Any good books or advice on saving for college?

Xstatic3333 · October 2016

The thing with the Ivy's is that I believe many of them do offer more aid to middle class families. I think Stanford, for example, is free to any family making under $120,000 a year (don't quote me on the exact numbers.) Then there's also the academic scholarship route that @hoffse took and I did as well for my undergrad. These are all great options that are the right fit for many families.

I really think college is what you make of it, though. TBH, I went to a well regarded private school but other than keeping my grades up, didn't take the best advantage of my opportunities there. That's on me. Many other kids take great advantage of what's available to them at public schools and end up much better off for it.

hoffse · October 2016

mmabe said:

brij2006 said:

AprilZ81 said:

smerka said:

There are a lot of free market principles at play here. Shouldn't schools be allowed to provide incentives to attract students. I mean if the incentives didn't work, the schools wouldn't use them. Yes the 'free' money in the form of student loans is the problem, but it is kind un-American to not let the marketplace decide.

If it was really the free market that would be one thing, but it is the government's involvement (student loans) that started the tuition hikes/competition games because the colleges knew that the students would have access to more loans to pay the increased tuition, room and board, and fees.

Then you add in the brainwashing that everyone has to have a Bachelor's degree to earn a good living and that the best schools have the best job offers then you have a recipe for disaster. Parents and kids feel like they have no choice, everyone still things that college is the only way so everyone ends up in debt up to their eyeballs.

I'm not saying education is NOT important, but if I knew what I know now back then I would probably make some different decisions.

Our friends tried using the argument that if our child gets accepted to Harvard that there are many more opportunities there for them than the in-state school. At the end of the day a degree is a degree. Yes you may have an edge in to various law firms or businesses when going to one school over the other, but is that worth paying $150k for a college "experience" vs $30k?

I believe that Harvard and certain schools of the same ilk do provide a lot more opportunities for its graduates than many state schools or lesser private schools. I went to a private school in the midwest that definitely afforded me opportunities that I would not have at other schools due to the alumnae base. However, at the current cost, I am not sure that I would be willing to pay for my children to attend. However, to me, Harvard is in an entirely different league and provides far greater opportunities. I don't know that I could fully pay for my children to attend Harvard, but if they had the opportunity, I certainly would not discourage them from trying to make it work.

Seconded. Harvard, Stanford, Yale, and Princeton offer a lot more than a slight advantage.

Those schools really aren't about the experience at all. It's about the contacts and opportunities.

hoffse · October 2016

Xstatic3333 said:

The thing with the Ivy's is that I believe many of them do offer more aid to middle class families. I think Stanford, for example, is free to any family making under $120,000 a year (don't quote me on the exact numbers.) Then there's also the academic scholarship route that @hoffse took and I did as well for my undergrad. These are all great options that are the right fit for many families.

I really think college is what you make of it, though. TBH, I went to a well regarded private school but other than keeping my grades up, didn't take the best advantage of my opportunities there. That's on me. Many other kids take great advantage of what's available to them at public schools and end up much better off for it.

I think you are absolutely right, but I think it's harder at state school, and a student needs to be even more self-motivated to really kill it at state school. State schools offer tons of fun distractions that are awfully enticing to an 18-year-old. Elite private schools have their distractions too, but the culture tends to revolve around studying and making good grades to a greater degree.

When LSU played Vandy at home my freshman year (football), all of these people showed up and started tailgating on our campus beginning on Wednesday for a Saturday game. The Vandy freshmen were really perplexed by this, because what about classes? And tests? I remember being heckled by an LSU fan on my way to take a calculus exam.

Now my colleague who went to Alabama, did not rush, worried about football only on Saturdays, and then killed it in school while he was there is doing great. He says he was the exception though.

cbee817 · October 2016

@hoffse - I think that's kind of a weird generalization. I went to a D1 state school and we didn't tailgate for a Saturday game starting on Wednesday. In fact, our acceptance rate went down a lot when we turned D1 and the grade requirements went up quite a bit as well. People who couldn't cut it academically did not last long, athletes included. Our school is one of the largest in the state (3 campuses in our city) but it becomes very small once you get into your major. The best part is that it has virtually any degree (undergrad and graduate) you could want along with a business, architecture, education, engineering, medical, dental, law, and pharmacy schools.

csuave · October 2016

I agree with others about in the right city (like mine) buying a house for your kid instead of paying rent/dorms is a great investment. Especially if adding 1-2 other kids to pay rent.

As far as donating to universities I will not donate to my "general" undergrad university for reasons already mentioned. However, the department for my major is great. I have a lot of respect for the faculty, what they did for me as a student and the opportunities I had with that major after graduation. My donations go directly to the department and are usually used for student scholarships for that major.

smerka · October 2016

I went to the #3 party school and we did not start tailgating on Wednesday. That may be a southern thing. We also had one of the top engineering schools in the country so there was a lot of studying going on. While I did have huge auditoriums for my gen ed classes (40,000 students at the school), classes in my major were maybe ten people.

I firmly believe that a lot of private school influence is regional. If I'm looking at a stack of resumes, I'm not going to be impressed by a private school I've never heard of or only have seen in the NCAA basketball tournament.

blondie42107 · October 2016

I hate FASFA. A dear friend of mine almost didn't get to go to college. She was estranged from her parents (for very good reason) and basically lived with a friend's family her junior and senior years of high school. She kept in contact with her younger brother who for some reason kept in touch with their father. She mentioned needing to get financial info for college. Her father laughed at the thought of her going to college and refused to give any information. Luckily it was around the same time that some bill (don't quote me on my history - I've been out of HS longer than I care to admit) passed that allowed her, with help, prove that she was "independent." It sucked. She hated doing it, it was a struggle, but it was her only way to get to college. She had no one to cosign loans, etc.

hoffse · October 2016

Right, I'm not saying you can't do well at a state school. Plenty of kids do well. I'm saying that there are often more distractions at big state schools because the sports are better, the parties are better, the classes are bigger (especially intro). It takes a very self-motivated 18 year old to academically thrive in that kind of environment, and many do not.

