There are a lot of commodities out there with differentiated experiences, and sometimes they come at less selective schools - like my daughter’s experience as a Charleston Fellow.
However, in the end, education is that - education - and setting the stage for your life after. Whether you go to Harvard or Hofstra, you are obtaining a college degree and hopefully moving successfully to the next stage of life.
No different than eating at a steak restaurant - they are commodities. They have differing levels of “experience provided” and even level of beef provided - but in the end, they are a steak dinner.
This isn’t the place to discuss the actual definitions of economic terms.
But substantively, I think it is important to understand college isn’t just a black box where you push a button and it outputs a degree to put on your resume. It is also four years of your life, and those years count as much as any. Indeed, many of us found them to be particularly notable years.
Thank you for this topic! My child is only a sophomore but it’s already something we are thinking about with almost the exact same dollars and financial situation. FWIW, we are already having those same convos about no loans, can apply to those longshot schools but won’t afford them without the moonshot merit, etc..
I’ll offer my experience from an emotional perspective although it was decades ago so the landscape has changed. I was a NMF and got into a huge range of schools including my dream expensive private. I was also offered a full ride to a fairly unimpressive instate school. My parents told me they could pay for the dream school, but I would then have to take out law school loans. Or, I could take that full ride and they would pay for law school, and I would end up with no debt. My decision was financially prudent, and to this day I’m glad to not have had debt. BUT, I never loved my undergrad and wasn’t excited to go there. I went to a very strong and wealthy HS and was semi “ashamed” that my classmates were all headed to amazing schools, even though I knew I was also accepted to those same places.
Bottom line, if she decides to shoot her shot, make sure she does have schools she loves that are affordable and she will happily attend, otherwise it will turn disappointment into a lot more pain and sadness.
Great advice and great story. It’s really hard to know what the path not taken might have been, but it’s not hard to imagine that it would have been better if you weren’t happy with the one taken.
Yeah, it is tricky sometimes to find a college which will both be comfortably affordable and also exciting for the student.
On the plus side, there are SOOOOO many colleges in the US. So I do think sometimes with some help, including as available here, kids can find affordable colleges that have particular things that excite them, seem like a good fit overall, and so on. Which can feel less like “settling” just for cost sake alone.
And yes, sometimes it wouldn’t hurt if some of those options were not in-state. I do think picking your favorite in-state option is very often a very good choice for many kids, and many kids happily do that. But for a kid who feels like that would be disappointing, then doing some extra work to try to find other sorts of options might be a good idea.
In fact, even if they end up picking an in-state option, just having the choice might be nice.
But truth is you don’t know that you would have loved the dream school either. Many limp their way through college, no matter the where and perceptions of it before attending.
Of course, my point is hopefully her child lands at a school that she is excited to attend. It may end up not being what she wanted, but trust me that walking into school not even happy to be there is not what I’d advise. It may end up being great, but having to walk away from something you really want to end up some place you don’t even care if you “buy the t-shirt” takes away a lot of joy.
YMMV of course, that’s just my lived experience. Life overall then and since, generally great. And that college served its purpose, but OP can find value in my suggestion or not.
Thank you for sharing this story. I have a slightly different version of the same basic story - attended a university that offered a big NMF scholarship and that my parents loved, but I was never truly excited about it. It didn’t help that once I arrived, the dorm was full of frat guys who seemed to be having an amazing time (a few of whom I had actually known in childhood, coincidentally), but there didn’t seem to be many people who cared much about academics. In hindsight, I think on some level I always felt that I belonged at a “better” college, which wasn’t a helpful attitude and surely made it even harder there.
I ultimately received a good education and have had a great life since, so none of this is a tragedy, but I like the way you put it: that kind of college experience takes away a lot of joy that could have been. I think pretty often about how college could’ve gone differently at another place, and I’ve worked hard to help my own kids find campuses that really fit them well. Seeing the experience that D22 has had at her university reassures me that it was worth that effort.
There are LOTS of reasons to take on debt. You and your family may not have been interested in any of those reasons– but we’re not the OP, and we don’t have to live with their family’s decisions.
Debt is a tool. A hammer is a tool. Using a hammer when you need a wrench is dumb and could be dangerous. Misusing debt could also be dumb and dangerous, but today there are hundreds of thousands of adults out there working in jobs they love, having satisfying lives, paying taxes, contributing to their communities and yes- prudently paying off their educational loans at the same time.
