In response to an OTB post (originally about work-life balance, but turning towards decision points and regrets), Rob in CT wrote:
I will admit to some second-guessing over an offer my father once made to me: 1) go to one of the expensive little liberal arts colleges that accepted me, or 2) go to UCONN, and he puts the difference in tuition + room/board directly in the bank for me. Totally awesome either way, no doubt (ahh, privilege. How does it rock? Let me count the ways). I picked door #1. The results have been a-ok. Not least b/c I met my wife in college. But the frugal side of me always wants to pick at that one.
This is just one of those bizarre things. What kind of choice is that? That’s not a choice. That’s “I’m going to UConn.”
I don’t know how much of that is because of how I was raised, and how much of it is regional. The people for whom this is a tough decision, or who would make the choice that Rob made, tend to live in the northeast.
Last year I was informed of a possible job opportunity for Clancy in New England (the region, not necessarily the Trumanverse state). We talked about New England and what we might like about it and what we might really dislike. In the latter column was the attitude I hear about public universities out there.
Unless the small liberal arts school was Williams, going to UConn and majoring in something that is a normally distributed career field is the smarter move.
For a smart kid who can do math and science, a resident of Texas, OK, Penn., would be better off at the state university majoring in Petroleum Engineering rather than going to a very expensive private school to major in science.
Comment by superdestroyer — June 28, 2012 @ 6:05 am
Unless the small liberal arts school was Williams, going to UConn and majoring in something that is a normally distributed career field is the smarter move.
Or Amherst. Maybe Wesleyan.
Trivia: students and graduates of Amherst get annoyed when people pronounce the “h.” Just as Wesleyan folks get mad when anyone pronounces the “s” like a “z.”
But seriously, as a Connecticut native, I am not entirely surprised at Rob’s decision. It’s not so much that UConn is a low-quality university. UConn ranks quite well in most fields* and is the best of the New England flagship state universities. It’s just that with so many top-quality private institutions in the area, UConn tends to get overlooked. If it were academically just the same in every single respect but were located in another part of the country, its reputation would be much greater.
* = UConn’s college of agriculture has long been very highly rated even though Connecticut has hardly any serious agriculture (i.e. excluding vineyard and organic farms run as rich peoples’ hobbies rather than serious moneymaking ventures).
Comment by Peter — June 28, 2012 @ 5:02 pm
I’m not surprised at Rob’s decision either, knowing what I do about you yankees. It’s just a foreign concept to me.
Comment by trumwill — June 28, 2012 @ 5:35 pm
Peter,
How many people at Amherst, Wesleyan pursue log-normally distributed career fields and fail while their high school class mates attend UConn and end up in six figure, normally distributed career field such as pharmacy, nurse anesthetist, physical therapist, etc.
I would suspect that no one who attends Williams will end up working in pharmacy but how many will end up being lower paid paper pushers in Manhattan?
Comment by superdestroyer — June 29, 2012 @ 3:13 am
How many people at Amherst, Wesleyan pursue log-normally distributed career fields and fail while their high school class mates attend UConn and end up in six figure, normally distributed career field such as pharmacy, nurse anesthetist, physical therapist, etc.
I wish I knew, but I don’t. One thing I do know is that UConn has always been very strong in health-related fields like pharmacy and physical therapy. As for Amherst and Wesleyan, while obviously some graduates fail in their careers, my reasoned guess is that it’s not a particularly high percentage. Partly it’ because the colleges are so highly related and prestigious, and partly because many of the students have family connections upon which they can rely. In addition, Amherst and Wesleyan send a high percentage of their graduates to medical schools, Top 14 law schools, highly ranked MBA programs, and so on.
Comment by Peter — June 29, 2012 @ 6:25 pm
Naah, it makes sense in the context of the northeast. The snobbery has context. You’ve heard by now how insanely expensive Manhattan and such are, and most of the jobs that would actually allow you to live there require you to have gone to Harvard, Yale, etc. If you didn’t go there, you have no chance of ever breaking into investment banking.
I suspect this is part of the reason why blue-staters are always up in arms about inequality–even people who do well think the system sucks.
Comment by SFG — June 30, 2012 @ 9:56 am
Conversely, in a red state an average person can have a pretty good life. One of the things I found most fascinating about Phoenix was that going to ASU was actually on the higher end of a lot of the kids’ aspirations. You could not go to college and wind up working an okay job and rent a decent apartment and have a livable life for your family.
I’m sure there’s a Jewish family in Scottsdale stressing out over their son’s application to Stanford, but they’re the exception over there, seemed like.
