<p>Sometimes a dream that is deferred just becomes a reality a little later. That’s what “deferred” means. ")</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus</p>
<p>Stipends are great but they are often not available for a lot of graduate students (btw there are master’s students too not just PhDs!), especially for students in the arts. Science students admittedly often get healthy sized stipends.</p>
<p>Out of curiosity, how many top state research universities offer “reasonable” OOS prices? Honestly I do not know of any (although I am not saying that there necessarily aren’t any out there, just that I cant name any off the top of my head) so if you could point some out that would be great, because it seems like the top public’s seem to parley their reputation into being able to charge huge OOS fees. </p>
<p>My main point with my previous post is that the quality of the public system varies so greatly between states that it really puts some students at a real disadvantage, and that it would be great if more money could be sent to some of the weaker systems to bring them up to a comparable level.</p>
<p>Re #120: I think it is just wrong to expropriate the words of Langston Hughes in support of the argument that one’s parents “should” take out an $80,000 loan so that a student can attend a “dream” school.</p>
<p>Langston Hughes experienced prejudice, and I believe that he also experienced race-based discrimination that was still legal at the time he encountered it. These things are unequivocally wrong.</p>
<p>A student whose parents are not willing to take out an $80,000 loan in support of one child’s education is not encountering anything that is “wrong.” It’s just the reality that many families are unable to afford some things. I can’t afford everything I’d like, and we can’t afford to give QMP everything we’d like to give.</p>
<p>I think that many young people do not understand how much $80,000 of debt really is.</p>
<p>To a certain extent, I blame the colleges/universities for advertising a picture of affordability that is misleading for many families (though accurate for some).</p>
<p>If you look at any thread about EFC, and how startled people are by how high it is, you can see the issue pretty quickly. Our EFC is absurd.</p>
<p>A number of state schools now have honors colleges where the average ACT score is well over 30. So it’s not like a parent is consigning their child to Hell by getting them to enroll in a top-quality honors college.</p>
<p>A small number of these honors colleges are very generous with financial aid, for example offering free rides to NM Finalists. I’m not saying there isn’t a place for an elite college, but for the most part let the rich kids have 'em.</p>
<p>HI has very reasonable in and OOS tuition rates. Trying to guilt parents into taking out loans they can’t afford is a terrible idea for all involved. Going to a U that would require graduating owing $80K is just a very bad idea for many people. </p>
<p>If the student is highly motivated, s/he can get what it takes to get and keep great merit aid, to have a wider selection of Us. S/he can also move to the state of her/his choice, get a job, support him/herself and become a resident and go to a great in-state U as a resident. </p>
<p>I have a friend whose S did just this. He has been living on his own for 18 months and is now starting CC as a resident of his new state. He plans to attend the U as a resident after getting credits in CC. He sees it as a win-win. No one is OWED having folks take out a $80K plus loan so kiddo can go to “dream U.”</p>
<p>Oh PLEASE. There are many ways to success and fulfillment. If you think the only way for a bright, motivated, high achiever to succeed is to attend a top 30 school that their parents can’t afford, you are very shallow.</p>
<p>Not just shallow, but manipulative as well. I am really glad my kids would never even think this way.</p>
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<p>…and how does that prepare them for the real world? I might work harder than my counterparts at other locations, but I am making less money because I am new to the company, and younger with less experience. Should I be rewarded for working harder? Maybe, but it doesn’t always work that way and children need to learn that lesson before they throw a tantrum in the workplace - everything is not made to be fair or equal.</p>
<p>School is what you make it. Even less competitive, less challenging programs can be made to be more than they are by the right student. Rarely would a school stop a student from forging new paths, new clubs, new research opportunities, as long as it is within reason and poses no risk to the student or others. I also think you underestimate the quality of education at some “lesser” schools - some of the top schools have the top researchers, and not necessarily the best teachers. Some of the top schools don’t have the best environment to bring out the students’ potential. Everyone needs something different to motivate them, develop them, and empower them.</p>
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<p>Depends on what you mean by “reasonable”. You can see if Minnesota, NCSU, Virginia Tech, and SUNYs’ OOS list prices are reasonable, for example. The mountain west and south states also have a number of low cost for OOS universities.</p>
<p>Re: unfunded PhD programs in arts and the like</p>
<p>Considering the huge amount of competition among arts (or any) PhDs to get to faculty positions, it does not really make much sense to go to an unfunded PhD program.</p>
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<p>Life isn’t always fair. And in the real world, not everyone gets a trophy.</p>
<p>Yes, “participation awards” drop off sharply after grade school and even more once you are no longer a teen.</p>
<p>It still seems that most of the top flight public universities, such as Michigan, Berkley, UCLA, UNC-Chapel Hill charge a lot more than the others (props for bringing up Minnesota though, I thought it was a lot pricier). Essentially the Publics that can compete with the top privates at least on the level of graduate research output. It seems like almost all of the top end publics have raised their OOS tuition levels to near private school level.</p>
<p>Re: Arts</p>
