Prestige/Expensive vs. Good/Cheap

calmom
Sat, 10 Feb 2007 08:01:49 +0000

JHS, I understand what Yulsie means —I myself was kind of vague about my upper limits – it was “up to the cost of our EFC at UC” for certain, and everything else was “we’ll see” - with “we’ll see” definitely being stretched with the prestige admission. But the point is – I told my kids in the beginning that money was an issue – in the end they expected me to tell them which of the colleges was feasible. I’m not sure what you mean by “feeling equally good” about your role in financing all choices — things would certainly be easier for me financially if my daughter had opted for one of the UC’s, but I don’t think I would feel better about the money if she had made that choice. I mean – face it, there is a dollar value to the sense of pride and accomplishment that I have as a parent driving around with a Barnard sticker on my car. But for me it wouldn’t justify a $20,000 annual cost differential – I just don’t have that kind of money.

But I am definitely comfortable with what I am spending and the choice my daughter made – if I wasn’t then I would have set a lower bar. (As it happens I was paying less this year than I expected to pay – my daughter’s EFC is significantly less than my son’s was 6 years ago, so I didn’t really face the sticker shock with Barnard… although the other private schools did price themselves out of our market).