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A college degree is a lousy investment

Brangus said:
That was me.

I'm one of those folks in the middle who's daughter does not qualify for financial aid (I ran our numbers through Wake's "calculator") but we live a low debt, modest life (net worth would not raise eyebrows, two professional incomes, 2,000 square foot house in a nice neighborhood, late model non-luxury cars, no second home, play public golf courses, kids in good public schools, Episcopal 40 something white folks wearing business casual every day, you get the idea. We're fucking basic.)

I'm not going to get into the loan arithmetic other than to say I think it's skewed because a lot of families pay sticker. Our town sends a fair amount of kids to Wake, and of those we know three families well who currently have kids enrolled. All three pay sticker. One is taking out a HELOC so their kid is not in debt.

Two kids live on campus, one lives off, all are in greek life, have cars at school, take spring break and other road trips, etc. All the kids work but only during the summer so it doesn't help much. The parents uniformly scoff at the cost of attendance posted on the Wake website and have said, in one way or another, that its going to take $400K to get their kid an undergrad degree. So it's not just coming from my jaded imagination.
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Sure, I don't doubt that at all. I only know two kids currently at Wake, both from families similar to what you describe. One pays $0 in tuition (ROTC) and the other pays $7,000 per year (faculty tuition benefit) - I have not asked, but I assume neither family is taking out loans. As I just posted, I think the financial situations are truly all over the place.
 
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awaken said:
https://news.tulane.edu/pr/tulane-study-explores-academic-success-among-jewish-girls

Tulane study on why Jewish girls are 23% more likely to graduate and pursue elite universities. Adjusted for socioeconomic differences.
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Interesting. I read an article years ago that found the best predictor of academic success for a child is the level of education attained by the child's mother. I looked at this Tulane study, and it's not clear how much that contributed to their fully controlled model.
 
Rafi said:
I'm just looking at the published numbers and having a discussion, just like I assume you are. "Truth-optional" seems a bit harsh and unnecessary. Also, if you're going to be stickler about the numbers, then I wouldn't use $400,000. Tuition for next year looks like it is $61,128 (x 4 = $244,512) and if you include all expenses (room and board, travel, personal expenses, etc.) the estimate is $83,054 (x 4 = $332,216).

I would guess the individual situations are truly all over the place. For example, for those that have the Wake tuition benefit, ROTC, or other programs and take no loans, they don't fall into the "loan" group but they also pay way less than the published tuition. I think there is likely a really wide distribution within both the "loan" and "no loan" groups.
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I'm relying on, and you are contradicting, the WF website which plainly states that fewer than half of enrollees receive financial aid. That is more reliable, by orders of magnitude, than any third-party websites posting numbers taken from disparate surveys.

You and Brangus, and others, seemed to accept the $400k number. As Brangus stated, the $1600 personal expenses number seems optimistic. And if we are projecting years 2-4, they will all cost more than year 1, using the past 50 years as a guide.

I attended WF through an ROTC scholarship. My tuition was not free - I paid for it with 4 years of my life following graduation. I don't begrudge the experience but I also would not discount the cost that those on an ROTC scholarship are paying to attend WF. It also has no bearing on those who choose not to commit to ROTC (and I would advise those going to college today not to - again, not begrudging the experience, just recognizing a changing world)
 
thatguy2016 said:
I'm relying on, and you are contradicting, the WF website which plainly states that fewer than half of enrollees receive financial aid. That is more reliable, by orders of magnitude, than any third-party websites posting numbers taken from disparate surveys.

You and Brangus, and others, seemed to accept the $400k number. As Brangus stated, the $1600 personal expenses number seems optimistic. And if we are projecting years 2-4, they will all cost more than year 1, using the past 50 years as a guide.

I attended WF through an ROTC scholarship. My tuition was not free - I paid for it with 4 years of my life following graduation. I don't begrudge the experience but I also would not discount the cost that those on an ROTC scholarship are paying to attend WF. It also has no bearing on those who choose not to commit to ROTC (and I would advise those going to college today not to - again, not begrudging the experience, just recognizing a changing world)
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As others have pointed out, the WF website is referring to aid from the WF financial aid office only.

I didn't care about rounding for simplicity of discussion. You argued that I was being "truth-optional" for reporting $18,000 instead of $18,500, but then you used $400,000 instead of the actual numbers.

Yes, those in ROTC have to serve after college. I wasn't trying to downplay that, I was just pointing out that their tuition is 0 and they probably fall into the "no loan" category.
 
