<p>I respect other people’s choices. My sentiment about the merit of public schools as an OOS vs. private schools is just mine.</p>
<p>We are not super rich, but we made a decision to let my S1 decline a full ride from a very well regarded school and instead let him attend U Chicago as a full pay student. All of us are very happy with this decision. It’s the best money we ever spent. He is thriving at U Chicago in a way I think will be very hard to replicate in the school that offered him over $50K+/year worth of money. As for S2, we would have paid the full expense at his private school because it was a great fit for him on several important dimensions. Luckily, it worked out that he got a full ride deal. </p>
<p>Some people must think we are stark mad spending this kind of money when S1 could have gotten a free education from a very good school. However, I also think people who buy expensive cars costing $70K and crazy designer bags costing thousands of dollars are stark mad (money completely down the drain in a few years: it’s not like a house that keeps the investment value and even appreciates in a normal market). </p>
<p>As I said above, everybody to his own. We all spend the money the way it pleases us best. Of course, if we had not had the money, we would have never taken the loan of $250K for ourselves or for S1: that’s insane. The delta in educational experience at U Chicago and that at the other school would have never justified this kind of risk. </p>
<p>Regarding the ranking results that put public universities at a disadvantage, based on the methodology, I can see why public schools did not fare that well when the quality of education is judged on an undergraduate academic experience ON THE AVERAGE for the entire student body.</p>