The difference between an academically rigorous public school and academically rigorous private school is that more kids drop out of the public school. This isn't because public school is "worse" or attracting "lesser" students, it's because there are more distractions. It's harder to cut it at the public school.

I do not think my education at Vandy was any better than UGA. I do think my likelihood to succeed was higher at Vandy than UGA. My parents agreed, and that's why they were willing to pay for it. For the record - my dad is a college professor at a state school.

Re: tail-gating on Wednesdays - just an example. I'm not making a generalization that every state school with a football team starts tailgating on Wednesdays. LSU does though, in case that school is on your radar...

short+sassy · October 2016

smerka said:

I went to the #3 party school and we did not start tailgating on Wednesday. That may be a southern thing. We also had one of the top engineering schools in the country so there was a lot of studying going on. While I did have huge auditoriums for my gen ed classes (40,000 students at the school), classes in my major were maybe ten people.

I firmly believe that a lot of private school influence is regional. If I'm looking at a stack of resumes, I'm not going to be impressed by a private school I've never heard of or only have seen in the NCAA basketball tournament.

Agree with @hoffse. Not as much a southern thing, as an LSU thing, lol! Those fans are crazy bonkers. Even some alums will take off work to go tailgating early, before an especially big home game.

short+sassy · October 2016

@julieanne912 and @csuave, a HS friend and his parents went in on a house together when he went to University of Illinois. It was big and very nice! It had 5 bedrooms and he rented out 4 of them while he went to school there. I think his parents let him keep the monthly cash flow, so that was his spending money.

Originally, they were planning to either sell it or keep it as a rental for a few years after he graduated. But his parents ended up loving that city and area. They were living in So. CA and the father planned his retirement for around when his son would graduate. They moved into it for their retirement years.

smerka · October 2016

short+sassy said:

@julieanne912 and @csuave, a HS friend and his parents went in on a house together when he went to University of Illinois. It was big and very nice! It had 5 bedrooms and he rented out 4 of them while he went to school there. I think his parents let him keep the monthly cash flow, so that was his spending money.
Originally, they were planning to either sell it or keep it as a rental for a few years after he graduated. But his parents ended up loving that city and area. They were living in So. CA and the father planned his retirement for around when his son would graduate. They moved into it for their retirement years.

You have to be careful with that. My friend bought a house in Urbana with the plans to rent the rooms out. Turns out Urbana has some pretty strict laws about that. She can only rent it to something like two people (it's five bedrooms). But she lives in the Chicago burbs so maybe if it's owner-occupied, the rules are different. #3partyschool. Go Illini

Xstatic3333 · October 2016

@hoffse, I wonder if my view is colored by being in the Northeast, where college sports are less crazy (general rule with a few exceptions). When I was AWOL from here for a few weeks in September I was living in Lincoln, NE for work. HOLY MOLY I have never seen ANYTHING like Lincoln on game day, and I was living in Kenmore Square the day the Sox won the World Series in 2004. I also went to a private school with massive class sizes, and the craziest college parties I attended were at MIT, which I never could have gotten into in a million years. I think the general point that different environments work better for different people definitely applies. My personal experiences may just be non-typical.

LillibetteV · October 2016

Xstatic3333 said:

@hoffse, I wonder if my view is colored by being in the Northeast, where college sports are less crazy (general rule with a few exceptions). When I was AWOL from here for a few weeks in September I was living in Lincoln, NE for work. HOLY MOLY I have never seen ANYTHING like Lincoln on game day, and I was living in Kenmore Square the day the Sox won the World Series in 2004. I also went to a private school with massive class sizes, and the craziest college parties I attended were at MIT, which I never could have gotten into in a million years. I think the general point that different environments work better for different people definitely applies. My personal experiences may just be non-typical.

High five me too! Myles? hahahaha

Xstatic3333 · October 2016

LillibetteV said:

Xstatic3333 said:

@hoffse, I wonder if my view is colored by being in the Northeast, where college sports are less crazy (general rule with a few exceptions). When I was AWOL from here for a few weeks in September I was living in Lincoln, NE for work. HOLY MOLY I have never seen ANYTHING like Lincoln on game day, and I was living in Kenmore Square the day the Sox won the World Series in 2004. I also went to a private school with massive class sizes, and the craziest college parties I attended were at MIT, which I never could have gotten into in a million years. I think the general point that different environments work better for different people definitely applies. My personal experiences may just be non-typical.

High five me too! Myles? hahahaha

Shelton! LOL. Myles was my go-to dining hall though. Much better! We could have passed each other in the burrito line...What school were you in?

LillibetteV · October 2016

@Xstatic3333 I was in CAS. And I practically lived on Warren Towers burritos for lunch through college hahahaha. How are they so good?

Xstatic3333 · October 2016

LillibetteV said:

@Xstatic3333 I was in CAS. And I practically lived on Warren Towers burritos for lunch through college hahahaha. How are they so good?

I'm pretty sure they're just super bad for you! Too funny.

LillibetteV · October 2016

Xstatic3333 said:

LillibetteV said:

@Xstatic3333 I was in CAS. And I practically lived on Warren Towers burritos for lunch through college hahahaha. How are they so good?

I'm pretty sure they're just super bad for you! Too funny.

And yet I was so skinny in college! Ahhhh to be young and have a ridiculous metabolism again....

Any good books or advice on saving for college?

Re: Any good books or advice on saving for college?

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