“What kind of friends would we be if we were certain a dear friend was about to fall off a cliff and we said nothing?”
I agree, if the OP’s friend says something about taking out huge loans, etc. Right now he’s said he’s interested in an expensive product, and maybe he can afford it.
In cases like this I give the plus and minuses and stick with the facts. I will give you information but the decision is all on you. I had a relative who was going to allow his son to go to a OOS school. He had one daughter that was a senior in college and two more kids would be in college before his son finished. He never looked at the big picture and ask me for my advice. I stuck with the facts and left that decision with and his wife. Kid stayed in state and is now a Jr. at Texas Tech. Provide information not opinions if ask.
If your friend was going to purchase a BMW, would you try to encourage him to buy a Nissan?
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The funny thing is that he will buy the cheapest car, for example, and keep it until it completely falls apart."
What’s funny about that? That’s how people get to rich, by being frugal on things that don’t matter.
I have a son at an out of state flagship and a daughter leaving in the fall for an out of state flagship. We could have saved a ton of money sending them in state. It is our choice and I wouldn’t care if you were my best friend or even family I would be extremely ticked off and offended if you tried to talk to me about our choices. As a matter of fact I have a very close friend who chooses to make comments about my kids schools and it really upsets and offends me. I don’t necessarily agree with the choices she and her family have made for her kids but I would NEVER make any comment to her about their schools or their choices. None of your business. Not even your business to run the NPC or tell them to run the NPC. Stay out of it.
Just offer to help with any of the search or financial questions they have. If they run the NPC for UCSB and faint in shock, be there to help with other suggestions (including coming to CC). Private schools that might give aid, other OOS publics that give good aid, programs their child might be interested in and not know about.
Be gentle, they are new to college financing.
I don’t know whether you should try to influence the college choice as such. But I do think you might be doing them a favor by letting them know that where you go to college is often not related to where you do a computer science internship. My son is doing a CS internship in Silicon Valley. He applied for the job online. He interviewed completely online. He was given an apartment to live in near the office that he shares with fellow interns. None of the roommates is local. One is going to college in NJ and the others come from foreign countries.
Getting hired for the job had nothing to do with any connections between his college and the company. There were two factors that I believe helped him the most. He had a programming project on his resume that he never would have had were it not for a CS mentorship program that his college offers to attract freshman applicants. I think that got him the interview. What got him the job was his performance on programming tests, which were the major portion of the interviews.
As other posters have said, not everyone wants to go in-state to college, even if the cost will be more to go OOS. Some people like the idea of exploring another part of the USA and/or world. My whole family has chosen colleges quite far from home, for that sense of adventure, and we all applied for outside scholarships to make the finances work.
I do find some of the posters on CC a little overly worried about everyone else’s finances. Some people choose to drive Mercedes; some drive Hondas. Who has the right to judge what is best for other people? As adults, we have the freedom to make choices (about cars, colleges, etc), while hopefully staying within our budgets (so society doesn’t have to bail us out).
But, the consistent advice on CC about using the online Net Price Calculator to determine if a college is an affordable choice for a given family is great.
Since the neighbor’s son will not have taken Calc in HS, it may be that he won’t be accepted to UCSB anyway for Comp Sci. My son applied to UCSB and several other UC schools for Comp Sci & Computer Engineering from OOS. We learned in the process that those particular majors are very popular and can be hard to get into.
But, UCSB is amazingly beautiful and maybe a little less competitive than Berkeley, UCLA or UCSD for Comp Sci, so why not just apply and see what happens. UC applications are usually due by Nov 30.
My kid turned down a full tuition scholarship at her parent’s alma mater (a highly respected LAC) to attend one of the most expensive private schools in the country- where we do not qualify need based aide, and they don’t give strong merit aide (she gets about 15% of COA). Lots of friends, work colleagues - even family criticized the choice. Some of them (the more judgmental ones) are not really part of our lives anymore- because it’s not their business. We think what she is getting is absolutely worth what we are paying- and in the end, we are the only ones who need to be happy with the choice we made.
JMHO- I don’t think you will regret staying out of it…but you might regret butting in to a private family decision
Your friend’s son is only a junior - why should they cut out all OOS options more than a year before his son even applies? Presumably, your friend has Internet access, the ability to search for a school, and the ability to understand the numbers he sees when he looks at the cost of attendance at the various schools his son might apply to. He also knows his own financial situation better than you do.
“One way to explore these issues would be for the friend (or the student) to visit College Confidential directly. Here, we get to tell other parents what to do with their money and their kids all the time.”
Exactly. It’s one thing to make condescending statements about the wisdom of college choices to strangers on CC, but your advice may not be welcomed in real life.
