Has anyone ever regretted going to the less expensive college?

College Search & Lists
21

I think this is a realistic and healthy attitude. I do think it typically does not take long as an actual student to realize how this all works. You will quickly learn about older students and recent graduates doing amazing things you would love to do. You will learn about other students and in fact graduates who are not clear yet on what they want to do. And yes, you will learn about some other students and recent graduates who are not thrilled with what has happened so far.

But all of those groups exist at any good college or university. And so virtually all new students quickly learn that the “hustle” has not ended, it has just moved on to a new phase.

For now, though, you haven’t met all those people yet and learned their stories. It is all still just an abstraction. So of course it is hard to really internalize. For now.

Probably not much longer, though. For good or ill, usually the reality of the situation hits fast once you get started. Indeed, you might want to look at what is sometimes called the first year “W”-shaped emotional curve:

https://www.mayoclinichealthsystem.org/hometown-health/speaking-of-health/the-w-curve-theory

The point is not to be afraid, just prepared. Fortunately, college administrators are well aware of all this, and good colleges all have support available. But you are very likely to go through some version of these ups and downs and back up agains yourself, and that is all OK.

22

Or a sign they can’t afford the college they picked.

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23

One nit: My recollection from another thread is that you are planning on double majoring in computer science and economics. My understanding is that you are headed to UIUC, you are in-state, and it is relatively affordable for you. I understand that it is very common for university students to change their major. Also rankings do not matter much if at all, and particularly do not matter much for CS or for graduate school admissions. However, if you stick with CS as a major, then UIUC is a “top 10” university for computer science.

If you end up in law school, then the ability to afford to pay for law school will be very important. I have consistently heard that for law school admissions, your undergraduate GPA and your LSAT score matter quite a bit, but what undergraduate school you attend does not.

I by the way happen to know or have know quite a few lawyers. Of the lawyers that I knew, all of them had a bachelor’s degree in either computer science, or some form of engineering, except for one friend who had a bachelor’s degree in mathematics. Someone might guess from this that I happen to have known patent lawyers, and they would be correct. At least for patent law computer science is a good field in which to get a bachelor’s degree (at least one of the lawyers I used to know had worked as a software engineer for two or three years before going back to law school). Of course economics is also a common undergraduate major for someone headed to law school, although I suspect that this would lead to a different type of job in law after graduation.

My expectation is that in September when you step on campus you will find that you are at a great university. Classes will be tough. There will be a lot of academically very strong students there. Plan to work hard and to keep ahead in your class work starting on day 1. I may be repeating myself, but I think that you have made a great choice and I wish you the best.

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24

@MKB2026 dude you totally blew it. T20 school will totally set you up for life and the $100k will be nothing, paid off by that 7-fig job you score right outta college cuz T20 schools totally hook you up.

Not.

It might help you feel better if you do some research. Economists have been doing research on this question for decades. You made the right call.

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25

That was me 30+ years ago. I went to my excellent state school (William & Mary), where I also had scholarships that only applied if I stayed within the state of Virginia. But in so doing, I turned down my other acceptances - to Princeton, Dartmouth, Brown, Williams and Amherst. It hurt. It really really hurt. But the cost differential was something I just couldn’t ignore. I knew I could get a great education at my less expensive college, and save the money for something else.

Which is what I did. The difference in cost paid for all three years of law school for me. Out of my first year section of 100 students in law school, 98 of them went to the debt counseling session right before graduation. It was just me and another student who didn’t need to attend, because we hadn’t needed to take on debt.

It was such a gift, that then I was able to take the job I wanted to take after law school, not the job I had to take to pay the bills. None of my friends felt the same, and they all struggled with things that, ultimately, tied back to their debt.

I’ve never regretted going to the cheaper college. It was still a great school - as is UIUC - I still got a great education and amazing opportunities and it set me up for the life I wanted to lead.

It’s ok to feel sad, but it’s going to be ok.

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26

Full disclosure - I did my PhD at UIUC, so I may be somewhat biased.

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27

:100:

Signed -

Graduate of T100 undergrad and T5 law school

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28

I think this is the really critical insight that needs to be shared as widely as possible.

People may be excited about more selective colleges because they think going to such a college will lead to them having more options after graduating. I think that is often less true than they are imagining, but that’s a different issue. Even assuming there is some truth to that, that’s a reasonable grounds for excitement IF it won’t saddle you with a lot of extra debt.

