OT: My daughter was admitted to Michigan today
As an alum, I have been waiting for this day for over 30 years. My daughter was admitted to Michigan today.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that without some divine intervention, it is way too expensive to send her there. We live in California, and between in state options (CalPoly, San Diego State Honors, UCSB--waitlist for now) and out of state (ASU Barrett Honors--full tuition ride), Michigan is 3-3.5 times as expensive to send her there.
In fact, if I was faced with the options of sending her to Michigan and spending $300K for four years, or spending $90K and giving her the rest of the money (which I don't have saved), then maybe it's better to give her the money so she would have a huge leg up in life.
What are your thoughts?
Sorry, but I just need to vent. It's still a great day for our family!
March 27th, 2020 at 11:49 PM ^
I was lucky to live in the state of Michigan. 300k is just too much to justify spending over having scholarships for a state school where you live. I remember thinking when I was at grad school at U-M (my program was the #1 school on the nation for my masters) and 75% of my cohort was from out of state. It was around 30k for my Masters while the majority of my peers were paying over 100k. I remember thinking that had I not lived in Michigan I don’t know if I would have been able to rationalize the money.
Yeah, time can give us perspective. Events, too.
First thing I thought when I saw the headline was that she was in the hospital. Delighted to see that it was a much happier use of "admitted."
March 27th, 2020 at 11:56 PM ^
I went to UM for 4 years for my undergrad and then another 3 years at UM-Flint for my Doctorate. I was in state.......I had some of the best times of my life. Met some of my best friends Ive ever had and still have to this day. For all of it I spent $125,000. To pay off my loans in the 10 year 120 payment plan I have to pay $1250/month. I LOVE UM. I love the university. I Love Ann Arbor. I love going back there as much as I can. With all of that I can said it was not worth the return on investment. You have a tough situation. When we are 18 years old, we are not thinking about what it will be like when we are 30.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:05 AM ^
Fortunately, my daughter is pretty cool. She knows it isn't worth $300K, especially for an undergraduate degree. Told her we saved enough money for four years in state, which is about $130K. If she goes to ASU Honors, she keeps the rest for grad school, a car, down payment on a house, whatever. She has earned it. I think she is going there, and has already been admitted to their B school, which is pretty well ranked.
Congrats - your daughter sounds brilliant, and you deserve to be proud! She is making what seems to be a wise choice / hard to beat a full ride to an excellent program!
March 28th, 2020 at 12:29 PM ^
Thanks. Like everyone else, I think the world of my daughters. This one is wicked smart (way more than me), people tell me all the time she's beautiful, she's a good athlete, and most importantly, she's a really good soul that isn't selfish at all. Super proud of her.
Congrats to your daughter. The full ride is very tempting.
My youngest got into Michigan as well 4 years ago, but we live in Virginia and William & Mary with a partial academic scholarship was the option he chose.
BTW...your board post is in no way, no how an OT post. :-)
And again...congrats to your daughter!
Don't forget to include the benefit of being a lot closer geographically to your daughter should she stay out west. Tough to measure that in dollars and cents but it has very real value.
March 28th, 2020 at 10:53 AM ^
This is a key point. I'm all for sending my girls out of state for a true college independence experience, but I think we'd all feel better keeping them within one day's drive, given the option. Just too many variables these days.
That consideration definitely weighs on us. it’s scary to think of your kid heading off to college far from home these days.
March 28th, 2020 at 11:26 AM ^
And if we're being honest, the weather is nicer out west...
March 28th, 2020 at 12:26 PM ^
I agree. I grew up 10 hours from Michigan by car. Only came home for Thanksgiving and Winter Break. Everywhere else she is looking at, minus Wisconsin, is at most three hours by car or an hour flight. This is key. Plus it's $400-$500/pop to fly to DTW from LA.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:10 PM ^
kjason, my son was just accepted and is considering the same thing. We have had these discussions, and I know its a different time, but I keep thinking about starting your career at 30 with that kind of debt. You are probably right though about looking at this through the eyes of an 18 year old. He's earned the right to make this decision, so my position is to support him and help out when I can.
