/

 

[Texas Proud]

I just realized I put the wrong link in my post above. The payscale college ROI chart is here:

http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/

The chart is not an ROI chart... but a payscale chart... does not take cost into consideration...

 

[Independent]

The rise in cost has been explained before. It comes from several sources:

1. Tax breaks. If a college sees parents getting a tax break, they raise their rates accordingly to capture the tax break. For instance the American Opportunity Tax Credit gives some people $2500 a year for college. 529 plans give some people money, too.

2. Government regulation. Colleges have to hire administrators to make sure all the government laws about education and research are being followed.

3. State budgets used to pay for a lot of their state university expenses. That's not the case anymore.

4. Etc.

I'd add:

4. Government guaranteed loans. Show 18 year-olds money today, that they figure they can easily pay back when they're rich graduates, and many will take all that you offer. Colleges know this.

5. A massive "college is good" campaign that has convinced parents, HS teachers, and HS grads that college is both a necessary and a sufficient condition for a "good job" in the US. And, of course, more expensive colleges lead to even higher paying jobs. People will spend a lot if that's what they believe.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

The chart is not an ROI chart... but a payscale chart... does not take cost into consideration...

Sorry, I fixed the link. It went to a different address than the URL listed initially. Try it again or here it is:

http://www.payscale.com/college-roi/

 

[2017ish]

The problem with the ROI chart/data is that the average Mudder (for example) would likely have earned quite a bit more than the average HS grad even if s/he hadn't gone to college. Opposite of GIGO.

(Nothing against Mudd; DS loved his experience there, and it was cheaper than his second choice!)

Brookings released a big study recently that tried to tease the data out for this and for occupational choices: http://www.brookings.edu/~/media/re...-college-value-add/bmpp_collegevalueadded.pdf Here is the press release/overview on it: Beyond college rankings: A value-added approach to assessing two- and four-year schools | Brookings Institution

 

[Big_Hitter]

I don't get it - I'm at 113 just above Prarie View A&M


Does that mean I got short knocked or do I need to do some calcs?


The cost of my 3 year edumication was what...20K?


If I PV my earnings to date back to 1985 is that how it works?

 

[2017ish]

Heck, the undergrad institution at which DW and I met (and from which we got our first degrees) came in as negative value added in the Brookings analysis.

 

[LOL!]

Even the ROI and value-added rankings are flawed somewhat because of the following:

Many of the highly ranked schools are in very high cost-of-living areas such as Silicon Valley, San Francisco, Boston, NY, and so on where high salaries are required to attact talent. Graduates of these schools often get jobs in the same locations and thus higher starting salaries.

But sometimes that works in the reverse: The weather is so hot and humid in Houston, Texas that companies have to pay higher salaries to get folks to move to Houston despite the lower cost of living on the Gulf Coast compared to the other coasts.

 

[daylatedollarshort]

Then there are the Dale and Kreuger studies:

"In the study, the better predictor of earnings was the average SAT scores of the most selective school a teenager applied to and not the typical scores of the institution the student attended."

The Ivy League Earnings Myth - US News

And the differences in majors -

"...going to college and getting a degree is important, but what you major in can be three or four times more important." said Anthony P. Carnevale, who co-authored the study and directs Georgetown University's Center on Education and the Workforce. "The difference in earnings is more than 300 percent."

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/24/college-major_n_866359.html

 

[Big_Hitter]

Then there are the Dale and Kreuger studies:

"In the study, the better predictor of earnings was the average SAT scores of the most selective school a teenager applied to and not the typical scores of the institution the student attended."

The Ivy League Earnings Myth - US News

oh I like that a lot better

 

[imoldernu]

More thoughts on college expense and debt in a blog by Bill Bonner entitled "To the Class of 2015".

The Positive is that most of you, (us) have lived in a period where the U.S Corporate Equity has multiplied 28 times since 1981. The negative is that the economy has only increased 5 times in the same period. Sometimes, growing older has benefits.