Don't forget to factor in the taxes on selling the condo, if you haven't already taken those into account. (But given how carefully you're analyzing, my bet is that you already have.)

On the flip side, the majority of the children of my friends and relatives have chosen not to go to their parents' schools, even when qualified and within their means. And that's generally Ivy League. So don't be surprised if your son chooses differently.

Having a $300-$400k nest egg dedicated just for his college is fabulous. if the actual cost once he gets there is more, have a plan in place to cash-flow it. He should also work part time through high school and college so he has money to help pay for incidentals/gas/etc. Also, his "job" during his junior and senior year of high school should be applying for scholarships. And, keep in mind that even if you have substantial assets, the college may give you/him a small tuition break to get him there versus another school.

My experience is different, Snidely. I worked through college and it was a fantastic way to learn to balance academics with a job.

However, more to point, my son who is graduating in May with a bachelor's in chemical engineering from a top rated private science and technical college noted for its extremely rigorous program also worked part time all four years. Two of his three roommates, all seniors, also hold down part time jobs.

Additionally, the college provided my son with a merit scholarship each of his four years despite the fact that they accept only a very small percentage of students from the thousands of applicants for their freshmen class each year.

While I don't doubt that the opinions in your post are accurate for some students and for some colleges, they are by no means universal or fact. I also allow that my son's experience is by no means universal or applicable for every student in a rigorous program, but it is fact for him.

Fair enough, jewell, it's true that experiences and circumstances differ.

Two of my kids attended Ivies and the third went to a non-Ivie perennial Top 10 school, all in STEM majors. The competition was fierce in their classes and they had to work their butts off to get good grades. They're good students but nothing like the many gifted and brainy students they had as classmates. They had no time to work as far as they and I were concerned.

My congratulations for your son's success in such a demanding major. My youngest graduated a few years ago so it wasn't quite $60K per year, but after you shell out $25 or $30K for a semester of high octane education, sending your kid another few hundred a month for extra spending money (that they might earn working) isn't much money.

I think it's short sighted to limit their free time (by requiring them to work) when it's most needed to make the most of the educational opportunity that will affect the rest of their lives. Others are welcome to feel differently. Getting to a 90% score is one thing, but earning the last 10 percentage points to get to or near 100 can take an equal additional effort.

I think the short answer is that you can never know for sure, but you're in reasonably-good shape, and should hopefully be able to cover any shortages from income by the time your son enters college. I haven't researched this, but I believe an 8% assumed rate of return on your 529 plan is too high and your 5% assumed tuition increase is too low. Also if your condo is worth $110K, it's probably reasonable to expect to clear about $100K after commissions, taxes, closing costs, buyer haggling, etc.

The other issue most people don't take into account, is timing of returns. Even if you get an 8% average return, that generally won't be in a straight line. Financial Planners use a Monte Carlo analysis to tell you the probability that you'll meet your goals.

But let's take a very simple, somewhat conservative case. Let's say that appreciation on your 529 plan and condo roughly match the percentage increase from the university. Let's also assume that you put $8K (increased by the rate of college inflation) into the 529 plan for the next 11 years (you'll use up the 529 plan before selling the condo). That gives you about $250K ($62+88+100) in today's dollars, or roughly enough for 4 years of college, but not enough for grad school.

It couldn't hurt to save a bit more, but you're certainly better off than most people.

This post was edited by greasetrap on Tue, Jan 20, 15 at 18:30

I agree with Snidely, I too believe kids should not work part-time during school terms if they don't need to.

In fact, I think the idea of "working part time during school year would teach children the value of money, and that they would appreciate education better" is a myth. I sometimes wonder if it is a cop out from irresponsible parents as we started teaching our children these values when they were in elementary school.

What kind of part time job a high school or college student could get? a minimum wage job I guess. Spending precious time and energy during their best learning years for this type of "working experience" instead of gaining valuable knowledges, competencies, experiences, exposures from activities, projects, programs, events on the campus, and building mentorship with staff, friendship with peers, to me it is a poor choice.

My children went to top schools and had tough majors. I remember their classes were either 'difficult' or 'impossible'. I also recalled seeing many zombie like tired young people in library during my visits. These students had to compete with best ones from all over the world.

We never allowed our children working while schools were in session. I don't think this decision has damaged them. They are quite accomplished young professionals, are financially responsible with good time and life management skills and attitude. All of our close friends have same demand of their children, these children are all well established with satisfied careers and outlook.

OP, it seems you are on the right track to provide for undergraduate (top graduate school program would cost whole lot more). One reminder is that you may want to leave some room for studying trips and exchange student programs abroad. These cost extra but would provide invaluable experiences and opportunities.

Re: working in school --- based on my experience I agree with Jewell. I wanted to work part time (campus jobs at libraries, being an RA in the dorms, etc.) during my undergraduate years; I have always been independent, and even as a child I liked having 'my own money' instead of the money my parents gave me. Although I did not have to work, my parents allowed me to provided it did not affect my gpa. I still had enough time to socialize with friends and graduated with high honors and a gpa that gained me admission to the highest ranked ivy graduate school in my field. The work I did at my university exposed me to students with different majors who I would not have met otherwise, including two of my best friends. The training and meetings I attended were more enriching than anything else I would have done with the time I spent working. If I had been unable to balance work and my academic commitments, my parents would have made me quit working. Admittedly, delivering pizzas part time would not have had similar benefits.

