My turn to complain a little. C25s favorite school we had a great AO last summer and fall. Not sure what happened but a new AO was assigned. Never heard from them but noticed on portal. In last month, c25 has reached out twice using email link from the portal for different things and literally no response. Sudden ghosting doesn’t rub me right. Unless they’ve decided to deny admission? Guess we will know in 2-3 weeks.
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Exactly my current struggle. Right now, Clemson is $57k/yr and VT is $38.8k/yr. We know he’ll get some merit aid to Clemson - the admissions letter said so - but it’s not likely to be that much. Last year the highest they gave seems to be about $12k, so if he got that much $45k v. $39k. That seems more defensible from a fiscal prudence standpoint. This argument really depends on how much merit $$ he gets, which we won’t know for a few more weeks.
So then it’s how do we quantify that? The only things better about Clemson is that it feels better, he felt more at home there, he likes the vibe better. Those are big things, but so amorphous. VT has a better rated program for what he’s interested in, will be less expensive, is easier to get back and forth from there to home, off campus housing will be less expensive (which will likely happen at both schools as a sophomore), it has alternate options if he changes his major (Clemson doesn’t), and has better food. But that’s all on paper, and doesn’t reflect how he felt walking around. He also found VT just really didn’t speak to him.
I’m hoping the accepted students days will help him see the benefits of VT because I really do think it will be better for him - he just feels like a better fit with VT students, the classes for his major sound more like him at VT (it’s two slightly different approaches), and I think VT is more likely to get him access to potential future jobs in the areas of the country that he’s interested in.
That said, if Clemson ends up being what he wants, we’ll go that way. We told him the budget was to stay under $55k/yr. and I’m not going to backtrack on that and tell him he has to get even lower. I do think Clemson would be a good school for him and he’d be happy. I don’t think it would be a mistake for him to pick Clemson, I just think he has two great options and one is a little more great than the other.
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In my humble opinion as an alum and the mom of a current student LETS GO TERPS!!
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Serious question: Is any college (or, if you’d like to narrow it a bit, any selective college) actually worth 40% more money than another one?
(It’s not a rhetorical question. Please provide rationales.)
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Well, I live in a town in which someone was just advertising for a $150k/year personal chef to join their household staff and cook for their family. I’m guessing that for that family, the concept of ROI is maybe a bit less meaningful. Many folks in the top income brackets wouldn’t hesitate to pay more to have their kid go to a school with smaller class sizes, newer/nicer dorms, access to downhill skiing, etc.
I think back in regular person land, there might be an ROI case for a very particular sort of major or opportunity (e.g. one might pay 40% more to send their kid to Juilliard even if the state music performance program was considerably cheaper, because for a performance career, access to the top teachers/proving ground is probably critical.)
We are going to have an array of options, some of which will end up costing more than others, and I’m guessing that cost won’t be the primary or secondary determining factor.
That said, ask me again once we hear back from all the schools. It would be tough to contemplate paying $88K/year for Case when we’ve already got $48K/year for RPI on the table, even if we could theoretically afford it (and now I’ve jinxed S25’s chances at Case, haven’t I?)
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Arguably a “regular person” (family) with limited resources that is thinking about financial ROI ought to only be willing to pay less for a kid attending Julliard (which prepares kids for a poorly paid career in music) than attending a state school where they will be probably end up pursuing a better paid career outside music performance and are more likely to be self-supporting after college.
That was our conclusion about ballet, you should only do a BFA degree with a view to a professional career if the college is really cheap or you are wealthy enough to support your kid afterwards.
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That said…this would be a tough choice to make. I have heard that if one is good enough to have a real shot at a performance career, Juilliard will come up with some form of discount. Going into debt to pay sticker price at that school seems inadvisable.
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Yeah, I sort of wonder with some of these careers if it would be the equivalent of paying for an English PhD (in a time when even a generously funded English PhD seems like an indulgence rather than a savvy career move.)
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We both really liked UMD! It’s a great school. We know a kid there from our hometown (In CA) and she is so happy. One of S25’s good friends also got accepted. It’s definitely still on the table. That said, I just have a sneaky feeling he’ll end up at a SLAC. Especially with all the politics swirling around right now around LGBTQ rights. There is a lot to digest at the moment and things are changing for him daily.
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So at the time S22 was deciding, these were the schools he was admitted to and considering (see below). We had told S22 that the budget was $55k. He only applied to schools that were either under that, or that we thought he’d get merit aid. (Lehigh doesn’t seem to give many people merit aid, but they give some and his stats were there and he was being heavily recruited to row there so we were hopeful - but ultimately received no merit aid.)