I must admit that the original post in this thread is baffling to me (as I think it is to others). “Help me convince my friend” (instead of asking “is their an advantage to UCSC over Rutgers”) says to me “I know this is true, because … ummm, reasons. Could someone give me some of those reasons please?” If you’re so confident something is true, shouldn’t you have some facts to back it up, and be able to share those with other rational adults without help?
OP has apparently been buying nice cars over the years, maybe going on nice vacations, while friend has lived frugally. Friend has apparently saved up a nice college fund, while OP has not. Between the 2 of you, I feel like the friend is the one that should be giving advice, not OP.
Did friend try to convince you that buying a new Lexus instead of a used Corolla was a waste of money, and is this payback?
Is OP feeling guilty that they didn’t save more money for their child’s college education, and so feels the need to convince friend who saved more that it’s a waste?
Prepositioning oneself geographically to facilitate internship opportunities seems like a reasonable college selection strategy. But **Santa Barbara is 300 miles away from the Silicon Valley. **A 300 mile radius could just as easily reach into Oregon or Nevada.
Sounds more like the OP’s son is just using the Silicon Valley internship opportunity as an excuse for southern California sun & fun.
And a lot closer to Silicon Valley. While UCSB is a great school, I wouldn’t consider it close to Silicon Valley as it is at least a 5 hour drive away.
Cal Poly is quite competitive, it isn’t necessarily easier to get into for CS.
But like other posters said. Not your business. You might suggest other schools,and recommend the teen apply broadly. Perhaps suggested a trip to CA so they can get a tour, see how far away UCSB is from Silicon Valley, and hear admission information from the school itself.
Why should OP suggest anything. Only make suggestions if asked.
@thshadow You make some slightly mean assumptions about the originator of this thread. You have no idea what kinds of cars or vacations or savings or whatever he/she has. Your first paragraph was valid, but the last three paragraphs seemed unnecessary. Just my opinion.
I read OP’s intentions to help the neighbor as well-meaning. OP has over 5,000 posts on CC, and the ones I just scanned all seemed kind and genuine. In this thread, OP sounded like a number of people on CC who consistently advise kids to attend the in-state or OOS college which gives them the best merit/fin aid, to avoid loans and save for grad school. That is all very good advice, but it is not necessarily what everyone wants or does.
If I lived in NJ, I personally might love an excuse to travel to Santa Barbara to visit my child on the beach at UCSB! There aren’t many cities in the USA that are more beautiful and have better weather than Santa Barbara.
On the other hand, the neighbor is just beginning his college planning, so who knows if UCSB will even end up on his final list. UC Schools dropped off my older son’s list when he realized they required a Fine Arts credit in HS and a whole long, separate application. (We wondered if the cooking/home ec class he took in 10th grade could have sufficed as an art, but never pursued that. A lot of boys loved that class, because the teacher was really nice and they got to eat whatever they made. And it tended to be an easy A.)
I am guessing that OP won’t be responding to this thread, other than maybe to end it.
We were full price payers with 12 year old cars. I just don’t care about cars. I do care about the right college for my kids. I agree it’s not your business, but there are many things new parents don’t know about college financing and the kids don’t know about summer internships. One thing that this kid should know is that many (most?) internships in Silicon Valley pay very well, and cover the cost of temporary lodgings and flying out.
I have over 49,000 CC posts, and I would never offer this kind of advice to a friend unsolicited…nor would I have appreciated receiving this advice unsolicited.
Really…unless the friend asks specific questions…the decision to spend a lot of money to send a kid OOS is a personal family decision.
Can you point out that while ucsb is a great school, for CS and Silicon Valley the schools to be are ucsc, Santa Clara, sjsu, and add call poly slo and cpp.
If he’s had trouble with add until recently, considering how competitive, cpp and perhaps sjsu may be his best alternatives.
I think the OP was coming from a good place and the shadow is way out of line with assumptions. Many drive old darts and still have to limit college costs.
The only way I would approach this would be to talk about my approach and offer information but nit actively try to convince… Telling someone that your own kids were limited in their college choices by finances can let them know they aren’t alone. Or offering ideas on schools that aren’t quite so far away that offer CS, including in-state, with Silicon Valley internships, is good information. But if the family decides to take a second mortgage to pay for UCSB, just smile and nod and wish him well.
@thumper1 I agree with you. Not sure why you thought I differed in my posts here.
By the way, I was by no means inferring that 49,000 or 50,000 posts on CC makes OP or you or anyone else more knowledgeable than others. There are lots of people on CC offering help, but from my reading, the facts provided are sometimes inaccurate and the advice can be irrelevant.
In case this OP & neighbor do end up having fun conversations about UCSB in the future, some of the posts in this thread about UCSB could be relevant, without focusing on money at all.