<p>Pizzagirl, I think it will always come down to a personal choice. Having gone to a variety of schools, the most profound feature is the intellect of the student body, based on my direct experience. The majority of top tier schools give enough money to motivated candidates so that the loan debt is not crippling. I’ll have three kids in LAC-land by this fall and our family will officially become “cash-poor”, but getting the three kids into LAC-land was the primary objective of the family, so, Objective: Met.</p>
<p>Yes, many turn down good merit offers and go where they’re full pay or qualify for a ton of aid. That’s why the answer is “it depends.”</p>
<p>However, the OP’s scenario seems to ask whether a full ride or full tuition scholarship should trump a top school with LOTS OF LOANS. In that scenario, the answer is often YES. </p>
<p>There are a bunch of high stats kids who can’t go to the pricey highly ranked schools for a variety of reasons:</p>
<p>1) An NCP that won’t pay, and the CP can’t afford to cover his “non-payment”.</p>
<p>2) parents’ assets are driving up EFC, but aren’t available to pay for college because they’re the source of income (business assets, rental properties, etc)</p>
<p>3) Live in a “too pricey area” so the high income doesn’t allow for big tuition payments.</p>
<p>4) The high income is rather “new” to the family, so there wasn’t an ability to save for college.</p>
<p>Intparent…these are often the NMFs who are seeking large merit at schools like Alabama, Oklahoma, Northeastern, etc. Alabama gets mentioned a lot because it gives large merit to BOTH high stats non-NMFs and to NMFs, which many NMF schools do NOT. It’s not only grabbing a couple hundred of NMFs every year, but it’s also grabbing about 600 high stats (ACT 32+) free-tuition frosh every year while also giving bonus merit to the Eng’g students who have ACT 30-31. The other schools aren’t doing that. </p>
<p>That said, if the parents can and are willing to pay or the student can get a ton of FA, then the student goes wherever he wants. :)</p>
<p>You shouldn’t have to choose between a full ride to a school you consider undesirable and a 6-figure private loan to your “dream” college. If you are talented enough to qualify for a full ride somewhere, then you almost certainly have many other options covering a broad range of school types, selectivity, and costs. Those options might include your in-state public flagship at half the COA of many private schools, good OOS public universities offering full tuition scholarships, or solid but not-so-well-known LACs that offer many merit discounts. If you do qualify for a large private loan, then you probably earn enough or could have been saving enough, or else have some home equity available, to afford some of these alternatives. </p>
<p>@tk21769 Altough I agree with you, your argument presumes a student / family is savvy enough to apply to a wide range of schools. We have all read countless threads from students deciding between a great financial deal at 'Bama or Arizona or (fill in the blank) and going into huge debt to attend a highly ranked no merit school as these are their only options.</p>
<p>My son is currently deciding between a couple of full tuition+ offers (one of which was a huge surprise), a few schools that offered good merit (20 to 30k), and a small merit offer to a very competitive U. Still waiting on a couple of schools, some of which offer no merit. My H and I encouraged my son to cast a wide net as finances will play a part in the decision process for us. We are grateful that S has several excellent options that we can afford. At this point it isn’t a no brainer to take a full tuition offer, but S does recognize the value of these offers - and not just financially. It will be interesting to see where he lands!</p>
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<p>While I agree with you, there do seem to be some students who fixate on a dream school (or small set of dream schools) and consider all others to be undesirable. If the dream school does not admit them or offer enough money, that ends up being a huge let-down.</p>
<p>When S applied to colleges, he qualified for pretty much a full ride in need-based aid, and receiving that kind of money was the only way we could afford to send him. So we didn’t even consider merit schools that did not truly meet need without loans beyond the federal ones. Luckily, he was a viable candidate at the schools that met need and did indeed get into several of them and was given the money he needed. (We had put aside some money for him before financial disaster, but it was nowhere near enough.)</p>
<p>We had a real estate asset on paper that screwed up his award at some places, leaving us with an EFC that almost equaled our annual income. I don’t know what we would have done if he preferred one of those schools…appealed, I guess, although our appeal at the U of C, one of his top choices, was rebuffed. H explored every option for realizing the value of the real estate, to no avail.</p>
<p>If S had not been a competitive candidate at the deep-pockets schools, I don’t know what we would have done. $30K of merit on a $50K COA would simply not have done it, and that is a huge merit award. He probably should have done Questbridge, but we didn’t find out about it until the later side, and I --probably mistakenly–assumed that he would not qualify since he did not come from a long-term deprived background.</p>
<p>In some ways, he was lucky. A kid with major need but without his stats and resume is in a tough place. A kid whose parents have not saved for college for some reason–illness, job loss, NCP, supporting other family, or just fecklessness–but who has a decent current family income is in a tough place.</p>
<p>Sometimes I wonder if he is aware of how lucky he really was, and of how grateful he should be to his college.</p>
<p>We are facing the ‘fullride with lots of perks in the mix against other good offers’ issue. Right now, each choice is affordable and should result in no loans, so that helps. However, as regular decision results come in the issue becomes more complex as some of the those schools offer no merit aid. We may have cast too wide of a net.</p>
<p>I don’t think there is such a thing as too wide a net, as long as you can restrain your kid from buying into the whole “dream school” nonsense. </p>
<p>^ Agreed. My son tells everyone who asks him about which school is his favorite that he doesn’t have one. He says that he’ll figure that out once he has all of his decisions, merit, and financial aid packages. He plans to go to to grad school so he realizes that his bachelor’s will probably not be his terminal degree. At this point, he wants to go to a school with a good program in his intended major with a proven track record of grad school admissions at well regarded programs and that won’t put him into debt (at least beyond Stafford loans). That said, he does crave a school that will challenge him and where he will be with intellectual peers. He realizes, though, that many of the honors colleges (like Alabama) have loads of top students who for one reason or another decided not attend a more expensive school. </p>
