Student turned down all 8 Ivies to go to a state school, and we should celebrate it

Hotair ^ | 05/20/2015 | Mary Katherine Ham

[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.

Mic:

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.

[sitetest]

Dear x,

“According to the Crimson more than half of all Harvard parents make over $125,000 a year, so that may be quite a subset...”

Indeed. You're describing a small part of the phenomenon that educational attainment is tied to the educational attainment of parents, and that better-educated folks generally make more money. At HYP, this is true in spades. Although financial aid at HYP is very generous to the average American family, it is not so generous to the average HYP family. Nearly 40% of HYP families are full pay. That's about $65K per year. But the median income of Haarvard families is $200K per year, and a substantial number of folks make $500K per year or more, and that's not terribly meaningful to regular folks.

The deeper problem is that higher education is an industry, and the game of this industry is to soak folks as completely as possible, even to the point of impoverishment for the sake of the rent-seekers within the industry. The primary mechanism employed here is to take any income or asset that the school can uncover, leaving just enough to make sure the payer can make it to the next billing cycle, and pay that.

But the one general exception to this rule is that HYP provide adequate financial aid for typical American families. And for that small mercy, I'm grateful, since it applies to me and my two sons.

For ordinary families fortunate enough to have a child accepted to one of these three schools, college does not have to mean poverty.

sitetest

[sitetest]

Dear LOstPassword,

I don't know anything about UPenn’s financial aid, but Columbia doesn't have a great reputation for generosity. And then, the cost of living in NY,...Yikes. These factors were part of what dissuaded my younger son from applying to Columbia. Pennsylvania schools were verboten to start. My younger son applied to Brown, but was rejected there. If he hadn't gone to Harvard, it would have been Hopkins, which was quite a bit more expensive, and I would have had to borrow to send him there.

My older son could have gone to our state flagship for free. He received a special scholarship that included tuition, room, board, books, a thousand dollars extra cash, and $5K set aside for travel and research. But he chose Harvard, even though it was a few dollars out of pocket. He is leaving for two months in Asia in about 10 days. It's an internship through his department at school. He's a rising senior this year. He's had significant paid internships each summer, starting with the summer after high school, when Harvard paid for him to go to Rome, serving as an assistant faculty advisor to his old high school.

It cost me a few dollars to send him to Harvard, but he's received back a multiple in terms of opportunities for work, travel, and professional development.

sitetest