<p>The big thing that doesn’t make sense to me here is the idea that the top Ivies don’t give you a good return on what you put into it.</p>
<p>Look, you can look around at the top jobs, and see that Ivy Leagues are well overrepresented compared to the actual number of people who are Ivy League educated. Through the people who post on these threads, you can see that many of your most impressive peers will be attending Ivy League schools (plus Stanford, MIT and CalTech, of course, a long with a couple others). Through different data, we can see that these Ivy League+ schools offer superior education in many factors, by mixing the research opportunities and high profile faculty of a major University with the small classes and community of a Liberal Arts College.</p>
<p>The idea that the money you spend at the very best schools isn’t truly worth it seems ridiculous to me, because at most of these schools, they tend to give you the money you need. If you have a special circumstance with Financial Aid where you’re not getting what you need, I understand that. But for the middle class, most of the Ivies offer very reasonable (and sometimes free) tuiton. For wealthier people, the cost isn’t as significant a factor. I can understand someone saying “I was on the edge of the Financial Aid cutoff, so I decided to go for the cheaper state school option because the investment wasn’t worth it.” But the vast majority of people either fit in with some significant aid or can pay the tuition without much hardship.</p>
<p>The irony of this discussion (in regards to the Ivy Leagues) being thrown in with a discussion about LACs is how totally backwards it is. Let’s take a look at this post, for example:</p>
<p>Nobody suggested that Mac was a rival to the Ivies. Nobody suggested that the Ivy student body would be equal to Mac.</p>
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<p>People try to make it out that Ivy League people are elitist because they don’t consider the small LACs, but I truly feel its the other way around. When I applied, I was similar to the person who instigated the above post. I only applied to HYPS, along with the Alma Maters of my parents (Columbia, UMinnesota-Twin Cities). I know that the Ivies are expensive, but I’ll get a diverse campus, great networking, an incredibly prestigious name, research opportunity, and etc. (we don’t need to list the advantages of an Ivy again). But at a school like Carleton? Carleton is $52,000. And for what? Slightly smaller classes than UM-TC’s honors program?</p>
<p>The way I saw it (and likely the way the person with the similar dilemma saw it), I figured why spend 50K at a school that offered marginally more than the State school. I saw the sizeable advantage of the Ivies, I didn’t quite see it at a school like Carleton or Macalester.</p>