<p>For the record; I do not have a dream school.</p>
<p>When I was a Freshman, I got caught up in the idea of Boston University but those fantasies were dashed when I realized that it was financially impossible to go (BU is lousy with need based aid and even top applicants only get so much in the way of about half tuition, still leaving a massive COA price tag) – I applied to a wide range of schools, from cost effective in-state publics to ivy league schools (a girl can dream, can’t she?) - and everything in between. More importantly, I applied to a long list of schools where I’d be happy to attend each and every one which isn’t always the case for everyone, particularly those who become fixated on the dream school notion. </p>
<p>The question came from the idea that at this point in the game, my family’s financial situation entails either considerable debt 12k+ a year (I received considerable merit aid everywhere, but full rides at only two places) - or 0 debt. The difference between the schools that warrant 0 debt and the schools that warrant more in the way of 12k a year is just “prestige” and a few ranks on the USNWR - all of the schools I applied to “fit” me. They were all researched and visited beforehand. I don’t know if I mentioned this before but it really is just a matter of lower end tier 1 vs mid-range tier 2. </p>
<p>Sounds like you did a good job choosing your schools, preamble. I’m not sure that 12K per year in loans is worth a few spots on USNWR rankings, but that’s just me. Everyone has to make up their own minds given their situation. Best of luck to you as you make your decisions!</p>
<p>My child would be attending the full-ride and or full tuition school if it is a choice between said school and us having to take out loans for her to attend. On the other hand, we would never be in such a predicament as BHG crafted her list based on NPCs, possible merit aid, and what we’re willing to pay since our EFC is above COA at all CSS profile schools and is even larger with my recent promotion and return to full time employment. We will not have any surprises when she begins submitting applications next fall. Additionally, she loves all the schools on her list thus far, and would be happy to attend any of them–including her safety schools, as she searched based on finances, needs & fit to cobble together a slate of schools.</p>
<p>We were in a predicament dealing with our son who graduated from college this past May 2013 where he and we had to decide if we were going to pay $240K for him to attend Ex-H’s alma mater or attend one of his two safeties that offered a full ride and the other almost full tuition. There were no NPCs to determine merit or aid, and we assumed a lot, especially for the Ivies. Ex-DH attended an Ivy, and since his parents were an MD & Psychiatrist, and he received some aid, we just assumed our son would, too. WRONG, WRONG, WRONG. We were NOT willing to pay full freight even for an IVY, and son thought it preposterous as well. He attended a LAC that offered him 34.5K in merit aid and never looked back. He took out a Direct loan one year, and is debt free, and so are we. </p>
<p>I would also opt for debt and loan-free over $50K in loans for slightly higher “prestige.” Attending and graduating debt-free is very freeing–for you AND your loved ones. Congrats on crafting such a great list of Us and having such great options. </p>
<p>I can think of a lot of things you can do when you graduate debt-free that will be much tougher if you graduate with $50K in loans. </p>
<p>I’ve been well read as of lately to the horror stories associated with student debt and how restricting debt can be on early adulthood - not only does it seriously hamper the prospects of grad school - it also makes buying a house, a car, or even travel near impossible - not to mention the whole idea of marriage as many people are unwilling to marry someone who has 6 figure debt on their shoulders. I figure that in a volatile job market that is constantly changing, it is better to have a degree that isn’t necessarily marketable at that very moment rather than have a degree that isn’t marketable coupled with crippling debt. </p>
<p>they should.</p>
<p>Lots of people turn down full rides. I turned down a full ride at Williams (Tyng Scholar) to attend a different SLAC with better programs in my field. My D, a NMF, will turn down a full ride at the fine SLAC at which I work (tuition benefit) as well as all of the tuition exchange schools, and will likely be a full-pay student at a very expensive university. C’est la vie. The real cost of college is not the $$, it is the four precious years committed to it.</p>
<p>Well, some people can say c’est la vie - I’m one of them - but other people can’t. </p>
<p>No, the real cost of college is the 10 years + post college when graduates are paying back half their salary for student loans.</p>
<p>“Ces’t la vie…” What a telling statement for a college professor to make.</p>
<p>Seriously. Easy to c’est la vie when you can afford tuition wherever your dear child is accepted!</p>
<p>FWIW, the Tyng Scholarship today is the equivalent of the Holy Grail/Power Ball (choose your own metaphor) as far as I’m concerned. Wonderful that it all worked out for you and will, no doubt, work out for your dear daughter, but for a lot of us the decision isn’t nearly as clear cut, hence threads like this one.</p>
<p>My older son received several National Merit offers, and he took one to Alabama. He has never regretted turning down Wash U (3/4 tuition), Richmond (15K merit money a year), McDaniel (full tuition) or Rochester (3/4 tuition). At Alabama, he was president of six different organizations over a three-year span, double majored, double minored, did research for three years, won a prestigious scholarship that included a NOAA internship in American Samoa, studied abroad all over the world and graduated No. 1 in his college. He has been accepted to two, top 12 law schools, and will enter without debt.</p>
<p>The younger son followed his brother’s example – use your grades/SAT to earn merit money. He has several outstanding offers, including two full tuition scholarships. He will accept one of those scholarships at a school that has offered him a spot on its track/cross country teams.</p>
<p>We are not wealthy people. We are teachers in an area of the country where housing prices are high, so we are grateful each day that our sons saw the need to be excellent students and penny-wise.</p>