March 27th, 2020 at 11:58 PM ^
My niece finally made her decision this week and chose Michigan. My brother FaceTimed me. I opened the phone to see her with three hats in front of her: UofM, Wisconsin and MSU. I was very happy to see her put on the Michigan hat.
UCSB is a really good school. That would be hard to turn down. The value there being in-state is tremendous. It’s also a beautiful campus. I’m not sure how the students going there get any studying done.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:08 AM ^
Wisconsin is another option, but it's still $200K+ for four years. Madison is a great place to spend 4 years, but in the end, glad your niece picked the good guys.
Agree on UCSB. I love that school, and it is very good. I told my kid that as much as I love College Football Saturdays, UCSB might be the only school I would go to without a college football team.
But she's waitlisted there, so who knows. It's still $35-$40K more than ASU.
The goal is to get her to graduate with no debt.
I paid my own way through Michigan. While that debt payment was tough to make during the early years, I really learned a lot about budgeting and really cut back on frivolous spending.
Now I’ve a son on the way and am in a position where I can likely pay his way in 18 years. But I want him to learn those same lessons I had to and have those experiences so he will pay his own way. I don’t think my wife will let that happen though.
March 28th, 2020 at 11:42 AM ^
My experience is similar to yours, but I'm one generation down the line. My father put himself through school, got a good job after, and paid off his loans quickly. Because of that, he said that I should do the same. So I did. What he overlooked was the fact that financial aid expects parents to help. Because of his income, my options were limited. (to his credit, he told me early, so I started working at 14 to start saving...). Still, my options were limited. As a result, my time at UM in the late 90s was one of extreme frugality. I borrowed what I could to cover tuition by begging family to co-sign my loans (parents wouldn't/couldn't), and tried to get creative with the military at one point. To cover the rest of my costs, I worked an assortment of part-time jobs and tried to come up with other creative alternatives. They were the four most desperate years of my life, and my grades suffered as a result. I'm not saying that you should just drop a wad of cash on his behalf, but at the very least, understand the mechanics of how the system works now and make an informed decision. I share your idealism that young adulthood is a time for kids to take responsibility of their future. But there is one thing I won't be saying in this context, and that's, "I did it. You can too."
Sounds well considered to have a child pay their way, if only minimum wage (not to mention 1st 5 years of post school employment) correlated more closely to the cost of attending 30 years ago. This is also why 4 year college is not the right choice for all applicants, certainly not from OOS, and likely why universities need to take a hard look at whether to buy that new electron accelerator-- although they will because there are enough of us who find it essential. There are less privileged students where the bet is right to make because they're brilliant and will make the most of the resources. But the opposite is also true.
To give your child some skin in the game and take on a % of the bill or elements, that sounds more like what we'd all like to encourage, regardless of where our kids go.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:08 AM ^
It is awesome to simply be able to say you were accepted into UM. But you are correct that she needs to go to the school that will still offer her a good degree and will allow her to graduate without a truckload of debt.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:09 AM ^
Genuinely curious, but if your daughter got into Michigan out of state, how did she not get into better California in-state schools?
March 28th, 2020 at 12:17 AM ^
Good question. She has a 4.2 GPA and 33 ACT, which is pretty decent. But good luck getting into UCLA or Berkeley with those stats. More like you need a 4.5 and 35/36 on the ACT and 1540+ on the SAT, and it's still dependent on your essays and major.
Even UCSB's 50th percentile GPA is 4.2 and a 32 ACT in state. Plus her junior year grades went down a bit (3.5 unweighted due to issues in AP Calc and other APs) from her sophomore year grades. The UCs will only look at 10th and 11th. But Michigan, CalPoly, and mostly every other school will look at 9th-11th grades. She was straight A's in Honors classes in 9th grade, which really helped her overall GPA.
CalPoly SLO is a really good school, and not easy at all to get into. Probably equal to a bit higher than Wisconsin, and a bit lower than Michigan. I would go there if given the opportunity. Great location and well respected college.
March 28th, 2020 at 10:26 AM ^
Oh wow, I had no it was so competitive to get into those schools in-state in California. Thanks for the info and good luck to your daughter
One of the first thing my son's college counselor cautioned parents was to eliminate the words "when I was looking at schools..." So much has changed in a generation that we cannot compare our college search experience with theirs. Schools that were safety schools 30 years ago are a lot tougher to get into and may have a much better reputation now.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:23 AM ^
Berkeley wants out of state students for the higher tuition.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:25 AM ^
Yep. I told my daughter she would likely have gotten into UCSB or Berkeley instead of being waitlisted if we lived out of state. But then again, we would be where we are with Michigan in being able to afford it.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:14 AM ^
Congrats!
