TNR: 'Don't Send Your Kids to the Ivy League'

I honestly don't know what I would do if my kids have the option to go there. I think it would completely depend on what field they wanted to go into. I don't know that I could be fully supportive of them going to a school for $50K a year if they don't have a pretty good idea what they want to do.

I wouldn't want them to go where I went, even though it was a very pleasant experience for me. I think kids get very coddled at most of those schools and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

 

Are parents to "blame," or have parents become much more savvy as to how these things work, especially when they see a system that seems to reward fewer people and punish the less connected harder for their mistakes? If this shit didn't work to get their kids into an Ivy league school (or whatever activity or place they want their kids in), parents wouldn't do it.

It's like all the money parents spend on travel sports and special training for their kids. Sure, it's unreasonable in that the chance of a scholarship is pretty small. On the other hand, in most sports coaches don't care what you did in high school -- they care what you did in alleged all-star, elite competition. So parents spend the money.

On the other hand, sure, parents can drop out of those systems. But that takes its own kind of savvy -- particularly, the savvy of knowing your child, his or her interests, and what school or activity is the right fit. This guy can say the Ivies blow, but as already established on this thread, unless you're a complete washout, having an Ivy degree gets you chances other college grads don't get. After all, no hiring manager even got fired for an Ivy grad flaking out -- the degree is defensible.

 

Also depends on whatever future career path they want. We've had this talk in our house as our son is on an academic track where he could get into some Ivies.

Except he wants to follow engineering.

He will take a stab at Stanford and MIT (just to see if he gets in) but those "rankings" for engineering schools are a bit different than the liberal arts/finance rankings.

 

Couple things, Bob.

I shouldn't have used "blame." That implies moral judgment. Parents are responding to incentives. I'll respond to them, too.

And I don't think the author would argue that the ivies don't set you up, job-wise. I think that he would argue that, yes, they set you up, job-wise, but do a poor job facilitating self-discovery and independent thought. At one point he writes that professors and students, particularly in the humanities, have settled into a "non-aggression pact."

Also, exmediahack, although the author uses the word Ivy, I think he uses it generically, as Stanford is used as an example school at one point.

An interesting point he makes, but never follows through to my satisfaction, is that flyover religious schools do a better job nurturing independent thought and development of the "self" than the elite schools. I don't know which schools he means. Wheaton College comes to mind. And the one the NYT recently wrote about where the professors had to sign a pledge not to support evolution.

 

Perhaps people would respond better to the author if he explained how independent thought and self-discovery get you a job that makes lots of money. That stuff is all well and good -- hell, I want my kids to have these traits -- but if you're paying tens of thousands a year for college, with student loans that will come due (and never be allowed to be dismissed in a bankruptcy case), you want a guaranteed big-money job someday, not independent thought and self-discovery.

 

Why focus in the cost of attending an Ivy? People do understand the real cost to attend for poor-to-middle class kids is low?

 

I'm not sure that he feels that he has to. I think he would argue that independent thought and self-discovery is more important, ultimately, than getting a job that makes one lots of money. Further, we have developed a system that has made the two aims largely mutually exclusive.

 

This is an excellent point. I know a guy in town with a kid at Harvard. His total cost is about $11,000 a year because of their income -- and he probably makes 50 a year.

If you make a good (but not extravagant) living in an area where the cost-of-living is quite low, this can be an incredible value. I can typed in the numbers for our situation and a year at Dartmouth would run $25,000 for tuition, books, dorm. Which is only about six grand a year more than our state college.

 

Exactly correct. The endowments at the big boys allow those of less-than-stellar means a chance to attend at likely a lower cost than local private colleges or even some State U's.

 

I almost feel like I might be gaming the system as I look at this. Our HH income is about 120 but we live in a 140k house in a town with an extremely low cost of living. Our 120 goes much much further than someone in Southern California, Boston, DC, New York, etc. Yet we would be able to absorb 25k for a year at Dartmouth with more ease than something with a 550k mortgage.

My best friend in town has to write a check for 61k a year at Georgetown for his soon-to-be freshman kid. He makes 175 a year, lives in a large house, drives a Mercedes convertible. He's getting NO Help from the Hoyas.

 

There is no way a family making $50,000 has to shell out $10,000/year for their kid to go to Harvard, unless they aren't going through the university's financial aid process.