A lot of “gluten free” foods are more correctly gluten friendly. The rise in GF as a lifestyle choice has increased the availability of GF foods, but many of them aren’t celiac safe. You might go to a restaurant and see GF food items on the menu, but unless they are prepared in a way to prevent cross-contamination they aren’t celiac safe.
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We are in the same boat as you, having narrowed it down between Clemson and another school. Same issues with merit at Clemson and location/ease of getting there. We already know the cost of the other school and it’s in the $30s and we all loved it. However, it is not an engineering school.
What complicates the issue for us is that my husband is a die hard Clemson alum. I went there also but for grad school, so I don’t bleed orange like my husband does. My daughter grew up going to Clemson games and has that natural affinity towards it because of that.
Hubby and I had a huge argument about it the other night because he thinks we should just pay whatever it costs to attend Clemson and I vehemently disagree.
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I’m sorry, ghosting is never ok. Let’s hope that the new AO is just overwhelmed, and that it’s meaningless.
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I think stats bear out it isn’t (assuming can do a similar program other places). Getting a BE in EE over a physics degree (at a school without engineering) could pay off relatively quickly I would think, but didn’t do the math.
That said, my anecdote.. I went to a high-prestige, very selective and expensive college and pretty much all my classmates that I can think of are very high income (top 1-5%) now including my friends who came from poor or lower-middle class families. I can think of people who don’t make a ton, but very few and far between. Some of them are professors, or high - prestige other jobs (journalists at premier places). In my actual friend group, everyone has done amazing. Some started with connections and money, of course.
This is confirmation bias, I am sure, but people who can pay a lot, probably have same biases as many went to these schools 
my kid has 529 that will cover their COA anywhere. They aren’t likely to go to grad school, at least not right away. We aren’t stressing about the difference in costs between their choices. I haven’t done the math, but most expensive is definitely 40% more than cheapest. I suspect they will pick one in the middle, though.
Also, bear in mind, many wealthy grandparents pay grandkids tuition (private school, college, etc) as an estate planning strategy. Higher tuition isn’t a problem there.
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Forgot to say that both of my nephews graduated from Va Tech, along with one of the nephew’s wife, all 3 with engineering degrees. All have high paying solid careers.
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I think it comes down to what the marginal utility of that extra 40% is to the family paying it. If paying that extra 40% doesn’t change your life at all, then maybe it’s worth it for student comfort, connections, reputation, etc.
If that 40% means taking out a lot of loans, I’d be hard pressed to find any justification for it for any school.
Where it is difficult is if it’s technically affordable (ie no loans needed) but would mean altering your life somewhat (maybe delaying retirement for a couple of years, simpler vacations, stricter budgeting) or just stressful. I think that would be very contextual… like for an engineer, maybe one of those great fit schools like an MIT, where the fit is perfect. Or an entrepreneurial student, a Stanford. Or if there were specific reasons why you’re very certain your student would thrive in one location over another one, maybe smaller class sizes, or something like that.
It’s really hard in that case I think. I suspect rationally, it’s probably not “worth it” in that if you’re kid is reasonably well adjusted and adapatable and self-motivated, then they are probably going to have a good outcome at any competent program.
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I think kids should be able to “indulge” themselves if they are self-supporting. Life is not just about a career after all. I did a math PhD just for fun (and to spend 3 years rowing). I encouraged my kids to apply for grad scholarships (Truman etc) that wouldn’t have been a “savvy career move”, at least not in the short term. But if it’s tuition-free and you get a stipend then I don’t see a problem. D’s university has a funded “environmental humanities” masters program that she’d be a strong candidate for. But I don’t think she’s interested.
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This.
Maximizing every decision by $, IMO, is not a recipe for a happy life. It may be for some though.
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I didn’t know you rowed. For your college or in light blue?
I also hardly think of a math PhD as an “indulgence”, but I agree with your post in general - I do believe in education for its own sake - while recognizing that for some families, thinking like that is a luxury (eg the phd may be funded but you could be earning money for those years)
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Oh I wasn’t that good at rowing. I got to row at Henley once, but we were easily beaten by some American college crew. I do still go to some reunions, this year the college boat club is celebrating its 200th anniversary(!), so I might get back in an eight.
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Absolutely. And I’m one of those (meaning I skipped the PhD but did an expensive MBA and have basically used it to do nothing but underpaid social impact work – many of my b-school my classmates are making way more money. I just couldn’t work up any interest in doing what they do.)
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We have always tried to teach our kids that life is about balance. Whether it’s splurging vs. saving, indulging vs. abstaining, working hard vs. playing hard…our philosophy has been that overall balance is the key to a healthy life. We never want them to feel guilty because of the food they chose or the trip they took or the experience they invested in or the quality item they purchased, but we want them to understand that those choices might mean skimping on other choices. It is ultimately up to them to determine how their choices will balance out, and at their ages. we expect mistakes and expect them to learn lessons the hard way (as we did ourselves.)
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Hmmm. I’ve struggled with this significantly.
Our parameters were: we are full pay, we only have one child, and we have saved a sufficient amount in the 529 that no school will affect our lifestyle or retirement.
Her ED school is $90k+ per year. Her cheapest school (in state flagship was $15k coa). Most of her other schools were in the $35k to $70k range (all out of state flagships). Umich would have been higher and Northwestern was approximately the same as the ED school.
So, we let her ED, which was the most expensive option. Our rationale was that it is #1 in the world in her major and is highly respected in many areas (for the all important Plan B if pivoting is necessary). No other school could quite replicate that. Given we had the funds available it was something we chose to do. But, I am mindful that she could have gone the the local state school for about $60k and we could have used the remaining $360k for any number of things, including starting her off with a sizeable nest egg.
