What may matter is how the kids end up perceiving it if some have to choose college under more limiting financial constraints because more money was spent on other kids.
OP - You are the parent, and if there are a few National Merit schools you want your student to consider, then take him for a visit. Also be very clear about the finances. Your son has no concept of how crippling student loans are. He’s likely dismissing certain schools because of preconceived notions or peer pressure. Think about it - how can he consider schools he knows nothing about? Do the visits and work with him on a list that works financially.
our first who is going to a top school<<<<<<<
Your kid goes to your state school though right? At instate rates?
This is simply a matter of parents having the courage to set boundaries. The sooner those boundaries are set, the better. And no, it’s not unreasonable for parents to refuse to co-sign loans to pay tuition. Even better, you know your kid is smart, give him/her your tax return and have them run the NPC on each school they want to go to. If it meets the thresh hold, then put it on the list. If not, tough noogies 
In my opinion, turning down a full-ride scholarship is borderline insanity. If someone gave you the keys and pink slip to a brand new Honda Accord, would you turn that down? It doesn’t matter how great that $1000 a month Jaguar is, you’re far better off taking the Honda.
If you believe that an education is an investment in your child’s future, then the Honda/jaguar example is a false analogy. Owning a Honda vs a jaguar has no long-term effect on your life. A better college is not just a four-year status increase vs another college with everything equal thereafter. Obviously it’s far more nuanced in comparing schools, and I understand a more expensive school is not automatically a better long term investment, but it really is a more complicated decision than just the money…again, assuming that it can be an option if finances allow.
^ not always. Other than having S have skin in the game (my post #34), we viewed it as without money as a factoring item, would you be interested in this school? Several schools he could have attended for far less, but he (and we) felt it would be of great benefit to attend where he attends. In other words, you could have paid him to go to school X and he (and we) weren’t interested for all kinds of reasons. Now I understand we are fortunate to be able to pay without compromising our life (partly because we do well, but mostly because we have been ferocious savers for our entire adult life so the money is there to pay for S and D). If our circumstances were different, he would be going elsewhere.
We added the skin in the game piece for him to appreciate the difference between schools and to show him the need to sacrifice for things he really wants, otherwise, we feel, there’s no value in the difference. Of course everyone (or most) would want to drive the Jag if there were no costs associated.
“We added the skin in the game piece for him to appreciate the difference between schools and to show him the need to sacrifice for things he really wants,”
But @rickle1 your “skin in the game” is do you want the Honda for free (with free gas too), the Jaguar for $200 per month (when it actually costs say $800 per month) or the Porsche for $500 per month (when it actually costs $2000 per month). So you skewed the decision making by subsidizing the actual costs. I’d take the Porsche too, if someone else picked up most of the bill. Why not just offer him the full $55K per year (if he’s contributing $15K for the full pay school)?
The car analogy is ridiculous. An education from a top school is invaluable and tied to future earning potential, is an important component to the development of a 18-21 year old during these very informative years and that education will stay with them the rest of their life. A car doesn’t help you with your career, will depreciate in value the minute you drive it off the dealer lot, and will be sold or scrapped within a very finite amount of time. A material object and a great education cannot be in the same discussion.
^ not sure I follow your point. The skin in the game is an extreme sacrifice to S (as he has virtually no money and has to take out loans, contribute almost all of his summer job money, work during the semester, and just not do certain things if he can’t afford it). It’s not the difference in real cost vs. what he pays, but rather the difference in him doing all of the above vs. nothing. Our formula wouldn’t be different if the full pay increased by 10k (or decreased) because he simply can’t afford more than the loans, the summer job and the working during the semester (10 hours per week - doesn’t sound like a lot until you do the 3-6 Monday and Wednesday and 2-6 on Friday when your buddies are all pregaming the evening - don’t worry he catches up). Still worth it to him as he’s where he wants to be and getting a great education and experience outside the classroom.
I think times have changed to a degree and it depends on what the student is going to study. My D19 will study science/premed. I am about 80-90% sure she will end up in grad school/med school. My wife and I are trying to get her through undergrad with as few loans as possible.
She currently has one offer that is for basically full tuition. Between what we can afford to contribute and her savings she probably could graduate without any loans. The school isn’t her top choice. She visited it and she could make it work and see herself going there. Actually she liked it more than she thought she would.
After her visit I was explaining to her that if she would graduate without any debt then she has plenty of options of what she can do. Any debt puts limitations on your options. My wife and I have seen this first hand. We graduated with debt and we had to get to work right away.
For my D19 it is still early in the process so things could change, but we do sleep better at night that she has an affordable option.
The field of study, lab resources and years intended to stay in academia are a big factor for us. I completely agree with the observations about different experiences in courses with the same description at highly selective versus less selective programs. The depth and amount of course content covered can be drastically different. Keep in mind that students are competing for grades on a curve and the curve is determined by the talent of the student population. Many state school exams are multiple choice which is very different than getting feedback by reading your graded bluebook.
Smaller class sizes allow professors to adopt undergraduate students to work in their labs and actively contribute to to current high level research. As we toured schools I dismissed touting undergraduate research thinking that undergraduates would just be lab technicians. WOW was I wrong.
Our children are actively participating in cutting edge research that is changing medicine and technology. Just a few years later, with a couple of university research jobs, published papers and summer internships, applying for scholarships and getting ready to apply to PHD programs, the pieces are naturally coming together.
Entering the workforce after undergrad might not make much of a difference, but mentors and research experience for fully funded graduate programs are very important. The highly selective brand name can’t hurt. Learning how to network and build professional relationships at a young age cannot be measured with $$.
