May 1st is long gone. And decisions for which college the class of 2026, if any, will be attending have already been made.
However, while my commitment has already been set in stone, sometimes I feel a pit of envy forming whenever I see my peers, from the programs I was a part of, brag about attending similar ranked schools.
So, I have to ask, does anyone regret going to the cheaper university, one that would allow me to graduate without any debt, over the one that would be considered more prestigious (T20)?
I know this is a better financial decision. And with the way the job market and economy is currently, maybe this will be something I will be grateful for retroactively.
Maybe what I’m asking for is a method to cope with the fact that this goal I had been working towards for years on end, a goal I had achieved, is not one I can celebrate because I will never be able to follow through. I know I should not feel sad about what I cannot control, and I should not be ungrateful.
But I just feel so unsatisfied. And before anyone blasts me, I’m coming to the internet because all of my friends would just clown on me for feeling like this Plus my parents feel guilty as is for not being able to send me to the school I want to go to, so I don’t want to confide in them and make them feel worse.
So all the surveys I have seen are massively weighted in the other direction. Like, by far the biggest source of regret for young college graduates is paying too much for their undergrad degree.
Of course some people don’t have a great college experience for other reasons. But the idea that most of those cases would be fixed simply by paying more is unrealistic. Different, not more costly, would usually have been what they needed.
All that said, you should be generous with yourself about feeling this way in the moment. Right now, all your peers are just dreaming about the good stuff. None of them are trying to pay off student loans and such. So of course they aren’t being realistic about any of this, and it is naturally hard to be in that sort of environment.
But trust me, in the future you will get real, practical clarity on all this. And for the record, turning your hard work in HS into a comfortably affordable college education IS the most important payoff you can get for that hard work. “Impressing” HS peers who probably won’t be in your life much longer is not a lasting source of benefit at all.
My daughter’s top choice had a 27% acceptance rate, around $85,000 a year. Her second choice had a 69% acceptance rate, after merit around $40,000 a year. She chose the latter, a few weeks into her first semester she told us she was so glad we couldn’t afford the first. They took all of her 9 AP classes, she graduated from the honors college in 3 years, high gpa, and got into a doctorate program with an 8% acceptance rate (with some merit). Her job search after graduation lasted 3 days. No regrets.
First of all, it’s OK to feel bad. My kid also attended a Highschool in Chicagoland, and I know that, among many of the wealthier families of the area, UIUC is not considered to be the sort of status symbol that they seek. So people don’t feel that attending UIUC provides “bragging rights”. So it’s not easy to hear friends bragging about colleges that are mostly not really better than UIUC, or than colleges to which you were accepted, but cannot afford to attend. Take some time, allow yourself to feel bad that you are not going to be attending the college that you thought your would attend.
But don’t let that keep you from enjoying your last summer before college.
However, you should also consider a few things to help you get over these feelings faster. First, your “cheaper” college is an amazing place, and is a T30. Making a better financial choice will also allow you to live better after you graduate.
Also, you actually do have a lot to brag about. You were accepted to colleges that are just as good, but you are being smart and thinking about the future, not just about the next three months. You can brag about being able to start life after college with no debts, AND with a degree that will open as many doors as theirs will.
As I wrote, you’re allowed to feel bad. However, that is nothing compared to how bad you’ll feel if you graduate with debt, especially if it takes some time for you to find a job.
Go and enjoy what Chicago has to offer in the summer.
Oh, are you going to the University of Illinois? My husband went there as an out-of-state student. He had a great time and made lifelong friends. One of his classmates was the best-selling author Dave Eggers. Illinois usually makes the list of Top 10 “Public Ivies.” Famous alums include Mark Andreessen, who created the web browser Mosaic, Nobel and Pulitzer Prize winners and other luminaries. I think you will find a very smart and accomplished student body. Hope you enjoy the experience.
