<p>Headoflife-</p>
<p>Hopefully he didn’t take all his validation from me, cause it was just my thoughts. Unfortunately with music the top programs can be very, very expensive and their aid is mostly need based and you can be faced with the cost versus benefit thing. We went through that with my S, and it isn’t easy, the financially sound package is very, very tempting when you are talking about college costs that are close to what the average worker makes in this country as a total cost…the problem being music is not like learning other things, learning calculus doesn’t vary much, nor does standard curricula in technical or other areas, but with music, it is such a weird beast, it is very, very hard to figure out what to do.With us it was much the same as your S, the combination of program and teacher made the more expensive option the real choice…plus with us, music has already involved so many sacrifices that it isn’t anything new…fortunately I think getting rid of a car with less then 250,000 miles is a waste (the older they get, the more vintage they are <em>lol</em>), vacations are some esoteric concept and since I don’t golf or have a boat or or a model railroad layout, and retirement is for sissies, wouldn’t know what to do with the extra money:)</p>