Private or Condo/Small House in HPISD

[SandyJet]

Originally Posted by EDS_

Sorry to ramble I took a pain killer for my back a couple of hours ago.........
The thing is one can't just look at colleges attended, excepting the military academies, one needs to know which programs these kids get into and also one needs to understand that a lot of kids from the top several private schools around here study STEM fields and many will attend graduate school or professional school. For these kids the luster of "Top-Twenty" colleges for undergraduate studies virtually disappears. Not to mention that a significant number of private school kids earn college scholarships. From a parents perspective I can tell you that when Baylor offers a 100% scholarship and Brown accepts your kiddo at full boat - Baylor looks awesome. Take engineering for example, excepting MIT, which is of course tiny, why would any kid who wants to be an engineer choose Harvard, Brown, Columbia, Cornell etc. over UT or A&M which are both better ranked overall and vastly less expensive for most? This is a bit stale but I'd guess the logic still applies when my son was looking at engineering programs in '09/'10 we made a matrix of Ivy (plus Stanford, Cal, Michigan, Harvey Mudd etc.) engineering degree rankings versus those at UT, TAMU, Rice and UH. Let's just say from any rational game theory perspective engineering in Texas crushed engineering across the Ivy league. Taking it to the extreme a kid could go to A&M's #1 ranked undergrad petroleum engineering program or UT's #2 ranked PE program and then go to UT's #1 ranked PE masters program and then go earn his/her Ph.D. at either schools top 1 or 2 programs. Why would a Texas kid study nuclear engineering at say Stanford, Yale or Princeton when the #1 program is at A&M? The same general logic applies across many of the biological sciences as well. If a kid wanted to study math then I'd give the Ivy League significant props.

What is the point of an Ivy Legue Engineering degree? No offense but does it help much vs cost? I also would assume most folks would have attended Cooper Union for Engineering in the past as it was top rated and free.

My neice graduated a very expensive Ivy League Engineering school a few years ago and cost her parents a fortune and she racked up a lot of debt. She started a a very high salary compared to other majors but since then engineering is kind of a limited field so no mega raises for her.

If I was smart enough (which I am not), to get into Ivy League for Engineering I most likely would get a Phd in QA or MBA from Harvard and go work at Goldman at be making a few million a years as a Partner by 40.

[EDS_]

Originally Posted by SandyJet

What is the point of an Ivy Legue Engineering degree? No offense but does it help much vs cost? I also would assume most folks would have attended Cooper Union for Engineering in the past as it was top rated and free.

My neice graduated a very expensive Ivy League Engineering school a few years ago and cost her parents a fortune and she racked up a lot of debt. She started a a very high salary compared to other majors but since then engineering is kind of a limited field so no mega raises for her.

If I was smart enough (which I am not), to get into Ivy League for Engineering I most likely would get a Phd in QA or MBA from Harvard and go work at Goldman at be making a few million a years as a Partner by 40.

I agree with your first two paragraphs. Frankly, that was my point........I'm amazed how many people run down Dallas area private high schools because many graduates stay in Texas for college.

Engineering is not a limited field at all there is drastic shortage of engineers of all stripes and that trend will last for at least the next 15 years.

So far as your last paragraph....one of my good friends is a Ph.D. physicist and adjunct professor. His day gig is doing quant research for one of Goldman's competitors. The big players in that business lover MDs and Ph.D. physicists and Ph.D. math types right now. Next year it might be sociologists.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by EDS_

I agree with your first two paragraphs. Frankly, that was my point........I'm amazed how many people run down Dallas area private high schools because many graduates stay in Texas for college.

Engineering is not a limited field at all there is drastic shortage of engineers of all stripes and that trend will last for at least the next 15 years.

So far as your last paragraph....one of my good friends is a Ph.D. physicist and adjunct professor. His day gig is doing quant research for one of Goldman's competitors. The big players in that business lover MDs and Ph.D. physicists and Ph.D. math types right now. Next year it might be sociologists.

Sounds kinda familiar. I have a friend who's also physics university prof (tenure not adjunct), undergrad and advanced degrees from arguably the top schools in the country in his field. He's doing OK, but like your friend, many of his classmates went to work as quants on Wall Street. When they visit him, they fly in on their private jets.

