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Hi Folks,
I certainly hope this question doesn't come across as arrogant or rude but it's something that's been on my mind for some time. Let's say you send your child to a prestigious and expensive private school and then for whatever reason (finances, grades, etc) they end up going to your state's flagship university or a not-so-super-fancy top college. Is this something that disappoints parents? For instance, let's say you send your child to Brooks Academy in North Andover, MA and then they end up going to UMASS Amherst. Or you send your child to Avon Old Farms in Avon, CT and they end up going to UCONN. I guess what I'm asking is this: does it bum parents out who spend big money on a private school education to see their students then go to a college they could have just as easily gotten into with a public school education?
Also, I know sports recruiting may factor into some of these decisions, so for argument's sake, let's take sports out of the equation here entirely. Let's also assume we're talking about full-pay students and scholarships aren't a factor here either.
And for the record, I graduated from a state uni and had a fantastic college experience there, so I am in no way knocking state schools at all.
A few points:
1. As Krueger and Dale showed in two separate studies, large samples I might add, among most top rising UG students there is no net positive marginal* value per attending an elite school over a non-elite school. However, perceptions die hard.
A. Krueger and Dale's thesis line, NBER Alan Krueger and Stay Dale 2011.......
"We find that the return to college selectivity is sizeable for both cohorts in regression models that control for variables commonly observed by researchers, such as student high school GPA and SAT scores. However, when we adjust for unobserved student ability by controlling for the average SAT score of the colleges that students applied to, our estimates of the return to college selectivity fall substantially and are generally indistinguishable from zero. "
*marginal in the economic sense.....K&D also find minority and some first generation college students may enjoy some net relative benefit from attending selective schools.
2. We sent our son and daughter to private K-12. The end game was not prestigious undergraduate admissions. but to expose them to the best combination of high academic standards - old school classic education, lots of hard work, some pressure etc., solid sports opportunities, decreased association with kids and parents who did not care etc. etc.
2.1. The head guidance counselor at my son's school handed out a sheet that outlined his sort of order of operations per college selection for the honors group all of these kids were assumed to be on graduate and professional school tracks.
1. Chose particular college programs, particular professors, research ops etc. over college wide reputation/prestige.
2. Use UG as a lever into graduate school - more or less no one serious cares where his/her doctor, dentist, vet., CPA, lawyer, IT guru etc. attended undergrad.
3. If offered a good to great merit scholarship anywhere take it.
4. Bias cost factors towards grad and professional school over undergrad........see 2.
5. Under most family circumstances do not pay full retail price per Ivies, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, USC, NYU etc. per undergrad.
Three examples:
Per undergrad our son was accepted to Brown, Chicago and Stanford among others. In the end he decided to accept a near full ride to a college 3 notches below those schools in overall rep. The current yield is he graduated college, medical school, earned an MS in physics and landed in a top few neurosurgery residency for less than a BS would have cost at Brown. That's an easy poker hand.
DD was, still is, an exceptional athlete which explains some of this....she had volleyball + school offers from at least a dozen schools including Dartmouth, NYU and several athletic scholarship offers including an SEC school. Anyway, she had promised her maternal grandfather she'd become and engineer. At the time Dartmouth engineering was ranked ~70th, NYU ~30, The SEC school maybe ~35. She retired from volleyball enrolled at Texas A&M whose engineering dept. was ranked about 12th or 13th at the time and she was able to dual major in electrical and computer engineering which the other school either didn't have or would not allow. The yield is similar tho. she has two engineering degrees and is in a very well respected medical school the total cost of both will be less than a BS at Dartmouth or NYU.
I have to be cryptic as I'll ID the kid if I'm not careful............however, in a very different area of study a nephew, who attended private K-12 in Houston, attended a Texas state school over Yale. He just signed Ph.D contract paperwork the other week. It's worth noting his Ph.D will be through the particular program he and a professor mentor ID'd as the best for him when the kid was in high school. It's also worth noting in his area, a melange of letters and STEM, the top several Ph.D and masters programs are all within large state schools. And of course he will have a Ph.D for his top choice program for far, far less than a BS from Yale or Stanford.
Actually four........a high school friend of my son's chose Stony Brook over several name schools for math studies.......this kids is 29 and a tenure track math professor out west.
In summation with ongoing academic erosion especially in public K-12 per equity concerns - privates that avoid this nonsense make more and more sense for very bright kids. Prestige college benefits per very well qualified rising freshmen are for many somewhere between zero and negative for those who are asked to pay near or full retail price.............4 years of tuition at USC is ~$245,000......tuition at Texas A&M is ~$52,000 for four years and A&M is flatly better across many programs especially on the STEM side.
