<p>For many people drowning in student loan debt - the real cost of college was in fact the money. </p>
<p>I guess it’s YMMV but a full ride isn’t a final determinant in my eyes, but a powerful point to consider</p>
<p>Agreed, Erin’s Dad. There’s a big difference between a “full ride” and “full tuition” too, although a lot of folks seem to use the terms interchangeably. </p>
<p>I meant full ride as in - the ability to go to a school for free. If a school is a commuter school; full tuition and fees would be considered a full ride - but at schools where the student would be dorming, room and board would have to be included in the scholarship as well. </p>
<p>My D is a NMF and can get full ride from many decent schools. She also get a near full tuition scholarship from a good school that I suggested to her. However, she wants to go to the in state flagship instead although it will have a higher out of pocket cost than many other schools. Cost is one of the main considerations, but if there are affordable choices, I would let my D make the decision as long as she won’t need to pick up a lot of loan. I know what she has chosen is far from the cheapest, but this also convinced her to look for more scholarships opportunities to cover the cost as she needs to be responsible to her decision too.</p>
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<p>Living in the parents’ house and commuting is not zero-cost, although some parents will continue to subsidize at no charge to the student things like food, utilities, and transportation costs of a commuter student living at home*, even if they will not contribute the amount of such costs toward room and board at an away college.</p>
<p>*Colleges which show a commuter student budget or cost of attendance often list these costs at around $4,000 to $5,000 per academic year, but these are likely to be highly variable between households (both in terms of food and utility consumption, and the distance and method of transportation that the commuting student uses).</p>
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<p>??? Isn’t that a “need based” deal? That’s not what this thread is about.</p>
<p>I think the Tyng is need plus merit.</p>
<p>Whatever it is if it’s a full ride I’d think it is relevant to the discussion…</p>
<p>I don’t really mean to be flippant, but I do find the focus of so many CC conversations on cost rather than value to be puzzling. I’ve attended and worked at a significant number of universities, and seen the very wide disparity in student experiences. At the elite end, need-based financial aid makes it possible for most (not all, alas, but most) admitted students to actually attend. It isn’t cheap (though it costs a heck of a lot more to put your child in the Berkeley childcare center than to pay tuition at Berkeley). Still, the huge cost of higher ed is offset (statistically) by an enormous lifetime return, and pretty small differences in the payout rate will swamp the initial investment cost. Much of higher ed policy these days is focused on trying to prevent “undermatching” in historically underrepresented groups, because of the lifetime costs of enrolling in a less rigorous college. Isn’t chasing price rather than value just another form of undermatching?</p>
<p>*At the elite end, need-based financial aid makes it possible for most (not all, alas, but most) admitted students to actually attend. *</p>
<p>I have not gotten that impression.
Since the schools that do not dispense merit aid, but meet “full need”, also request additional information besides FAFSA to identify available funds, many families find that the colleges idea of " need met", and their own, cannot be bridged.</p>
<p>Thats what many of the threads on CC are about!
;)</p>
<p>Id also argue that there is a big difference between full ride and full tuition. Especially when the school is in the back of beyond and will have transportation costs added to the cOA.</p>
<p>But money isnt the only thing.
You can save money, but find a great school.
My daughter attends an instate directional that we couldn’t be happier with.</p>
<p>“Whatever it is if it’s a full ride I’d think it is relevant to the discussion…”</p>
<p>well, it’s only relevant if what he selected instead was a school that req’d him to pay substantially more. If he went to another full need met school that gave him a ton of aid, then it’s not really relevant to this thread.</p>
<p>Many kids accept full-tuition or similar and turn down larger offers, but this thread is about more extreme situations where the person turns down huge merit and is full or near-full-pay elsewhere (and requiring substantial debt).</p>
<p>My own kids went to undergrad on near-full-ride offers, but turned down true full rides. I don’t think their situation is relevant to this thread.</p>
<p><<<<
I don’t really mean to be flippant, but I do find the focus of so many CC conversations on cost rather than value to be puzzling. I’ve attended and worked at a significant number of universities, and seen the very wide disparity in student experiences. At the elite end, need-based financial aid makes it possible for most (not all, alas, but most) admitted students to actually attend. It isn’t cheap (though it costs a heck of a lot more to put your child in the Berkeley childcare center than to pay tuition at Berkeley). Still, the huge cost of higher ed is offset (statistically) by an enormous lifetime return, and pretty small differences in the payout rate will swamp the initial investment cost. Much of higher ed policy these days is focused on trying to prevent “undermatching” in historically underrepresented groups, because of the lifetime costs of enrolling in a less rigorous college. Isn’t chasing price rather than value just another form of undermatching?</p>
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<p>People have to deal with the “here and now” of paying. The question of whether someplace more expensive may be a “better fit” doesn’t matter if the money isn’t there to go to that “better fit.” </p>
<p>There are a variety of scenarios that are causing families to have unaffordable “family contributions” at the schools that give the best aid. Divorce and Remarriage seem to be a big one. Divorce often financially devastates and/or the NCP won’t contribute. Living in areas where housing is very pricey is another scenario. Having valuable assets that can’t be liquidated to pay for college because those are the source of income.</p>
<p>Most students can adjust and do well no matter where they land. Most schools are “good enough” for nearly all professions.</p>
<p>At all schools (even top ones) there’s going to be a “disparity of student experiences”. There are happy and unhappy kids on every campus for a variety of reasons. </p>