I am glad that my parents were open minded enough to let me work part-time as an undergraduate. It's painting with too broad a brush to assume that working impedes academic success, or reflects laziness on the parents' part.

Going way back 50 years when I was still in high school: lower middle class family, but well educated. My father would never even let us have a summer job: Your job is to study, practice your musical instruments, help around the house. Go to the library, go fishing.

I think part of it at the time was a kind of worry that we would like the idea of waiting tables, hanging out with kids for whom that was going to be a career, and getting our few pennies, and lose sight of the bigger picture. Now that I am (and have been for 45 years) a college professor and professional musician, I can tell you that the kids who spend 20 hours a week working aren't studying and aren't practicing.....during these most, most important years. You'll never get back those hours....life has a way of interfering.

Vedazu - I simply couldn't disagree with you more. I am also a college professor and Dean of Finance and Accounting at a university. There have been numerous studies on this topic, some that looked at academic success, and even more that looked at career success. Some interesting things they found. One study very recently for students entering into prestigious medical schools the most common trait found among graduates was "worked during college." Another study I remember from the early 2000's found that among successful executives at Fortune 500 companies, academic effort fell far behind socialization activities, in fact the most common denominator among high paid executives was participation in extra curricular activities, while working was close behind. In fact, several studies have found that students who self report to prioritizing drinking and partying ahead of academics earn on average 30% more over their career than students who self report the opposite.

The fact of the matter is we are social creatures and while academics are important social activities and experience in a workplace can be as important as studying. I don't see very many people who get a low paying job and think if only I can do this the rest of my life I will not have to go to college. The idea that this happens ignores a significant part of the evidence out there.

To the OP - I think your savings is commendable and I suspect you will be fine, but I would like to add one word of strong caution to you. The biggest mistake I see students make is attending the wrong college. There is simply no way at this point you can know where your child will attend and your insistence that you have some insight is the most common reason that students drop out of college. The worst thing that you can do for your child is encourage him or her to attend your alma mater. I have watched many hundreds of incredibly bright kids, some who have won top national honors, fail in the most spectacular fashion because they went where their parents wanted them to.

"In fact, several studies have found that students who self report to prioritizing drinking and partying ahead of academics earn on average 30% more over their career than students who self report the opposite." Well, bry911, you may have science/research on your side, but it isn't convincing me. Perhaps it depends on the major. There aren't enough hours in the day for many majors....perhaps business is different?

Well one study was for doctors do we can add that, minored in political science so that one works pretty good too. I would personally argue that business is fairly typical and music is actually the exception, but to be fair, I used to have an employee who was a voice major and she did OK too. So what do I know...

Which majors exactly do you think need more time?

Good point, vedazu. Judging from my kids' experiences as STEM undergrads, those they knew who were business (or humanities/social science) majors did have more free time. I think the same is likely also true for students at schools with rather less selective admission stats where the competition for top grades isn't quite as fierce as at the top schools.

Not everyone in undergrad years is trying to get top grades for subsequent matriculation. If one's only concern is to have solid (but not top) grades to be competitive for career placement, it's again another story.

Addendum for bry's comment-

My three all got into 4-year doctoral healthcare programs at prominent schools (and with multiple acceptances), so I can speak to that from that aspect of what they saw and did. A STEM major isn't necessary for medical school, for example, there most certainly are lots of successful applicants (as many as a quarter or a third at some schools) coming from non-traditional corners of university campuses. In the required science prereqs, you effectively have to have a 4.0 average or close to it to be competitive and also to do well on those subjects as covered on the MCAT.

A successful applicant with a Voice or Poly Sci major must have been a math/science whiz, perhaps a polymath pursuing a passion as a major while also taking the required prereqs. Believe me, neither an operatic soprano nor anyone else can walk into an Organic Chemistry class and expect to do well without the same subject matter aptitude and hard work appetite everyone else shows up with. For the required classes, the out of class hours necessary to be competitive are off the chart. For everyone. No time for work.

To bry: which majors need more time? I believe that much depends upon the expectations and drive of the student in any major. Pick a field, any field. Music: there is no end to the amount of practice you must do to rise to the top. If you are happy being average, then you don't practice as much. If I were a French major, I'd be spending every waking hour reading and listening and traveling....because it would be too late, anyway, wouldn't it! And so on. It depends upon how far you want to go. I know the engineering students are extraordinarily busy. And, on the other hand, the kids who are education majors are just plain swamped. Hours of observations on top of their classwork. Whether or not it is rigorous work, nonetheless, it is time, and work.

By the way, my comment about my father and our taking jobs harkens back to time and place. In a small, rural community where the "popular" kids (i.e. athletes and cheerleaders) set themselves up for life (as in a life sentence) on the back seat of their parent's Chevy, they were, indeed, content with a high school education, working at the A&W and just getting by. Parents with higher aspirations worried constantly about their daughters "getting into trouble." Just had my 50th class reunion: no surprises there.

