I’m 52 and with rock hard abs and buns. Thick jet black hair. Think Ted Danson in the 1980s.
I went the ivy route and it served me well. Let’s just say I didn’t just get served an excellent dinner but I also cleaned out the kitchen. If you got the brain, the looks, and the dough, it’s a good investment.
How can you justify it, and how do people take that and still keep running well even after college?
For the average US family, they'd pay half that. What is the cost for the alternative? Ivy - Alternative is the actual cost.
But event still, let's assume you pay $80k vs $40k for your garden variety university. Is $160k worth the added employment advantages that come w/ an Ivy b.a? For most people, the answer is, "yes", because HR will never get fired for hiring a Yale grad.
It mostly depends on what you want to do in life. Just attending a top school isn't enough. It's having a plan to use the education and resources at your disposal to justify the cost of the college.
For examples plenty of ivy plus grads go on to make partner in a law, accounting, consulting or finance firm.
Not too exciting LOL, but it's $1million+ annual salary from 35-65. That more than covers the tuition payments.
It depends on a variety of factors. It’s a personal decision. What i can say for sure is that the most intelligent thing you can do is figure out how to pay as little of your own money as possible, whether through scholarships, GI Bill, or via a career or organization willing to invest in you.
your argument is silly. you seem to be suggesting not even the top 5-10 schools in the country are cost-effective. in which case, what is? going to State instead? getting a trade?
you also seem blissfully unaware of the financial aid programs at top schools. they will meet "need" more than any school in the country short of west point, berea, or deep springs -- the "free" schools. some schools will meet that need without loans. some schools are tuition free below an income number.
it's only costing "sticker" if mom and dad make like $200-300k+. it is not costing a normal middle class kid anywhere near sticker. it might be free give or take room and board. and if there's aid, there may be no debt involved. federal grants, school scholarships and grants.
and meanwhile, those are the sorts of schools where in a handful of years half the class makes $100k+.
you have it precisely backwards. what's your brilliant idea, instead go to some school that costs more out of pocket, because it's cheaper sticker price, but also lower alumni income afterwards?
and my experience the worse the school the worse the financial aid. common sense. harvard or chicago's alums do well and fund scholarships when done. if you go to 4th tier regional college, people are too broke on their mediocre job afterward to pay their own loans much less help the next generation with a donation.
the real question would be more like, is it worth it to spend $50-70k/year to go to some no-name lower tier or regional LAC. the more expensive school pays for itself in name recognition, graduate acceptances, employer interest, job offers, and salaries. what is actually problematic is going to a private school 60-100 slots down the rankings, that charges $50k less, but the graduates have more trouble getting graduate schools or jobs, and make far less after.
i dunno, it's like some of you folks doing cost-benefit obsess on the expense side. someone forgot about revenues in their accounting.
your argument is silly. you seem to be suggesting not even the top 5-10 schools in the country are cost-effective. in which case, what is? going to State instead? getting a trade?
You ^^^ know a lot of colleges and universities. Where'd you go?
How can you justify it, and how do people take that and still keep running well even after college?
As others have said, a big portion of students don’t pay anywhere near that, so, if you can get in AND qualify for significant aid and scholarships, then, yeah, you’d be a fool not to go to a top 10 or 20.
On the other hand, if you are a good enough student to get into an Ivy or similar but know you won’t get any aid (or very little), then you should look elsewhere. A kid with those academic chops can get huge merit awards at solid schools if they know where to look, $50,000+, sometimes a full ride or full tuition.
Of course the alumni networks and name brand help, but you get out of school what you put into it and once you are past your first couple jobs or graduate school, it doesn’t matter. What matters is if you are skilled, competent, charismatic, and, most importantly, adaptable and willing to embrace change. Many kids are book-smart but absolutely horrible employees.
There is absolutely ZERO reason to pay the almost $100,000 per year all-in price that many of these schools charge today. And DEI and social engineering narratives have really diluted the quality of the education anymore. Do you think an English degree from Brown or USC (randomly naming schools, could be anywhere), lacking any tangible skills, is going to cut it in the rapidly evolving AI and robotics-altered work landscape? Might as well save the money and go to your top in state school and work to graduate w as little of debt as possible.
i get people have to afford school and/or pay it back. but being well educated is itself a value. being able to think critically or handle multiple disciplines are valuable. my wife publically calls me her mathlete. i picked up hobbies in college other than books, soccer, and running.
also, my personal theory on credentialing is the wealthy chase dreams and being the boss, the middle class chase working for someone else and staying in a suburban house, and the poor chase a trade.