Sorry for the long ramble I'm on a layover now delay in Atlanta........hate this airport.
I'm not sure I understand what you're hoping for with your post.
Of course, most parents who lavish money on private school would hope that it would pay off with one of the top private colleges. But why would you care? It sounds like your own college is over and done with, so if you think your parents are disappointed, go ahead and reassure them. I'm glad you had a 'fantastic" experience, but there's no knowing if you would have had some better aspects elsewhere - had better teachers, been exposed to more sophisticated thinking, had something fancier on your resume.
Hey Cida,
Here’s something you might understand: ESAD!
That is all. ☺️
I'm not sure I understand what you're hoping for with your post.
Of course, most parents who lavish money on private school would hope that it would pay off with one of the top private colleges. But why would you care? It sounds like your own college is over and done with, so if you think your parents are disappointed, go ahead and reassure them. I'm glad you had a 'fantastic" experience, but there's no knowing if you would have had some better aspects elsewhere - had better teachers, been exposed to more sophisticated thinking, had something fancier on your resume.
There always has to be one a-hole, doesn’t there? Even on the most innocuous of posts, there always has to be some jerk like Cida here to drop the snide comment and hide behind their keyboard.
It’s always so obvious when someone hits a nerve because the other person gets rude and defensive for no apparent reason. Cida, I’m guessing either you:
A) Didn’t grow up with money (and probably still don’t have it) so you have a bone to pick with people who were fortunate enough to go to private school.
B) Didn’t enjoy your college experience (if you even went) and with an attitude like yours, I’m not at all surprised. As a matter of fact, I’m thinking long, boring nights alone in the anti-social dorm were on the agenda every weekend for 4 years.
And why do you care why I’m asking about this? Not that it’s any of your business at all, but my good friend is trying to decide whether to send her kid to private school and this topic came up.
Now go crap on someone else’s post and leave mine alone.
PS And, no, I didn’t disappoint my parents at all. I went to public school and then to the university my father encouraged me to go to because it was where he always wished he went, so you really have no idea WTF you’re even talking about.
Remember, credentials are for employees, to comply with labor laws.
Companies (i.e. businesses) can be created, owned and operated by those who have no credentials (usually).
1. As Krueger and Dale showed in two separate studies, large samples I might add, among most top rising UG students there is no net positive marginal* value per attending an elite school over a non-elite school. However, perceptions die hard.
A. Krueger and Dale's thesis line, NBER Alan Krueger and Stay Dale 2011.......
"We find that the return to college selectivity is sizeable for both cohorts in regression models that control for variables commonly observed by researchers, such as student high school GPA and SAT scores. However, when we adjust for unobserved student ability by controlling for the average SAT score of the colleges that students applied to, our estimates of the return to college selectivity fall substantially and are generally indistinguishable from zero. "
*marginal in the economic sense.....K&D also find minority and some first generation college students may enjoy some net relative benefit from attending selective schools.
2. We sent our son and daughter to private K-12. The end game was not prestigious undergraduate admissions. but to expose them to the best combination of high academic standards - old school classic education, lots of hard work, some pressure etc., solid sports opportunities, decreased association with kids and parents who did not care etc. etc.
2.1. The head guidance counselor at my son's school handed out a sheet that outlined his sort of order of operations per college selection for the honors group all of these kids were assumed to be on graduate and professional school tracks.
1. Chose particular college programs, particular professors, research ops etc. over college wide reputation/prestige.
2. Use UG as a lever into graduate school - more or less no one serious cares where his/her doctor, dentist, vet., CPA, lawyer, IT guru etc. attended undergrad.
3. If offered a good to great merit scholarship anywhere take it.
4. Bias cost factors towards grad and professional school over undergrad........see 2.
5. Under most family circumstances do not pay full retail price per Ivies, Stanford, Harvey Mudd, USC, NYU etc. per undergrad.
Three examples:
Per undergrad our son was accepted to Brown, Chicago and Stanford among others. In the end he decided to accept a near full ride to a college 3 notches below those schools in overall rep. The current yield is he graduated college, medical school, earned an MS in physics and landed in a top few neurosurgery residency for less than a BS would have cost at Brown. That's an easy poker hand.
DD was, still is, an exceptional athlete which explains some of this....she had volleyball + school offers from at least a dozen schools including Dartmouth, NYU and several athletic scholarship offers including an SEC school. Anyway, she had promised her maternal grandfather she'd become and engineer. At the time Dartmouth engineering was ranked ~70th, NYU ~30, The SEC school maybe ~35. She retired from volleyball enrolled at Texas A&M whose engineering dept. was ranked about 12th or 13th at the time and she was able to dual major in electrical and computer engineering which the other school either didn't have or would not allow. The yield is similar tho. she has two engineering degrees and is in a very well respected medical school the total cost of both will be less than a BS at Dartmouth or NYU.