We are not talking about people who aspire to high school educations. Most of the studies I have quoted are highly educated and technical jobs. Highly successful executives, doctors, and engineers all end with the same results. They all simply show that the correlation between job success and relentless studying doesn't exist. Now to be fair I am not sure what constitutes success in music so I don't know. Now I will freely admit that sometimes grad schools are different. As I mentioned above the a study found that the most common trait among medical school graduates was worked in college, it doesn't mean they worked during medical school. Just at some point in college before medical school. To be fair, even if you were right, the next most common indicator of success among top tier medical students was the amount of student debt. Medical students who incurred the most debt did the best.

Even ignoring these two things you still have to deal with the happiness problem. Hundreds of studies have directly correlated active social development with happiness in life. So assuming your goal is utility maximization, then even if studying harder makes you more successful that doesn't correspond to a better life.

As for your engineering majors being swamped I have a degree from a top five engineering university, I had a 4.0 which was not even that extraordinary, the cumulative GPA of my fraternity was probably 3.85 and, "lets stay in and study said no one ever!" We played on weekends, studied on weekdays, many people had part time jobs and most of them are successful, and I can tell you that I never for a second thought any of them were satisfied just getting by.

Since you are a professor, I can only assume you have access to university resources just look at the studies yourself. We are not just talking about a couple of one-off studies by unknown researchers. I am confident that any professor will lend the proper weight to hundreds of different peer reviewed journal articles and their corresponding studies. If after reading that you find the flaw then fine. But until then we are really having different discussions. Anecdotal evidence vs peer reviewed study.

Bry: Not trying to be snarky or unpleasant, but I have no doubt you are right--for some majors, partying is an important issue. Stock market is doing well, so one assumes the business majors are fine. I will not be doing the research you suggested, but wonder if a couple of CEO's with multi-million dollar salaries are skewing the data upward; I suspect plenty of partied-out marketing majors are selling shoes at Payless: today's equivalent of busing window trays at A&W.

All in all, there are great geniuses who can pull things out of the ether; then there are the ordinary geniuses who are nose to the grindstone. Since we as a nation seem to have given up on the liberally educated person, we can't expect college presidents to know the difference between the Baltics or the Balkans. But I'd sure love to think that my doctors put studying ahead of drinking.

Since when is having an active social life or a part time job the same thing as partied out? Oddly, enough school is much like life. Students who balance the rigors of school with social activities are simply better adjusted to succeed. You are suggesting that a student will be most likely to succeed without any school/life balance. That is exactly opposite of what almost every study on the subject tells us. In fact, some of the most rigorous schools have the most active Greek life activities. I have a technical degree, I didn't start with an accounting degree, I got pushed into the business side, and I loved it. I worked as hard as anyone else that I know on studies. I loved school, not just the socialization but learning, I worked at the university when I went to school and I can say that it helped me tremendously.

I could make an argument that no one makes it to being a doctor without working. True they are working on their clinicals, but still it is an important part of the process. Ask your doctor how the students who never put down a book did during their clinicals. Every doctor will tell you that skills gained from work and even socialization give students an important edge when faced with clinic work. You want your doctor to spend all his time studying, I want my doctor to be a mix of learned, communicative and respected, we can just agree to disagree.

A couple of CEOs can't skew the study. It is not a study of how much they make. So a couple of people will not change the result at all. I would submit that the people who burn out studying end up at Payless, right beside the partied out guys. True the partied out guys outnumber them, but I would suggest that the results are proportionally equal.

I was responding to this....

"In fact, several studies have found that students who self report to prioritizing drinking and partying ahead of academics earn on average 30% more over their career than students who self report the opposite."

I live in a university town, and between that and my professional life (that involved college recruiting and developing relationships with faculty), I've known many academics over the years

With all due respect to you two, I'd say there are two separate and very different worlds that co-exist where people can live =- the real world and academia. People who spend most of their time in one of these worlds know little about the other, that's true in both directions.

Studies, faculty observations, etc, are from the world of academia. My real world observations come from my own kids and their peers, and from being an employer who hired dozens of grads to my firm every year. Anecdotal? Of course.

I have a kid who graduated from a top quartile medical school. No students worked, there was no time. Debt levels? That depended upon the affluence of the student's family and whether financial support was received from parents.

Correlation of debt level to achievement? Zero, that's poppycock. As in any endeavor, later professional competency as a doc doesn't depend solely on grades and academic prowess. But it's an important component. Harder workers and the brilliant ones got the best scores, and so the best residencies. Those with lower grades and board scores can't aspire to the more competitive specialties.

Back to my experience, did we hire extreme party-ers for my firm? No, never intentionally, they tended to be immature and unfocused.. Did some work out? Sure, but most got flushed after a few years.

Snidely, I didn't start in academia, In fact, I came to academia only very recently. I was a partner in a firm as well, and had been there many years, developed a rather unique expertise (mostly because of my undergrad degree) and spent a tremendous amount of time training others. I liked it, so I took the ADS buyout when they asked. The whole two worlds thing is the most rediculous preconceived piece of tripe I have ever heard. Academia is a job, students may see a different world, and for them the experience may be vastly different, but for most professors it is a job. The job like any other, has parts you love, parts you hate, politics like I have never seen before, and the pressure to publish makes every busy season I ever had seem like a trip to the zoo.

