<p>I think people really do approach decisions differently. I think some people really do think in terms of ROI, and others don’t. I hope that these discussions might help people have a better understanding of the broader implications of these decisions. There are plenty of people on CC who need to hear that you don’t have to put yourself into crushing debt to get a good college education, but there are also some who need to hear that paying more may make good sense sometimes, depending on what you’re trying to get.</p>
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<p>I can see why you feel like you do, but you would be wrong. Are you saying you could not find an intellectually intelligent guy in your high school to date, or you don’t think those guys are available at State Schools? Of course not everybody at a State school is super smart. But to think that some people at State schools are not super smart is simply ignorance. Even if you see yourself as some sort of intellectual, certainly, if you were an attractive woman, you could have found your equal at a State School if you had gone to one. If a smart woman at a State School cannot find a smart guy to date, she is likely either physically or personality wise unattractive.</p>
<p>Sure, there will be some smart people at the state school–some of them just as smart as the smartest people at top schools. But on average, the students there will not be as smart as those at top schools. This has an impact in the classroom, in extracurricular activities, in the formation of friend groups, and even in dating. If you’re interested in peers who have the same intellectual interests as yourself, then it’s obviously better to be somewhere where there are 500 people like you than a place where there are 50.</p>
<p>In other words, you might find a smart guy to date at the state school, but you might prefer a place with a more extensive menu.</p>
<p>Let me clarify something here. In many respects, I see this college education stuff as a scam. Universities with yearly tuition approaching 50K a year need to convince many people that their educations at full cost are worth it. They do it by slick marketing . . but in this case, the sales pitch is that their universities are filled with wonderful, smart people and meeting these people will make your life so much more better. I don’t buy this for a second. If you meet your spouse at your elite university, and they are truly intellectually gifted, then I suppose in that respect it would have been worth the attendance. Other than that, to me the cost exceeds the benefit. Its a simple cost-benefit analysis and nobody could possibly convince me that spending 200 - 250K on an undergraduate education is worth it. But I don’t have a few extra million in the bank. If I were ultra rich, no big deal. Right now, I want to ensure I have enough money to have a decent existence for my wife and myself to the end. And I want to have enough money to help out my kids when they really need help. That does not mean transferring huge amounts of funds to a University for an undergraduate degree, because there is an ROI that I consider . . not just financial, but educational also. And I don’t see it. I really don’t. To each their own.</p>
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You can’t be persuaded by those of us who actually experienced this, and whose kids are experiencing it now? It’s fine to be skeptical, but honestly, what you are saying sounds more like reverse snobbery, or sour grapes.</p>
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<p>However, the top 500 (out of 5,000) frosh at the big state university may be stronger students than the 500 (total) frosh at the smaller school, even if the big state university has lower baseline admissions standards than the smaller school.</p>
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<p>Forget the rest of these folks. I’m delighted you feel this way and wish there were millions more like you – because that might push the number of apps at my kids’ first choice school back under 30,000.</p>
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This is very true. Even in this case, however, you want to know how many of your classes and activities will be dominated by the 4,500.</p>
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<p>In terms of the “watering down the courses” problem, it does matter whether your major is considered a “gut” major at the school in question, or if it is considered a “hard” major (or if it offers honors courses for the strongest students). Of course, it is no guarantee that a more selective or prestigious school necessarily has more in-depth course offerings in every subject; the stronger students may mean that it can offer more in-depth courses, but does not always mean that it will. Making this evaluation means drilling down to details of courses and curricula, rather than relying on generalizations about selectivity and prestige.</p>
<p>In terms of other activities, it seems that the bigger school will give you a bigger “menu” of fellow students to choose from (and perhaps more choices of activities due to more activities having a “critical mass” – this may also be true for more esoteric course offerings).</p>
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<p>Hunt. Wonderful post.</p>
