tokenadult says it very well.
As our family began the college admissions process with our son this past year, a friend (who by profession is an educator), offered words of advice based not only upon her professional expertise, but also upon her experience as the parent of a college student.
She, her husband, and her son (who will graduate from Boston College next month) have reflected upon this young man's undergraduate academic experience and believe that in hindsight, he might have received an equal or perhaps better education, at less cost, by having given more serious consideration to attending the University of Massachusetts at Amhest's honors college -the Commonwealth College (ComCol). Reflecting upon his BC undergraduate experience, both he and his parents now feel that for a $47,000-a-year tuition/room/board investment (slighlty less given their small financial aid package), too many of his courses were delivered in large lecture-hall formats. Proportionally, they also felt that too many courses had been taught by TAs rather than BC professors.
The Commonwealth College (ComCol), established at UMass-Amherst in the 1990s, has quietly gained recognition over the last decade for the excellent academic, research, and international study programs available to students accepted into the program. (It was recently profiled in the March 24 edition of The Boston Globe (
Cream at the top is sweet for UMass - The Boston Globe) .
This same young man has a slightly older cousin who opted for ComCol over undergraduate acceptances at several highly-selective and prestigious colleges and universities. Her long-term goal was law school, and through serious long-range financial planning with her parents, felt that the investment in her terminal academic program (law school) would be paramount. To the dumbfounded amazement of her peers who headed off to Ivies and other prestigious schools, she attended "ZooMass" and the Commonwealth College. She was later accepted to and graduated from Harvard Law School. Today, she is a young associate partner at one of Boston's top, nationally-known law firms. Among her law school associates are a number of Ivy-league undergraduate- and law-school peers...many of whom are saddled with large educational loans. This young woman, on the other hand, has very little academic debt and is one of the few associates who has been able to make her first real estate purchase (a Boston condo) because of her more net-positive financial situation.
Our son decided apply to UMass purely as a safety school, and was notifed in his acceptance letter a few weeks back that he has been selected for the ComCol program. (Incoming freshmen are selected for and invited to ComCol in their University acceptance letter; they may not "apply" to the Commonwealth College as part of the freshman application process. Upperclassmen may apply for admission to ComCol based upon their academic performance while at the University).
We and our son, whose current long-range career goals will likely require graduate school, are going to give ComCol very serious consideration as we weigh this program against the merits and costs of some of the more expensive and perceived more "prestigious" schools to which he has been accepted. In recent conversations about ComCol with other people as we've moved into the acceptance evaluation phase of the college admissions "process," we have begun to hear more ComCol stories that are similar to the young law associate's. Just last week, one of my husband's business acquaintances happened to learn "throught the grapevine" that our son had been accepted to ComCol. She made a point of contacting my husband, noting that both of her daughters graduated from the program; one is now a student at Harvard Medical School, and the other has just been awarded a graduate research fellowship at Harvard in a science field. And...both loved their ComCol experiences.
The moral of this long-winded story: Motivated, mature students may fare better with far less expense at some fine, though perhaps not media-hyped, colleges and universities, particularly if they think they will need to continue their education beyond their undergraduate degree. If your child applied to a a state university "safety" school and was acceped into its honors program, you may not want to be quick to dismiss it.
The 37-year-old, highly-regarded oral surgeon who removed our son's wisdom teeth last year graduated from a very small Massachusetts state college, and then went on to received BOTH MD and DDS degrees from top medical and dental schools.
In the end, it will be personal motivation, determination, and hard work that will ultimately yield true career and life success. Given the current, sorry national economic condition of our country and the credit-bloated lives led by a vast and ever-growing number of financially-strapped Americans, pragmatic higher education financing should be given very serious consideration by starry-eyed students (and their parents) alike.
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