<p>doinschool - You said what I was afraid to say - I am feeling the same way. The private schools are going to be for the ultra rich and poor. We are blessed with a great income, and no debt. But in order for our D to learn the value of money, we have given her a “cap” amount. We just can’t say to her the sky is the limit! And how can anyone justify spending $236,000 on an undergraduate education? Merit based aid is the only fair way. Our D has worked her butt off her whole life for excellent grades, state solo champ in her instrument, on and on. But she is penalized because her parents are fiscally sound?</p>
<p>What I find offensive are the sweeping overgeneralizations about schools, comments that offend many posters here. What is also offensive is wasting a l painful amount of time on other threads trying to provide assistance, suggestions and support to posters who seem to be blowing a bunch of smoke. Not a fan of smoke an mirrors. Sorry.</p>
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<p>How is your D penalized? If you have a “great income and no debt,” you are very fortunate and will be able to send your child to college. If you don’t want to be “penalized” for having a nice income, feel free to make far less income so your child can “benefit.”</p>
<p>busdriver - if momma-three would just come out and say what you have said, that she is making a judgment for her own family and leave it at that there wouldn’t be an issue. She takes it further to generalize and insinuate that parents are wasting their money at private schools unless they’re the tippy top LACs. </p>
<p>If a new CC member came to this thread, looking for advice, is that the message you’d want them to take away about college selection? No, because we know it isn’t the truth. It’s an answer for some families, and for others it isn’t. </p>
<p>I’ve said this before, but our (otherwise useless) high school college counselor advised us early in the game not to rule out schools early in the process due to finances alone, because you never know what kind of financial aid/scholarships a student might be offered. After we toured many schools with D1, she pretty much had her mind set on Syracuse. She loved the campus (not to be confused with the city), the atmosphere, the sports atmosphere (we toured campus the morning that tickets went on sale for the Final Four back in 2003), Greek life, etc., and was most impressed with their program of all the schools she toured. Had we not even ever let her consider Syracuse, based on the price, we would have never found out that she qualified for some merit scholarship. Even if she hadn’t, we were prepared to send her there. But why rule out private schools just because it’s not a tippy-top LAC and you think your kid can get an equivalent education at your flagship? It’s just not true.</p>
<p>“I figured the rest would follow due to who they are as people.”</p>
<p>ah well, I hear you. That certainly makes sense for some kids. It doesn’t for all. And yeah, for those kids whom it doesn’t, the career aspects of college (some combined function of academic quality/learning, resume oomph, alumni/faculty contacts, etc) can matter. If you need those, and arent going get them below some line (and its not a black and white thing, you may not get as much at Grinnell as at Amherst, but I suspect you get a lot more at Grinnnel than at Scranton) its certainly a lot cheaper (usually, not always) to go a directional state U, and hence less likely to lead to financial trouble. OTOH I also dont know the NJ state schools that well either. Again, for our DD, directional state schools really were not on the radar. So the ones we are most aware of are those here in virginia, like VCU, GMU and Christopher Newport (a public LAC, not on the level of W&M though) and from all I can gather, they are mostly pretty good alternatives to most of the “private LACs one hasnt heard of” - and if size is an issue, CNU isnt that big. </p>
<p>of course every family is in a different financial situation, every student is different (both in what kind of college environment is best, and what their personality wrt to a career is) and also, what we often forget, not everyone has the same state options.</p>
<p>So what if someone makes generalizations you disagree with? People make value judgements all the time. Why waste your time pulling up their old posts, trying to embarrass them and make them look like they’re lying? Why be vicious? Why gang up on someone from all sides to make them feel defensive?</p>
<p>It makes me feel bad to see someone being attacked. My sweeping overgeneralization is to advise people to eat good chocolate and drink good wine. Life is short. Sometimes surprisingly so.</p>
<p>“I have a daughter who sought a musical theater program. Some of the very highly regarded MT programs are not located in the most selective universities”</p>
<p>Im glad it worked out.</p>
<p>When it was down to “what other low match safety schools should we consider” syracuse came up. DD wants arch. We all know Syracuse is a POWER in architecture. Really. But DD was 17, and there was SOME chance she would change her mind. To Civil E, or something else. And while Syracuse has Civil e and much else, she really didnt think it was particularly somewhere she wanted to be for those. So we scratched it.</p>
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<p>I agree very much with terwtt. I respect the choices momma-three made for her own family and decisions in her D’s situation and that the parents did not want to spend more if their D did not make the most of it to their satisfaction. Then, it is a personal opinion related to one’s own situation. However,I read sweeping generalizations that non-elite privates are not worth the money. Thousands believe otherwise and have chosen such schools and feel they have been worth it and the experiences differ from directional state colleges.</p>
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<p>Admittedly, we did not use cost as a factor in selecting colleges. However, had we used sticker price, it would not have been accurate as our kids got good need based and one got merit based aid for their expensive private universities (and one got good merit based aid at a private grad school). So, I would advise someone to not rule a school out based solely on the price tag.</p>
<p>“How is your D penalized? If you have a “great income and no debt,” you are very fortunate and will be able to send your child to college.”</p>
<p>She is penalized because since she is full pay and if the parents can’t stomach the massive cost of some colleges, her choices are more limited. So the parents feel guilty if they can’t send her to her top choice college. She is penalized because the colleges raise the price on the full pays so they can give more financial aid to others. Though her parents are financially secure, does not mean that she will be. Particularly if she takes on large loans for college…while others get to attend virtually free. Just because the parents are financially secure doesn’t mean they always will or can pay. Leaving the child disadvantaged with debt, that others may not have.</p>
<p>My parents would be considered quite well off. Probably because they lived like paupers and saved all their money. Yet they only paid for the first quarter in community college, and thought they were generous for doing that.</p>
