I apologize for the confusion that my comment started. I sent @ucbalumnus a pm regarding D’s thoughts on school.
The thing that I meant to convey is that there are a lot more options to manage costs and debt than people often consideration to, and I think that it makes sense to take these considerations into an overall plan. Some options, such as study abroad, can be fantastic opportunities rather than austerity measures.
For example, Northwestern’s study abroad site notes that “When you study abroad, you will pay your program cost, not your regular Northwestern costs. Program costs vary widely and may be more or less expensive than Northwestern”. For a prospective journalist, studying abroad would be an amazing opportunity. From what I’ve seen, a year abroad with the right program could cost half as much as a year at NU.
“it is much easier to have the golden aura around you”
Yes, it is. I work in the higher ed space, where being a Harvard grad does open doors. It’s not a coincidence that my business cards are crimson and I use my post.harvard.edu email address professionally.
I still think the author made the right call. Through pure luck, I could attend my most door-opening school without debt. She could not.
People who get into Northwestern don’t pay sticker price at DePaul. Given the same net price, I am not surprised that a student would choose DePaul over UIC for a major in the college of communication. For a science major, the opposite preference would make sense.
I think the decision not to go into debt was the right decision. My oldest turned down her two “reach/dream schools” because they would have required debt. The big difference between her scenario and the article’s author is that we ran the NPCs and knew going into the applications that they were unlikely to be affordable without serious debt so she had other options.
I guess I’m still surprised at how many people wait until the last minute to consider the financial aspect of colleges. In my area, many people just have their kid apply to State Flagship because they (mistakenly) assume that it will be the lowest cost.
While I understand how the author ended up in the situation she was in and had to take the gap year, I just don’t get why it had to come to that. She should have tried her hand at investigative reporting and uncovered the true cost of Northwestern earlier along with other options. I’m also surprised that the family let the negotiations drag on until after May 1st. If I had started with a difference of $20,000 between where I was and where I wanted to be, I would have given up at the get go. Guess this family was more determined and patient than I would have been!
I don’t know - I haven’t seen a lot of evidence to prove that this is true, especially beyond a person’s first job or so. There are certain industries where this may make a difference (higher ed is one of them; banking/finance/consulting is another set) but in most others it probably doesn’t make enough of a difference to make nearly six-figure debt worth it.
If she had done that, she would’ve lost freshman eligibility for scholarships and things, and no recourse in case the Northwestern price didn’t improve after a year. And the chances that she would’ve gotten a better price at Northwestern are far lower than the chances she would’ve gotten a better aid package elsewhere.
A gap year isn’t the worst thing in the world. The vast majority of kids will do just fine in a gap year, and won’t “spiral into depression” or something like that.
I think there’s a little bit more to the story than the article lets on. I don’t fault the author, but negotiating financial aid after ED is rather odd to start with – and the article is written several years down the line, so memories of details may have faded. But with the divorce in the picture I’m thinking that there were probably some twists that were unanticipated at the time. Maybe one of the parents promised to contribute and then reneged – the big problem with the whole NCP thing is that the aid is calculated on the assumption that both parents will contribute, but often after a divorce one parent is left holding the bag. There could be dozens of other reasons … most of which would probably be too personal or detailed to be shared in a newspaper article in any event … so just easier for the sake of the story to leave out some of those sort of messy details. It doesn’t change the gist of the article – she wanted dream school, didn’t have the money, and her other options didn’t pan out at the time so she took a gap year.
Another real possibility is simply that she didn’t like any of the other schools that were available at the time, scholarship or no. A gap year provides an opportunity to apply to a different set of colleges. In other words, maybe DePaul wasn’t an option in year #1 – and that it was only after having to turn down Northwestern and being dismayed at the remaining options that she started looking seriously for a school with both a strong journalism program and a strong likelihood of merit aid.
This forum is strange in a way the desire for colleges ranked or deemed excellent takes such a precedent it borderlines compulsiveness. What in daily life, in a career, or what has moved you to think this is such a requirement in 2017?
I can only speak from my own experience as a lowly 1%'er that undergraduate degree alma mater is mostly irrelevant in most career paths!!
I work in the corporate world as does my wife, the MD’s we know (all except 2), our friends, everyone went to state flagships and few CC’s then just publics. The (all except 2) went to Stanford and MIT one a MD the other a engineer, but neither anymore special than the engineer who went to Tulane or the MD who went to University of Houston.
Politics, Wall Street, some sort of elite business, other than that why such a desire to go to a ultra expensive “ELITE” university? The ROI is not there!!
Cost neutral would be great, but these threads that talk about incurring excessive debt to get a BS in blah blah blah I just shake my head, WHY?
These are not good financial choices! The author made the right choice imo and I know other members disagree!
^^I haven’t read anyone on this thread who disagrees.
Perhaps. But this site exists (almost) solely to share information about the very selective colleges. There is no need to share much information on the local regional public (or private) that accepts 80% of applicants based on GPA+Test scores.