Noone said you worked in medical school. I said only that you had worked. Students who have had jobs at some point in the past tend to be better students. This includes students who have had a simple part time job in college. Look at the dropout rate and GPA for work study students. For debt and med school just Google the AMA study that shows among medical school dropouts a disproportionate number were debt free. Apparently, the knowledge that you are never going to be able to pay back your loans unless you finish med school is incentive to stick it out.

Now, I generally think you are a good guy, but I am going to call B.S. on this whole accounting firms don't like partiers crap. The day a big four firm picks a fat ugly smart girl, over a pretty partying sorority girl, is the day I lock myself in the house and never come out again. Just a couple of days ago I had a grad student in a mergers and acquisitions class who didn't know what a current ratio was, no reason to worry though he has a job at a big 4. Our clubs have nearly been cancelled twice because the big four firms can't seem to have a recruiting event without getting our students falling down drunk. At this point, I am losing my anonymity so I am going to step out. But you can find some evidence as BAP has had some very public insurance problems because of firms encouraging inappropriate behavior at BAP events.

The med students and docs I've known (dozens of them) don't have a "never will pay it back" view of their debt. In fact, the debt is rarely more than a few or several hundred K, depending again on family support and whether they went to a private or public institution. Not that much relative to career earnings. They just like to grouse about it.

You read selectively - I said "extreme party-ers".

Your acronyms aren't meaningful to me, so I don't know what you're referring to. Yes, I was a partner at a Big 4 firm. I disagreed with many of our recruiting practices, one of which was what I thought was too heavy a focus on just accounting majors with 4.0s or near 4.0s. That alone caused a lot of problems. We stratified schools into lists, depending upon our own experiences with hiring outcomes by school over the years. At the schools on the highest priority list, where we tried to be disproportionally successful (relative to the other 3 recruiting wise), the very top recruiting candidates included too many who you'd never send to a proposal meeting or a client presentation given a choice. We'd see that when they did their internships. The reality is, it's a technical job, competence and diligence are non-negotiables, and it's figured that enough people who are not socially awkward will make it through the sieves to give the firm what it needed in terms of people with personalities who could become partners to carry themselves with some charisma for clients and staff.

At these schools - the likes of Notre Dame, UTex, the UCs, BYU, and others totaling about 30 in number (I forget which were on the list in the East), the students with the top scores were rarely frat/sorority presidents or extremely social animals. Some that had both attributes were the ones that attracted plenty of attention from all the firms.

Even so, all the firms have a lot of personality lacking-dullards in their partner ranks. You may know that.

Since I am railing against preconceived notions let me get into another fight. Accounting is certainly a business degree, but defining degree difficulty by lumping accounting and finance with management and marketing is a bit of a stretch. I mean this is like saying that both phlebotomy and MD are both Health Sciences, so being a doctor can't be that hard.

Just to set the facts straight. Early accounting classes are some of the most failed classes at most universities. In fact, most polls show early accounting behind O chem. and multivariate calculus as the most failed class. Furthermore, accounting has one of the highest attrition rates and highest study demands of any degree. If you go to any college website and asked a poll for the class students spent the most time studying for, you will find accounting very high. Certainly, as high as most engineering classes. Now I am not in any way saying that accounting is as difficult as engineering. I know engineering is more difficult but also more attractive to students who are predisposed to that type of difficulty. I can tell you without reservation I studied as much for my accounting classes as I did for my engineering. The material itself was not more difficult but my engineering classes were introducing me to a whole new world, while my accounting classes were trying to break through everything I thought I knew, so that I could actually learn something. Imagine my utter bewilderment upon learning that credit was not a "good" thing, to be fair it is not a bad thing either. Or that my car has never ever taken a big depreciation hit just because I drove it off the lot.

Again, you can't take the money of people who finish medical school to prove that it is not a lot of debt for those that don't. A few hundred k of med school debt is crippling for drop outs. Everything in business and social sciences teaches us that people in general perform better when they have a vested interest in success. This is usually called, "skin in the game." You can talk (or type) for the next six months and you will still not convince me that having skin in game has no motivational use. Furthermore, since our entire social, political, and economic system is based on vested interest I kind of like it.

I'm not sure what you're saying, but my two years on the pre-med trail had me fleeing for the sake of my sanity. I got tired of knowing all the libraries on campus better than all the bars in town. When I switched to Econ, with essentially an accounting minor, it was like I'd been released from a POW camp. Orgo wasn't the straw that broke this camel's back but it was close.

At my university, you had to not only beat the challenge of difficult material but also the competitive challenge from other students to get a top grade. If you did the former to a good extent but not the latter, that was a B because of the enforced grade distribution practices. After leaving the Sciences part of campus with my change of major, the material was considerably easier and competition was considerably less.

Your comment reminds me a bit of "the older I get, the better I was" sentiment. I know what the experiences were for my kids and their friends in STEM majors, and those elsewhere (like the business departments). I also know what I experienced dealing with people from the different academic streams during my career. I was lucky to have interacted with a lot of brilliant and creative people over the years with technical and scientific backgrounds. None were undergrad business or MBA whizbangs in their school careers, though I dealt with plenty of both, from all the best schools.

You can feel how you wish, but for the reasons explained, I don't think there's a comparison.

Stop thinking and use that computer you keep typing on to do some research.