My daughter also wound up at her second choice due to finances. When her dad and I visited about six weeks into her first semester, she told us she was so happy, she couldn’t imagine being anywhere else. We were relieved, grateful, and overjoyed to hear it!
graduating debt-free made a number of other experiences possible for her. My husband and I both had student loan debt that limited our choices for years after graduation, and we did not want that for her.
Not likely. Have you ever taken an UberX downtown for a fancy dinner or a party with friends? At the end of a wonderful night do you even remember how you arrived? Do you say “I really wish I had paid more for an Uber Black Car to go out tonight.”
If your “cheaper” school was a small, regional school with a 91% admit rate and average ACT of 17, I would say yes you would be understandably disappointed as you might have trouble finding like-minded peers. But that is not the case. You are going to a fine school. UIUC is an excellent opportunity and you will grow where you are planted. Enjoy.
Yes. The comments I have heard from recent graduates are similarly “weighted in the other direction”.
Some students and recent graduates regret taking on too much debt and wish they could have somehow avoided this (although the details of how they might have avoided it can differ).
Some students attend the less expensive university, graduate, get a job, and discover that it it tough enough to live on the salary that might typically might accompany a “first job”, and that having little or no debt is a big plus. It is also common to find yourself working alongside a graduate from the prestigious and expensive school, and you are doing similar jobs for the same pay and no one cares where you got your degree.
And goals to obtain a well paying first job very often do not pan out, or are adjusted based on interests, majors, and what ends up being available. It is very common for recent graduates to pivot a bit in terms of what sort of job and what sort of career is right for them, and having as little debt as possible can make it easier to do so.
And some students end up in very good graduate programs (or graduate programs that are very good for them, whatever that means) and find that the various students in the same program come from a huge range of undergraduate colleges and universities.
And this is also true, and can occur at pretty much any college or university for a very wide range of reasons.
I think that it is very reasonable to bring this issue to an anonymous web site on the Internet. One issue is that you do not want your parents to feel bad about this. Another issue is that a lot of us have been in this same situation, and some of us have made one decision and some have made the other. We have been through this and hopefully our experience can help you out.
“Retroactive gratitude” is something that some of us are very familiar with.
I think that you made the right decision to attend a very good affordable university (if I am guessing right about where you are going based on another thread). In the long run I think that this will eventually become clear. This might (or might not) take a while.
Perhaps the question is “how much is too much debt”? Some people are very averse to any debt. Some are ok with $10K/year or more without regret. As I have mentioned previously, there is a finance guy on our local radio who has said in the past (and yes I know that in this day and age this is hard to gauge with the current employment environment), but in general, he recommended not to take on more debt than one expects to earn their first year out of college.
This is also, of course, affected by individual family circumstances.
Sounds reasonable, until you start seeing the posts about how even some graduates in “good” majors have been struggling to find work after graduating and those “expectations” can be quite different from reality …
If I went to the T20 school I got into, I would estimate around 100k+ of student debt. That’s far too large for my comfort; not to mention I’d be paying far more because of interest. Plus my parents’ lives might have also been negatively financially impacted, and I wouldn’t want that for them either.
I mean, sometimes I do, especially when I see how happy all of my peers are about going to their universities.
I’m scared that I will regret my choice in the future, but there’s also a possibility that I will find an appreciation for it.
But I also remember a speech given to me that moved me to tears. Given by the current Chief of Staff of the Illinois Governor, she told her story about her path: getting rejected from Princeton but being able to go to American University, how that change and her ability to push herself led her to achieve her mother’s dreams.
I know that I have it in me to succeed. After all, the fact that I got into such incredible schools shows that I know what I have to do. I was the person who built the path that led me to get accepted to a T20. In the wise words of a close friend, at this moment in time, regardless of the college I am going to, I am still the same version of me. (His actual words led him to calling me a bum, but I felt as if that didn’t go very well with this post.)
But there’s also regret in knowing that, again, this path that was supposed to continue is all of a sudden being diverted. Maybe it is for the best. Maybe just like that Chief of Staff, I will end up in a place that is meant for me, in a position I would never had dreamed of.
