Holy Cross/Gonzaga/UCSD for Philosophy

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It’s a slow day at work, so I am obsessing over what is now a three-school contest (barring some miracle that D26 gets into UCLA or UCB, which would immediately tr*mp all other options). And if she doesn’t get into UCSD on Friday it will be a two-school race between Gonzaga and Holy Cross. Hope you’re up for some tedium; feel free to scroll past :slight_smile: For background, D26 will be a philosophy/pre-law major and we live in southern CA.

So, Holy Cross is my alma mater and by far the most expensive of the lot at $91K/year. We would not take loans, but we would have to sell our other real estate asset. HC’s student body is about 3000; it’s Jesuit and considered a SLAC. It’s ranked considerably higher than Gonzaga.

Gonzaga has offered merit to bring the cost down to $45k/year. It’s similar to HC in its Jesuit traditions but it’s a little bigger than HC with 5000 undergraduates. Currently ranked 102 in USNWR. We all like Gonzaga, but D26 is salty because she wasn’t admitted into the honors program. She is also aware of, for better or worse, the disparity in rankings and has visited both schools.

And then we (possibly, if portal astrology is to be believed) might have UCSD– a vastly different institution than the other two. All-in cost is the same as Gonzaga and it’s 30 minutes away. If she’s admitted on Friday, I think it moves up to the top spot. Its philosophy program is apparently well-regarded. But if not…

I have read over and over that “no undergraduate degree is worth $400k,” especially if the student plans to go on to graduate school. It’s a compelling argument and I’ve taken it to heart. However, I also graduated from HC and went on to get a PhD from UNC-CH, from being a pretty middling student in high school. Husband also has a humanities PhD. I know that HC would be a super fit for our daughter, and we will each have pensions (his will approach 5 figures monthly), a great deal of home equity, and other moderate assets. We will not be cashing in any retirement assets. But, you know, “no undergraduate degree is worth $400k.”

So… What Would You Do? And Why?

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Meh, and yet many families do in fact think it’s worth it and pay that every year. Like any other discussion of “worth it” (college, house, car, designer shoes, expensive travel, whatever), it combines at least two elements: your personal financial situation, and subjectivity about what you (or in this case your daughter) want. It sounds like your finances can handle it without issue, and your daughter wants to go there. The main question I would ask is, what do the finances for law school look like if she goes there?

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I don’t know a thing about these schools and have no experience with your D’s intended major but, I don’t subscribe to ‘no degree is worth $400K.’

If HC is the best fit for your child and you won’t struggle financially, I think it is a fine choice to make. And congratulations to your D!

FWIW, We were fully prepared to pay for whatever school my D thought was going to be the best fit and she had offers from full tuition all the way to full pay ($89k/yr).

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I will tell you upfront that I am NOT in the “no college is worth X” camp. We were full pay for our kids- not because we were born with silver spoons and trust funds, but because we saved diligently specifically for college for our kids. So the arguments “You could buy him a condo” or “Think about the nice wedding you could pay for” that one reads on CC- didn’t do it for us. Not interested in buying condos or weddings; the money had been saved bit by bit over a long period of time for college. And that made us full-payers and that was OK.

Your situation is a little different- we had kids young, so retirement wasn’t looming. But we still needed to live well below our means in order to do the IRA/401K funding plus the college stuff.

It worked out for us, YMMV. Kids chose the best match schools for them, not the lowest cost; our deal was “8 semesters period” which meant we weren’t going to fund playtime, endless incompletes and W’s and all the other things that delay graduation. We didn’t care about grades, but we expected them to take advantage of what their schools offered. Choice between a frat party or going to hear the Dalai Lama debate Bill Clinton on nuclear warfare? Go hear the Dalai Lama for god’s sake. Choice between your old HS job vs. staying on campus to help a professor edit his book (good pay but kid would net less money due to paying summer rent)– edit the book. Deciding between a summer fellowship overseas at a well regarded think tank vs. “one last hurrah” with your friends hanging out at the beach after work? Think Tank wins every time.