I was right beside all those premed guys in O chem 1 and 2, I thought they were average classes but maybe I am just built for that. I graduated from a top 5 engineering college, and I competed against others also...I did OK. I know this because on graduation day, that one student on stage talking about the last four years, well lets just say he was wearing my underwear.

I am sure you are going to come back with something anecdotal and frankly I don't care. I am tilting at windmills at this point and we have so hijacked this thread that it is not funny.

Thanks for explaining where you developed the social and conversational skills of an engineer.

Don't forget the compulsive need to see if the facts actually line up with what I think.

Yes, that's consistent. For the many engineers I know, a fact=something they have said.

Boys, you have both become quite boring.

And we completely hi-jacked the thread.

An alternative to getting a job during college is to take an extra class some semesters and graduate early. It's double savings because you save on tuition, and the student gets to start work earlier. Not for everyone of course. AP classes and community college during high school helps too.

Taking extra classes can work but it take some very early planning. Prerequisites can really slow you down, especially in the more technical degrees so you have to really map out your college career early.

I am not a big fan of AP classes in general. In fact, I think they hurt more students than they help, but that is a somewhat controversial opinion. I would never take an AP class that was in my major, college classes are different than even AP classes and skipping the classes that instructors realize are transitional college classes is a risky move. Simply put, I am more lenient with entry level classes than I am with subsequent classes. The transition to college is hard enough for many students without skipping transitional classes.

Additionally, AP classes are a lot more challenging, which can lower a student's grades. At my son's school AP classes are graded on a 6 point scale which means you can maintain a 4.0 while getting a C in the class. However, colleges will typically not count the C as a 4.0 and will instead adjust the student's GPA down. For full disclosure, my son is currently taking 2 AP classes - One in history and one in math. He is taking the AP exam for U.S. history this Friday and has previously passed the AP exam for US Government and a European history. He is not taking the math AP exam, but wanted the more challenging class, and through his high school career has taken several AP classes and skipped the exam. I am OK with this because he is a strong student, but it still scares me a bit.

My exposure to the AP world is from the student side of the wall, not from the university side. Admission office people from two very admission selective schools both said about the same thing concerning their view of AP tests:

1) AP classes give HS students the opportunity to demonstrate (for the purpose of their admission applications) the ability to master very challenging material. Community college classes don't.
2) AP classes shouldn't be taken without taking the AP test, because that suggests the opposite.
3) AP tests shouldn't be taken without the goal of getting a 5 on the test. Getting a 4 as a consolation is ok. Taking the test and getting a 3 isn't well considered.

If the student's goal is a school with less competitive acceptance stats, rather than one that's highly selective, then the preceding really doesn't matter.

Both schools (that my kids ultimately went to ) gave college credit (units) for AP classes for individual test scores of 4 or 5. But, if any of the classes were part of a major or preparation for a major at the schools, they needed to be retaken.

Also, because of class sequences and other activities (research and internships) that took time, they found it wasn't possible to graduate in less than 8 semesters. But all did so in 8.

First, Snidely let me say that this is a topic that has 180'd over thd last 10 years. One of the problems is that AP class offerings are not universal, the high school my kids go to offers an AP accounting and AP Japanese. Neither of these programs are offered at any other school in the city and some rural schools will offer very few. So I find it very unlikely that admissions officers dig through to find out what you have taken. Furthermore, if your university accepts the class for credit financial aid rules can prevent the student from retaking the class. Not that everyone need be concerned about financial aid but some are.

Finally, we accept about 20% of our applicants and as dean I look through many of them and I have appeal authority for all of them, and I can tell you that I have never looked to see if a student took the AP exam. Not saying every school does this, but we don't. SAT - grades - extra curricular activities - admissions essay - and if all those things are equal we admit both.

There is no AP Accounting class or exam, according to the College Board site. Are we dealing with this situation?

Haha, couldn't resist.

It can't be common that a department head spends time looking at freshman applications. Except maybe for something like an engineering department where the departmental acceptance of applicants is supplemental or in place of that done by the school.

I just know what i heard in the two presentations. I'm sure every school has its own techniques for how to deal with being so massively oversubscribed insofar as the ration of apps to openings, how to pick which students to accept out of too-large pools of pretty equally qualified applicants, and how to populate each freshman class with the right mix so that the nerds, the jocks, the art students, and all the other "types" are properly represented.

AICPA is pushing AP accounting - Before College Board accepts there has to be an implemented pilot program which they are working on. I know some colleges started accepting it years ago, and there have been some really favorable results reported. We declined the articulation agreement when we were approached by the state CPA society, I can check with a dean of a small college I know who is accepting it and ask who developed the test if you really want to know.

KSCPA from 2009

aicpa.org

APAccounting.pdf

I think you have ample savings. However, as someone who has been through this with three children, and a fourth about to go through it, a few thoughts. Our kids had to have some "skin in the game" and so they took some of the federal loans. All are paying them back now that they have jobs. All worked in the summers and usually at Christmas. One wanted a college more expensive than we planned. So, she worked during college to cover her discretionary expenses. As far as the kid going to your school-I would do a full college search so that the child feels there is an element of choice. Your school may not be the one. And that is ok. I work with high school kids and I see that the ones who transfer from one college to another are usually the ones who were talked into attending a college by parents, friend, girlfriend, guidance counselor, etc.

tfitz1006 is absolutely correct about school choice. With all the arguing we did, my most important point seemed less significant. Going to repost it, because I feel it is so important.

