Posted on 05/20/2015 4:47:37 AM PDT by SeekAndFind
First, I should note I am a proud state-school grad. (Go Dawgs!) In a sea of Ivy-League degrees in Washington, it has never seemed to limit my opportunities, and it gives me a special camaraderie with the other state-school grads in the business. But I applaud Ronald Nelson Jr., not just because of my personal affinity for state schools, but because he’s a really smart young man who made a really smart decision.
Nelson is a phenom— a sky-high GPA and SAT scores, a talented alto sax player, student body president, National Merit Scholar, among other honors. And, he was accepted at all the Ivy League schools. Wow.
In the end, he decided on the University of Alabama and rejected offers from all eight Ivy League schools.
Nelson also rejected offers from Stanford, Johns Hopkins, New York University, Vanderbilt, and Washington University in St. Louis.
He decided to pass on these big names in favor of UA for two big reasons: He got a full ride from Alabama and got into its selective honors program.
“It took a lot of soul searching for me to push that first ‘accept’ button for Alabama,” Nelson said. “Of course there’s a bit of uncertainty.”
Nelson and his family don’t want to take on the debt the more prestigious universities would have left him, especially because he wants to go to medical school post-undergrad. His parents’ wisdom shows where the kid got it:
“With people being in debt for years and years, it wasn’t a burden that Ronald wanted to take on and it wasn’t a burden that we wanted to deal with for a number of years after undergraduate,” Ronald Sr. said. “We can put that money away and spend it on his medical school, or any other graduate school.”
Looking long term, Nelson doesn’t think his decision will impact his chances of getting in to a top medical school or other graduate program. After speaking with his teachers and guidance counselors, Nelson said, he realized that “any undergraduate school can prepare you for a graduate program. It’s just determined on how much work you’re willing to put in.”
Business Insider first reported this story, calling Nelson’s decision “brilliant.” But I stumbled on the tale at Mic.com today told in a slightly different way. More Shakespearean tragedy:
The premise is that such a talented student should not have to reject all the Ivies in favor of a state school out of fear of crippling debt. The story gets it right as far as the insane rise of college costs. Colleges have utterly failed to keep their costs down, and they should have to pay some price for it. But they almost never do, partly because of this mindset—that everyone should go to the college of their dreams, no matter what the cost, without a care for cost-benefit analyses, or how long it might take them to pay off the debts they accrue. The “solution” proposed for all of this is unlimited easy government-backed debt, which puts more students in more debt, puts those who didn’t accrue debt on the hook for those who flake, and incentivizes colleges to keep hiking costs with no end in sight.
On the other hand, when a sought-after student like Ronald Nelson does a cost-benefit analysis and concludes he does not need the Ivies, perhaps they will think about how to contain costs in the future. It will require more than that for a cultural shift, but Nelson is a good start and a good role model for other students who should be making the same decision. There will be no cost containment if the Ivies are always considered the only option for students like Nelson.
While Nelson will certainly be fine, eminently qualified students like him shouldn’t be forced into backbreaking loans. For America to retain its preeminent place in the world, its young people can’t start off their professional lives mired in debt.
Nelson wasn’t forced, and he won’t start his professional life mired in debt. He’ll do great, have a fun college experience, and come out $100K ahead of most of his peers. Told you he was smart.
There are certainly kids who turn down Ivies, but not for lack of financial aid.
You (and nephew) didn’t get a free ride at Harvard? I’m very surprised, but... what the heck, I could be wrong.
Oh, dear - it all sounds dismayingly complicated.
No wonder many kids are opting out.
I turned down Cornell.
I recall Bush’s nomination of Harriet Miers to the Supreme Court being submarined by a bunch of these Ivy League muckity-mucks.
A public college? Gasp! Never a judge? Oh, the scandal.
Bunch of spoiled phonies.
That’s a out 50.00 per app.
I went to a school that is totally private.
RE: I turned down Cornell.
Just curious, where did you enroll instead?
Jack Hammer's point about Harvard, Yale, Princeton financial aid is largely true. These three schools don't give merit scholarships, but the financial aid at them is better than pretty much any other schools.
And most families pay little or even nothing to send their children to these schools.
The financial aid package each family receives revolves around the total cost of attendance (TCA) and comprises three parts: the EFC (expected family contribution), the self-help portion, and the grant. The EFC is what the parents are expected to pay toward tuition, room, board, other expenses. Students are usually expected to generate, separately from their family, their own portion of the costs - that's called the self-help portion. Students earn this through jobs on campus and summer employment. In the cases of really poor families, the self-help portion may be partially or completely waived. What is left, after the parent contribution and the self-help portion is the amount of money the school makes sure the student gets. This is the grant. It's usually school money, but can include scholarship money from outside sources.