In addition to just taking advantage of these opportunities, we wanted to continue to reinforce the idea that sometimes the lower paying/less renumerative situation pays big dividends long term. So we were lucky not to have to worry about every penny of summer earnings– I realize not everyone can do that.

I know our neighbors and friends thought we were nuts. “You know he could go to XYZ for free, right?” Even the guidance counselors- the folks with the ancient cars and unimpressive lifestyle weren’t trying to figure out “what’s the cheapest way to get this kid a Bachelor’s degree and get him off the payroll”.

But it worked for us. We knew our kids. They were turned on by learning new and cool stuff. They were happy to be out of their comfort zone- knew that getting a C in a very hard and unfamiliar discipline was a good thing, not a thing to be avoided. They didn’t shy away from intellectual challenges and were fine being the small fish in a big pond (not literally, but were OK not being top of the class). And since they knew that our love was forever, but the money machine stopped after graduation, they were diligent about getting that first “grown up” job. With health insurance. Yay!!!

Good luck!

So just some things to think about.

Two additional thoughts- I know kids (family, friends, etc.) who I would NOT have been comfortable paying full freight if they’d been mine. Not a knock on them- most of them are terrific kids and wonderful citizens and talented in some cool ways. But they did not demonstrate during their HS years that they were prepared to take advantage of what college had to offer. A close friends daughter- just a terrific human being. But transferred after an unhappy social life freshman year. Lost some credits doing so. Switched majors after sophomore year and had to redo some course work. Switched yet again junior year. I think she was on the 6 year plan which took her 6.5 years. Nobody who knew the kid was surprised. Lovely and kind person, but academics were always her B priority in HS, her parents would brag that “she’s so smart she can sleep through AP History”. Sorry. Sleeping through AP History does not set you up for success doing college level work no matter how smart you are.

And thought number 2- I don’t know anyone who didn’t love HC. I don’t know enough adults who graduated from the other two to compare them, but HC really knows how to educate a person!!!

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This is such a bizarre trade off for me. Sacrifice 4 years at a preferred college for a one day event? I wonder how many kids, when given that choice would actually say “yeah I’d prefer a big fancy wedding”. I mean, I’m sure some would, but mine certainly would not.

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Does your daughter love HC too? I’m guessing that she does, but it wasn’t completely clear from your post!

It sounds like the cost is affordable (no loans for the student, no depletion of retirement assets) so that would be a non-issue for me.

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There is no one right answer to your question. If a school is affordable (no loans, no hardship) then I see nothing wrong with spending on a college that will provide an excellent education and fit for a student. We chose full pay (or close to it) colleges for our kids undergrad and grad schools and have zero regrets. We are grateful that our combination of hard work and judicious savings allowed us to provide that to our kids (who as adults absolutely recognize what a gift that was).

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We have already had The Talk about how funds for law school will not be an option from us if she chooses HC. She has a sister who is four years younger, so we are making sure that IF we choose the priciest option for D26, we need to be prepared to do the same for D30 too.

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Oh, she does for sure! She just hasn’t let herself be filled with too much joy yet (I haven’t either) because we need to come to a final decision.

Truth be told, the weather and the Worcester weren’t the best for me, and I knew I’d be coming home right after graduation. I told her to think of it as a fun boarding school experience; HC would have name recognition to law schools even if she were to come back to the west coast for law school.

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Agree with your thinking about your younger child. And also agree that if law school is in the plans that needs to be taken into account.

Fingers crossed your D gets into a UC she prefers as that would solve any budget issues.

Let us know how things turn out.

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So this is a little off topic but I’m curious about how you phrased this. If D26 chooses the cheaper option, does that affect what you feel you would need to do the for the younger one?

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Let me write/think through that one, because that is a helpful question. If D26 chose the cheaper option (and it would be UCSD; she wouldn’t choose Gonzaga over HC) we would make sure she would be doing so due to institutional reasons (proximity to home; strength of philosophy dept) and not because she felt the HC cost would be burdensome to us. Only then would I feel like we could offer HC (or a school with a similar cost) to D30.

