My oldest starts her junior year in two weeks. As of a couple years ago, she had said she wanted to go to a small college in a small town within 4 hours of the Twin Cities. Easy! We were already down to under a dozen schools.
Well, since she started attending high school, she's decided she doesn't want to go to a college that isn't much bigger than her high school. Now she really isn't sure what she wants.
The more I learn about college, the more frustrating it gets. Each school has a net price calculator but it isn't easy to find on their website. And you need to go to each school to find that net price. As far as I know, there isn't a website where you can put in the student's information and it splits out the cost of dozens of schools. Why not? Why not have even more transparency in the cost? The college board has the net price calculator of over 200 schools but you still have to enter information one school at a time.
One other thing that isn't real clear - does it even matter which school she chooses? There can be a huge difference in price but is there really a huge difference in outcomes? Articles like this say it doesn't really matter. I know that it does matter for some specific areas - finance, consulting, some technology areas, etc., but I see a lot of people taking on huge debt that would be better served just getting a degree in the most affordable way.
It will be an interesting couple years. And then we'll start again with the freshman.
You bring up some very good questions. Plus to make the cost calculation even more complicated is that the privates will almost always have scholarship money to pass around. We found that once you get that, the prices compared to some of the larger public schools comes closer.
Obviously cost is huge consideration and how much debt you want to take on or your child, but take that away and an important consideration is what kind of school your child wants to go to: large or small, rural or urban, etc. The social component is so important on how well your child does. Charlie wanted to go to a big college in an urban area. He loved the U of MN and thrived. He's that kind of kid. I have a friend who didn't do so well at UMN, it was too big an impersonal.
One final point. This doesn't have to be a four year decision. If after a year, things really don't work out for any reason, your child can transfer. Most if not all college credits will transfer and a change doesn't have to mean a longer college career. Sometimes kids (and parents) lose sight of that.
I transferred from Iowa State to Drake after my freshman year. It was a good move but difficult socially. My sophomore roommate was the sophomore no one else wanted to room with. Most people my age had aready formed their friend groups.
Part of that was on me not being more social. I didn't really feel like I fit in until my senior year.
Oo I didn't know that. Which dorm did they put you in? Morehouse?
Herriott.
Good point on the social component. I have a brother-in-law who choose a school for price and location and he ended up withdrawing because the social life at that college was essentially the antithesis of what he was looking for (suitcase/party school/little on-campus housing, he wanted to do lots of campus life stuff which was hard to do because of the social nature.). It's years later and he still doesn't really know what he's doing.
I'm also wondering out loud about how much networking matters for undergrad? I've found it matters a lot coming out of law school (so many William Mitchell grads who all have things to connect over...), and I guess I just kind of assume it does for undergrad too.
I think for most jobs employers don't actually care what school you went to. They care what you can offer them. I had advisors imploring me to go to St. Olaf for my social work degree. I went to Winona St for about $100,000 less and got a great degree and paid everything off quickly. A state university also made sense for me because I wanted my own apartment, didn't want to join groups or activities and just wanted to get my degree and get out.
I think for most jobs employers don't actually care what school you went to. They care what you can offer them.
As a veteran who's seen many interviews (currently my fifth job since college), this gets more and more true as the years progress. I don't even remember the last time my college experience was brought up during one.
Like others have been implying, really, you should be trying to determine career path before you tackle specific colleges. If she wants to do social work (good for her!) then she should not be going where she will end up saddled with a large student debt. Or, if she doesn't know and isn't committed to a (type of) college yet, certainly a community college is an option, assuming she takes classes which would transfer and would satisfy getting her generals out of the way. I think it is very important that she tour different kinds of colleges so that she can choose / eliminate which college sizes/locations she can see herself liking.
Not sure that things have changed since I graduated, but in my job search I got no indication that where I graduated from made any difference. The most important thing is who you know (ie: your network of friends / associates) that gets your foot/resume in the door.
Good luck!
The most important thing is who you know
no, but way to pee in the bathtub
I hate when I don't get something and people say "everybody knows" or "we all thought it."
Not me!
In a team meeting yesterday, I let everyone know we have a new hire starting on 9/11. Then my best employee shared that three years ago she and my second best employee both started on 9/11. I then said, "Wow, 9/11 has proved to be a great...day."
Ayup
I've thought so for 55+ years.
I have a senior son and junior daughter in high school this fall. The boy is looking at the U of M, or NDSU for engineering. He recently got his ACT score back and had a strong score. We hope this helps in his cost of schooling. I hate to say it, but I have very little stress in this decision. We unfortunately do not have the ability to help a whole lot in his college costs, as we have invested in our business. My wife and I both paid our way through college and both paid off any loans pretty quick. Was it a burden? Yes. However, we ended up fine. If our son takes his schooling seriously, he will be fine too. I do worry about him being at the U of M a bit, as he is more of a rural type kid. The girl wants to go to Duluth for dentistry. She should be ok too. I have talked to many other parents who are totally stressed out about all this. My wife and I are not at all stressed. Something wrong with us? I guess we just look at it as the first step for our kids to officially grow up and own their future. We have supported them immensely in their first 18 years in school and other activities (hockey$$). We will support them in many other ways as they launch out of our home, but in financial terms, we will be more of a safety net.
I have no problem with parents who pay 0%, 100%, or something in between. Although, I will say comparing college costs now versus then is definiely not apples-to-apples. Education costs have increased at a far greater rate than either inflation or wages.