Rafi said:
So is your argument that half of the Wake students are rich and pay full price, half take out loans and get financial assistance and end with $36,000 in debt, and there is a middle group that isn’t super rich and can’t get merit scholarships and they would have to make hard decisions about paying that much to Wake or other elite private schools? If so, I agree.
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Again, it’s a self selecting cohort - wake graduates graduate with a reasonable amount of debt *because* Wake’s reputation for academic elitism and enormous cost filters out all the potential students who can’t afford to attend Wake. That’s the reason why elite private schools have a much higher acceptance rate, because the kids who can’t go don’t even apply.
 
myDeaconmyhand said:
Again, it’s a self selecting cohort - wake graduates graduate with a reasonable amount of debt *because* Wake’s reputation for academic elitism and enormous cost filters out all the potential students who can’t afford to attend Wake. That’s the reason why elite private schools have a much higher acceptance rate, because the kids who can’t go don’t even apply.
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I agree to some degree with your first statement, but your second statement is wrong (or I’m misunderstanding it). Elite private schools have by far the lowest acceptance rates. Here’s the list https://www.usnews.com/best-colleges/rankings/lowest-acceptance-rate
 
I suspect that grandparents and generational wealth, whether realized or expected, are big factors for upper middle (or low high, whatever you want to call it) income families sending their kids to Wake. Otherwise, I can’t personally see jeopardizing retirement savings, perhaps after paying off undergrad and grad loans. But Wake is a excellent school and to each their own I suppose.
 
Don't get me wrong; Wake is a good degree and I love the place. I miss it. But it hasn't moved substantially in the rankings since the mid-nineties. Wake is tied for 28th with UF and UNC in USNWR.

Still, it is now more expensive than Vandy, which is ranked 14th.

If I remember correctly, Wake was (roughly) half the cost of Vandy in the mid-to-late nineties.

Wake Forest 2022 tuition and fees $59,770. (I also saw $62,128 on another link but went with the lower number).

Vanderbilt 2022 tuition and fees: $56,966

https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/
 
Brangus said:
Don't get me wrong; Wake is a good degree and I love the place. I miss it. But it hasn't moved substantially in the rankings since the mid-nineties. Wake is tied for 28th with UF and UNC in USNWR.

Still, it is now more expensive than Vandy, which is ranked 14th.

If I remember correctly, Wake was (roughly) half the cost of Vandy in the mid-to-late nineties.

Wake Forest 2022 tuition and fees$59,770. (I also saw $62,128 on another link but went with the lower number).

Vanderbilt 2022 tuition and fees: $56,966

https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/
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I wonder if the market performance of Wake’s endowment has anything to do with that.
 
I don't know why y'all expect wake to progress consistently up the rankings. There's not a lot of movement in the top thirty because not a lot can change.
 
wakephan09 said:
I don't know why y'all expect wake to progress consistently up the rankings. There's not a lot of movement in the top thirty because not a lot can change.
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UNC shouldn't be there after the scandals they have had. It's some fuckin' bullshit.
 
Brangus said:
Don't get me wrong; Wake is a good degree and I love the place. I miss it. But it hasn't moved substantially in the rankings since the mid-nineties. Wake is tied for 28th with UF and UNC in USNWR.

Still, it is now more expensive than Vandy, which is ranked 14th.

If I remember correctly, Wake was (roughly) half the cost of Vandy in the mid-to-late nineties.

Wake Forest 2022 tuition and fees $59,770. (I also saw $62,128 on another link but went with the lower number).

Vanderbilt 2022 tuition and fees: $56,966

https://www.collegetuitioncompare.com/
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The furthest back I could find for both schools was 2000-2001. Vandy was $24,080 and Wake was $22,410 ($1670 difference).
 
I think tuition was about 13k my first year, 1993-4. Then tuition went up about 3k for incoming freshman my Junior year, with the laptops.
 
Donkey Deac Doug said:
UNC shouldn't be there after the scandals they have had. It's some fuckin' bullshit.
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Virginia and Emory both had academic scandals and they didn't budge either.

The rankings factor in a ton of different variables and I don't know where "paper classes" fits in this calculation
 
wakephan09 said:
Virginia and Emory both had academic scandals and they didn't budge either.

The rankings factor in a ton of different variables and I don't know where "paper classes" fits in this calculation
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Which scandals were those?

I know there was a UVA cheating epidemic exposed about 20 years ago. But that was students not faculty.
 
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