The biggest mistake I see students make is attending the wrong college. The worst thing that you can do for your child is encourage him or her to attend your alma mater. I have watched many hundreds of incredibly bright kids, some who have won top national honors, fail in the most spectacular fashion because they went where their parents wanted them to.

I disagree with bry's comment. I too have been through this obstacle course with three kids.

The average high school senior is not equipped or prepared to understand the differences between schools and the criteria that are important for making the decision. Parental assistance when available can be invaluable.

I think kids should be given the choice (from a list of parent-approved alternatives) but honestly, going or not going to a parent's alma mater is really a neutral matter. Some parents are insistent on that and at some schools familial legacies are important, not so at others, so what? A student entering college needs to understand that whether they fly high or crash depends more on their own initiative and efforts than on the institution. Simple as that. No wrong choices, more likely wrong experiences and wrong personal attitudes once there.

Put another way, a student's experience is what they make of it. A great education can be obtained at crappy schools with enough effort, and when personal initiative is lacking, a crappy education can be obtained at great schools. The risk of bad choices is what happens once the college experience starts, not in making the choice.

Snidely,

I usually agree with your comments, but not this one - 'A great education can be obtained at crappy schools with enough effort'. Great schools being great have their reasons, such as quality of faculty, curriculums, student body, facilities, equipments, culture, tradition, process, standards..etc, From personal experience of ourselves and our children, we have learned one just could not receive Neiman Marcus level of education from Walmart level of schools.

azmom, what you're missing is that tenure track faculty positions are very difficult to get at any college/university. For any open position, a university may receive 400+ applications, all from people with PhD's from very good schools. There may have been a day when lower-tier schools had lower-tier faculty as well, but my understanding is that has changed dramatically over the last 20+ years.

Also keep in mind that most universities hire based on academic credentials, but this has a very low correlation with teaching ability. It's interesting that a typical newly-minted PhD will probably have taught some classes as a grad student, but received no formal training in teaching. In contrast, a typical high school teacher will have gone through several semesters of student teaching before becoming certified, and will then continue to receive additional coaching/training and performance evaluations once he/she starts teaching. Someone hired for a tenure track teaching position at a university though, probably has had no formal training in how to teach, and will be judged almost solely on his/her academic research & publications.

One thing that hasn't changed over the years, is that the bulk of the teaching in lower-level courses is done either by grad students or so-called "adjunct faculty". Again, I don't see that there's any correlation between the quality of instruction received and the type of university one attends. Is a first year grad student at Yale going to do a better job teaching an introductory course than a retired high school teacher (or maybe a PhD who was unable to secure a tenure track position) at a local community college?

Aside from this, it's often possible to take a course at a neighboring university if it's not available at your own.

The biggest difference, as I see it, between upper-tier and lower-tier universities, is the academic and cultural atmosphere on campus. Generally the better universities will have smarter and more motivated students (but this isn't always the case) and will have a better academic/cultural atmosphere. But all of this goes to Snidely's point that students at lower-tier schools will have to work at it a bit harder. There's nothing to prevent a student at BU or Northeastern from seeking out the best professors, and attending lectures and cultural events at Harvard. The Harvard students will have their opportunities handed to them, while the BU & Northeastern students may have to seek out those same opportunities.

Going back to the original debate between bry & Snidely, I think another factor to be considered here, is that, above a certain income/social class level, parents today put an incredible amount of pressure on their kids to achieve, but not necessarily to learn. They won't hesitate for a second to argue with a high school teacher that their kid deserves a better grade, and will naturally try to use their alumni connections to help their kids get into their alma mater. Given this level of pressure, it's nor surprising that many kids pushed into schools and programs they either don't want, or aren't prepared for, will crash and burn at some point.

azmom, I agree with your comment to an extent. If you accept (as I do) that brains and academic potential are evenly allocated among all socioeconomic groups, you'll see that there are very capable young people, as capable as any, whose family and economic circumstances may require them to go to the local community college and then the nearest state college, whether it's good or not. These achievers will plow their own rows, make their own experiences from what's available and graduate with honors after maxing out all opportunities available. My firm hires thousands of new college grads each year, and while we focus recruiting efforts at the top schools, experience shows that good candidates do pop up from other places. We just don't spend a lot of time looking for them at the lower tier schools and hope that through our reputation, they'll contact us. And they do.

But otherwise yes, for kids that can get in, the very top schools offer experiences and opportunities that other schools can't come near. Both I and my kids are graduates of Top 25 and Ivy schools, what we got from those experiences were life changing.

greasetrap, I also agree with you to an extent but not entirely.

The whole employment situation in academia is dysfunctional and I'm not sure why. Maybe too many PhDs are being produced in the system? Tenured positions, the traditional approach to hiring and developing professors for academic departments, seem to be in the minority at many schools and departments. We have a close friend who's a department chair at a large state university, and the majority of her undergraduate classes are taught by the so-called adjunct instructors. She'd prefer to avoid their use but financial constraints limit tenure track positions to a number that's inadequate to provide enough instructors for all the course sessions they need to offer.