How can you justify it, and how do people take that and still keep running well even after college?
As others have said, a big portion of students don’t pay anywhere near that, so, if you can get in AND qualify for significant aid and scholarships, then, yeah, you’d be a fool not to go to a top 10 or 20.
On the other hand, if you are a good enough student to get into an Ivy or similar but know you won’t get any aid (or very little), then you should look elsewhere. A kid with those academic chops can get huge merit awards at solid schools if they know where to look, $50,000+, sometimes a full ride or full tuition.
Of course the alumni networks and name brand help, but you get out of school what you put into it and once you are past your first couple jobs or graduate school, it doesn’t matter. What matters is if you are skilled, competent, charismatic, and, most importantly, adaptable and willing to embrace change. Many kids are book-smart but absolutely horrible employees.
There is absolutely ZERO reason to pay the almost $100,000 per year all-in price that many of these schools charge today. And DEI and social engineering narratives have really diluted the quality of the education anymore. Do you think an English degree from Brown or USC (randomly naming schools, could be anywhere), lacking any tangible skills, is going to cut it in the rapidly evolving AI and robotics-altered work landscape? Might as well save the money and go to your top in state school and work to graduate w as little of debt as possible.
the simple version is this. if you are truly broke like i was, after grants, scholarships, and yes loans, my top 50 LAC d3 covered 100% of my need, i owed nada on tuition, room, and board most semesters.
it was actually the scrubbier schools whose financial aid offers came out like you owe us 3 grand. and those were the ones whose percent need met was more like 75-85%.
if you are on a budget, learn the "percent need met" stat and obsessively look for it right along with SAT averages and track times. you want the schools covering 100% need or close to it. and the gold standard is the ones who do 100% with no loans or zero tuition below a family income number.
i get people have to afford school and/or pay it back. but being well educated is itself a value. being able to think critically or handle multiple disciplines are valuable. my wife publically calls me her mathlete. i picked up hobbies in college other than books, soccer, and running.
also, my personal theory on credentialing is the wealthy chase dreams and being the boss, the middle class chase working for someone else and staying in a suburban house, and the poor chase a trade.
Roughly 12-15 schools are worth paying full price for if you're targeting certain fields and your family can do it (relatively) comfortably. Stanford, MIT, Duke, Chicago, all 8 (yes, even Cornell) Ivies and maybe a few more (Hopkins, Northwestern, etc). But go into it with a real plan and pursue it.
what planet are you on, going to State is cheaper? my experience they wanted me to take out similar loans to a private and then came out weaker on drive out price. and meanwhile no soccer and i wasn't making Power track teams. and that's with a nice state scholarship. the problem being, State doesn't have any grant money to give. all State can do is one lump scholarship and then federal/state aid.
State appeals to (a) kids on near full scholarships, including for sports and (b) parents who didn't save for college but make too high incomes for financial aid. yeah, if your parents are making great money but spending it all or indebted to their eyeballs, State is cheaper if you owe sticker with no scholarships or discounts. and if your kid does earn something, we're chipping away.
but if you're on aid, State is going to ask for loans just the same, and to cover 70% of what you need, which means more out of pocket. yes, the sticker was cheaper, but if both ask me to borrow, i want the cheaper drive-out that lets me keep some of my summer job money to live off.
unless you do juco -- and that's just the first 2 years -- the days of earning your tuition in a summer working are over. a cheap state school is $10-15k a year. BYU is what passes for cheap these days, and only if you're mormon.
Frick no the price isn't worth it. College is Scam-ish, depending on what you major in. Liberal arts. LOL. Have to listen to out-of-touch professors too who usually don't stick to the course material. If you're going to go then go to a party school. Smash on the reg. If you're a winner you will win no matter if you go to an ivy, probably leaving with massive debt, or a party school.
are you insane???? a kid at an ivy majoring in humanities could do an MBA or law school and get rich. they will be in high demand for professor jobs if they do grad school. and they would be the first teacher you'd hire if they taught HS.
you have the future of a student at defiance (OH) confused with the future of someone at harvard. you go to some scrubby undergrad humanities major you will probably never be hired as a prof anywhere above juco, you will fight for teaching jobs, and your path out is professional or business school.
re "woke," i went to a fairly liberal LAC and out of 40ish classes maybe 3 were that kind of goofy. i think you have "my prof is liberal" -- which is often true as that's who bothers with grad school -- with "my class is basically a political reeducation camp graded against the men."
and i think chicago would laugh at implications of wokeness. brown, another story.