Ultimately his top choice - Lehigh - had to come off the table because it was too expensive - not worth whatever percentage more money that was to us, at all. But we did decide that his ultimate choice - WPI - which was the most expensive of those remaining, was worth it to us. It was a hard decision because he did like Pitt, which would’ve been a lot cheaper for him, but we decided - in that situation - the differences in the program were so significant that it wasn’t worth the money. e.g. the higher cost at WPI was merited because of the strength of the program and the specific experience. Similarly, Purdue would’ve been a big savings, and it certainly has a fantastic program, but when he really got down to making a choice, he didn’t want to be that far away, it was an insurmountable obstacle. We also were ok with him choosing against RPI because he had such a visceral negative reaction when we visited. If he had liked it as much as he did Pitt then we would’ve had to think about if the cost differential were worth it, and I’m not sure it would’ve been.
| COLLEGE NAME | TUITION | ROOM & BOARD | OTHER COSTS | TOTAL B+C+D | MERIT AWARD | TOTAL E-F |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| CWRU | 62,234 | 17,040 | 2671 | 81,945 | 29,000 | 52,945 |
| LEHIGH | 58,970 | 15,890 | 3,785 | 78,645 | 0 | 78,645 |
| PITT | 37986 | 12,044 | 4,370 | 54400 | 20,000 | 34,400 |
| WPI | 56,006 | 16543 | 3,491 | 76,040 | 20,000 | 56,040 |
| PURDUE | 28,794 | 10,030 | 7060 | 45,884 | 0 | 45,884 |
| RPI | 58,600 | 16,966 | 4,331 | 79,897 | 35500 | 44,397 |
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I think you would have a compelling argument. However, if she lives on campus, it would difficult to provide adequate meals everyday. The shared kitchen space in dorms is typically inadequate for more than the occasional meal or snacks. I would definitely talk to them about “allergen friendly” options. I know celiac isn’t an allergy. But I visited one college that had a separate station for allergen free foods, which might have included gluten in the celiac way vs just GF. It was in a separate location, presumably so it could avoid cross contamination. Meals might have been sealed, but I wasn’t paying close attention.
If the college doesn’t have such an option and dorm cooking is unlikely, find out if they have other types of housing. Maybe there a house where your D could cook her own meals. That seems like a lot to shoulder for a first year though.
I hope you are able to get her needs met at a school she loves!
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We are struggling with the financial pieces too. S25 was offered such a wide range of packages, and COAs range from 16k to 59k. For my poli sci major we are trying to find the magic ROI formula. Of course his current favorites are the two most expensive. Hoping for a deus ex machina with the March reach decisions.
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I looked through the NYT data on colleges and social mobility. There is so little. But maybe a particular school can help someone who is already in a particular socioeconomic class maintain it? Granovetter’s work on social networks tells us your weak ties matter for accessing opportunities like employment. In that case, maybe some people are investing in the social networks they gain at a particular college.
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I kind of hate the “allergy friendly” station thing. People don’t have the same allergies, and since you can’t avoid everything, you either have plain rice or aren’t safe for some kids. My youngest has multiple food allergies, including corn, but not including dairy, wheat, eggs, or fish. These alleged safe stations are useless for him.
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That sounds miserable. Communal living, as in dining halls and shared kitchens, must be a particularly stressful aspect of college life for a student with food allergies.
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I found this site that lets you search for colleges to see how they accommodate food allergies and celiac. It might not speak to the student experience, but it’s a place to start.
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Probably won’t help you, but I’ve found the actual cost of attendance for S23 at VT is about $33/34K. Book costs and other costs are much lower than expected.
Good luck. We have something similar but not quite… S25’s first choice school LMU has a really great film program, but COA is like $74K even after the $14K merit award, which is a non-starter. He wrote an appeal letter, based on the net price calculator which was mid to lower 60’s when my wife had a job, and now without her working should be mid 50’s. That’s still a lot, but his other choices George Mason and ASU have competent film programs, but not quite as well known - and I have no idea how to quantify that. Especially since film itself isn’t exactly a high paying career.
If his appeal doesn’t go through, then it’s no question, he won’t be able to go to LMU… but what happens if they come back with a COA of $60k? I can probably swing $55k (and he could take out the $5500 loan)… do we let him do that or push him to one of the others (COA $30k or $37K)?
Sigh…
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Actually for my particular kid, as long as things are labeled he is OK. Except for nuts, he doesn’t get sick (or hasn’t so far) from cross-contamination; he has to actually eat the thing. In one case, he had a food challenge, and he ate like a whole cup of it and then anaphylaxed but hadn’t until then (scary but we were in the hospital obviously).
It’s true that corn is surprisingly hard to avoid. I remember before he was even born I read a Michael Pollan book about the ubiquity of corn, and we looked at labels and were like “ha ha, we could never avoid corn it’s in everything” … little did we know.
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At our HS one of the social studies classes - could be AP Human Geography - does a short unit about corn and how corn has shaped or driven economies and the ubiquity of corn. And for a homework assignment they ask kids to go home and find 10 packaged food items that have corn as an ingredient and 10 that don’t. Both my kids took this course and both were shocked at how many things had corn. One of my good friends, whose son has a corn allergy, told me she loves this unit because it really helped her kids friends understand why he couldn’t just have whatever snack.
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Gluten FRIENDLY? What booosheeeet is that?!
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