Need advice on college choice, $$, etc.

3girls3cats
Sun, 06 Mar 2016 05:01:46 +0000

Whether Princeton holds more value than UCLA, UCSB or any other university is not the issue.

The issue is whether the parents had an obligation not to mislead their son when he formulated his college list, wrote his applications, and then considered his acceptances. A 17 or 18 year old can’t “work out for himself” the implications of choosing an Ivy if his parents tell him that finances are not an issue.

For all we know, had he known that finances were an issue, this boy might have chosen a school awarding him a full ride, one that doesn’t even stack up on the prestige meter with UCLA… He might even have applied to Princeton as well and been accepted. But if he’d done that, knowing full well that his parents couldn’t afford the price tag, the situation would be very different. I don’t think there is a single person commenting here who would fault the parents in that scenario.