I have to be cryptic as I'll ID the kid if I'm not careful............however, in a very different area of study a nephew, who attended private K-12 in Houston, attended a Texas state school over Yale. He just signed Ph.D contract paperwork the other week. It's worth noting his Ph.D will be through the particular program he and a professor mentor ID'd as the best for him when the kid was in high school. It's also worth noting in his area, a melange of letters and STEM, the top several Ph.D and masters programs are all within large state schools. And of course he will have a Ph.D for his top choice program for far, far less than a BS from Yale or Stanford.
Actually four........a high school friend of my son's chose Stony Brook over several name schools for math studies.......this kids is 29 and a tenure track math professor out west.
In summation with ongoing academic erosion especially in public K-12 per equity concerns - privates that avoid this nonsense make more and more sense for very bright kids. Prestige college benefits per very well qualified rising freshmen are for many somewhere between zero and negative for those who are asked to pay near or full retail price.............4 years of tuition at USC is ~$245,000......tuition at Texas A&M is ~$52,000 for four years and A&M is flatly better across many programs especially on the STEM side.
Sorry for the long ramble I'm on a layover now delay in Atlanta........hate this airport.
EDS,
Thank you for your very informative and well-written response. You have two very intelligent and accomplished children and you must be one proud dad.
My good friend and her spouse are trying to decide whether to send her child to private school, so I’ll be sure to show her your comment.
I went to a 2-year college on generic state and federal grants, 100% paid. Got hired by a large technical company that reimbursed college tuition. Went to night school and got a Baccalaureate degree, also 100% paid. (Well, maybe not the textbooks - but I bought them used)
I cringe when I see modern tuition bills.
P.S. - Excelsior College (formerly Regent's External Degree Program) out of NYS would grant degrees via examination. They were once very affordable, but no longer. https://www.excelsior.edu/about/
Hi Folks,
I certainly hope this question doesn't come across as arrogant or rude but it's something that's been on my mind for some time. Let's say you send your child to a prestigious and expensive private school and then for whatever reason (finances, grades, etc) they end up going to your state's flagship university or a not-so-super-fancy top college. Is this something that disappoints parents? For instance, let's say you send your child to Brooks Academy in North Andover, MA and then they end up going to UMASS Amherst. Or you send your child to Avon Old Farms in Avon, CT and they end up going to UCONN. I guess what I'm asking is this: does it bum parents out who spend big money on a private school education to see their students then go to a college they could have just as easily gotten into with a public school education?
Also, I know sports recruiting may factor into some of these decisions, so for argument's sake, let's take sports out of the equation here entirely. Let's also assume we're talking about full-pay students and scholarships aren't a factor here either.
And for the record, I graduated from a state uni and had a fantastic college experience there, so I am in no way knocking state schools at all.
Well, with all the snark flying around, one should keep in mind that in many cases the local Enormous State University may well be the very best choice for the field the student wants to enter.
In Texas, if you plan to go into business (not take a BBA degree and sell cars, but take over daddy's oil company, let's say) attending UT or A&M is highly valuable for connections. If you want to go to veterinary school, you'll be going to A&M. There are a number of fields in American History that are pretty much only studied at UT. This kind of thing. Politics in Texas will largely run through UT with a branch line at A&M.
I'd say "rich" people, whatever that's supposed to mean, are LESS likely to be obsessed with the status of the schools their kids attend. It's going to be new money social climbers that are going to have that obsession.
I'd say "rich" people, whatever that's supposed to mean, are LESS likely to be obsessed with the status of the schools their kids attend. It's going to be new money social climbers that are going to have that obsession.
Very true!
My son went to a private high school with an honors program. Regardless of the academics, he was driven and didn't need a special program to achieve. He needed the peer group which the higher level academics attracted. A bunch of smart kids who had similar intellectual interests. Whereas our local high school was very sports oriented and obsessed with lacrosse
EDS,
Thank you for your very informative and well-written response. You have two very intelligent and accomplished children and you must be one proud dad.
My good friend and her spouse are trying to decide whether to send her child to private school, so I’ll be sure to show her your comment.
Thank you. I ramble on about this and similar topics in part because so many seem to feel like private K-12 is a WOT and money per kids who aren't accepted into an Ivy, Stanford, Harvey Mudd etc. that logic is really silly on multiple levels.
Relatedly the belief that kids who attend Ivies, MIT, Stanford etc. for undergrad are better off than their academic peers who go elsewhere needs to die. It's silly and easily disproved via hard numbers.
Good luck to your friend and her kiddo.
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