I can honestly say the prestige of the school name did NOT influence our kids, since in our neighborhood when people hear their school name they assume it’s a small Christian school on the other side of a local lake.
Just find it interesting how this thread morphed into a should you or shouldnt you pay for top dollar school, when I believe the OP’s question was excited to get into BOCO now how do I pay for it, not should I consider paying for it.Just a thought.
And I do not think the OP has been back on the thread since asking the question.
I had a long talk with S when he choosing, before visiting. People assumed he would be going to Michigan because of the prestige and I think he was feeling that pressure. I wanted him to choose based on what he wanted, not what other people expected. He visited the three top contenders with an open mind. On the plane ride home he told me that the visit sealed the deal. He just felt the right vibe.
My kids attend a public high school and what they perceive as the quality of the education is more important than the name to both of them. My belief is that school name may get you in the door especially when you are right out of school, but it doesn’t get you the job. And the further you are from graduating, the less the name of the college matters and the more your resume and experience matter.
@lojosmo
Your story is what we hope happens for our kid and everyone else’s after all the hard work of making a list of schools, auditions, hopefully passing some auditions:) and finishing with a happy “this is right for me” decision.
It is unfortunate that decisions on where to attend college have to come down to the money. I think all would agree that the cost of a college education in the US is way out of whack. Even the so called Financial Aid isn’t close to being in line with what the full sticker price of these schools are. If you qualify for FA the top Pell Grant is $5,500 the top federal loan amount you can get is $5,500. That barely covers the costs of community college. If a school, like BOCO mentioned by the OP, does not provide grant aid or has very, very little grant aid available the only way to bridge the gap is loans. And yes that’s the way the world works and some have advantages that others cannot and I am not saying that all college should be free (that’s just crazy). It’s just sad and as parents it can be heart breaking to tell your child they can’t go to a certain school or even apply there when they are starry eyed dreamers so young and believing they have the world at their feet.
@theaterwork, I think the bottom line is that all schools are NOT created equal. If they were, all our kids would be trying to get into the cheapest school out there. If WHICH school your kid attends doesn’t matter, go for the one that gives you the most money/has the cheapest overall cost. So, as much as people don’t want to hear this, some schools are “better” than others. But before everyone jumps down my throat, different schools are “better” for different kids. Different schools focus on different aspects of the performers…sure, they all want to graduate triple threats, but some schools, for example, focus more on the acting than the dancing. And certain kids need that acting training more than the dance training.
I have to believe that the top tier schools are considered top tier for a reason. I also have to believe that the vast majority of kids want to go to top tier schools not b/c of the name, but b/c of the training they will get there. The kids who are only concerned about the name of the school they go to probably won’t last long in this business. And, once they graduate from college, the name of the school may open a few doors, but it all really just boils down to what they do IN THE ROOM of the audition. And what they do in the room depends on their training, and their drive and dedication.
So everyone has to balance the training their kid will get with the cost of said training. Dropping a school name isn’t going to get anyone very far.
@HappyDancer98 I think saving your Suburban equates to at least a one-time $30-$40k grant to justify CMU, right?? 
I agree with whoever said we can only talk about our own experience and here’s mine: my daughter narrowed down her final choices to two: Boston Conservatory or Montclair State. BoCo costing twice as much as MSU (MSU has since given us in-state tuition, yay!). BoCo an old, established “name brand” program, MSU pretty much an upstart that had just put a whole lot of money into expanding their MT program. I was willing to pay for either, though of course BoCo at $70K even 3 years ago (if you want an hour voice lesson each week) would have meant less in retirement. Ultimately my daughter chose MSU - totally her choice, and now that we are heading toward the finish line and with a little more time in the MT world I feel it was a good choice for her. MSU is a rising star in the talent/reputation pool, and I’m glad we have a little extra padding to help her onto the next step. She has been hired professionally alongside kids in long-established programs. (An aside, my son, a musician who because of being in a band went to a local state school for a music degree, is now working professionally alongside musicians who went to Berklee School of Music -a very expensive school- which he finds amusing since he has often expressed regret at not applying there.) Do I have to repeatedly explain to muggles why my talented New England daughter goes to a NJ state school? Yes. Has she foregone opportunities? Hard to know. Two well-known coaches told us at the time that the school’s reputation might help you for about 6 months tops. Is that worth 150K? Different answer for everyone. But if my kid had chosen BoCo I suspect I would be telling you how happy we were to have made that choice, too. Most of us are happy if our kids are happy, even if it is at tremendous sacrifice on our part.
Well said @monkey13!!
My S was also accepted to BoCo and his acceptance letter says that he is not receiving any merit (essentially talent) money. So we have to wait for the financial aid which I’m not optimistic about. With the academic/talent awards he has received from other schools, there is no doubt BoCo will be the most expensive option on the table for him. So I can understand your dilemma.
If the financial aid you are offered is not sufficient enough, you can always go back to the school to see if there’s more money available. You can also look into local and national scholarships. Obviously loans are an option as well.
Not sure what other options he has, BoCo is an amazing school, but he can also get excellent training at others schools too! Best of luck!
So true! That’s what it is about.
