I want to add that the decision should take fully into account the family financial situation. It’s not a one size fits all decision. If this is how a family chooses to spend their money–on name recognition schools, that ‘s fine. A warning not to get into so much debt or spend so much retirement savings that it jeopardizes future quality of life. Its a fact of life that money does play a huge role in this. I’ve seen families ruin their credit, have huge ever growing loans looming over both parent/students’ heads, be strapped for the rest of their lives because they spent way way too much on college. Those loans are not static figures. The interest rates are substantial enough that they go way out of control quickly, and with capitalized interest.
No parent should want to put that kind of burden on their kids who are often too young, inexperienced, emotional to make a sensible financial decision like this. No child should want to put their parents into financial jeopardy in old age, with stress, too much work, depleting funds, bad credit for a college of choice. It should be laid out on the table that way