<p>True, with a PhD in something like philosophy you pretty much have limited options in the field aside from teaching and maybe publishing more philosophy book (The days have long gone where people would just pay philosophers to think about things- Plato would be so crestfallen, lol). Still you gotta feel for those arts graduate students who get a lot less financial support than their peers in other majors.</p>
<p>Just out of curiosity to those very few who think parents SHOULD willingly shoulder a $80+K loan per student for undergrad, should those students stand ready to pay their parents debts of those parents don’t save enough for retirement because they’re funding these “rewards” for their kids?</p>
<p>Good question!</p>
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<li>My experience at public and private universities has taught me that, there are significant educational advantages to many private schools; there are some pretty incredible students at our public institutions who get a tremendous educational bargain at these schools. I am saddened because funding to state schools has in most cases been cut to the point that the education they offer is not as good as it was 20 years ago. This means that for some students there probably is no educational advantage to attending their strongest academic option, and so if I had a child who I though could thrive at our state schools I would send that child to these schools rather than take out these loans, and I would tuck away the extra college money I saved to pay for some other need of this child. However if I had a child who I did not believe would thrive at our local state schools, I would do everything I could including taking out crazy loans I could never help to repay, if I believed that school could help my child finish growing into a resourceful and moral adult. Note I am not choosing to endanger my financial future for prestige, or return hope of a financial return, but to finish my job as a parent.</li>
<li> I don’t expect other parents to share my views on this and I would never judge parents who chose another direction. I suspect that I may have an exagerated notion of the importance of the 4 years we spend as undergraduates, because I spent my adult life working with them.<br></li>
<li> I have a neighbor who has worked very hard to raise her children in our expensive town, so they could attend good schools, and I have watched her work multiple jobs, and remortgage her house to pay for their private college educations. I suspect her daughter would have lit the world on fire wherever she went to college, so one might argue she wasted her money with that one. Her brother however needed the education provided by the two very unique privates he attended. He is now working as an engineer on projects that interest him because of the support those two schools offered him. He probably would have kept doing construction without this education, he would have been fine, but we would not have the engineer that his mother’s stubornness bought us. He was worth the extra investment.</li>
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<p>Uh, No… Where did you get the idea that I was equating “good” necessarily with “private”? there are plenty of great public’s</p>
<p>I didn’t just say privates…I also said “OOS publics”.</p>
<p>And, NO, taxpayers should NOT be expected to help reduce the costs of either. If some OOS student wants to go to UCLA at $52k per year, there’s no justification that the over-taxed American taxpayer should help defray that cost so it’s a much lower charge. That student can go to his OWN state’s public or use the WUE or similar system if needed. If the student is a strong student, then he also has the option of going to an OOS school that will give him merit for his stats.</p>
<p>But, to suggest that taxpayers (some of whom are barely covering living expenses these days) should pay MORE in taxes so that various 18 year olds can skip over their own state’s school and attend a pricey OOS school is crazy.</p>
<p>Not to mention, if that ever did happen, Cal, UCLA, Mich and a few others would get so many more apps (and they already get a ton) that getting accepted to those schools would become as difficult as getting accepted to HYPS.</p>
<p>A good smart kid will do well at any decent university and a kid with issues will have issues at any university. Simple as that, You don’t need to go deeply into debt for a good education. Was Warren Buffet’s life ruined because he graduated from the University of Nebraska instead of Harvard? No. A name on a diploma does not make the man (or woman). Those qualities come from within.</p>
<p>Oh, and by the way, top students at average colleges are much more successful in life than the mid-range students at top colleges. So the parents might be doing the kid a big favor by not taking out that 30 year loan. Here’s why (a speech by Malcolm Gladwell at Google):</p>
<p><a href=“Why Did I Say "Yes" to Speak Here? | Malcolm Gladwell | Google Zeitgeist - YouTube”>Why Did I Say "Yes" to Speak Here? | Malcolm Gladwell | Google Zeitgeist - YouTube;
<p>I would never have wanted to have my parents endanger their financial security so I could have an educational experience I “preferred” over in-state flagship. I really wanted to try an OOS U, so I did everything to have it happen, including working from the time I was 14 and getting numerous academic and FAid scholarships to make it possible. I did the same for grad/pro school.</p>
<p>It really concerns and troubles me to see people taking on heavy debt that they can’t afford so kiddo can have their “dream,” even at the cost of parents’ financial security and retirement. This can and does result in some kids withdrawing from college without a degree and/or transferring back to in-state U when the magical thinking and loans aren’t enough to get the degree.</p>
<p>The economy is still not robust enough that it’s easy for us parents to go out and get re-hired at the same or higher salary if the job being held suddenly ends for any reason; many of us are not insured in case we are disabled and the majority of US adults do NOT have enough saved for retirement. Borrowing substantial amounts in our 50s and older for non-necessities tends to be a very risky thing.</p>
<p>Even many engineers are not getting jobs after they graduate, nor are many other majors, not matter how exhaulted their colleges and how many wonderful contacts they may (or may not) have made.</p>
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<p>Is it that surprising, based on typical economic behavior (someone with a product in demand raises the price)?</p>