Schools that have more selective admissions (ie, harder to get in) do tend to have more capable and more motivated students. Better professors want to be at such schools. And do note, greasetrap, that at the top schools, it's rare for an undergrad class to be taught by a grad student. And while some may have a limited number of adjunct professors, it's most often people who are extremely accomplished in their field who are really more like special guest lecturers than like the slave laborers an adjunct at a state school would represent.

Parental pressure and helicopter methods are an entirely different topic, best left for another day.

Snidely, while I can't speak authoritatively on the subject, I do have a number of friends who are tenured professors at upper-level universities, and they tell me that most of the lower level humanities courses (I don't know about business or the sciences) are taught by grad students or adjuncts. Sometimes large introductory courses are "taught" by a tenured professor, but it's the teaching assistants who do the real work. The reason for this is simple: a tenured professor generally teaches 3 courses/semester (9 hours of teaching/week), so the bulk of the lower level classes are taught by adjuncts. In addition, tenured professors get a sabbatical every 7 years or so.

I agree that any good professor would want to teach at one of the better schools, but my understanding (again from my friends - not from personal experience) is that the employment situation for tenure track positions is so dire (at least in the humanities) that any college/university with an open position will be deluged with applications, often from people with PhDs from top-tier universities. I've been told that it's fairly common to hear a candidate say something like "Yes, while I do have a PhD from Harvard and really enjoyed the program there, due to ... I'd really like to teach at a place like Podunk College".

My main point though, is that the academic system at most colleges and universities is geared to reward research and publication, not teaching ability. I've taken courses with world-renowned (in their field) professors who were terrible at teaching, and with unknown grad students and adjuncts who were great. I just don't see that there's a correlation between being highly published and being a good teacher.

My own experience (having gone to just-below ivy league undergrad and graduate universities) is that I received a great education, but didn't take advantage of anywhere near the number of opportunities that were available to me (like taking a year abroad or becoming truly proficient in a foreign language). 35 years later I look at some of the things I could have done and just shake my head.

"the academic system at most colleges and universities is geared to reward research and publication, not teaching ability"

Sure it is. All the way back to the classical Greek thinkers, intellectuals spent time attempting to answer questions that interested them or came to their attention. Their views and findings created the "knowledge" that could then be taught to their young followers. Likewise today, the great universities of the world have a dual mission, to expand human knowledge and understanding, and to pass same on to students.

A PhD is a research degree. I believe without exception, all require successful completion of a research project to demonstrate mastery of and the ability to advance intellectual understanding of a relevant topic.

As with you, I had encountered experts who were awful teachers. No matter, I preferred them to profs with better honed teaching skills but less expertise. Always. Adjuncts or visiting lecturers in my day were experts who'd earned classroom time through their own accomplishments.

That's why many of the land grant and other state schools are something like academic trade schools. Faculty members at such places do little or no research. Programs of study are academically vocational - nursing, teacher preparation and credentialing, accounting, engineering, etc.

"I just don't see that there's a correlation between being highly published and being a good teacher."

I agree. But there's also not always a negative correlation.

I was a TA in grad school and taught several entry level courses (with no real supervision), and the students in my classes and most of my peers were disadvantaged by the fact that they had someone like me teaching, especially my first year. I had no life experience (I was 21 when I started), and a bachelors degree. There is no way I would send a child of mine to a university that used TAs as the primary instructor for courses.

As as for working during college/grad school I think it's helpful for some majors and less so for others. Students in professional degree programs like med school, pharmacy school, etc., already have training built into their curriculum with residencies. However, someone working on an MBA, for example? I think it's critical that they have work experience either before or during their program. I've seen too many people get a degree and not work and then struggle to find a position in their industry.

for the OP, I think your plan is good, and while there are a lot of unknowns, your child will mostly likely be in a better position financially than 99% of kids going to college.

My CPA says debt is the great motivator. LOL. BTW, he's a fantastic accountant--one of those rare non-nerds in a nerdy profession.

In my personal experience with my own kids and their friends, I think that having some job experience, "real world" experience, is extremely valuable. My son has worked since he was 15 in a local tourism business and has almost 6 years of steady, stable employment experience dealing with the public and recently some managerial--all while attending high school (with a 4-year letter in a demanding sport), and now while attending a local college. His best friend just graduated a pricey private college with a degree but zero job skills and no idea how to obtain any. He's never worked 15 minutes in his life.

I know who I would hire.

So my 2 cents.

First, on the importance of good schools. As a professor I hate to admit that I have too little impact on the education my students receive. For a few students I make an incredible difference, but for the majority of students their education is determined by the capabilities, motivation and abilities of their peers. Most instructors, even adjuncts and graduate students, will teach to the level of the class over time. Every teacher sucks their first time teaching, there is simply no other way to so clearly expose the gaps in your understanding than to stand in front of a room full of smart college students. I worked harder to close those gaps than I ever did working, most instructors do the same. The benefit of good schools is that it surrounds good students with good students, and allows a higher level of teaching.

Now having said all of that - what is a good education? On the surface it may seem easy to define, but it is really not. For a smart, motivated student a good education might mean exposure and mastery of complex concepts and skills. For a smart but unmotivated or uninterested student a good education may also require a personal connection and/or inspiration. For a not so smart but incredibly hard working student a good education may also need personal attention or patience. In all of these situations an education is transformative but they all have different requirements and there are many more student types.