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We are a full pay family, and would be willing to be full pay in a FEW situations, but not most. If we had a Putnam-level math kid who got into MIT? or a kid doing graduate-level physics who got into Cal Tech? or a musician who got into Julliard? or if our kid was somehow Alex Keaton with an honest-to-goodness plan for Wharton or Stern? Ok, we would probably make it happen.

But for a typical strong but not genius student with maybe plans to go to law school or something, who liked a $91k/yr school but could name multiple schools (e.g. UCSD, Cal, UCLA) which they they liked better? No, I wouldn’t pay $91K for that.

But obviously some other families would.

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So, for our D26, we’re encouraging her to think about the money to realize that it’s a sizeable investment. Does she want that investment to go to college? Does she want it to go somewhere else? We’ve done a lot of trying to ground her in how much money it really is to choose a potentially expensive option over a cheaper one. For example, she got $40k per year at RPI. That’s $160k or 2 years of her first salary. 2 years of working full-time. That was a useful framing for her. What might she do with 2 years of income? Would she take a year off to travel? Would she sock it away for a down payment on a house? Would she start a business? Would she use it to go law school?

In fairness, she doesn’t yet know what she’ll choose. But I do think there’s value in helping them to understand that there is meaning to the numbers you spend on education. The numbers are big enough to a 17/18-year old that I think they lose salience.

This is my long-winded way of saying that I actually think all 3 are viable options depending on what your student might value.

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You had me here. Why would you do this ? And law school is another $300K.

And where you go for undergrad likely matters little for law school. Harvard’s first year glass has 163 schools represented - it’s under 600 kids. Schools like Christopher Newport, North Dakota State, Towson, etc. Penn - over 200 in the school - names like Arkansas State, Stetson, U of you name it - Montevallo, Montana, and schools like Troy, etc.

Other than it’s your alma mater - guess what, time to start a new family tradition.

If you don’t like Gonzaga, there’s still time - find another school - but Holy Cross - hmmmm - no. And if they don’t go to law school - then what given the major.

In the end, you can’t afford it - because affording it would mean not having to sell a significant asset - and what if it doesn’t get what you think it will, etc.

In many instances, college is a commodity - you had a great experience. And she can easily at another school too.

And by the way, given the cost to UCB or LA will be similar to Gonzaga, I’m not so sure they should be chosen - it’s not a no brainer unless she wants schools of that size and busyness, etc. Schools should be picked for fit, which includes finances, not a perceived reputation.

Good luck.

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$91k is not insignificant, but Holy Cross is a better school and a better fit. If its affordable, I wouldn’t even be debating. And the fact that you know Worcester and the school and feel its the one means a lot IMO. I am a fan as well. Hope you go with it.

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Define better ? They want to go to law school and if not, have a philosophy degree. Perceived better but they don’t share career outcomes for the major…as many LACs don’t and I’m sure for good reason. And there won’t be a difference fir law school (which will cost more per year than HC).

So perceived better doesn’t mean it actually is better. If costs were equal, two students might still pick differently. But the price isn’t equal and it sounds like the family has to give up to afford one - and that’s typically not a good thing. I detect some local bias in the comment.

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that’s up for interpretation - education, network, community, peers, professors. I am not the biggest fan of liberal arts colleges in general, but think HC also has many attributes of a larger university.

You do it now.

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We don’t get to tell other people what to do with their assets. I understand explaining to a 17 year old who can’t afford College A that they’ll need to settle for College B. But telling an adult NOT to sell an asset? Nope. That’s what assets are for. There is zero evidence that this family is financially irresponsible, dumb about money, or does not understand the value of a dollar. Why would you tell someone who is sitting on an asset (whatever that might be- Microsoft stock, Muni bonds, a Cartier gold bracelet worn by the the Empress Napoleon, etc.) what to do with that asset? These aren’t people borrowing from their credit union to take the family to Disney….

OP- sounds like you have been prudent with money, and now the decision is whether to spend ASSETS YOU HAVE on college or not. Good luck.

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This, 1000 times over.
I will also point out that education itself is an asset, and quite possibly the best one you can give your child.

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