The cost of an Ivy League undergrad degree next year….

[an]

[quote=FlyerInHi]Maybe I’m biased, but if you can at all afford it, you should pay for the most prestigeous school your kids get accepted to. It’s a good investment in terms of social mobility. Maybe not for a job or financial success but for marriage or acceptance by the potential in-laws.[/quote]I wouldn’t want my kids to get married into the type of family anyways.

[an]

[quote=flu]The cost of my ivy league degree was ridiculous but not insanely ridiculous. And to be frank, for engineering… didn’t matter one freaking deal versus any other reputable engineering school, except maybe that I was able to finish in 4 years, versus at the time possibly taking me 6 years at a UC school when they were having budget shortfalls and difficulty for students to get the classes they needed.

For something else, perhaps with a pedigree wall street/ management consulting firm, it might make a bigger difference, simply because those companies don’t recruit from all schools. But then again, sibling went to the best UC school and did just fine with that too. For medical/dental/law, not sure…Some say it matters, some say it doesn’t.[/quote]I would have easily finished in 3 years if I wanted to. But I decided to work ~30 hrs/week and graduate in 4 instead. Which really help me with finding my first job. I was competing against kids who had no or little experience.

[flyer]

Our kids attended “Ivies” for a variety of reasons, and the grandparents picked up the tab by choice. It’s worked out well for them, and seems to have made a huge difference in their careers and lives. Is the investment worth the price?–some say yes–others, no.

Everyone wants different things in life, and, imo, as long as your kids achieve their goals–that’s what really matters–regardless of how they get there.

[Coronita]

[quote=deadzone]What’s so great about Harvard? I wouldn’t want my kid going to school with all those spoiled, wealthy, elitist little pricks. (oh wait, that statement could apply to most colleges)

I’m curious what college did you graduate from FlyerInHi?[/quote]

I think if a kid can get in for something like business or law or medicine, then there might be some useful aspects to it. UPenn has a great undergrad business program and placement to Wharton MBA is pretty high, not to mention connections to wall street. Ditto for Harvard biz and law.

There are a bunch more specialities, but to me it seems like it *might* only make financial sense if you pick one of the professions that eventually could lead to bigger $$$$. For example, if going to Harvard/UPenn increases your chances of going to wall street or work for a hedge fund, then it might make sense, or a top rank high paid legal profession. And if someone wants to stay in academia and become a professor, well then I can understand that too.

I guess where I don’t see it making sense is all the unemployable majors that one can pick. Granted a lot of these kids with these majors end up going to med school or dental school or law school, it seems to be pretty risky if your kid ends up picking a major like “Communications”, has no interest/desire to b-school, law-school, med school, etc…Then what you end up with a shelling out $380k for a degree that lands no better job prospects other than something only requiring your kid to say “you want fries with that?”….Well, at least that’s for the majority of kids. I guess if the kid is a 1%er kid with a trust fund, it doesn’t really matter what they do/study.

That said, even if you’re the smartest kid and goes to the Ivy’s doesn’t mean you’ll be able to make big $$$$. And as a corollary, I’ve seen plenty of pretty stupid people make big $$$$ on pretty stupid ideas. And by “stupid ideas” I don’t mean it in a negative way…Just emphasizing that the ideas were exactly rocket science.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN][quote=flu]The cost of my ivy league degree was ridiculous but not insanely ridiculous. And to be frank, for engineering… didn’t matter one freaking deal versus any other reputable engineering school, except maybe that I was able to finish in 4 years, versus at the time possibly taking me 6 years at a UC school when they were having budget shortfalls and difficulty for students to get the classes they needed.

For something else, perhaps with a pedigree wall street/ management consulting firm, it might make a bigger difference, simply because those companies don’t recruit from all schools. But then again, sibling went to the best UC school and did just fine with that too. For medical/dental/law, not sure…Some say it matters, some say it doesn’t.[/quote]I would have easily finished in 3 years if I wanted to. But I decided to work ~30 hrs/week and graduate in 4 instead. Which really help me with finding my first job. I was competing against kids who had no or little experience.[/quote]

You graduated at a time when the UC system wasn’t suffering from really constraint budgets… When I was going to school, folks that I knew that went to Berkeley and UCLA engineering couldn’t get the classes they wanted, and when they did, they often complained about class sizes. Funny part is that, I didn’t go to class that often when I was in school.

oh well. $400k for undergrad is just absurd.

[Anonymous]

ROTC scholarships used to pay to full bill no matter the cost of the school. I don’t know if that’s true anymore.

I doubt that anyone who is accepted into the Ivy League is turned away because of inability to pay. There’s always a way.