To make a long story short, the EFC is $0 for families with $65K in income or less, and average household assets. For such families, there will still usually be a student self-help portion of about $4.5K per year. The rest of the TCA is paid by the school in grants. These grants of financial aid include no loans.
As income goes up, so does the EFC, until one’s income gets high enough to no longer be eligible for any financial aid. That happens at about $200K - $250K of household income. From $65K to about $150K, the rule of thumb is that these schools are looking to parents for about 10% of their gross income for their EFC. Beyond $150K, aid phases out quickly. But what that means is that there is a subset of families sending their children to these schools that are paying a very high percentage of their income in college costs, as much as 25% of gross income.
Some students don't feel they can work while going to school, and thus will borrow money to pay their self-help portion. A lot of incoming freshmen decide not to work the first semester or the first year, and prefer to borrow the money for that year. These schools make low-interest loans available to students who wish to do that.
Some parents don't feel they can meet the EFC. These schools will lend parents the money to pay the EFC. This is especially true of folks who fall into the "doughnut hole" of about $180K - $250K in income. Relatively speaking, this subset of folks is getting soaked. Obviously, as income moves beyond that quarter million dollar amount, costs decline as a percentage of income, and thus, at least in theory, become more bearable.
So, I know nothing about the specifics of this young man's family's finances, but if attendance at an Ivy is truly a matter of affordability, it means his family is fairly well off.
sitetest
Thank you.
It’s always enlightening to hear from someone who knows what the f*** they’re talking about.
May I ask which Ivies your children attend? We've found the financial aid at Harvard for my two sons better than any other school's offer with the exception of a full merit scholarship to our state flagship.
sitetest
It's my understanding that the other five Ivies aren't as generous as HYP, and as income goes up, their aid falls much more precipitously.
And also, comments made about college saving accounts, etc., are valid. Perversely, the better one prepares to pay for college, the more heavily they soak you.
As a “savings strategy,” I purposely put all our extra money I could afford and legally do so into retirement accounts, which are shielded from being used in the calculations of the EFC. No money for college savings accounts. I never had my kids work for wages during high school. Everything was scholastic-related. Earning money was counter-productive!
There are truly many perverse incentives in the system.
But HYP are definitely affordable for ordinary families.
sitetest
My eldest son is real smart and creative and got into Harvard but went to UMass because it was cheaper and we figured he’d do well in science no matter what. And he has. They treated him well at UMass.
He has no debt and he missed out on the know-it-all snob thing of Harvard so I never had to beat the snot out of him. : )
All undergrad schools are basically the same.
Most classes are going to have TAs who can barely speak English.
So, since he did the STEM degree, I bet he found a good job soon after graduation....?
To be honest, he and his dad (a science guy) worked on that sort of detail in his college education. All I know is that he got a degree from UMass and immediately got into a PhD program at a Harvard research hospital in Boston. Then he went to Europe to work on a project in Belgium with an English Ph.D. who mentored him in the US. Now he is in Spain. He has a Spanish girlfriend who is an oil engineer and royalty. Before that, he was dating a Muslim woman from Turkey. He had a rude awakening. I warned him. Yikes! LOL
He mainly breeds and patents yeast for optimal beer making, of all things. The kid is doing what he loves and making some good money. Breweries want him but he enjoys the academic environment in Europe moreso than in the US. He learns languages easily. He gets to mentor smart students and do his research. Corporations fund a lot of his research. He gets to spend three weeks a year with us and see his brother in Texas. Sometimes he has business in Texas. : )
>May I ask which Ivies your children attend?
Columbia & UPenn. Also got the financial aid package from Brown but it wasn’t any better.
I tried to talk them into the state schools with full merit scholarships but no luck :)
You're absolutely right! My nephew was Valedictorian of his exclusive private school in Detroit as well as being named all state defenseman on his school's state championship hockey team.
He was recruited by all the Ivies for his hockey prowess but instead chose on the small private Williams College in Boston where he could get a good education and be a starter on his school's hockey team from his first year on..........
His family's income prohibited him from receiving any financial support but that was OK with them............
...
Beyond $150K, aid phases out quickly. But what that means is that there is a subset of families sending their children to these schools that are paying a very high percentage of their income in college costs, as much as 25% of gross income.
According to the Crimson more than half of all Harvard parents make over $125,000 a year, so that may be quite a subset -- not to mention the set of those who reject Harvard because they don't want such a burden.
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