<p>I would also add that there is often a real question of how much value is being added - both in educational experience and in earning potential - by going to one school over another. Yes, I think it is safe to say that if it is at all feasible, sacrificing so a kid can attend Harvard rather than a directional is worth it, but most of the choices people are talking about are much closer calls. When you look at average salary of graduates, you also have to consider that some of the disparity comes down to the population you started with - if you have loads of super-high achievers, their outcomes would tend to be stronger no matter where they went to school.</p>
<p>Low-income students are the ones who benefit most from going to top schools, which is why mismatch is a concern in those cases. High achieving middle class kids are more likely to already have the savvy to seek out opportunities wherever they wind up.</p>
<p>So, to go back to the original question, it depends on both the financial situation and the schools in question. In my own case, I turned down a full ride from my state U to go to an Ivy. At the time, the Ivy was 45K a year, and with financial aid, I would up paying about 60K over 4 years (my aid increased when my brother started college my junior year). In that case, the logic was that my parents had saved enough to pay state school tuition for both of us (if not totally painlessly), and while it was nice that my academic achievement made me eligible for a full ride at the state school, the Ivy was essentially bringing their price down to state school rates, making it affordable. 60K wasn’t chump change to my parents by any means, but the Ivy was special enough to be worth paying money they had always planned on spending for college. If I hadn’t gotten aid from the Ivy, it would have been a different story. If I hadn’t gotten into my top choices schools and the school in question had been Wesleyan or Brandeis, that might also have led to a different decision, even though I would have preferred those schools to the state school. </p>
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<p>Note that this also applies to graduation rates. Lots of people here seem to take graduation rates as an indicator of school quality, but graduation rates often measure incoming student quality more than school quality.</p>
<p>The financial savings from commuting to a local school vs. boarding there can be enormous. Cost is not zero, no, and varies depending on family situation, as ucb notes. Our local flagship includes bus pass as part of mandatory fees and we live on direct line to school- 12 minute ride. Transportation = $0 either way. </p>
<p>Cheapest on campus room option is $7000 for the 9 months, and local off campus apt prices are not much cheaper. Our U offers only ala carte dining and estimate $1600 for this in COA. They push misc. estimate up pretty high to account for large number of off campus meals consumed. Have to guess that for my kid’s appetite, board would easily run $4,000, even if he stashed lots of grocery store food in room/apt. So $11,000 minimum on campus.</p>
<p>The cost of having him at home is the cost of groceries, about $2000 for school year as we eat pretty low on the food processing chain. Plus hot water, and I could make him shower in university rec center if those few $$ were truly an issue. That’s it. Going away OOS costs even more than $11K for non-tuition costs. Our health plan doesn’t cover OOS so have to buy extra ins. Transportation cost > $0 for sure. </p>
<p>Cost and hassle of transportation is the biggest variable in savings from commuting. Utilities? That’s negligible. My electric/gas bill has not gone down noticeably since D left for college. </p>
<p>$2,000 seems practically free, given the alternative. </p>
<p>Full rides often include one of the lesser meal plans, so that student will need to pay for some food in any case. Either by buying food separately or paying to upgrade plan.</p>
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<p>This logic only makes sense that you think it’s worth eating rice and beans now to send Johnny to X because Johnny will in turn keep me in caviar in my golden years. For me, higher education is a gift I give my kids that isn’t dependent on how well it “pays out” to them in the long run. I’m happily paying for 2 fancy-schmancy schools and I’m not concerned with whether they’ll make more than if they attended our (very good) state flagship. But, I have the luxury of thinking that way. Most people simply can’t. </p>
<p>“Much of higher ed policy these days is focused on trying to prevent “undermatching” in historically underrepresented groups, because of the lifetime costs of enrolling in a less rigorous college. Isn’t chasing price rather than value just another form of undermatching?”</p>
<p>Maybe it matters if you are in a historically underrepresented group or not. I do believe the benefits are more incremental to the poorer / less represented kid than they are to my comfortable upper middle class want-for-nothing kids who already have social capital to stand them in good stead. </p>
<p>DD gave up the Johnson’s Scholarship at Washington & Lee (full ride + perks) to attend MIT at approximately half tthe cost (which is still very expensive). Yes, we have parent loans but we fully believe it was the right decision. She crunched numbers and the comparison of programs for a MechE major showed that her earning potential would even out at about 7 years post graduation since W&L didn’t have an ABET accredited program. She is a very responsible and selfless person and says she will assist us in the loan pay back. If that doesn’t work out, we are prepared to retire a few years later to give her this opportunity at MIT and pay the loans ourselves. W&L would not have been a good fit for her but MIT is perfect. If she had been pursuing a different major, the decision would have been much more difficult. </p>
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<p>Why did she apply to W&L if it did not have her intended major in the first place?</p>
<p>W&L does has a Physics/Engineering major which, on paper seemed like it would be workable. When the school came to our city the representatives gave her strong indication that their program was worth her application. Her desire to major specifically in MechE wasn’t carved in stone, plus, she wanted to double major in literature so she was looking at several LACs. Since we live on the west coast and couldn’t afford to visit every school we knew that if she was a Johnson’s finalist she would have an opportunity to have an expense paid visit to W&L - her only visit to the campus. She liked the school and was able to investigate the Physics/Engineering department but realized that it wasn’t enough of a match to justify declining MIT. After 3 years at MIT we are still confident it was the right decision… and she is still minoring in Literature.</p>