<p>Seth Godin is known mainly as a marketing guru and business author, but in a recent post he weighed in on choosing a college. Specifically, he points out that rather than paying whatever it costs to attend a $200K dream school, a student could attend a free school (assuming that option existed) and create an even more awesome experience:</p>
<p>Godin seems to be making the assumption that most people perceive college as an accessory, similar to a stereo or a car. This is in fact not the case.</p>
<p>You have to ask yourself whether you’re willing to spend four of the most influential years of your life in an environment that doesn’t suit you, with people that don’t share your interests, and at an institution that doesn’t match your capabilities, all so you can “drive there in a brand new Mini convertible…and create a jazz series and pay your favorite musicians to come to campus.”</p>
<p>Of course cost should always be a major deciding factor in a person’s college decision, but the way he addressed it seemed rather shallow and unhelpful for those who are currently in the process</p>
<p>It depends on school. Of course, it wouldn’t make sense to pay $200k to attend some random, mediocre private school if a free ride is available elsewhere. But if the school is somewhere along the lines of the Ivies, Stanford, MIT, Caltech, ect, I see the $200k as an investment and definitely worth taking.</p>
<p>It also depends on future career goals. I’m hoping to work in high finance and I have a feeling that the University of Arizona (which offers full rides to NMFs) isn’t a popular school to recruit from for Wall Street firms.</p>
<p>I like this. I like encouraging students to change their dream from being at a certain school to four years, to doing whatever it is they want to do with their lives after they finish school. We’ve talked with our kids about the tradeoff of four years at an expensive undergrad vs. cheaper undergrad + grad school support or help with starting a business or support while doing unpaid internships after undergrad etc etc etc. The talks have been, uhm, ineffective but I get where the blogger is coming from, even if my kids don’t. </p>
<p>That said, the example is a little bit of a stretch. You can’t get student loans to buy a new Mini or pay jazz musicians. Money for college might be coming out of accounts where there are significant tax penalties if the money’s not used for qualified education expenses. In short, it’s not a one-to-one swap of $200k for whatever your heart desires instead of $200k for college. Maybe it’s a swap of $40k of whatever your heart desires during college plus another $60k in added support/buying power in the first few after-college years.</p>
<p>There’s often a bigger discrepancy between the “fame” of 2 schools than “slight.” And the differences aren’t always about prestige. I saw a university BRAG about a faculty student ratio of 1 to 19. There are top schools where it’s more like 1 to 7. Class size might be dramatically different. One might have a great career center and another might not. It might be common at one college for it to take 5 years to graduate due to course restrictions while another might graduate 90%+ in 4 years.</p>
<p>Many children will not really care how much money is spent unless there really is something in it for him/her to compensate for their “loss.” It’s not in them. Most can’t comprehend the magnitude of money given away forever, since I really can’t, either. Except the sickening feeling when making the transaction. The outrageous and escalating prices cause such a struggle and sacrifice for many families. Our kids are good and we want them to be happy and go to a great school, campus, etc. We are weak, and just give it away, hoping not to regret it; that some disaster does not happen where you really should have kept it. And after all that struggle, because you can’t shake money out of your house, or keep selling off some of your disaster funds, your child also has a small mountain of debt looming over them at the start of their lives instead of being free and clear. And you feel guilty even after all you went through! Will it cost $90,000-$100,000 in twenty years? When will they stop? Or, they know there is always someone out there who will pay for their only son or only daughter. LOL How about- Occupy Expensive Colleges! Just a joke. I would never occupy someone else’s property.</p>
<p>My son just got into Brown. Even with a little need-based aid, Brown’s tuition still comes to $33k/year.</p>
<p>The point I was going to make is that this ends up being about $75/hour of classroom instruction. You could probably hire a Brown professor to tutor your child one-on-one for that kind of money. Of course, you’d have to forego the mini convertible.</p>
<p>I highly doubt a professor at Brown would tutor for $75/hr. Apart from teaching, they’re busy researching, applying for grants for research, participating in conferences, writing, mentoring, performing various administrative duties, developing relationships with both students and colleagues across campus, and participating in other aspects of campus life. Apart from that, the particular quality of education at Brown can’t be compared to an accumulation of one-on-one tutoring. What one learns there is inseparable from the whole experience of belonging to and participating in the campus community, including discussions with fellow students both in and out of classes.</p>
<p>Seth Godin is a populist bore. This is yet another article that makes sense to a booze-toting youngster. It’s not relevant for the creme de la creme for whom footing the bill is worth it. There’s an unshakeable big boys club at the top of many organizations, and that’s going to be more intensely the case in just 5-10 years as the recent bunch of MBAs climb to the top. The 200K can be charged purely because there’s an upside potential of much more. People don’t become rich by going to a top school, but they surely improve their chances of being upper middle class.</p>
<p>They may lack perspective or even wisdom, but there’s nothing wrong with a 17 or 18 year old having a ‘dream’ school. My daughter got into hers, but we can’t afford to send her there. It’s a very good but not tippy-top school, and maybe even a bit obscure, but it was right up her alley. She is bummed out, but also reasonable, and is well aware that there are pluses and minuses to every college, so she is moving on. </p>
<p>Anyway, the world would also be a boring place if everyone wanted the same flavor. If they have a dream, or work a little harder for the hope of getting the sundae with the cherry on top, then so be it. We learn all the time as we go through life.</p>
<p>I didn’t read the article since the quote makes no sense to me. It assumes that you get the funds to spend on cute cars and concerts for your friends instead of doing 4 years of scholarship. The funds are still gone but you don’t have anything but an awesome concert and a used car. Where does this cool job/gig come in after that? Maybe you are Mark Z?</p>
<p>My daughter went to an expensive school and the results are dramatically different than the scenario where you go to a free school instead. Her undergrad school had famous concerts on the green every spring and she didn’t have to fund it. Yep, she is still a relatively poor PhD student, but the fancy school certainly helped her get there. The job prospects are extremely good as are the summer internships. But she has no car. Instead she bikes and takes the bus. She is in a Brazilian drumming troupe and has music in her life.</p>
<p>I don’t believe in dream schools either, but perhaps a range of them. The kicker here is that she went to a dream school that was also free (unemployed single mom.) Perhaps there were other free ones, but they were not our state flagships. Maybe this is the exception to the rule, but if your ambition is to drive a Mini around instead of going to college I don’t agree that you will usually get mileage out of that.</p>
<p>I do think that you have to compromise if you have to pay full or even half freight. It’s too much debt to be sensible.</p>
but I get where the blogger is coming from, even if my kids don’t. </p>