[fun4vnay2]

Interesting discussion.

I didn’t do my undergrad from USA but did my masters in USA’s private college.
The college paid me almost $100K for tuition and living expenses as I had a research funding from NASA and XEROX.

I didn’t go to top tier school but to be honest, I didn’t find the education here at least at the master’s level very valuable. It gave me opportunities though whatever I learn, it all because of me.

[scaredyclassic]

My kids is finishing 2nd year at SDSU engineering and on track to finish in 4 years. Would’ve been trickier without a bunch of ap credits.

Harvard Law school is a (sort of) golden ticket.
Harvard college, no.

[scaredyclassic]

[quote=harvey]ROTC scholarships used to pay to full bill no matter the cost of the school. I don’t know if that’s true anymore.

I doubt that anyone who is accepted into the Ivy League is turned away because of inability to pay. There’s always a way.[/quote]

The way involves liquidating your assets and putting you and your folks in debt…

Have you guys heard mark Cuban venting on whole the student loan time bomb is waiting to blow.

There will be a few major law schools shutting down in the next 2 years. Applications are down 39 percent this year which is huge. The stds. Are plummeting too. Smart kids are staying away.

College is a little different but unlimited fed. Loan dollars to 18 year old fools with nothing to lose is a bad recipe

[an]

[quote=flu]You graduated at a time when the UC system wasn’t suffering from really constraint budgets… When I was going to school, folks that I knew that went to Berkeley and UCLA engineering couldn’t get the classes they wanted, and when they did, they often complained about class sizes. Funny part is that, I didn’t go to class that often when I was in school.

oh well. $400k for undergrad is just absurd.[/quote]When I went, CS & CE programs were compacted. So yes, there were budget/class size issue too. But I was on top of shit. I registered the minute it’s my turn, so I always got the classes I want. I also finish a lot of my GE at Mesa/Miramar when I was in HS. Which is why I was able to graduate in 4 years with ease while working 30 hrs/week.

[Anonymous]

Certainly for Engineering (one of the few undergrad degrees with immediate job prospects) an Ivy league school would not only be a tremendous waste of money but probably hinder real world job prospects in some cases. The majority of the top engineering schools that major companies recruit from are public schools.

[an]

[quote=flu]I think if a kid can get in for something like business or law or medicine, then there might be some useful aspects to it. UPenn has a great undergrad business program and placement to Wharton MBA is pretty high, not to mention connections to wall street. Ditto for Harvard biz and law.[/quote]But business, law, and medicine are graduate and not undergrad. No one are where you got your premed, prelaw, etc. from. They just care where you get your MBA, law, MD from. So, if money matters, it would be smarter to go to states school (maybe even easy ones), get straight A and finish in 2-3 years, then apply to grad school.

[The-Shoveler]

Both my Niece and Nephew graduated with Masters in engineering from UC-Irvine,
Both had great paying Jobs with Broadcom, both quit and went to Stanford for their PHD’s
I was like, Why?
Anyway there you go.

[outtamojo]

[quote=flyer]Our kids attended “Ivies” for a variety of reasons, and the grandparents picked up the tab by choice. It’s worked out well for them, and seems to have made a huge difference in their careers and lives. Is the investment worth the price?–some say yes–others, no.

Everyone wants different things in life, and, imo, as long as your kids achieve their goals–that’s what really matters–regardless of how they get there.[/quote]

If my kids were accepted to an ivy and I didn’t send them I would always have that “what if” stuck in my head.

[Coronita]

[quote=AN][quote=flu]I think if a kid can get in for something like business or law or medicine, then there might be some useful aspects to it. UPenn has a great undergrad business program and placement to Wharton MBA is pretty high, not to mention connections to wall street. Ditto for Harvard biz and law.[/quote]But business, law, and medicine are graduate and not undergrad. No one are where you got your premed, prelaw, etc. from. They just care where you get your MBA, law, MD from. So, if money matters, it would be smarter to go to states school (maybe even easy ones), get straight A and finish in 2-3 years, then apply to grad school.[/quote]

Actually, for undergrad business on wall street, coming from UPenn does carry a lot of weight.
Because it’s one of the few undergrad programs that actually does have a reputable business undergrad program. Not saying it’s something for everyone, or everyone needs to go that path, but companies like McKinsey, Bain, Goldman, recruit at those select undergrad schools, if that is your thing. Berkeley happens to be one too. But not everyone needs wants/needs to go that career path.

Reality is that only a small percentage of the folks end up going into these sort of professions/opportunities for which the end career path might actually justify such a big school expense expense. I’d say about 90% of the rest of the folks, it wouldn’t make much difference.

[Author]

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