If your daughter has her shit together enough to get accepted to Michigan, then I would wager that she can go in state and make a wonderful life for herself without the need for you to blow your retirement. That’s just my free opinion on a random message board.
My daughter just turned 9 months old and I really hope I’m in your position in 17 years. Cheers! ?
March 28th, 2020 at 12:32 AM ^
Congratulations and good luck!
March 28th, 2020 at 12:40 AM ^
Congrats. Save your money. Go to the instate school.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:42 AM ^
Alright, here's a pretty long-winded opinion, but here we go.
So, I went to Michigan undergrad OOS and got pretty good scholarship money, graduated with a small amount of debt, then went to grad school in a field that notoriously doesn't make much money at a very expensive school with a big name and racked up huge debt.
Here's my pretty cynical take, and you can take it or leave it. Basically, what you're buying with a degree is the opening of doors and increased opportunities later in life, and the "bigger" the name of the school you can go to when you're 18, the more doors are opened later. It probably isn't fair, but there we are. At some point, admission to the 15 to 20 universities that really open doors in life is a crapshoot, and you should probably try and climb as high as you can on that list as humanly possible assuming you don't hate the school.
Ironically, my mom is now trying to transition from the field she's worked in for 30 years to something a little more amenable to being mostly retired, and while she discusses her work experience, her education goes right at the top of the resume, as they serve as signaling that she is smart and accomplished.
Academically, those other schools you mentioned are probably good options, and I understand they're more affordable, but I don't think a degree from ASU will carry nearly as much weight later in life as a degree from UM, particularly if her academic performance at both is about the same (IE she isn't the valedictorian at ASU, etc.). Also, there's a networking effect. Obviously your daughter is bright and would probably succeed anywhere, but will her peers be as successful? Cynically, will she make connections that will help her in later life? I never directly got a job from a friend, but alumni of both schools I attended have helped me, and they were in pretty good places in their careers because of their pedigree.
You mention above that it's very difficult to get into Berkeley, etc., and that's totally fair, but Michigan is /always/ mentioned in the same breath as UCLA and Berkeley as a Public Ivy, and might even be poised to do better than them in the long run because it has a much bigger private endowment because it recognized how bad state funding of public education would get decades before other institutions and planned accordingly. That will probably become even bigger going forward as states continue to de-prioritize higher education.
Also, the Michigan name travels really well, in a way I tend to think UCSB, ASU, etc., do not. Every city I've lived in has had a Michigan contingent and people know what Michigan is anywhere you go. Those other schools are more regional in the way that MSU is more regional. I know we shit on MSU around here, but someone who was motivated absolutely could go there and receive a world-class education;it's just a question of how many HR people or computer algorithms spending seconds apiece looking at hundreds of resumes for one job will believe you. If you find yourself in a position where you have to explain that your school was good, or you received a good education, you've already lost.
Also where you go to college can affect who comes there to recruit, what kind of first job you can get, etc., which can really impact your second opportunity, etc. Even my pretty low-pay field from grad school had certain firms that would only recruit from certain schools, and guess what, those firms paid the best and opened the most doors for "alumni" of those companies.
I heard a really interesting experiment someone did years ago. At the time, Penn State didn't have a law school, and a professor went around to people who didn't know much about the legal field in academia and asked them where they thought Princeton's law school ranked and where they thought Penn State's law school ranked. Most people put Princeton somewhere in the top 10 and said Penn State was around maybe 20. Obviously neither had law schools, so this was all based on perception.
This matches my own personal experience. I went to grad school at a large name school that didn't have an exceptionally strong program in my area, still had a basically decent experience, and when I eventually transitioned out of the field (like I said, doesn't pay much, just wasn't ultimately a great fit, life intervenes, etc.), I was /much/ better off having gotten the degree from the overall big name than say a school like Rutgers, which ironically had a great program in my area, because at the end of the day I'd have a Masters from Rutgers.