Otherwise, for example, between Purdue and UGA, both have her major and are great schools - I would have a hard time justifying a price difference. Between the local flagship and Udub? Same. The holdback re the local flagship would be that it is a little close to home and so many friends and acquaintances already go there.
But, from an ROI and outcome perspective, I would have a hard time justifying one of the state schools she applied to as being worth $20k or more a year. I was / would have been outvoted (I mean we did let her apply and would not have later refused to let her go) but it would have hurt my sense of value a bit.
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I’ve been thinking more about this question of whether any college is worth paying 40% more. My initial reaction was no, but this conversation has added some nuance. Obviously, the first step in determining that is to ask if you can afford it. Can you make the payments without producing a hardship? That’s the short-term financial question. The long-term financial question is whether the additional cost will have financial repercussions later and whether those will produce potential hardships. The affordabilty questions are relative. What’s affordable to one family won’t be to another. In my family, loans are likely to be unavoidable. But we have to put a cap on how much in loans we take out. Certain measures of comfort or fit may have to be sacrificed if it’s going to mean tens of thousands in loans, especially because I don’t want to foreclose the possibility of grad school which might necessitate another set of loans. And paying back loans can affect how much wealth my daughter is able to build.
These questions are so contextual. One family might use economic rationality to make the choice. Another might use a different kind of logic, such as educational or social experience. The more I think about it, the more I like that people choose college based on non-economic factors, that it’s not all about ROI. How wonderful to choose a college because of your love of learning! To go where you feel supported and can thrive. There are so many advantages of college that are not quantifiable.
In my D’s current set of choices there is a state school and a private school. There is a substantial difference between their COAs, after loans and work study. But those numbers are still within an acceptable range. Financially, I prefer the state school. I also like that there is more diversity. But she might prefer the liberal arts approach, the smaller classes, more attention from faculty, and research opportunities that are associated with the LAC. It will be tight, at the top of our budget, but it could be worth it if she’s not happy at the state school. We realize being able to make that choice is a huge privilege and not something to be taken for granted.
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This is very similar to our situation, with a couple of differences - primarily that my DS was deferred from his ED school. Which now reopens the question!
He ED’ed to Cornell (engineering). He is now in to four publics (UMD, UIUC, Pitt, U MA), three with significant merit aid and we haven’t heard yet about UIUC’s final numbers; we are in-state for MA. He adored UMD on his visit.
If he gets into Cornell in RD, I’m going to really wonder if there’s any way it would be worth it. Yes, he loved it on his visit, but qualitatively it seemed similar to how he felt about UMD. Cornell also doesn’t have an official aerospace major (yes, yes, people do mechanical with the aerospace minor and they get hired and it’s fine). Cornell is also harder to get to (yes, yes, we can get the Delta credit card and he can fly when he has to).
But twice the price-tag? In our case we do have a 529 for part of the cost. If he goes to Cornell it means that we have to make some significantly different decisions, possibly including him graduating early with AP credits.
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I can tell you UMD has always been thought of highly for their LGBTQIA+ environment. Even when I went there in the 90s! I don’t see any administration changing that culture to be honest. They have always prioritized diversity and that’s not going to change, maybe be called something different or put under another department, but it’s never going to disappear, it’s in the DNA of the college. All colleges get federal funding, they will all face this. But Maryland, the state, is super duper liberal, especially the counties that provide the most kids to the school (MoCo, PGCo, Balt).
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We are currently between two choices that he’s in I’d say, UMD which is our in state school, he got merit, honors program. Georgia Tech, which is out of state, I doubt he’ll get merit and he’ll hear about the honors or any other LLCs later. It will likely be double the difference. BUT given what we’ve put away for college for him, and what we currently pay for his private high school GT wouldn’t require any major lifestyle changes for us as it would still be less than what we pay for his high school out of our pockets. He just wouldn’t have money leftover for grad school.
Then there are the unknowns still out there- MIT, Michigan, Notre Dame, Cornell, Rice, Carnegie which WILL require a significant lifestyle change and we’ve told him that. So there it becomes a question of how that’s getting paid for. We didn’t let him ED for this reason because we wanted the facts. Those will be the much harder discussions to be honest.
There will be no financial aid because what the federal govt thinks we can afford is so outrageous I find it hard to wrap my head around it, it has to be the equity in our house which is significant, but they actually expect me to take out a home equity loan to pay for college? I’m 52 years old, I’m not looking to extend the time I have to pay a mortgage.
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My S25 is dealing with exactly this decision right now. Accepted to Case, but even with merit it the COA is $65k vs Miami, Cinci, OSU all around $29/30k, then Dayton, UK, Loyola all around $40k. So far cash is king and he is really set on Miami as the best of the low cost options. If Case got down to $40k with additional merit I think he would pick them, but currently it would cost an additional $140k and result in $140k in loans versus zero loans from Miami.
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I’m going out on a limb to say that your child applied as an engineering major? If so, GT and UMD are AMAZING options. Both very highly regarded. I would not take out a loan to pay for any of the other schools on the list. The only one that might give me pause would be MIT.
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Yes, chemical engineering. He also got into Purdue, Wisconsin and Delaware, but between the lack of merit and lack of honors college, they don’t stack up the same way against GT really. I do think UMD could be the dark horse here that he panics at the end and decides to just be close to home, go with his brother a semester, one of his besties likely to go there, we are season ticket basketball and football holders so we are there often etc.
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