We are just beginning the
process and DH and I have had some interesting conversations about this topic. I think the one thing that I’ve learned on this board is that we can plan all we want but it really comes down to the kid. D goes to a college prep HS that is on the campus of our local university. This school has a fairly good theater department (although no relationship whatsoever with the music and dance depts) and often awards students from D’s HS a full ride including R&B, and lots of other perks, for them to stay in town and attend this university. In our first conversations about colleges, we insisted that D will apply to this school and for the scholarship. “It’s a free college education for heavens sake!! Who cares where the degree comes from?!” What we have learned is that she has no interest in attending this school, they don’t offer what she wants to study, and all in all its not “a fit” for her and her academic career. This was VERY hard to hear and accept but, thanks to the many generous posters here, we have been able to put together a list of schools that both interest HER and our bank account! We’ll see where this road takes us but I know the decisions will not come easy. We have also had to leave the “but look at what you’re planning to study. you’re going to be auditioning, temping and waiting tables for a living” conversation behind and realize that college is what you make of it. We want her to be a life long learner. This is just a step in that process and we want to support that as much as we can.
Thank you to ALL who continue to post here! Without you, we wouldn’t be where we are in this crazy game. I look forward to connecting with you throughout the next year as things REALLY heat up!!
My apologies to the OP for digressing from the original question of how to pay for BOCO. Thank you @joyfulmama for pointing that out.
I tend to go crazy on the exorbitant cost of some of these schools and brought up controversial topics that tend to explode into everyone getting offended.
My D luckily would never expect me to take out loans for a school that we couldn’t afford and she knows we don’t want her personally taking out tons of loans either. She is already seeing older friends of hers complaining about their student loans and how they are struggling to pay them
We’ve already had the discussion about financial “fit”. She knows she has to take the schools that were financial fits, pick the best of them in terms of training and decide on the best one that ends up accepting her.
I tend to forget in this forum that a lot of people posting are ( like @soozievt stated and I believe someone else) Harvard and Columbia etc graduates themselves. My husband & I just went to local state schools & i didn’t even graduate with
a degree. Some people on this forum to be honest are just happy their kid will go to college at all. Well at least I am one of those people.
And, honestly, it depends on who accepts your kid. Would I have expected Pace or Penn State to have rejected my kid when Michigan, Ithaca, and Wright State accepted her and Texas State and Carnegie Mellon and Otterbein wait listed her? There are a lot of unknowns here. You go with the school that best fits your kid and what you want after you get your acceptances. It’s very personal. And don’t assume you will get into any one program. You never know.
We know a student who left BOCO…many reasons, but he’s now $75000 in debt after 1.5 yrs. The wait of debt I think can weigh heavily on students and the fun/charm/desire to pursue this career field can fade. If your son is talented enough to get in to a top notch school, perhaps he’ll shine and flourish at a less expensive school. EVERY school seems to have their success stories. Be careful of dreams jeopardizing your future and ability to help him when he graduates! Just my opinion…one I have to remember myself!
My point above was that you never know what you will do once you are faced with your choice of your acceptances. All of these programs are hard to get into, and it is very hard to determine who will accept your kid, and it’s also very hard to know how much money you will get, or how your kid will connect with a program once admitted. It is a very individual choice on so many levels. Some of us have set aside money for college. Some haven’t. Some of us qualify for aid. Some don’t. Some of us have lots of kids. Some don’t. Some of us have solid careers. Some don’t. Some kids would thrive in a really challenging intellectual environment. Some wouldn’t. Some would do better as a big fish in a little pond. Some would do better as the little fish swimming upstream. The list goes on and on. You just can’t know all the factors that go into a kid’s decision to go to a particular school. There are far too many factors for any one person to put on this board.
Yes, we can sure hijack a thread, can’t we? Guilty :-h When my family started this odyssey, I was certainly aware of the high price tags of some of these schools but I always told by S what we had saved to spend and that if he got accepted to a school that was more expensive, he would need to make up the difference in scholarships, grants or loans. I also (probably naively) thought that he should throw his hat in the ring and then we would try to figure out a way if he got in. Then the reality struck when the offers came in. Sigh. And we got the “are you crazy going here when you could have gone THERE???” plenty. My S is happy and that is what counts. We will never know what would have happened had we took the other path. To quote Robert Frost: “Two roads diverged in a wood, and I— I took the one less traveled by, … And that has made all the difference.”
To get back to the original post, the decision is actually pretty simple. You can sacrifice your retirement fund to send your child to BOCO, you can keep your retirement fund and take out a lot of loans (second mortgage or whatever) to fund the child’s 4 years at BOCO, or you work a second job and have your child work during college and apply those incomes (together with or without loans or retirement funds). Not terribly palatable choices perhaps, but the choices themselves seem pretty straightforward.
If those aren’t appealing choices, then you hopefully have other choices for the BFA that are more financially reasonable. Good luck on whatever decision you come to. We’ve all been there. Paying for college in general is a real issue no matter where, what major, etc.
@MTDadandProud Touche! I remember your decision :-). We got much of the same criticism - both “you got in to X but you are choosing Y?” - AND - “musical theatre is really a college major?” - AND - “it costs HOW MUCH??” My S was better at not being defensive and would simply say “yes”. I had a harder time keeping my response(s) short and sweet! May the roads less traveled bring great joy!