Since we are full pay, we told our children that if they were not going to use the extra academic resources, a top tier school was not worth it over accepting significant merit. They also knew that at full pay, they need to finish in 4 years and we would not fund any grad school. We knew our oldest children would work very hard; not the same for youngest so there will be different discussions with a different budget and likely more than 4 years of undergrad to find his path.
@rickle1 I agree the full pay option that he’s chosen is an extreme sacrifice for him. But you didn’t offer him the full benefit of the other choices. If you contributed the same ~$55K per year as at the full pay school, he could have had $80K-$100K in his bank account (or for grad school/house downpayment) after four years at the flagship and twice that at the full scholarship school. That might not have caused him to make a different decision, but it would put the decision on a more equal financial footing.
And for those asserting that a top school experience is “invaluable” and can’t possibly be replicated elsewhere I’d suggest you read @CourtneyThurston’s great posts on these issues.
Neither of my kids would trade their undergrad experience for the money.
@Twoin18 I see your point but it wasn’t a factor for us because we weren’t starting from a point of “we’re going to pay 220k for school, you do what you want.” That wasn’t the focus. The focus was “we’re going to help you with school. This is what that looks like…” It was never about simply lining his or soon to be my daughter’s pockets just because we can. It’s to pay for school. The rest is on them. We view it as providing certain tools for them to use in their future. He’s decided, at a cost to him, and he’s getting an exceptional tool kit. No way to know what the other tool kit would have been to compare, but he’s (and we are) quite happy with his choice.
D (the coniver - sp?) has already asked if we would just give her the $ and she’ll move to NYC and audition for shows and train full time vs. go get a BFA in theater. Might make some logical sense (to her) but that’s not happening. The resources are for school. My $, my rules.
Cost is measurable, everything else is subjective. The reason bad financial decisions are made is when the cost boundary is pushed away from where it’s supposed to be…a precondition. If you take away facts, all you have left is opinions making decisions for you.
An argument I hear, “The benefits of going here would be immeasurable.” Immeasurable, you say? An electrical engineering degree at Duke with $100k in debt is just as employable as an electrical engineering degree at University of Houston with $0 in debt. Would the Duke graduate get a higher salary? If they’re applying in the same city with the same level of experience, then no. The higher employers go on salary, the easier it is to find an experienced professional to do the job.
Not every student will thrive at every school. It would be great if it were so, but it isn’t. I have one that would have bloomed pretty much anywhere. She went to her safety with merit (an LAC because she preferred smaller class sizes and close relationships with profs). She thrived. I expect there are a lot of schools where that would have been true for her.
Kid 2 was harder to place due to a very high IQ combined with a learning disability. She had a great experience at a school that was very rigorous, but also collaborative and supportive as well. I don’t think it would have gone as well for her at any other school, honestly. She is a funded PhD student in her chosen area of study now, eventually headed to a job in industry. She might have ended up back in her room at home if we’d sent her to one of the “free” options her stats easily qualified her for.
One size does not fit all. We saved from our kids’ infancies to allow them choices. We were quite measured in assessing the kid and the options. We prepare well to give them choices, and have no regrets at all about not having taken free rides. But to us, education is a high priority. The highest after covering basic living needs. Not everyone feels (or acts) that way.
For STEM, it doesn’t matter where you went but for other industries - finance, consulting, as has been discussed on cc, the college matters, how much not sure, but it does matter.
“It doesn’t matter” to employers. But it may matter to the kid. My #2 is a STEM kid. She did better in an environment with a lot of tutoring available, smaller class sizes, profs easily accessible and with time for mentoring, and lots of undergrad research opportunities. It was worth the money to us.
I also think the phrase “the college matters” is broader than just for future earnings. I think I am a better thinker, writer, and person because of my college experience at Williams. In terms of my career earnings, a lot of my colleagues at work went to relatively noncompetitive colleges on Long Island. So from a financial standpoint, there was not necessarily any benefit from my fancier degree. I don’t care. I did not pick my career to make a lot of money; I picked it to make a difference in an area I feel passionate about. And I viewed college as four years to be immersed in the life of the mind, and I picked the college that gave me the best environment for that.
See my other posts above in this thread (esp #28) however, for how I temper that sentiment with comments about trade-offs that families need to consider in deciding what they can afford and what “worth it” means to them.
^ Exactly! And BTW it factors in (sometimes more than others) with employers more than you think. Form a practical standpoint, If I have 10 resumes in front of me for an entry level job and I don’t want to interview all ten (and I don’t), I have to trim. I look at a combination of school, GPA / Major, leadership roles, sports and I might pull 5. The kid who was a rock star at state U probably makes the cut in a pool of “higher quality schools” (mainly because I was one of those and have a soft spot for that). The schools have already vetted top performers. That doesn’t mean the other state U kids aren’t as smart or motivated or have equal potential. But I have to make decisions based on something. The top tier school kids have already proven to be able to get in and succeed in that environment. Why would I assume they would be worse performers at the job I am looking to fill? I wouldn’t so they likely get hired unless the rock star has that star quality.
Now if I need to hire 30 people for a new “class” of X, than it’s more wide open based on the applicant pool. But if hte numbers all tracked with my example above, just with more scale, I wouldn’t change a thing.
So many on CC make the argument that the “regular kids” can be just as smart, do just as well, etc. I agree. But it doesn’t make then smartER or bettER. Why wouldn’t I use the rigorous admissions and actual curriculum of top schools as part of my selection process? In a market of full employment I have that option.