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</p>
<p>I thought Brown had good financial aid (guarantee to meet full need for all accepted students) but NOT with the same generous incentives for higher income earners as Stanford and Harvard.</p>
<p>I gave some links to the Brown FA initiatives in my post 305.</p>
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</p>
<p>Actually @200K even HYP FA doesn’t help.
This is from Princeton FA estimator for 2011-2012
I. Princeton’s Costs for 2011-2012
Tuition $38,000
Room 6,600
Board 5,610
Books and Personal Expenses 3,670
Travel 900 </p>
<hr>
<p>Total Estimated Student Budget $54,780 </p>
<p>II. Your Estimated Family Contribution
Parents’ Contribution $69,000 - $70,000
Student’s Expected Summer Savings 1,560
Student’s Asset Contribution 0 </p>
<hr>
<p>Total Estimated Family Contribution $70,560 - $71,560 </p>
<p>Your Need For Aid is $0
Even though your estimated family resources are sufficient to pay a year’s expenses, you can still receive the following aid: </p>
<p>Student Loan $5500
Campus Job $2990</p>
<hr>
<p>This with $0 savings and $0 investment from California with house. So if you happen to have saving especially for children education, your family EFC might be higher.</p>
<p>So, if students take out loans and then default, 1) the college benefits - they get their money, and spend it, so it is good for the economy; 2) the student benefits -s/he supposedly receives something of value; and 3) the bank doesn’t benefit, until it collects from the feds. So really, it is a form of “stimulus package”.</p>
<p>Well, I’m sorry to beat this dead horse, but I was accepted to UVA yesterday and it made me think of this thread</p>
<p>My family is better off than most. I am in a very lucky position where I could easily afford any school out of a trust fund. </p>
<p>I have been accepted to schools that could indeed be a better match for me than UVA (colorado, whitman, likely reed) but I find it very difficult to make that decision.</p>
<p>The way I see it, I am paying twice as much money for a GAMBLE…if I go to one of those schools and I don’t like it as much as I thought I would, how much of an idiot would I feel like? On the other hand, if I don’t like UVA as long as I keep a high GPA i can transfer pretty much anywhere I want. They are also more likely to accept my college credits and AP scores.</p>
<p>For people in the “deadzone” who aren’t <em>amazing</em> students (good enough to receive significant merit aid at top-25 lac’s/U’s) and are well-off but not <em>rich</em> it just seems like such an unnecessary risk to pay such an exorbitant cost to study undergrad curriculum…I really wonder, who ARE all these people paying $55k a year for their kids to go to school? I don’t mean to get on the moral high horse, but the first thing that comes to my head is that many people who pay the full sticker price are making a financially irresponsible decision unless they have several mill $$ savings or they value their kid’s education more than anything else</p>
<p>I still haven’t made up my mind, but the more I think about it the more sense UVA makes. Just because I can afford private schools doesn’t mean I think it’s worth it…</p>
<p>Doingschool–</p>
<p>UVA is a great school. Really it is. </p>
<p>I’m not endorsing doing one or the other, but if you go to UVA, I think you’ll find yourself pretty happy, personally. It’s well-respected and a lot of fun…</p>
<p>Either way, good luck to you.</p>
<p>DoinSchool–love the DeadZone term. I always referred to it as financial pergatory. My daughter followed the money to college and has not regretted bypassing the bigger name (and bigger $$$)schools. You can gain a fabulous education at UVa. Good luck.</p>
<p>@Doingschool,
I would set up a spreadsheet and calculate ROI. If you are going to UVa just for fun of it and without thinking of a job that will pay it off within 5-10 years, I wouldn’t do it. Think abut it: A lot of places would need the money. Getting married, buying a house, having a family with 2.5 kids, etc…Assuming that all these are in your plan. If not, you need to think about having enough money so that you can retire early…</p>
<p>Guys my name is Doinschool - adding the g is like dropping the g from Snoop Dogg. :p</p>
<p>Doin, I agree with you re the dead zone. 1/2 of NYU is not on finaid – how are there families paying? Are they all rich? </p>
<p>Are we going to be back to the pre WWII era where only the wealthy go to private colleges? </p>
<p>The number of college age kids is projected to start dropping soon. Will the tier3 and tier4 private colleges collapse?</p>
<p>@kayf,
In answering your last question, yes, small private lower-tier colleges are having a hard time filling their classes. I just talked with an admissions director of our local college last night on a party. I was told that they need to filling a 200 student class this year. So far, they may fill only 1/3 of it. Most students will be from Korea, China, India, etc…I am not sure about the long-term viability of such schools as a for-profit business.</p>
<p>Incurring debt in todays economy is not smart. So everyone should apply their own value analysis for what the worth of a potential $240,000 degree really is vs. a less costly alternative. Over on the U of Rochester forum someone is asking if it is worth an extra $120,000 to attend Rochester over the public Binghamton.</p>
<p>kxc1961, I believe DoinSchool is instate for UVa. His cost there would be significantly less than at the other schools he is considering if his family is full pay at the other schools. Good luck with your decision, DoinSchool.</p>
<p>Doinschool, my S was in your position last year at this time. No trust fund, but we have been diligently saving money for our kids’ educations, and we would have been a full-pay family at $50K+ schools, at least until his sister started college in a few years. My S is now a UVA first-year paying instate tuition, couldn’t be happier socially, and is plenty challenged academically. He’s going into an engineering field in which employment options are abundant, but even so taking on a ton of debt to attend a slightly more highly ranked private school seemed unwise.</p>
<p>@ kayf</p>
<p>Regarding NYU, if I had to guess I would say that more full-pay kids than you might think are far from “rich”. I think that many families feel great pressure to provide for their kid’s college education and are making a financially unwise decision based on emotions - primarily fear that their child needs to go to the most “prestigious” school in order to get a job or be successful</p>
<p>Doinschool- congrats on the UVA acceptance, it’s a terrific school (not to mention it has a gorgeous campus).</p>
<p>For the record, my child attends NYU and we are full pay. No financial aid, not rich, but this was something that we can do financially. (I do not care to disclose my personal financial situation here). There are very good reasons why our child attends NYU. It is not that we were concerned about any so-called “prestige”. I just don’t get why people seem to feel the need to bash the school. If you do not feel that you can afford it or whatever, don’t let your child apply and just move on. No one at NYU will come after your child and insist that they apply. Enough already.</p>
<p>Sorry fallgirl, I wasn’t trying to bash NYU at all</p>
<p>@ doinschool - that’s OK. It’s just that it seems as if whenever there is a thread like this some posters seem to need to bring up NYU in a negative way. My feeling is that with 3000+ colleges in the US, there is a school for everyone.</p>
<p>FallGirl - I think that what you perceive as “NYU bashing” is the result of a kind of perfect storm. It’s a very expensive school, located in an expensive area, the financial aid is quite weak, and (rightly or wrongly), many folks feel that it’s solidly overrated compared to other schools at that price level.</p>
<p>So it’s not bashing, but more of an unfortunate alignment between criteria (three objective, one subjective). The problem is that it’s priced for perfection, so people reasonably compare it against perfection.</p>
<p>At least NYU is honest. They’re up front about being expensive and not having a tremendous amount of aid to give out at this point in time, and it is clear. I think some of the “meets full need” schools are much more deceptive, since they determine “need” AND claim to meet it at the same time. </p>
<p>Just saying. </p>
<p>(And I don’t have anyone at NYU or interested in going there, so no bias.)</p>