Now, as to affordability, I'm about to make an argument that will probably make some eyes water, and you can question my personal choices, but that isn't really my point here. So, at the program from the big name school, I paid well over 100K, all in loans, but immediately went on an income based repayment plan, meaning I was only paying a few percent of my income a month to the loan, and it goes away in 25 years. At some point there is probably a break even analysis of going into x amount of debt that becomes beyond your ability to ever repay, and if it drops off in 25 years, you do better by just crossing that threshold, making minimal payments, and waiting out the 25 years.
Also also, there's yourself to consider here. With the world economy shaky, perhaps it is better to hang onto some of your nest egg and not spend it on a college education (IE ask your daughter to "contribute" to her educational cost through loans, etc.), and not have that money gone for yourself later should you need it.
Just my two cents on all of this, and I'm sure your daughter would succeed anywhere. Just stuff I ruminate on a lot and have a lot of opinions on.
Really interesting take, maizneonblueaction. I hadn't really thought about Michigan's endowment for the long run. (But I think California schools will always be sought after simply because of the location and job opportunities) However, I'm going to contrast what you said with the following:
1) It isn't ASU, but ASU Barrett, which is arguably, the best pure honors college in the country, according to publicuniversityhonors.com. (remember, many colleges have honors programs, not separate colleges) ASU has changed a lot over the last decade, from being kind of a joke, to being pretty well regarded. ASU produced 21 Fulbright Scholars last year, I believe all from the Honors College. That's more Fulbrights than Penn and Berkeley. https://www.chronicle.com/article/Top-Producers-of-Fulbright/248001
Certainly not difficult to get into ASU, but the honors college is another thing.
2) I'm not sold that where you went to college, especially undergraduate, opens doors. I graduated from Michigan, but I work in the tech space in sales, and nearly no one asks me where I went to school. They don't even ask me where I got my MBA (Minnesota).
In 2014, the Atlantic came up with the criteria employers look for when hiring grads. Reputation of the school was at the bottom. Practical experience,internships, and your major, were at the top.
My friends and I had beers a few weeks ago and we all asked each other how much school reputation matters. I went to Michigan, one friend Harvard, another Penn Wharton, and the fourth Northwestern undergrad, Michigan MBA. Only the Michigan MBA said it mattered, but only somewhat, and it was a subconscious bias. The rest said it mattered little, if at all.
If you work in finance on Wall Street, a finance degree from an Ivy League school is your ticket. Otherwise, maybe applying to some grad schools, a Michigan degree helps. But I had friends in my MBA class from Michigan, Tufts, and Duke. I had others from Augustana College in South Dakota, Bemidji State, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Lawrence University. So it didn't matter much that my Michigan degree got me in to a decent MBA program, but not a top one.
I respect your opinion on this, but I think school rankings and reputation matter little in the big picture of things. And I think you're absolutely right about you can succeed going anywhere. If my daughter would go to Michigan, it would be for the experience.
Yeah, that's also a pretty rational way to look at it.
I mean, I've certainly worked my fair share of awful jobs even with some shiny degrees, and get way more questions about my work history than I really do about my schooling as such. I just don't really have the counterfactual to say "I would still have gotten the interview in the first place with some other generic degree".
Honestly, a lot of this is coming from my own concerns about what higher education is/is becoming and some unknowns of how that will play out in the next few years. So, to paraphrase the most cynical version of that, it's really that we'll reach a point where basically the top 50 or so schools will survive based on brand and resources, and most schools below that will be cannibalized by far cheaper, albeit probably lower quality online options and most higher education will become extremely commoditized.
Will we reach that point/have we already? Maybe, maybe not. Given all this global disruption, it's highly possible we see even very reputable universities offering online and remote options that might be more afforable than what they currently offer to attract students. But with a rise of alternative credentials that employers might start to accept, we could also devalue what a college degree is anyway. Some of this might have already happened, in that 50 years ago maybe 10% of people got college degrees, so even having one was a huge differentiatior. Now, even at the height of a pretty good economy, we were producing 800K masters degrees annually. I'm sure that will spike again given everything. There's a theory that our higher education model now was really built on men from the upper classes who had the time and resources to be out of the workforce for four years or more, and it's questionable whether that model works for most people in our modern economy.
