This was a recent conversation at a barbecue I attended. The conversation started something like this:
“It’s great to graduate without debt, but if the place from which you are graduating is a school with a lesser reputation, thus potentially making it more difficult to find a job, or ending up in a job that isn’t what you were hoping for, have you helped yourself?”
I know of kids who took this option and went on to med or law school, but none that came out of college and landed a job in their field. (Granted, I don’t know too many full ride kids anyway, since I live in a place which tends to be full-pay.) I’d like to hear some examples of kids who took advantage of full rides to lesser known schools and had spectacular outcomes.
How do you define a “lesser college”? One of my daughters received extremely good financial aid (although not a full ride) from a well-ranked LAC. She has her “dream” (for now!) job lined up and will start there three weeks after graduation.
What about all of the kids that went to the ‘lesser’ school? Are they all presumably unemployed unless they went to graduate school or professional school? Most fields that require an advanced terminal degree for employment are going to be hard to get a job in at the BA/BS level, but unless the school is completely awful and not worthy of accreditation, most kids who go to it will likely find employment in their chosen field if it is a field that employs bachelor level graduates, they had decent or better grades and internships, etc.
A lesser, whatever that means, school may have less name recognition in an expanded geographical region, with some being local versus regional versus national in reputation with employers, so choosing a local or regional school down south may make it more difficult to compete in the northeast, for example, for a certain job, especially since it will lack an alumni network to help out, but far from impossible. There may also be some very unique majors/jobs that high predominantly from a very few schools, but overall if the ‘lesser’ school is one that offers a solid reputation and academics, take the money and run. You will get a job just fine based on your accomplishments and with doing a little research on placement rates, etc, for your chosen field/desired area to live for the school giving you the money.
This is a false dichotomy. It’s not “either you graduate with no debt but few professional opportunities or you have debt but get more professional opportunities.” It depends on how much debt, how good the alternatives are, what fields of study/employment you are considering, and how good you are at ‘thriving where planted.’
Nephew has a full ride at his local State U with admissions to the honors program. He turned down a number of highly selective, nationally known schools (and avoided significant debt). Some of his very smart and accomplished friends are doing the same. Just knowing the kid, he’ll be more than fine because he’s that kind of person. And I would never recommend going deeply into debt for any college education when there are usually so many good and affordable options around. CaliCash is also correct - if you go to grad school, no one cares where you did your undergrad.
There are a few occupational fields, such as investment banking and consulting, in which the top national employers recruit people who are finishing bachelor’s degrees and preferentially recruit from highly prestigious colleges.
For a student who aspires to a career in one of these fields, having a degree from a “lesser” school would be a significant disadvantage – assuming that the “better” school that the student would have attended instead is a target school where these employers recruit.
There are also a few specialty programs where no other school can come close to matching the opportunities available to graduates of the truly top programs. Here I am thinking of Cornell’s School of Hotel Administration as an example.
I don’t agree that if you go to grad school, it doesn’t matter at all what your undergrad is in all instances (it depends on the field, degree, person, region, etc.).
However, it may also be fallacious to assume that it’s harder to find a job if you take a full-ride at a lesser school. Again, it depends on the school, field/major/industry, region, and person, etc.
Basically, you really need to do your homework and not just make lazy assumptions.
A family can’t hit the re-set button and do it over to see if the results would be different, so people base their responses on what they or people they know personally experienced.
My youngest will be attending a small LAC this fall. According to my oldest child (based completely on the outcomes of a couple of his own friends who went to that same college a few years ago, my youngest is doomed to a life of under-employment because “it’s in a rural area with no internships anywhere around”. But according to parents of other (recent) graduates, there are many opportunities for internships and research opportunities both on and near campus. It just depends on who you talk to.
Maybe you simply are talking to a small set of people who only know what they they know.
I’m not sure what full pay vs. scholarship has to do with it.
Also, actual “full ride” scholarships are pretty rare. Anyone who is offered an actual full ride, or even full tuition scholarship is a smart student, one who would tend to do well at any college.
FWIW, I think the topic came up because someone had a nephew that was turning down a full ride or very big scholarship to Dickinson in favor of going to a much more highly ranked school. The argument probably doesn’t hold as much water if we’re talking about someone getting a full ride to a top 20 LAC.
I think that kid or that kid’s parents are trying to justify a huge expenditure. Far be it for me to pour cold water on them, though. We need folks like that to help subsidize financial and merit aid to kids who can’t afford a huge price tag and to free up scholarship money for kids who think a full-ride to a school like Dickinson is a blessing.
