[Farm93]

Couple of thoughts:

1)  In 2009, I saw a presentation that said that the discounted rate that virtually anyone could get from virtually any private institution essentially made the cost of public school and private equivalent assuming that (a) one attended public school for five years and private school for four years and (b) that you worked the fifth year after graduating from private school.  Seemed pretty compelling, and I know a number of people who have attended some very expensive schools for very little money, some at rates that are below public school rates.

2)  I have a friend whose daughter is attending one of the top eight schools on the list with an endowment north of $1 mms. per pupil.  He's suffered a set of health- and business-related reversals that are breathtaking.  He's essentially lost everything; house, retirement, savings, job (for two years), wife had two bouts with cancer during that time.  His daughter's well-heeled school claims that no student graduates with more than (low level) of debt.  That may be true, but the girl's parents have fearsome levels of debt associated with her education.  They've tried everything to get the college's financial administration to budge, to no avail.  Six months after he lost his job, he spoke with Financial Aid, who literally told him "sell your house."  So he sold it.  Today, he lives check to check and he's more than half-a-million dollars in negative net worth and he has about $20k in liquid assets.  The college will lend him money, but won't give him a dime in financial aid, because he and his wife make $190k annually.  That they live in Silicon Valley with the attendant costs is immaterial.

#1 - Requires a student to make the money grab after school.  There are some out there that want to pursue careers with low incomes and that whole 5th year math would not really help.  Stanford and a few others help with big easy to understand discounts to the full tuition rates, but many other private schools offer a good value for those that qualify for financial aid.  It is too bad that many true middle class US HS students (40-100K in Household Income) don't know or understand that they really shouldn't compare any of the schools based on the full sticker price.

#2 - So this hard on their luck family is now pulling in income that puts that in the top 3% of US households?  It sounds like a dramatic drop in wealth, income and health, but based on your description they were likely in the top 1 or 2% of households prior to the events.  Yes, I realize $190K in Silicon Valley is middle class, but on federal formulas that's still a high standard of living.  UCB's subsidized tuition for all approach would likely have been good for them if attending a college was purely based on finding the lowest cost school as their assets and recent FAFSA type earnings over the last few years were going to be more than your average family in the US.

In both cases, attending a school shouldn't be driven by that type of cost model anyway.  When I hear smart HS students talk about college in those type of investment terms I feel they are applying a return on investment financial model to a window of time that likely will yield their most important life experiences.  The tuition financials are really a small part of the deal, when assessing the overall value of the most selective universities. 

[Farm93]

Couple of thoughts:

1)  In 2009, I saw a presentation that said that the discounted rate that virtually anyone could get from virtually any private institution essentially made the cost of public school and private equivalent assuming that (a) one attended public school for five years and private school for four years and (b) that you worked the fifth year after graduating from private school.  Seemed pretty compelling, and I know a number of people who have attended some very expensive schools for very little money, some at rates that are below public school rates.

2)  I have a friend whose daughter is attending one of the top eight schools on the list with an endowment north of $1 mms. per pupil.  He's suffered a set of health- and business-related reversals that are breathtaking.  He's essentially lost everything; house, retirement, savings, job (for two years), wife had two bouts with cancer during that time.  His daughter's well-heeled school claims that no student graduates with more than (low level) of debt.  That may be true, but the girl's parents have fearsome levels of debt associated with her education.  They've tried everything to get the college's financial administration to budge, to no avail.  Six months after he lost his job, he spoke with Financial Aid, who literally told him "sell your house."  So he sold it.  Today, he lives check to check and he's more than half-a-million dollars in negative net worth and he has about $20k in liquid assets.  The college will lend him money, but won't give him a dime in financial aid, because he and his wife make $190k annually.  That they live in Silicon Valley with the attendant costs is immaterial.

#1 - Requires a student to make the money grab after school.  There are some out there that want to pursue careers with low incomes and that whole 5th year math would not really help.  Stanford and a few others help with big easy to understand discounts to the full tuition rates, but many other private schools offer a good value for those that qualify for financial aid.  It is too bad that many true middle class US HS students (40-100K in Household Income) don't know or understand that they really shouldn't compare any of the schools based on the full sticker price.

#2 - So this hard on their luck family is now pulling in income that puts that in the top 3% of US households?  It sounds like a dramatic drop in wealth, income and health, but based on your description they were likely in the top 1 or 2% of households prior to the events.  Yes, I realize $190K in Silicon Valley is middle class, but on federal formulas that's still a high standard of living.  UCB's subsidized tuition for all approach would likely have been good for them if attending a college was purely based on finding the lowest cost school as their assets and recent FAFSA type earnings over the last few years were going to be more than your average family in the US.

In both cases, attending a school shouldn't be driven by that type of cost model anyway.  When I hear smart HS students talk about college in those type of investment terms I feel they are applying a return on investment financial model to a window of time that likely will yield their most important life experiences.  The tuition financials are really a small part of the deal, when assessing the overall value of the most selective universities.