Comment by SFG — June 30, 2012 @ 4:42 pm
Conversely, in a red state an average person can have a pretty good life.
That’s the thing people don’t understand. Or they handwave it away because red-staters are paid less. The MHI in Texas and Pennsylvania are the same, though, and I *think* it costs more $5k more to live in New York than Arizona.
I can’t think of a single person I knew of growing up who felt Harvard-or-Die. And I went to a pretty upper-class public school.
(Which is another thing, well-to-do Red-Staters aren’t too good for public K-12.)
Comment by trumwill — June 30, 2012 @ 5:21 pm
One thing that people tend to forget is that even in the bluest of the blue states the great majority of college-bound students do not attend Ivies or similarly prestigious institutions. Just for curiosity I looked at the online profile for Great Neck North High School on Long Island. It serves a very upscale area, many Asian and Jewish students, SAT scores way above the national average, and with 85% of graduates going to four-year colleges. If any public high school anywhere is going to be full of Ivy-bound graduates, it is Great Neck North.
Of the more than 1,000 graduates in the 2007-2011 period, only 49 went to Ivies, with fewer than 15 HYP-bound. By way of comparison there were about 155 graduates headed to the various SUNY campuses and an even 100 going to the local community college.
Comment by Peter — July 1, 2012 @ 8:58 am
Peter,
The Ivies tend not to take a large number of students from any single school; they only want those students who perform best in comparison to their same-school peers. Moreover, they have had policies promoting “regional diversity” at least since the early 20th century when the Ivies became concerned that they were taking too many NYC Jews. Even if the average SAT scores at NY-area schools like Great Neck and Stuyvesant were 300 points higher than the national average, the Ivies would still limit their offers to selected people within roughly the top 5-10% of the class.
Comment by Ω — July 1, 2012 @ 9:13 am
As a corollary to the previous post, birth in the sticks could be a great gift to trumwill’s and Clancy’s child. If the kid is intelligent, hard-working and ambitious, he or she would have a better shot at admission to the Ivies than any individual somewhat-above-average student in New York. However, even in middle America, getting into the Ivies is still very difficult and well beyond the expectations of most students. Last year, Harvard College received close to 30,000 applications for a freshman class of around 1600 students.
Comment by Ω — July 1, 2012 @ 10:27 am
The top ten 4-year colleges attended by 2007-2011 graduates of the very prestigious Great Neck North High School were:
CUNY-Baruch 61
New York University 57
CUNY-Queens 44
Boston University 38
Hofstra 29
University of Michigan 27
Cornell 26
SUNY-Stony Brook 23
SUNY-Albany 22
St. John’s 22
Only three prestigious institutions (Cornell, NYU and Michigan), three or four that are sort of okay (Boston U., Albany, Stony Brook, and maybe St. John’s), and three or four mediocre ones.
Comment by Peter — July 1, 2012 @ 11:05 am
I hit “post” too soon on my prior comment. Anyway, some of the colleges (Queens, Hofstra, St. John’s) are on the top-10 list because they’re reasonably short drives from Great Neck. Stony Brook is a longer but still feasible drive while Baruch can be reached by train in under an hour. These examples are instructive on a much bigger scale, because I am quite sure that something as simple as geographic proximity is a very big factor in college choice even though it’s so often overlooked.
Comment by Peter — July 1, 2012 @ 11:14 am
Omega, things look quite different on this side of the line:
But what Espenshade and Radford found in regard to what they call “career-oriented activities” was truly shocking even to this hardened veteran of the campus ideological and cultural wars. Participation in such Red State activities as high school ROTC, 4-H clubs, or the Future Farmers of America was found to reduce very substantially a student’s chances of gaining admission to the competitive private colleges in the NSCE database on an all-other-things-considered basis. The admissions disadvantage was greatest for those in leadership positions in these activities or those winning honors and awards. “Being an officer or winning awards” for such career-oriented activities as junior ROTC, 4-H, or Future Farmers of America, say Espenshade and Radford, “has a significantly negative association with admission outcomes at highly selective institutions.” Excelling in these activities “is associated with 60 or 65 percent lower odds of admission.”
Espenshade and Radford don’t have much of an explanation for this find, which seems to place the private colleges even more at variance with their stated commitment to broadly based campus diversity. In his Bakke ruling Lewis Powell was impressed by the argument Harvard College offered defending the educational value of a demographically diverse student body: “A farm boy from Idaho can bring something to Harvard College that a Bostonian cannot offer. Similarly, a black student can usually bring something that a white person cannot offer.” The Espenshade/Radford study suggests that those farm boys from Idaho would do well to stay out of their local 4-H clubs or FFA organizations — or if they do join, they had better not list their membership on their college application forms. This is especially true if they were officers in any of these organizations. Future farmers of America don’t seem to count in the diversity-enhancement game played out at some of our more competitive private colleges, and are not only not recruited, but seem to be actually shunned. It is hard to explain this development other than as a case of ideological and cultural bias.