Second, on school choice. As a whole parents are bad judges of both schools and their kids. I am sorry to say that on a visit to a school, your kid will have a much better idea how they fit into a school than you do. Parents in general all think better of their kids than is true, and that is not bad, it is one of the great things about being a parent. Parents also often look at the end result of a school and forget the path to get there. To Snidely I submit there is no need for your kid select from a few pre-screened schools, if you have done a good job for the first 17 - 19 years, then he is already going to pick a good school he fits into. If you screwed up those years then limiting the selection is the least of your worries.

Next, on faculty jobs. I find this often gets painted with a broad brush when, in fact, the truth is pretty simple. Oddly enough, the degrees that struggle to find gainful employment in their degree have an abundance of PhD's. Many of the highly employable degrees don't have anywhere near enough PhD's who are searching for jobs. There is an incredible shortage of Accounting PhD's, I suspect that the same holds for the engineering disciplines, architecture, etc. The truth is that people tend to hide out in education when they can't get a job, that can go a long way to explaining why there are so many PhD's in certain areas.

Finally, on instructor qualifications. There is a giant problem in education today at many of the research institutions (but the effects are felt system-wide), and it has nothing to do with the qualifications of the instructors. The problem is that professors are driven to research, that the only path to permanency is research, it drives your pay and gives you credibility or notoriety. Students become an afterthought at best, and at worst students are distraction from our real goals.

I went to an awards banquet when I first started teaching, where I was lamenting the fact that at times my job was absolutely heartbreaking, to watch good kids try incredibly hard and still fail is rough. The guy sitting at the table with me, who is a fairly prolific researcher, shrugged and said he didn't care at all. He doesn't even attempt to know their names, and said that he taught because somebody told him in order to get paid he had to teach a few times a year. So he teaches, he doesn't grade the homework or the exams, someone else does, he just shows up and lectures so he can get back to the research that is his real job. He is the problem in universities today.

In accounting we value ethics above most other things. I don't understand how we can ethically take money from students and then refuse to even care if they get a value for it. It is a huge sore spot with me, I fight this fight all the time, and yet I know I am tilting at windmills.

Private schools can avoid this problem but often they are not seen as the best jobs. It is sad because it should be the other way around.

Oddly enough, I think we overvalue PhD's. A PhD doesn't help me teach students, in fact, if people were allowed a close up view of study in PhD program, most would question the usefulness of anyone having a PhD to teach. Most PhD specializations are so esoteric or at such a deeper level of understanding that they are simply unrelated to the classes taught. Also, PhD programs focus on research methodology far more than deeper knowledge of the material. Just to see what I mean I will link the University of Texas at Austin PhD program, this is not my school and it is a very good school but look over the classes in the PhD and tell me how that will help me teach either undergraduates or graduates. Accounting PhD

So again - just my 2 cents.

"To Snidely I submit there is no need for your kid select from a few
pre-screened schools, if you have done a good job for the first 17 - 19
years, then he is already going to pick a good school he fits into"

We can agree to disagree on this. College admission knowledge and strategies are specific, not generic. I think my kids were raised well (they agree, by the way), but none of them had a clue of where to start in facing this challenge .

In my experience, many parents of my kids' friends were clueless about directions to consider, college alternatives, etc. The kids in turn were clueless. My kids went to a high school with an outstanding counseling department (the major mission of which was to provide informed guidance about what schools fit each student's personal situation). They were a great help, but I think it still took some personal initiative to do a good job.

If a kid is going to a local school, a legacy school, or a junior college, all of this is of course moot. On the other hand, accomplished and motivated high school students at the top and bottom of the socioeconomic scale, who have a range of possible directions to go in and strategies to employ, can benefit from the same generic notion of "coaching" many receive on their sports teams. The coach doesn't play the game for the athlete, but rather shares knowledge and experience to help them learn to do better on their own.

PS, this has been a long and interesting thread for me. It's wandered all over.

Snidely, what you are describing is not exactly what your original comment on the subject hinted at. Of course, as a parent you should coach, and I doubt very seriously that many kids with choices make the decision on their own. So, of course, someone experienced may be necessary, and like many of life's bigger decisions input from lots of sources might be necessary. But I would not consider doing those things the same as "kids should be given the choice (from a list of parent-approved alternatives)"

I am not sure there is a right way to pick a school, I know from experience there are lots of wrong ways to pick schools, and chief among them is letting other people decide where you should go. Whether those other people are parents, guidance councilors, experts or whoever.

Finally, you are taking comments made in response to a statement as open ended advice. Lets look at the original statement, "my son who is 9 years old . . . Our alma mater is $60,000 a year right now, I know tuition has been rising at 5% a year. This is most likely the college our son will attend." It is patently absurd to even suspect that you have any idea where your 9 year old will be attending college. Anything more than silently hoping your son will attend your alma mater is crazy when he is 9 years old, maybe I am overly sensitive but my helicopter mom early warning system is going crazy with this. I spend a fair amount of time fielding calls from parents, explaining that we can't call them when their son/daughter doesn't come to class, no I can't tell you how they are doing in our program, and I understand that you are paying but I can't email you their assignments and or grades.