@itsgettingreal17 so could you name your D’s school so that readers know that type of experience is available at x school? I really think people need to know the details to make this helpful at all.
@1NJParent and LACs may be college boarding schools but nothing wrong with that if that’s what the student wants. With two undecided kids, it’s ok that’s they prefer LACs. They know thy don’t want undergrad business or engineering. That might have forced their hands to go to bigger schools.
This may only apply to the LACs that people on these forums fawn over. Other LACs, like Evergreen State, may not have most students living in college housing, and may have a much larger percentage of students from lower SES backgrounds. But these other LACs tend to be ignored by most on these forums.
@homerdog It’s no secret where my D attends and is besides the point. It’s the generalities by those who wax poetic about the LAC experience in comparison to that of research universities that is problematic. Also, universities are not just for engineering or business, which is precisely why most LAC grads end up in grad school. There are so many majors offered at research universities compared to LACs. There are almost 150 at my D’s school, for example. Many of those are going to offer smaller classes than LACs due to the size of the department.
@itsgettingreal17 ok. I get it. Small classes available at universities. I’m guessing that major is more important than the actual school when it comes to how small those classes are. I can post just as many bad experiences as someone can post good ones. Our nephew is at a Big Ten business school. His only smaller class freshman year was stats. Still had 60 kids. The class was taught by a grad student with poor English. There were smaller break out sessions with another TA who also struggled with English. So…our nephew ended up depending on other kids and on the online version of his textbook that had an “extra help” section to get through the class. He also realized that he didn’t need to go to any of his other classes in order to do ok. I don’t want to spend any amount of money for that particular experience. While I know it’s only one story, I’d be hard pressed to find a story like that from a student at any LAC. I’ve also read about schools like U of Florida where students end up taking the online version of the class because they can’t get into the live class. Huh? That’s all kinds of wrong as well. These schools aren’t inexpensive. Kids should be able to have your D’s experience at a big uni but that’s not always what happens.
I wouldn’t knock lower ranked LACs too much. Lots of successful kids coming out of those ranked 30-50 on USNWR. And most of those schools give merit that could help match the price of a university. Of course, the student has to have goals that match what a LAC offers.
Let’s remember that the name of this thread is elite school versus “cheap” state university. It’s not asking about LAC versus Brown.
I wish I lived in a state with a cheap flagship, but alas even Rutgers is ~ 35k in-state (to live there).
Hence why when my son goes to college in 2 years, he can look at almost any state he wants, since I will move there. The out-of-state tuition for year 1 is still cheaper than Rutgers in almost all states, and years 2-4 would probably be close to 1/2 the cost. Yay NJ.
As to the OP’s question - for my daughter I would have taken loans if she got into an Ivy (she got waitlisted at a few, but didn’t get in). I have my own set of reasons, even though I know it would have been a horrible financial decision.
I get called an elitist on CC all the time, but Homer’s anecdote about a Big Ten undergrad business program does not surprise me at all. I’ve interviewed finance majors from these programs (with high GPA’s) who can’t talk about a story ABOUT finance which the WSJ and Economist have been reporting about for 6 months. I’ve interviewed marketing majors from these programs (also with high GPA’s) who have literally told me (in answer to a pretty generic, basic marketing question about something newsworthy) “I didn’t take that class”. So it is no surprise to me that kids can fall through the cracks, still do well, never learn critical thinking or how to apply what’s in the textbook to actual events!
fact check- I don’t consider 30-50 rank for an LAC low ranked.
LACs (even the prestigious ones fawned over on these forums) are not immune from student interest exceeding departmental capacity. For example, Swarthmore is rationing CS courses because the department capacity would otherwise be exceeded:
https://www.swarthmore.edu/computer-science/2018-19-changes-to-cs-major
https://www.swarthmore.edu/computer-science/lottery-wait-list-info
https://swarthmorephoenix.com/2018/09/20/cs-department-cuts-major-requirements-to-meet-surging-demand/
You may want to check on whether your assumption that “almost all states” have flagship-level universities with out-of-state tuition lower than in-state Rutgers tuition, or that their in-state cost is half the in-state Rutgers cost, is actually the case.
Yes. I didn’t understand that either @ucbalumnus
Many OOS publics are expensive with no merit for OOS students - Michigan, Wisconsin, William and Mary, all of the UCs.
True about some business school students. True of students in many majors at both universities and LACs. Plenty of students graduated from my LAC who were weak students with poor writing and analytical skills. Again, the sweeping generalities are rather silly and really unbecoming of a such a highly educated group as is represented on CC. I guess CC would be boring without the debates such generalities produce.