Definitely agree, and my comments were not intended to question your approach. Just mentioning our perspective. Maybe we should be more thorough. We will compare costs as they roll in from the 2 schools mentioned above. He is just soooooo laser focused on those two, and the engineers I have spoken to have told me that both are great schools. If school A costs $20k more over 4 years versus school B and he still chooses school A, then he better have good reasons that make sense. I don't feel right about the education cost increases versus inflation and wages, as you mention. My generation seemed to receive more help than this generation does.
No worries.
I had a friend that grew up in a tough situation so was able to go to a private school for very little. He would tell me that he paid for college so his kids should, too. The difference is that he's now making over $200k and no longer lives in a trailer park.
When I was a freshman at Carleton in 1981, the comprehensive fee (all-in, tuition, fees, room and board) was $8,600. For the year. I got about half of that covered with financial aid, a quarter from my parents, and I was able to cover the rest through work study plus working nearly full time during breaks. Median family income in 1981 was about $19,000 (nominal).
The Carleton comprehensive fee for 2016-17 was $50,580. Median family income today is about $58,000.
The equivalent for UCLA (2017-18) is $33,604. That is a chunk more than our out-of-pocket annual cost for The Boy. I make a good bit more than my dad did back in the day, and federal financial aid standards are stingier for upper-middle income earners. But still.
Add on that it is very difficult for college kids to find summer employment today, and the world has changed.
Add on that it is very difficult for college kids to find summer employment today, and the world has changed.
Boy, that is not the case around here. There are 4 summer jobs for every 1 applicant in this town during the summer.
In our area, businesses basically won't hire a kid for the summer if he or she goes to school out of town or state.
That's not Minnesota nice.
The part that I love is that it also isn't the students' retirement accounts that are invested in the interest paid on student loans...
Also, I wanted to share some thoughts on the value of education. I agree with what others have said above about the value of certain colleges versus others, and what employers are looking for. My wife is a Physical Therapist, and did 4 years at Concordia (Moorhead) and 3 years at St. Catherine's for her Masters Degree. She got a great education, yet doesn't necessarily feel that she gets a "leg up" over other PT's who maybe went to less prestigious programs. She has a successful career based upon her work ethic and her work history. It helps that she is in a field of scarcity right now. She gets job offers on a weekly basis.
I took a different route. Never finished college (wished I would have) once I decided I was going to stay in the restaurant industry. I have been interviewed many times, and have interviewed manager candidates hundreds of times. College is not looked at too closely compared to experience in the industry. I tend to dig deeper into a candidates persona. How does he/she interact with peers, subordinates and those above them on the totem pole? Do they row the boat (I used this before PJ did) the same direction? Do they strive to bring new ideas to the team? How do they handle adversity, failure, success, etc?
I know not all fields of employment are the same, but it feels like people I talk to (from many industries) are looking for good, well rounded people versus where they went to school.
Regarding the value-added of both education and institution. There is so much to say.
I graduated from a fancy-pants school, but grew up in a community college family and spent a year at one on my five-year plan for undergrad. I taught at big, public research universities. And I have two kids who are graduates of or currently attending fancy-pants schools.
It is difficult to demonstrate empirically that choice of school matters to outcomes, in significant part because different types of schools serve different markets and functions.
Small, fancy liberal arts schools are, IMO, much better at preparing students for Ph.D. graduate training than are bigger schools. But again, selection bias, so hard to prove.
Other schools may be much better (and cheaper) at delivering an applied education to a kid who knows what she wants to do.
If the point is the fact of a sheepskin, then it is hard to justify the extra cost of Fancy. But...net costs actually come close to converging for most kids below Really Rich, at least when comparing relatively well-endowed Fancy to public universities. Alum networks and name in the sheepskin matter some, particularly for the first Real Job in a chosen field.
I have always said that a determined kid can get a good education anywhere. There are more distractions at big schools and state schools than at Fancy, and Fancy buys you more support services.
Fit for your kid matters a lot, but it is a Potter Stewart thing. You know it when you see it.
Good luck.
Small, fancy liberal arts schools are, IMO, much better at preparing students for Ph.D. graduate training than are bigger schools. But again, selection bias, so hard to prove.
Can you expand on this? I understand it is one person's experience but I'm guessing you've known quite a few Ph.D candidates so you have much more experience than I do on this subject.
Smaller schools pretty much means that students get attention from faculty, not just TAs. The faculty at teaching institutions tend to be pretty good at teaching and mentoring kids.
The main selection bias comes with the kinds of kids who go to small, selective schools. They tend more often to be kids who are interested in academics for the intellectual challenges rather than for purely instrumental purposes.
A further selection effect is that students are more likely to get meaningful recommendations from faculty at small teaching schools, because they are more likely to actually know the kids. So grad programs tend to have more confidence in applicants from these small, selective schools than in applicants with similar test scores and grades from big universities.
So, like I said, hard to demonstrate that there is a marginal impact of the school on the kid when you control for the selection bias of who goes to one vs the other. But the signals about grad school applicants tend to be cleaner for liberal arts school kids than for university kids even if all else looks equal.
Other schools may be much better (and cheaper) at delivering an applied education to a kid who knows what she wants to do.
This describes my experience really well and why Stout was a pretty good choice for me. I don't think my daughter is going to be real into an applied education, though (granted, it could also be too early to tell). I'm not stressing about it yet, obviously, but I'm not feeling great about the cost of college in twelve years, either.
529 accounts are your friend. IMO, you should be dumping money in now.
Oh I have been, and I enjoy deducting it, but that only makes me slightly less cynical that it will be enough.
Weird. I think when I started following this site, (or the old site I guess), I was in conversations regarding elementary school behavior. Now, it's college. This half-baked community has some staying power!