<p>busdriver I appreciated your posts. You are right. being able, and willing, to pay full freight transcends “well-off” and goes into “wealthy” imo. It seems to me that a significant portion of the middle and upper class is ALREADY priced out.</p>
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<p>I can only speak for myself and no other members or their posts on CC. I only looked up and quoted old posts by a member because the member stated she had not posted any information about her child’s stats and didn’t know how I would know them and so in order to respond, I had to quote the posts where the stats were posted about HS stats and there actually were other posts about first year of college stats posted as well. The information is on the forum. If someone is going to question me how I know something, I am going to show them how I know it. I am not going to reveal personal information. Revealing what a member has stated on the forum herself when asked how I know it, is simply reminding her of what she posted here.</p>
<p>I am not accusing anyone of lying. If there are inconsistencies in posts, readers can infer what they wish about it. If by chance someone is misleading or being dishonest, don’t blame those who are reading along trying to understand the story presented and being confused by it.</p>
<p>" She is penalized because the colleges raise the price on the full pays so they can give more financial aid to others."</p>
<p>College financial aid often given out of funds donated for that purpose, which cannot be used for other purposes. Donated funds are NOT fungible. And while there is some debate,the general consensus is that nonprofit colleges do not earn positive return on full pays.</p>
<p>"busdriver - if momma-three would just come out and say what you have said, that she is making a judgment for her own family and leave it at that there wouldn’t be an issue. She takes it further to generalize and insinuate that parents are wasting their money at private schools unless they’re the tippy top LACs. </p>
<p>If a new CC member came to this thread, looking for advice, is that the message you’d want them to take away about college selection? No, because we know it isn’t the truth. It’s an answer for some families, and for others it isn’t."</p>
<p>And I have no issue with that. My disagreement isn’t with people having differences of opinions, and questioning others that they think are wrong, arguing. My issue is too many people jumping on one poster, in a cruel and confrontational way…making them very obviously upset.</p>
<p>And I fear that, “if a new CC member came to this thread, looking for advice,” the message they would take away is that they’d better not dare to disagree with anyone.</p>
<p>BBD, regarding your post 267…
The thing with MT programs is you have to go where they are offered. If you are entering a BFA program, it is a committment directly into the program. If the student changes his/her mind about the program, they may change schools all together. Some of the BFA programs my kid applied to were located in schools that she would never have chosen otherwise if not for their BFA in MT. She was first selecting the programs as it is a commitment to the program. Choosing the college it was located within was a secondary consideration. She did prefer a more academically selective university and so when she luckily had many acceptances, she chose a school that has a well regarded BFA program but also is a very good school outside the program but she would not be changing her “major”…that kind of thinking doesn’t fit those seeking a BFA. If changing programs seems like a possibility, then applying for a BA in theater or MT is a much more appropriate path.</p>
<p>soozviet, I was referring to you when I said I appreciated those who had lightened up and were trying to get us back to topic.</p>
<p>274 - its not THAT much different in Arch. Except if you only get a BA in Arch, you will need a masters for most jobs. B Arch programs are in seperate schools, sometimes you need to reapply to switch to engineering or Arts and sciences. At RPI, though the Arch school is seperate, you can switch FROM it to the other schools there. So it worked for DD who is pretty committed to Arch, but still wanted options other than transferring.</p>
<p>soozievt is always a courteous poster. I think she is to be commended for that.</p>
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<p>Saying that the parent with a “great income and no debt” CAN"T send their child to a top college is not fact. The parents may choose to not stomach the cost. But if they have to pay $50K per year, that is just as hard to stomach as someone who is making $60,000/year and has to come up with $20K for tuition. The hardship is there for them too but they choose to send their child and take out loans. The child doesn’t have to take out loans unless the parents refuse to pay parent loans themselves. It really is a choice. I do not feel that kids from families who make incomes over $150K/year (which is upper class even if some CCers consider it not so much 
) are not penalized. Truly, if they want their kids to get need based aid,they can get a job making less money. :D</p>
<p>By the way, the child of upper middle class parents who has to take out student loans is not the only kid doing so…those lower income kids who some seem to be envious of, also tend to have loans as part of their need based FA package.</p>
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<p>Several posters have shared that they do not like the generalizations and find them to be inaccurate. I, too, think many of the generalizations momma-three has posted cannot be held to be true in many, many situations, mine included and I think it is important to present factual information and let parents and their child make an educated decision. When you come out bluntly and say it’s a waste of money to send a kid to a non-tippy top LAC, it’s a lie. If you preface it with, for our family… it didn’t work for this reason and this is what did work, then you’ve left room for the reader to understand this is just one anecdotal piece of evidence. </p>
<p>I had never heard of Muhlenberg until D2 was at the end of her junior year, and only heard about it because of CC. If I was a new parent just beginning the college selection process and read a post that makes the claims that momma-three does, without others disagreeing and presenting the truth (that you can get a highly reputable education at a non top LAC), then I might have never looked any further and learned about some of the wonderful schools that are out there that don’t fit this bill. </p>
<p>Momma-three seems to be the only one on this thread that is so rigid and narrowly focused on her belief on the value of education at non-top LACs. I would hope that any new CC members would see that the majority of posters here do not believe in a one-size fits all philosophy to college selection.</p>
<p>and I appreciated your attempts to redirect the thread busdriver. That said, I also appreciated Soozies’ posting of old posts that helped to shed light on the inaccuracies and inconsistencies that have puzzled so many posters in this and several other threads. We know not everyone reads all the same threads, so this may not be apparent to all reading this thread.</p>