A lot of extra debt, though, can LIMIT your practical options. So it is really ruining a large part of the whole point of going to a very selective college if you can’t actually use any of those extra options because you have too much debt.

OK, so you should try to hit the sweet spot where you will have lots of potential options, but not too much debt.

And it isn’t actually a coincidence that your in-state flagship might be sitting right in that sweet spot. Because that is basically the point of their undergrad programs: to give residents of the state a lot of opportunities for whatever would come next for them, but at a comfortably affordable price.

Anyway, I think it is critical as many kids as possible at least hear this message. Many people who have not really gone through all this just assume more selective will mean more options. But more selective plus too much debt can actually mean fewer options. And you don’t want to do that to yourself.

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29

I note Illinois is a very important research university, not just in the US but globally in fact.

How that translates to undergrads specifically is complicated, but I think there is some basic truth to the idea that if you individually are a highly motivated student with strong academic potential, then at least by the time you get into the advanced classes for majors only, you can find ways to benefit from being at a top research department in your field.

So yes, you sort of went straight to that as a PhD student. But the OP will have opportunities to get in on that action too.

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I went to a highly regarded undergrad and highly regarded law school, and I would easily pick the law school as being WAAAAAY more important.

The only nuance I like to tell prospective prelaws is that how you actually do in law school can also be important. It kinda depends on what you want to do, but if, say, you want to be competitive for federal clerkships and such, you want to do relatively well even in a very good law school.

So I would not spend a lot of time worrying about how your college will look on your resume once you are a lawyer. But thinking about how to get a great foundational education while building the skills that will help in law school? That is worth thinking about.

But again, a long list of colleges, including many public colleges not “ranked” nearly as high as Illinois, can do that for savvy and motivated students. It is more about the choices you make in college than exactly which college you choose.

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31

During my PhD, across my four field seasons, I had over a dozen undergraduates as field assistants. They helped me trap and mark mice establish the trapping grids, sample for macroinvertebrates, etc.

So, as one graduate student, I provided field research experience for a dozen undergraduates. most other graduates engaged undergraduates as well. In my department, Dr Lowell Getz had his “Mouseketeers”, who would help him in his long term research projects of voles in central Illinois. Each year, he would have at least a dozen of them.

While both Dr Getz and are long-gone from UIUC, this mindset of opening research experience opportunities for undergraduate is still part of UIUC.

PS. when I wrote that I did my PhD at UIUC, I just wanted to clarify that I may be biased towards UIUC…

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32

Three thoughts.

  1. Getting into a very top undergrad school, compared to attending a lesser school (public or private), helps the odds of getting into a top law school, assuming you have good to great grades, recommendations and LSAT scores. No ironclad guarantees of course, but I’m talking about probabilities

  2. Getting into a very top undergrad school are typically correlated with financial aid offers that have little or zero loan component.

  3. Getting into a very top undergrad school is advantageous in the event your bachelors becomes your terminal degree. (And if you don’t go to law school.)

Assuming the personal fit is there, there is really no reason not to reach for a very top undergrad college.

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33

The operative phrase here is “getting into.” Research has shown that except for certain minorities (not Asians), where you were admitted is important but where you actually matriculated is not important. IOW, if you got into Harvard but you chose to go to a state college, you’ll do great. Because it’s the student that is the key ingredient to success, not the school.

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34

And this student not only did get into top schools, they are going to one of the very best for their intended major!

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35

Unfortunately, for point two, while I received SOME financial aid, it wasn’t enough for it to not be a strain on our resources.

In the end, I would have to take out loans that, in the long run, would have caused me to have HUGE student debt.

I also think it’s important to say for the T20s I did get into, I was accepted for either economics or political science. So, it was unlikely that a bachelors is where my educational journey was going to end regardless.

If I was going to end with only a bachelors, ironically, it would be better to go to UIUC because I would be getting a CS degree there. (For most humanities research jobs, you have to have at least a masters.)

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I think the obvious problem is the asserted “correlation” is obviously not perfect. Indeed, at many highly selective colleges, full pay students make up half or more of the enrolled students. Another good chunk is getting some aid, but not enough aid to make it competitive on total cost with their in-state flagship. And while their aid formulas may have determined there is little or no “need” for the student to take out loans, some of those families may disagree.

So for the (usually minority) of prospective students getting enough aid to make total cost of attendance competitive with their in-state option, I do think there is something to the logic of strongly considering taking that deal.