Comment by trumwill — July 1, 2012 @ 12:28 pm
If you want your kids to attend an Ivy, keep them out of JROTC. Also, by extension, keep them out of any blue-collar or prole-type activities. Team athletics, on the other hand, are ok. Rural applicants still have to pass the Northeastern SWPL social tests as well as satisfy academic standards to get in. I’m surprised that Radford and Espenshade were surprised by that.
Comment by Ω — July 1, 2012 @ 12:40 pm
It makes sense in its own way, when you think about it. It’s something that honestly never occurred much to me. I find it aggravating on a number of levels, even though I (a) wouldn’t really participate in these activities anyway and (b) had no aspirations of the Ivy League.
Clancy is against footing the bill for Ivy League or private school anyway, so our kid is likely state-school bound.
Comment by trumwill — July 1, 2012 @ 1:35 pm
If he wants to become an academic physician…but then he has a chance to make it up for med school.
Besides, by 16 or so you’ll have an idea what your kid’s strengths and interests are.
Comment by SFG — July 1, 2012 @ 6:08 pm
It should be said here that “academic medicine” runs a gamut. Due to the doctor shortage, it’s not like being a legal academic. If you want to work on the faculty at a prestigious place, that’s one thing. If you’re cool bring an attending for family med in Greeley, Colorado (the cow-slaughter capital of the west!), that’s another.
Comment by trumwill — July 1, 2012 @ 6:12 pm
I’m not sure that the long-term outlook for a career in medicine will still be bright in 20 years when trumwill’s kid is contemplating entering the field. Besides the reimbursement angle, which looks grim, technology will eventually replace some specialties. He/she won’t want to go into a field that is going to disappear by the time he/she is 50. If the only specialties that look like they will have long-term viability are surgical in nature, he/she will have to assess his/her abilities and interests with that in mind.
If medicine turns out not to be a good choice, that doesn’t necessarily leave many options that will provide an upper-middle class or middle class life. The value of the Ivy degree and connections is that they can help someone without specific skills find a decent job that would not be available to those with less prestigious credentials. But one really needs the Ivy network for the full effect, which takes social skills that not even all Ivy grads possess.
Comment by Ω — July 1, 2012 @ 10:35 pm
Last year I was informed of a possible job opportunity for Clancy in New England (the region, not necessarily the Trumanverse state). We talked about New England and what we might like about it and what we might really dislike. In the latter column was the attitude I hear about public universities out there.
Given the various parts of the country that you’ve lived in, I’m amazed that you didn’t take the leap into New England. While the Northeast has its tendencies, as Peter has hinted at, it’s not all Manhattan with the super status games.
Comment by David Alexander — July 2, 2012 @ 8:29 pm
Clancy is against footing the bill for Ivy League or private school anyway, so our kid is likely state-school bound.
IIRC, the Ivies, or at least the HYP, segment will basically foot most of the sticker price for the middle class to upper middle class types leaving the only the rich to pay full cost. OTOH, it’s the high ranking second rate schools that pretend to be Ivy League schools (i.e Duke, NYU) that charge high tuition while offering little in terms of financial aid.
Comment by David Alexander — July 2, 2012 @ 8:38 pm
IIRC, the Ivies, or at least the HYP, segment will basically foot most of the sticker price for the middle class to upper middle class types leaving the only the rich to pay full cost.
That seems to be true at the current time, although the unis’ upper limit for “upper middle class” income may not be very high. However, when I attended less than twenty years ago, the Ivies, including HYP, were rather stingy.
Comment by Ω — July 2, 2012 @ 9:08 pm
Omega beat me to it. I fear that we would make too little to easily afford tuition, but too much to get a discount.
Comment by trumwill — July 2, 2012 @ 11:47 pm
David, I was particularly impressed with the affordability of the place in question. More expensive here, but not as expensive as I think of the northeast as being. Probably helpful that it’s not in frou-frou country or a big city.
Comment by trumwill — July 2, 2012 @ 11:47 pm
Clancy is against footing the bill for Ivy League or private school anyway, so our kid is likely state-school bound.
You should be ashamed of yourselves for feeling this way. If you have the money when the time comes, and that’s the best school Junior gets into, then that’s where Junior should go.
OTOH, if Junior only gets into mediocre private, then it should be State all the way.
