I would follow advice above. Deposit on Grinnell by the 1st. Send appeal to Carleton and explain that 9k is significant for your family and you are ready to commit to Grinnell because of money issue, but if FA packages will match you will commit to Carleton. However, be very careful. If Carleton will come back with an offer, make sure it is for all 4 years and not just for year one. I would request it in writing.
2 Likes
I do think with every major spending decision where different options cost different amounts, you naturally should consider the relative value of both options, and also what else you could do with those financial resources if you didn’t spend it in this area.
OK, so in this case, Grinnell is such a high value option itself, I do think it makes it harder to justify paying a lot more for Carleton. Someone else introduced the analogy of a house, so supposed you were looking for a house and you found two possibilities, one which cost $36K more than the other. If the more expensive house was a lot better for your needs than the less expensive house, then you might well consider paying that. But if the two houses were both very suitable for your needs and the differences were relatively minor, you might save the money and just go with the less expensive house.
OK, then what else could you do if you save $36K, plus interest? Well, for one thing, you might buy a house sooner! Or you might use that to help pay for additional higher education. Or you might use it to take a job that paid a little less upfront, but would be a great experience and help build your career. Or so on.
Those could all be pretty valuable uses of $36K + interest. So again, if there is not a big enough difference in value between your two college options, you might want to save those resources and use them at a later point where they might make a more valuable difference.
In the end, all this is up to you. But I would just caution against the mindset that this is the only point in your life where you could get a significant benefit from spending this extra money. Trust me, you will have many more points coming up when another $36K + interest would be very welcome! So it is definitely not a permanent loss of opportunity to not spend it now, if that is what you choose.
3 Likes