But for the (usually large majority) of students who would have to pay a lot more, I think you need to do your own assessment of whether the extra cost is comfortably affordable for your family. Because while the college’s aid formula may think so, you, or perhaps even more relevantly your parents, may disagree.

37

Right, and it isn’t doing you much good to look at something like average results at these institutions. You have to face the actual financial situation in which you find yourself as an individual, including as a result of what your parents are actually both able and willing to pay versus what you would need loans to cover, and make decisions accordingly.

I do think this can add to the present frustration, like other superficially similar families may be sending their kids to these colleges. I think sometimes, that might actually be a bad idea. Other times, though, it is simply a question of parental priorities and financial practices.

But to be very blunt, welcome to market capitalism! These private colleges are entities operating in a competitive markets with limited financial resources (yes, even the wealthiest have limits, and indeed need to carefully consider how to use that wealth to stay competitive with other wealthy institutions over the years, decades, and generations to come). And these are what are called differentiated markets, meaning they offer different bundles of attributes in their undergrad programs that are more or less appealing to different prospective students. And in such markets, marginal price ends up being set by where they are able to yield enough of the prospective students that like their product mix enough to pay that price.

So inevitably, there are going to be prospective students for whom that price is too high. And a big part of why that can happen is their alternatives are too good! Their lead alternative has too much value itself, and the cost difference is too high, to make it worth them choosing the more expensive option.

They know this will happen, and are fine with it. They don’t have to yield every admitted student, just enough to satisfy their competitive goals.

So it is what it is. And really, it is no different from watching other families sometimes buy nicer cars, nicer boats, nicer vacations, nicer houses, or so on. All those sorts of markets work the same basic way. And some of those families are sometimes getting themselves into financial trouble. But sometimes they can just afford to spend more on that particular thing.

And if you spend your life being envious of the families buying nicer things, that is a good way to have a not particularly fulfilling life. As I think you know, you have to focus on using your financial resources in the ways that actually make the most sense for you, not try to simply imitate others around you.

But when your friend shows up in a nice new car that your parents say you can’t afford, you can allow yourself a moment of jealousy. Don’t let it dominate your life, but you don’t have to be a saint either.

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38

This is a regular topic on CC. The short answer is no. And there are many people here have kids who chose the cheaper or cheapest option, including my own.

My son graduated college in 2023. We are fortunate to be able to pay the full rate for any college. Son had several choices and narrowed it down to: instate at Binghamton, USC (So Cal) as a transfer option at $85k a year, and IU with a substantial scholarship. He chose Bing and had a great experience, which serves him well 3 years post grad. He liked all three schools very much and ended up with Bing because he felt he fit in.

In a few weeks, you will never again see 95% of the people you go to school with now. Look forward and be glad you are saving you and your family some money. Good luck.

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39

Our discussion is about taking out such a high level of student debt such that it constrains the child’s life and career choices post-graduation. I agree that would be a bad decision.

But I suggest there is a more nuanced answer than what I have seen so far.

There are situations where a student is forced by their own PARENTS (not the school) to shoulder heavy student loans because the parents don’t feel they want to pay what the college determine is the parent’s “fair share".

But that isn’t an argument for NOT aiming for the very top schools. Why? Because the burdensome loan requirement (that comes from a student’s family) might happen EVEN IF the parents are outrageously wealthy.

Instead, I’m suggesting that choosing between an expensive private school and a more affordable option may often be MORE dependent on the family than it is on the school (especially if one of your choices is a wealthy private school).

So there are really 3 dimensions to this conversation, if we can dissect a decision for the high school student analytically:

  1. Is the desired school expensive compared to your other alternatives?
  2. Does the desired school offer financial aid in the form of loans?
  3. Are the parents unwilling to pay what the desired school determines as their ‘fair share’ and thus ask you to shoulder heavy student loans?

If the answer to all 3 is “yes”, then that is the point where the high school student is well-advised to avoid taking on high student debt to attend that desired school.

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You won’t regret it if you give UIUC 100%! Join clubs, meet people, participate in activities, get to know your professors, take advantage of all it has to offer, make the most of it.

As others have said, having debt hanging over your head limits options and increases stress - potentially for decades! (I know parents still paying their school loans AND their kids’!)

“Cheaper” doesn’t mean worse.

Don’t worry about what other people think.

You will regret it if you get to UIUC and mope around, thinking what could have been (and, BTW, it could have been miserable).

You made a very mature and very wise choice for you and your parents. Keep up the good work!

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