[HockDad]

Originally Posted by SandyJet

What is the point of an Ivy Legue Engineering degree? No offense but does it help much vs cost? I also would assume most folks would have attended Cooper Union for Engineering in the past as it was top rated and free.

My neice graduated a very expensive Ivy League Engineering school a few years ago and cost her parents a fortune and she racked up a lot of debt. She started a a very high salary compared to other majors but since then engineering is kind of a limited field so no mega raises for her.

If I was smart enough (which I am not), to get into Ivy League for Engineering I most likely would get a Phd in QA or MBA from Harvard and go work at Goldman at be making a few million a years as a Partner by 40.

The advantage is that no one can take that degree from you. You will always have that distinction, and 20 years later, there will still be a bit of a bump. It certainly will not outweigh your accomplishments, but it will help when interviewing for jobs, etc.

That being said, I view the Ivy League like Private High School. I would only suggest it if it is not going to be a huge financial burden on the family. If my kid had a full ride to A&M and admission to Yale, but Yale was going to leave them 200k in debt, I would suggest A&M.

[SandyJet]

Originally Posted by HockDad

The advantage is that no one can take that degree from you. You will always have that distinction, and 20 years later, there will still be a bit of a bump. It certainly will not outweigh your accomplishments, but it will help when interviewing for jobs, etc.

That being said, I view the Ivy League like Private High School. I would only suggest it if it is not going to be a huge financial burden on the family. If my kid had a full ride to A&M and admission to Yale, but Yale was going to leave them 200k in debt, I would suggest A&M.

Yale is pretty cheap for poor folk. Anyone making under 200K gets really good discounts.


Under Yale's program, families with incomes of $60,000 to $120,000 will contribute 1 percent to 10 percent of the student's bill. Previously, a family with an income of $90,00 and assets of $150,000 would have paid $12,550 annually; now that family will pay $2,950, a Yale news release said.
Families with incomes of less than $60,000 will not be required to pay anything toward the cost of a student's education. For families with incomes of $120,000 to $200,000, costs will drop by 33 percent or more.

[New_to_DFW]

Originally Posted by SandyJet

Yale is pretty cheap for poor folk. Anyone making under 200K gets really good discounts.


Under Yale's program, families with incomes of $60,000 to $120,000 will contribute 1 percent to 10 percent of the student's bill. Previously, a family with an income of $90,00 and assets of $150,000 would have paid $12,550 annually; now that family will pay $2,950, a Yale news release said.
Families with incomes of less than $60,000 will not be required to pay anything toward the cost of a student's education. For families with incomes of $120,000 to $200,000, costs will drop by 33 percent or more.

This is true of nearly all the top private schools. The Ivies, Stanford, Duke, etc. have the most generous financial aid programs of any schools. If your family makes less than $60K, they are basically free. Certainly that's the case at Harvard where my friend used to run that program.

[New_to_DFW]

Ben, I know it's a long ways off, but what are your college goals for your boys in an ideal world? I think that has some bearing on the decision. While HP is a great public school district, it ain't St Marks.

[bencronin04]

To be honest, I think were going to see college be the next big bubble. The costs are increasing at such an alarming rate, with student loans just amassing crazy amounts of debt and they are fairly simple to attain. Will it make it harder to get into college at that time, I think so...thus one of the reasons I want my kids to have the opportunity to go to a 4 year straight out of HS. I have a different view of college than probably most on this board, and the majority of HP/Private parents. I'd love to see a revamp of college material and way of life before my kids get to that stage, but it likely won't happen. Most of my friends that have a degree are not practicing in their fields of study. I think more of a working environment, coupled with course work, would be much more beneficial for a college education. If we come to find that one or both of our boys have he desire and ability to attend a top level college, we will poor all the resources we possibly can at them. College isn't for every, including HP/private grads.

[synchronicity]

Originally Posted by bencronin04

The costs are increasing at such an alarming rate.

I've been tracking this regularly since my daughter was born, and last I checked, college costs in general were growing at a far slower pace the last several years than they were last decade, at least for privates. That said, the increases in college costs have still outpaced CPI by a substantial margin. Here's a chart that has more info with supporting data downloadable:

Average Rates of Growth of Tuition and Fees over Time | Trends in Higher Education | Trends in Higher Education

That said, if we're talking 15 to 20 years into the future, we won't really know until we're a lot closer. As the famous philosopher Yoda once said; "Difficult to say. Always in motion, the future."