RTR, it’s all about perspective and perception. Apparently this family wants their kiddo to attend a more highly ranked and prestigious college…regardless of the costs. That is certainly fine…and is a family decision.
I will say…there is no right or wrong answer to your question. For some folks, the name of their kid’s college is very important. For others, the cost is important. For others, it’s a blend of both. YMMV depending on the person.
I just can’t believe how much discussion folks seem to have about family finances and financial aid at places like a barbecue.
“It’s great to graduate without debt, but if the place from which you are graduating is a school with a lesser reputation, thus potentially making it more difficult to find a job, or ending up in a job that isn’t what you were hoping for, have you helped yourself?”
People are idiots - do they think that everyone from “lesser” schools are unemployed or something?
Dickinson at #37 in USNWR is a lesser school??Now I really don’t think much of college rankings.
From what I can see, the top 40 schools have the same tuition within $5,000 ($45,000-50,000). Given all the ties in the rankings, I’m with @PurpleTitan, someone is trying to justify a huge expenditure.
As a parent of two current full-ride students, I can say that the benefits are really great! (But ask me in a couple years if my sons are employed. . .) btw, is large public U. with 140ish rank “lesser” enough?
As a parent of two girls who attended “lesser” schools on merit aid I would have to be in favor. One didn’t land well out of college but had NO loans and was able to find a full time job with benefits. The other had a more broadly applicable degree and had zero problem getting a great job and has very super well since. She paid back her two years of Stafford loans in under a year.
What I find interesting is that so many people hold all these top 30 schools in such high regard but many at the cocktail party or BBQ can’t tell you anything about them. Head to the Midwest or west and 9 out of 10 can’t tell you where Colgate is or what it’s known for, the difference between Haverford or Hartford or New Haven. Almost everyone knows Purdue is for engineering, but which schools are known for music or creative writing or agriculture? Oh right, agriculture isn’t a major at most LACs or Ivies, top 30 or not.
Where I went to high school, very few went OOS to any school. Notre Dame they’d heard of, but Tufts? MIT? No. It didn’t matter to most, even the top performers, where they went and it didn’t matter to employers if you wanted to return to the area whether your degree was from the flagship or Yale. Everyone was happy at the flagship, and some even happier at the smaller directionals around the state. Want a big adventure? Go to the flagship in the next state with reciprocity for tuition. Almost 40 years later, it’s still the same. Many want to stay near their families, go hunting during hunting season, work the same job during the school year as the summer. Most with those good Midwestern values like the idea of getting a deal, a good value for their tuition dollars. I think the OP’s discussion in other areas of the country would be much different. They might not be saying 'He should have taken the money and gone to Dickinson" because they probably haven’t heard of Dickinson, but they’d be saying “Oh, he should have gone to Mizzou or Iowa or Wisconsin.”
It’s an interesting question, and like a great many things in life, it depends–much of it on the individual. Perhaps, the partial inversion to this question is whether the so-called elite schools that they passed up, are they worth their premium price??
As a preface and disclosure, this is from about 5 years ago, and from the Crimson newspaper, so please take it for whatever you think it’s relative worth–According to payscale.com, the median starting salary of emerging Harvard undergraduates who work full-time in the United States is $63,400; even without pursuing further schooling, they boast mid-career median salaries of $124,000. Compare these numbers to the median earnings of the average American male—$45,113 in 2007—and the evidence that a Harvard education increases one’s earning potential appears incontrovertible.
Numerous studies have arrived at the same conclusion: namely, that it pays to go to selective schools. Harvard economist Caroline Hoxby found that students at elite universities can expect to earn back the difference in cost between the tuition at their first-rank private institution and a third-rank public institution more than 30 times over the course of their careers. Ronald Ehrenberg, a Cornell University economist, also found compelling evidence of a significant economic return to attending a private university: a premium that the data suggests has increased over time.
I’m all for the “lesser” colleges at the one of the lowest COAs on the list. One “full-tuition scholarship” LAC and three “free-ride plus stipend” public U’s, each within USNWR’s top 60, top 40, and top 25 for their categories. (Though I never have put much stock in those ratings!) Plenty good enough, for sure. In fact, terrific! Incredible experiences. Challenging and stimulating educations. Boundless opportunities. Research and internships. Study abroad. Pretty big fish in various sized ponds. No debt for three schools; $28,500 student loans for the pricey LAC. So far, one has finished his education, and yes: he got the job he wanted right out of school.
I do understand being anxious about the choice: bigger-named school for significantly more money or lesser-known school for significantly less money. I was super nervous, too, particularly for the first one. But wow. For us, the supposedly “lesser” school was always a win!
