Parents... My S declined Cornell to go to UC Santa Cruz with his boyfriend.. Now they've broken up..

Parents Forum
41

Your son picked this school because of a relationship, and now wants to leave this school because of a relationship? I think he’s confused what college is FOR.

Listen to him, but don’t indulge the Cornell-would-have-been-better fantasies. It’s a moot point.

42
  1. In my experience (without checking recently), UC out-of-state tuition is often higher than sticker-price tuition at private universities. The most expensive college to which either of my children was accepted was Berkeley, by several thousand dollars.
  2. Cornell provides better need-based financial aid than the UCs provide to nonresidents.
  3. If the OP's son had been accepted to one of the NY State "contract" colleges at Cornell, and was a NY resident, the sticker-price tuition for Cornell would have been meaningfully lower than tuition rates at other peer colleges.
43

I checked the numbers. Current cost of attendance for non-Californians at UCSC is $57K per academic year. At Cornell, it’s $65K for non-NY residents and/or non-contract colleges, $49K for NY residents at a contract college. So even without financial aid, Cornell could be cheaper for a New York resident. And financial aid could easily bridge the gap between the higher cost-to-attend figures at each university.

44

Uh, no. Let me fix this for you.

The parents voluntarily chose to pay for this OOS school because of a relationship…they enabled the decision. There is no way he could have chosen to attend UCSC otherwise.

45

I don’t have any advice to offer that hasn’t been already offered.

I’d just like to make some comments. They may sound harsh; sugar-coating is not my strong point.

If the story presented here is not fake, IMHO, the parents bear a large share of the responsibility. I hope it’s not too late for them to learn from it.

When in crisis, the parents should keep calm and solve the problem in the most reasonable way. But in this case, which most people think not a real crisis:

I feel sorry for the poor boy. He needs help, but the parent is “so distressed” to help.

What parent in the right mind would pay more money for a child to turn down a (supposedly) better offer and “to go to UC Santa Cruz with his boyfriend…”? Moreover, for more than two years now, that parent has no clue as how the child has been doing at school. I don’t think responsibilities of parents stop at paying tuition. Check and balance, guidance, …, are big parts of parents’ job.

And now:
quote also terribly upset that he’s stuck at UC SC alongside his ex…

[/quote]

So what do people do after a divorce? Moving out of the country?

I think the parent needs help more than the child does. I don’t think that help can come from this forum, however.

Again, my comments don’t apply if the story is fake. I smell tr.ll.

46

OP mentioned Cornell as being less expensive, so probably with financial aid compared to out-of-state UCSC. Seems unlikely to be the contract colleges (agriculture, human ecology, labor relations), due to lack of commonality with what UCSC offers.

47

^^ The Ag school offers several majors that might be of interest, and are not ag, including the undergrad “biz” school (instead of Econ), bio for premeds, Comm for budding television personalities, enviro sci, and the like. Sure, not all are offered at UCSC, but instaters can make do for the discount, and buttress their transcript with coursework from CAS (Arts & Sciences).

https://cals.cornell.edu/academics/departments-majors