As for Rob’s choice, I would have chosen UConn as well. Generally speaking though, parents are not going to give the difference to an 18 year old in cash. Maybe split the difference, or maybe use it for down payment on a house.
In the latter [dislike] column was the attitude I hear about public universities out there [New England].
In both NE and the Mid-Atlantic (9 states) the FLAGSHIP university is excellent. With NY, as Peter and David Alexander, the SUNY banner is widely encompassing, but there are four campuses that share top billing: Albany, Binghamton, Buffalo, and Stony Brook (the D-I Schools).
However, this excellence does not filter down to the directional state schools. They are best if you are going to be a teacher.
Despite my handle I have no affiliation with Rutgers. However, I can state unequivocally that one will receive a top-notch education there. As for NJ’s directional schools, it is more hit-or-miss.
Comment by Scarlet Knight — July 3, 2012 @ 12:24 am
You should be ashamed of yourselves for feeling this way. If you have the money when the time comes, and that’s the best school Junior gets into, then that’s where Junior should go.
Meh. Unless you intend to go into a really, really competitive field or are extremely ambitious about Running Things, state school can get you where you need to go.
As for Rob’s choice, I would have chosen UConn as well. Generally speaking though, parents are not going to give the difference to an 18 year old in cash. Maybe split the difference, or maybe use it for down payment on a house.
My parents, who probably could have afforded private school*, but did not volunteer to spend it**. Since they now have more money than they expect to spend in their remaining years, I guess another way of looking at it is that it’ll send our kids through***.
* - They didn’t even have to pay for my undergrad, for the most part.
** - Of course, in their defense, Ivy League wasn’t the option for me that it was for Clancy. So it would have been paying to send me to, at most, something like Tulsa or TCU****.
*** - Maybe. There’s a debate going on with our parents as to whether the “college fund” should be splitted on a per-child basis or per-grandchild basis. If my childless brother gets a cut, and if they go through the money faster than they anticipate, then it might not stretch.
**** - That’s really hard to say, though. I know people with much less in the way of academic chops who got into some pretty decent private schools when none of us would have gotten into the right public one. I have a friend with a 2.3 GPA who would have been rejected by my state’s top 2 or 3 public schools, but got into a USNWR Top 100 school on the private side. The fact that we went to a five-star high school only hurt us with the state university admission formula (class rank, assumed privilege) but out-of-state schools and private schools seemed like second-tier students at our school.
Comment by trumwill — July 3, 2012 @ 1:00 am
Meh. Unless you intend to go into a really, really competitive field or are extremely ambitious about Running Things, state school can get you where you need to go.
I’m not so sure that will be true for your child in twenty years. The government seems committed to a path of encouraging more people to attend college. That will make the value of nondescript degrees decline, and prestige, one of the qualities that can set an applicant apart in the eye of employers, will become more important. Also, most state schools only have strong networks in and around the state in which they are located (with the exception of some large powerhouse state systems such as Texas, Michigan and Virginia). If the job market in Arapaho is poor, sending your kid to U. of Arapaho could really limit him unless he chooses one of the rare (and usually difficult) majors that lead to a hot, in-demand career.
Comment by Ω — July 3, 2012 @ 8:22 pm
Remember, as Confucius once said, just cause your in-laws are shitheads, doesn’t mean you have to be as well.
Comment by Scarlet Knight — July 4, 2012 @ 5:05 am
Omega, sorry I missed your comment, the notification went into spam.
I think a degree from the University of Arapaho would still carry some leverage out-of-state due to its flagship status. You’re right about the social network, though so many people who matriculated in Arapaho leave that there can be networking effects elsewhere (clumps in Cascadia, for instance).
States and areas with limited professional job opportunities tend to have their grads go places in clumps. For instance, Colosse is a relatively large city that draws from surrounding states. Other than the state’s flagship(s) and Southern Tech, you probably see more bumper stickers from Neighboring State University than anywhere else. My wife went to the flagship of a limited-opportunity state and 3/4 of her academic sorority sisters landed in the same city.
This is in relative contrast to my alma mater, where so few people leave Colosse that the network in Colosse is strong, but the currency elsewhere is weaker.
I do agree that it there is some dependency on state, though. I’ve actually suggested to Clancy that if we end up in certain states with limited collegiate options (like Wyoming) or limited economic opportunity (like Montana or the Dakotas), we might need to consider OOS options. Out-of-state tuition still beats private school by a fairly significant margin, and if your academics are good a lot of them (few flagships, though a lot of land grant and tertiary quality schools) will waive out-of-state costs.
Comment by trumwill — July 5, 2012 @ 1:57 pm