Obviously this varies so highly based on major anyway, exactly like you said. I studied polisci and history and only recently moved into something a bit more "hard skills", and despite only having six months direct experience, recruiters are throwing themselves at me. If your daughter is studying compsci or engineering, she'll be fine almost anywhere, and if she's doing something fancy like AI, she'll be set for life. However, to get cynical, most of the big Ivies don't even offer finance degrees for undergrads, so firms are willing to recruit students without the background and train them just because they like their pedigree. So, as the area of study gets softer, school name probably matters more.
I guess to reiterate what I said above, I'm just not clear what the true difference in opportunity is with studying engineering at UCSB versus MIT; both sets of students could definitely do quite well for themselves, but again, the cynical take here is that there are companies that would come to MIT to recruit and wouldn't touch USCB with a ten foot pole, and that could affect internships, first job offers, etc. I've heard of really petty stuff where some companies (albeit like BCG, etc.) won't even touch Cornell for recruiting, let along CU-Boulder. Again, this could be too cynical, and it might not really be relevant to any of your daugther's future plans, but it's just food for thought, I guess.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:42 PM ^
These are all really good points. I too wonder the impact of online on the value of a brick and mortar college education. People care so little about the degree these days and more about how you problem solve, do you click in the interview, can you fit in with a team, etc.
Certainly not saying UCSB compares with MIT or Cornell when it comes to campus visits by employers. There are those schools that can truly open doors, and then there are the rest. Many schools out here are very good schools, but are regional in reputation. The exceptions being Berkeley, UCLA, and some of the UCs. Michigan fits in there too. Cal Poly SLO is a very good school, and everyone on the West Coast knows about, but don't bother if you are on the East Coast or Midwest.
My daughter is planning on going to the business school with a possible minor in Poli Sci. I see her gravitating toward tech like me. But she's smarter than me. With a history degree from Michigan, my employment opportunities were so limited. (She even made fun of me for pursuing what I loved. There truly is no future in history) Took me going back to get an MBA and even then it was dicey, but turned out right for me.
March 28th, 2020 at 11:27 AM ^
‘My friends and I had beers a few weeks ago and we all asked each other how much school reputation matters. I went to Michigan, one friend Harvard, another Penn Wharton, and the fourth Northwestern undergrad, Michigan MBA. Only the Michigan MBA said it mattered, but only somewhat, and it was a subconscious bias. The rest said it mattered little, if at all.“
Do you have any friends who didn’t go to top tier schools?
March 28th, 2020 at 12:49 PM ^
Ha ha! That's one group of friends and I used the conversation to illustrate a point. Another group went to school in Spain, Italy, Mexico, Wisconsin-Oshkosh, Cal State Long Beach, community college, and no college. I have a really diverse group of friends.
I’m glad you took that in the spirit it was intended. I was amused at the group of people who you cited saying it doesn’t matter if you go to a good name school
My friends are all salt of the earth people. I'm your typical no nonsense Midwestern living on the West Coast that gives back to my community. So many of our friends are teachers in Compton or other impoverished areas. Even the one that went to Michigan for his MBA was a former executive that is a now a Yogi and business coach.
I have two kids that spent a combined 19 years at Michigan and they ended up with MD's and did residencies at U of M, We were OOS. Don't ask about costs...makes me ill.
The best thing, IMO, in addition to good educations, was the networking that opened other doors for grad/med school and summer jobs.
Having said that, there are many good institutions around the country where you can get a great education, You get out what you put in. Your daughter seems like a smart person with good study skills. Unless you can afford the costs, I'd go to the Cali schools in a heartbeat. Ultimately, with few exceptions, she will end up in the same place. Many decades ago, there was a shortage of quality PhD's and others with advanced degrees who taught. Not anymore.
UCSB? I know the area well. Very solid academics and the best weather on the planet.
Good luck to her.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:58 AM ^
Congratulations!
We are in the same position
Those are all great schools. ASU honors sounds like a great option.
My daughter just got into USC which we can’t afford. It’s really disappointing. We’ll see what happens with the state schools here and scholarships. She didn’t apply to Michigan because they didn’t have the program she wanted. She almost did. She loved the tour. It wouldn’t of mattered anyway because of the cost. She did apply to private schools where they have big endowments. Sometimes those schools can be less expensive than the state schools.