My daughter went to a cheap flagship, Wyoming. History major. I think she had two classes that were big, over 100 students, with large lectures and small discussion groups and yes, those discussions were led by TAs, but I think those were the only TAs she had in all 4 years. All her other classes had a limit of 24 students. Her Latin class had 15. Her adviser’s PhD was from Harvard. She took several classes with a Native American focus (film, poetry, museum studies) and they were taught by professors who were Native Americans so I think had a unique view to share. Her science classes were taught by profs who were out in the field on days they weren’t teaching, climbing through the dirt and rocks because they taught geology or ecology or water. They knew rocks.
She is the type who likes intense discussions over coffee, and she found that. She knew all her professors, TAs, instructors. She knew the office staff because she made it a point to do so. She lived on campus all 4 years, one year in the dorm and 3 years in the sorority house, which was closer to the classroom buildings than the dorms were.
We looked at a lot of smaller schools. Not all were LACs but under 3000 students. I found them, and the tiny towns where they were located, very claustrophobic but my kids gave them more of a fair shake when we were looking.
My other daughter went to a smaller school (3500) and lived in the dorm for 2 years and in a shared house for 2 years, which was closer to campus than many of the dorms or university housing options. She learned a lot about life living in that house - how to budget and pay rent (write a check!), take care of small repairs, evacuate for a hurricane. She learned to work things out with the roommates without an RA to mediate. She preferred her own cooking to dorm cooking, and it was a lot healthier. She got more sleep as the house was quieter.
There are benefits to all types of schools, all types of living arrangements. Would I have paid or borrowed for more expensive ‘top’ schools as the OP asked? No, and we did make that decision.
Ok that was an exaggeration, but many (not in the NE or CA) that I have looked at are… especially in NC, SC and Florida, to name a few.
UNC, USC, and UF have out-of-state costs of $52k, $47k, and $44k respectively (higher than $35k for in-state Rutgers), and none have in-state costs of $17.5k or lower (half of in-state Rutgers).
You may want to try South Dakota to meet your lower cost desires. More may be options if you move next to the university and have him commute from there.
Our family falls in the middle category of making too much money to qualify for aid, but not enough money to afford full pay comfortably. That being said, we were absolutely willing to do that for our daughter at a school that costs $75,000 a year. We left it up to her and said we would take out loans for what we couldn’t cover with her half of our very healthy college savings fund (which would have been depleted and then some, leaving nothing for her brother, if she chose the expensive elite school) She chose an out of state flagship university that gave her the most money. She will start her engineering degree in 2 weeks and honestly, now that some time has passed, we are relieved that we won’t be swimming in debt for years to come. It was the first adult decision our kid had to make and frankly she did better than her parents.
You got lucky that she chose a less expensive option. If she had chosen the expensive option, draining the college money and burying you in debt, would you have been in the very uncomfortable situation of having to explain to her brother that his college budget is much smaller than hers?
Ah, after a few months away, it is so good to see that the age old college confidential question lives on! Of course there as many answers to this as there are unique students and families, their financial situations and what they value. I can contribute now with the benefit of hindsight, and say without hesitation that for DS18 and for our family “cheap state Univ” was absolutely the right choice (vs “expensive ivy or top 20 school”). But I don’t think it would be for everyone. It is impossible to generalize about this.
@ucbalumnus You are exactly right. He is a very different kid and will likely go in a very different direction than his sister, but he still deserves the same resources we were willing to give to her. She made the best choice for her and her family. It’s very easy to get caught up in the “elite college” excitement, though. I think it takes a lot of strength to turn down those acceptances. One of her good friends chose full pay at Brown over a full ride at University of Iowa. But she’s happy and her family is willing so there you go. I’m relieved for our family, but try hard not to judge the decisions of others.
I think a lot of the college experience lies within the student’s attitude. Because my son is having a good experience at college, I write about the advantages of small elite liberal arts colleges like the one he is attending. But I also know my kid and his approach to life. I think it likely that if he had gone to Binghamton (our in-state university), he would have had a good experience there, too, and I’d probably be singing its praises here!
On the other end of the spectrum, my friend’s child keeps transferring high schools (luckily she’s smart, because her parents have little income and she has gotten scholarships to the private schools in the mix of public and private schools she has attended), and I wouldn’t be surprised if someday she transfers to a new college as well.
The truth is that not everything is rosy and perfect about any school. Certainly not my son’s. When the good and bad aspects of the experience are weighed, is a student’s glass half empty or half full?
Different colleges have different advantages, and I do believe there is something to the concept of a better or worst “fit” between a student and their college. But personality may be an even bigger factor in how any college will be experienced by a student.
(Two Side Notes:
“Let’s remember that the name of this thread is elite school versus “cheap” state university. It’s not asking about LAC versus Brown.”
ok, but you’re that one brought up how great LACs are and challenged people to name an equivalent experience at a research university, and when someone responded Brown, you started backtracking because you knew that was a good answer. And it’s not just classics btw, I know a Brown pre-med who also loved the experience there for the LAC reasons you cite. He ended up at Hopkins med, so probably didn’t regret his choice.