But honestly, it’s hard to imagine that when all I’ve been dreaming of, for quite a long time, is being able to go to a prestigious university. It feels like the only way I could ever be successful is by going to a prestigious institution, and while I know that’s not true, I have so many examples I can list off, I’m scared of what my future holds for me.
To add on, I know that going to a T20 doesn’t guarantee anything more than assured student debt (at least in my case). But, for a long time, I remember thinking that at the very least, the prestigious name would help me land a job quicker, particularly one that’s more high-paying.
I know that’s very naive, and if I know that I shouldn’t be scared. But because of my family’s history, I’ve always been searching for a safety net that could “shelter” me from being unemployed, or something I could fall back on to know that I would find another job quick. I also know that the real world doesn’t work like that, and me searching for a “safety net” is pointless because even HYPSM grads may end up unemployed.
This is objectively the smarter financial decision. I have more money saved up, and I want to attend law school either way, so it’s best to go to a better law school rather than a prestigious undergraduate university.
Yet, despite knowing all of this, I’m scared that I will one day regret this decision. I don’t think that my fear is ever going to be dispersed unless I step foot onto UIUC’s campus as a student (and I definitely think it’s the type of school I will fall in love with. The campus is beautiful, [Fun Fact: It was used in the Gilmore Girls as the backdrop for a school visit] and everyone else I know who’s doing CS there agrees that there are multiple opportunities. I can use the Econ part of my degree to do the public policy labs I’ve always wanted to do.).
I think fear of regret, especially for a college degree, is an emotion that many people can relate to. Unfortunately, I also think it’s something I’m not going to be able to get rid of until I get onto campus.
Both of my kids had to choose a cheaper option than they would have liked. Both are happy that they have manageable debt.
Just today I was talking to my daughter. She’s head to Santa Barbara for the weekend and said she really would have like to have gone to school there (we lived in California for a while and she played a tournament there). Then she said “But then I wouldn’t have met Tom (her husband) and have the life I have now.” Not sad about it at all.
Don’t assume your parents feel guilty. We do the best we can and while we’d all love to make our kids happy 365 days a year, that’s just not possible. It really wasn’t anything new to my kids - they’d always lived on a budget (rec center teams instead of private club team, the prom dress on sale instead of the Nordstrom $300 one). I didn’t feel guilty. If your parents do feel guilty, let them off the hook by telling them how happy you are to have found such a great school within budget.
My two cents is a good place to start that analysis is the federal loan limits. Basically, I think those are well-calculated to be payable over a reasonable period by a college graduate making use of their college education professionally.
However, if you are looking at also doing an expensive grad or professional program, then you might want to try to do less than that. Also if you are maybe thinking about the sorts of careers which pay less than most careers for college graduates, or at least initially.
I’m not generally supportive of doing much more. I guess if your family is willing and able to pay them off for you quickly, and this is just some sort of advantageous financing thing, OK. But absent very secure family promises, I think much more in undergrad loans quickly starts risking you not being able to do the things you might want to do as a young college graduate–more education, certain sorts of early jobs, and so on.
Plenty of people regret going to the cheaper college, just as plenty of people regret going to the more expensive college, the “frat heavy” college, the “it gets cold in October and stays that way until finals week in May” college.
Kids transfer- a clear sign of regret. And kids tough it out- and still regret their choice. Or find something to enjoy about the experience but still regret it, or find NOTHING to enjoy and years later realize it was a formative and positive experience.
This is truly the human condition, OP. All you can do is to be confident that you are going to get a terrific and rigorous education and make a good faith effort to get involved in campus life, make friends, stretch yourself artistically or spiritually or athletically or wherever your interests take you. Accept that regret is part of life and move on.
You’re going to meet people with regret throughout your life. But you are lucky- your story will have a happy outcome because all the “levers” are under your control!
Plus my parents feel guilty as is for not being able to send me to the school I want to go to, so I don’t want to confide in them and make them feel worse.