<p>^^^ Every decision we make in life can have a profound effect upon our lives. The butterfly effect is alive and well in the simplest decisions. In the end, life is a result of randomness over which we have little control. Even the fact of being born at all . . . the odds are simply astronomical. So yea, college is important. But there is no real way to know where any choice will lead as opposed to any other choice. You may meet your soulmate at State College. You may not meet her or him if you attend the elite school. You may hate your classmates at the elite school, may reject the pomposity and intellectual snobbery and may end up dropping out of life as a result.</p>
<p>My D was doing great in Middle school and we made, in retrospect, the mistake of putting her into a very highly ranked (per US NEWS) high school, where she really did not like it very much. Did not like the student body. Found the people pretentious and snobby. This has turned her against the elitism which she thinks would be present in the elite colleges. So its really her decision where to attend college. Not ours.</p>
<p>But the point is, no matter what decisions we make, we will never know whether the outcome was more positive or negative until the fat lady sings. And even then, we will never know where our other choices might have led.</p>
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Well, some people may actually have their own experiences or know people in real life that they, shockingly, trust more than strangers on the internet.</p>
<p>“You may hate your classmates at the elite school, may reject the pomposity and intellectual snobbery”</p>
<p>Are you accepting it as a fact that there is pomposity and intellectual snobbery at elite schools? Often the more you know, the more you realize how much you don’t know, and that can bring greater humility.</p>
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<p>Doesn’t matter what I accept. It only matters what my D perceives as truth. Perception becomes Truth. And its her decision. Having said that, I work in a profession where the Prestige Factor is extremely important. Do I think there are a lot of asses among the elite? Absolutely. Do I think all of the Elite are asses? Of course not. All people are different, elite or not so elite.</p>
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Well, I guess that does logically lead to choosing the cheapest option whenever you have to make any kind of decision.</p>
<p>No, it doesn’t matter what you or your D believe and no one can argue with your D’s perceptions of her high school. But that was a high school. So it’s another matter to state as though it were accepted fact that there is snobbery and pomposity at elite colleges, especially since your D never ended up attending any of these colleges.</p>
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<p>It does? I am a pretty logical guy, and I don’t follow your logic.</p>
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<p>Well, D has not yet started College, so whether she ultimately transfers to an elite college or attends an elite Grad School is an unknown right now. I am pretty sure there is pomposity and snobbery to some degree at Elite colleges. That is just the nature of the beast, because the elite after all, like to think of themselves as elite. (look at how you described your high school boyfriend . . supposedly not being up to your intellectual demands). </p>
<p>But that is not what really concerns me as much as the hyper competition that I perceive as existing in those types of environments. Since I live in a world of hyper-competitiveness, and since I know how much damage that can do to one’s Psyche, that is another good reason that I think rationalizes my daughter’s choosing a less than elite school. </p>
<p>I want my daughter to learn of course at college, to learn how to think Critically, etc., but I do not want her to stress out while trying to compete to be the best among the best. That is not necessary for her to have a healthy ego, and is likely a world which may be more detrimental than beneficial for her. I also don’t want her to stress out about the fact she would be costing the family $250 K for her education. That is something that would likely concern her. Life needs to be a healthy balance. She doesn’t need to prove to anybody that she is the smartest. It is enough that she is smart. She doesn’t have to earn the best living or be among the best in her employment. She merely needs to earn an adequate living and be good or very good at what she does. She will get the building blocks for such a life and more from a less elite and far less expensive undergraduate education, and she will have plenty of time, if she so chooses, to assert her elitism in even higher education or on the job.</p>
<p>According to Payscale.com, the top 10 ROI colleges (after financial aid) are:</p>
<p>UVA in state
Georgia Tech in state
Harvard
Princeton
MIT
Stanford
CalTech
Dartmouth
William and Mary in state
Amherst</p>
<p>Without financial aid (i.e. full price):</p>
<p>Ga Tech in state
Colo School of Mines in state
UVA in state
Suny/Maritime in state
CalTech
Harvey Mudd
Berkeley in state
Texas A&M in state
Va Tech in state
William and Mary in state</p>
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<p>I suppose I am an outlier then. The application of ROI to many areas of my life is the precise reason why “my finances are less limited”.</p>
<p>One can be aware of differences in skill and ability among people without that translating into snobbery or arrogance. If I had gone on to describe said BF in greater detail, I could have mentioned the ways in which he was different/more talented than I. But since academic ability is the chief way we sort students for college admissions and since one attends school primarily for academic reasons, the other distinctions (like skill in tennis, singing ability, who is more generous, etc.) matter less.</p>