I didn’t know there were honors programs that were full rides? My daughter was accepted to an honors program at a school in New York but I’m pretty sure it’s not a full ride. Is ASU unique in that regard?
I've been really impressed with ASU Barrett Honors. Of the schools we visited (15), that, Northwestern and UCSB were the best tours. The dean at Barrett, who came from Swarthmore, sat down with all of the 4 kids and parents for an entire hour to talk with us. They really rolled out the red carpet.
It's pretty unique but University of Arizona has a similar scholarship. My daughter is what's called a National Hispanic Recognition Program Scholar, or Top 2.5% of Hispanic kids that take the PSAT. It's pretty similar to being a National Merit Scholar, but they also give full rides there for National Merit Scholars. Check out this link: https://scholarships.asu.edu/scholarship/1729
My friend told me about Barrett, but I kind of blew it off. Then my daughter brought up ASU and I started reading about the honors college. Really impressed me, being a small school inside a large university. The kids all have to write a thesis at the end of four years and they get all sorts of perks, like first pick in classes, small classes, special dorms (big time plush), and internships.
You guys may want to check it out. Might be too late to apply to Barrett for next year, but it might not. ASU is rolling admissions so not too late to apply to the school. If you're interested, let me know and I can tell you more.
BTW, what program does your daughter want to go into? USC is a great school, so congrats, but it wasn't the right fit for my daughter.
I'd love for my kid to go to Michigan, but at this point, it seems there are other schools, like ASU, that are a better fit for her.
Thanks. She wants to dual major in theater and liberal arts. At least it’s a dual major. :-)
So USC is definitely a good fit for what she wants and I was surprised at how difficult that is to get into and how good it is supposed to be.
We are up in the bay area.
I know next to nothing about performing arts programs. But I would imagine schools like Loyola Marymount, UCSB, and Chapman have good theater departments and might throw money her way. I'm guessing that USC didn't throw a lot of "green love" your way? Which other schools is she considering?
We're in a town outside of LA.
Places like NYU, UCLA, other UCs, a couple in Boston, a couple more in New York. I think she ended up not applying to Chapman.
Those are all excellent schools. If she wants to be in theater, then NY is where she wants to be, right? Has she been admitted to UCLA? Which other UCs did she get in?
She hasn’t heard from most of them yet as of last week. She got into UC San Diego a while back.
March 28th, 2020 at 10:06 AM ^
Facing the same choice for my daughter. She got into Michigan as well as the honors programs at Northeastern and Vermont. While neither of the honors offers came with full rides, they offered significantly more money than Michigan.
She’ll be going to Northeastern, because as much as I’d love to have her go to Michigan, the cost at Northeastern is so much lower when the scholarship money is taken into account.
March 28th, 2020 at 12:51 PM ^
Those are all good choices. Northeastern has really become a destination school. Plus you can't beat Boston for college.
Thanks. I was selfishly hoping for a little validation of our choice. She is super excited about their coop program and the honors college comes with some great additional scholarship options for some international programs (a prospect that was way less scary 6 months ago, but will hopefully be a great opportunity in a couple years).
Our son is just finishing up his freshman year at Michigan (at home, of course!). We toured Northeastern as we had heard very good things about it. I really liked the co-op program and the fact that it's a bit smaller than Michigan. Based on the conversations we were hearing from the other people on the tour, it appears as thoughtNortheastern has really elevated itself to being like a near-Ivy. A lot of the kids were also visiting Harvard, Tufts and many other highly-ranked East Coast schools. Our son ultimately decided not to apply as he ended up not liking Boston as much as I like it and thought he would like it...but it's certainly a great choice!
Congrats to your daughter!
I just about the Coop program at Northeastern which sounds very cool. Real world experience will give students a huge leg up on employment opportunities.
One correction...it looks like Northeastern has an Honor Program, not an Honors College. There is a difference. A program mixes honors courses in with the usual path. An honors college is usually an entirely separate college in itself. Michigan has an honors program, but not an honors college.
Good point. I actually think I prefer the honors program. More of a best of both world’s approach.