I took on debt for grad school and tripled my salary from my post-grad BA job– and the company paid to move me from my grad school city to a much lower cost of living area. Retired my educational debt early but by then had kids so continued to “pay the loans”, but this time, the money went straight into custodial accounts (and then 529’s) because I figured if I could live without the money, why not continue to live without the money?
Spouse had undergrad loans AND grad school loans. These loans (his and mine) made our professional and financial lives possible.
I’ve got nieces and nephews who are living prudently, working in jobs they love, and paying off their loans. Who am I to tell them “there’s zero reason to take on any debt” when sometimes loans can make the difference between going to college part time, working full time, taking 9 years to finish a BA vs. graduating at 22 with a degree?
Your “zero reason” mantra doesn’t work for lots of people. I had an assistant working for me at one point who was two classes shy of a BA. It came up because I encouraged her to apply for a job in another department (she was smart, capable, had fantastic people skills) and she confessed that she wasn’t eligible for that job because she hadn’t graduated from college. Why? She ran out of money senior year and dropped out. Parents said “NO LOANS” so even though she was an adult by then and didn’t need their permission– she complied. And now ten years later she couldn’t get it together to finish. Even at a company which would have paid her tuition. And then been eligible for promotions, new and more interesting professional challenges. NO LOANS. Wow. Not great advice for lots of people.
You need to look at it in context of OP. They have a budget and they can easily find schools to meet the budget. Therefore, there is no reason to take on debt.
Here is my quick 2 cents based off my experience with this last cycle. The caveat is every year is different. Next year will have its own set of variables. My son’s stats and activities were pretty similar to your daughter’s. He ended up getting into 5 top 20 schools including a top 10. You’d think he would have been competitive for major scholarships and honors programs. We were chasing merit and especially the big full-ride or full-tuition scholarships. Kid applied to 26 schools, got shut out of all of the major scholarships and was rejected by many honors programs. I feel terrible I suggested he apply to all of them, Stamps, Jefferson, Foundation Fellowship at UGA, on and on. There were double the amount of essays, video components, having to track down teachers to write different recommendations, interviews. It was stressful and a lot of extra work. My advice is pick a small number of schools your daughter loves and is really good for political science to go after the big time merit, because it’s insanely competitive and A LOT of work. Best of luck to you next year.
Just learned the lesson that overthinking too far in advance is sort of a waste of time in this quickly evolving college admissions landscape. UF is still her top choice, and they just announced they are offering early decision this year. Even without merit, it comes close to what we have budgeted, so she decided to apply early deciison. Now it seems really pointless to put extra labor into extreme reaches like scholarships at competitive privates because if she’s not accepted ED to UF, what are the chances she’d get a full tuition scholarship at a selective private? She is still going to put in applications to Tulane, American, and some other large flagships and apply to her safeties. Any predictions on how the first cycle of ED will go for UF, particularly for OOS applicants? Her ACT is now a 36 composite, and her unweighted GPA is 3.75 due to two Bs each semester junior year (very hard AP lang teacher that rarely gives out As but otherwise all her Bs in high school have been in math because she really hates it). I think she’d be fine EA, but she is really anxious about her GPA which seems silly to me given the rigor of her classes and her consistent Bs in mostly math only (and the fact that she’s not going into STEM). So I’m happy to potentially get this all finalized by December 11th and let her go with her gut on early decision.
So I hate to try to guess at actual probabilities, particularly for a new program, but really in general, not least because I can’t see the whole application file.
But I would put it this way: if I had to bet based on what you told us, I definitely would NOT bet against her if she EDs to Florida.
It’s 4.38 recalculated. But her school district isn’t known for grade inflation and hopefully that shows up in the school profile. And she didn’t have the option to inflate her GPA with advanced language courses (until Spanish 4) or advanced algebra I and earth science in 8th (courses available to a lot of Florida students). So hopefully they see the school profile, her ACT score, and the fact that her Bs are almost exclusively in math and accept her. Or maybe she’s right to be nervous and apply Early Decision. Fingers crossed.
The trick here - in or not - is which other flagships is she interested in ? Some are an EA must - because they take the EA kids first and RD on a space remaining basis.
So while she may get into UF, its decision comes Dec 11 and lots of schools - a UMD, Purdue amongst others you will want to apply early.
The two most likely UF in my opinion are UGA and Bama. Bama will get an admit anytime but not merit money so you need to hit a deadline for that. UGA you need to apply by Oct 15th.
What I’m saying ED to UF doesn’t mean you can take your foot off the gas - at least at many publics. But even privates like Emory - apply after the decision but miss scholarship consideration, etc.
