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Goodbye Wake, Hello William & Mary

freakadeac said:
Like buckets said, I'm telling my kids early if they want to go to a private school then they better get at least a partial scholarship. Tuition continues to rise at a clip of 6%, twice as fast as inflation. At least you have WM and UVA in VA.

Of course all of this is easier said than done when all of us root for Wake, and our kids see our awesomeness and want to follow in our steps.
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Definitely thankful that we've got really good publics here in VA, but the flip side is I'm under the impression that in state tuition is much more here than in other places. My post #2, where I legitimately had to ask the OP his residency after he quoted the W&M tuition, is evidence. Even in state won't he a walk in the park.
 
BacktoBack said:
That's purposely inflammatory. I imagine (maybe naively) that most folks who struggle with these types of decisions are solidly middle/upper middle class. Insanely rich people don't particularly care about the cost. I definitely went to school with kids of CEO's etc. A quarter million for college is no biggie. But I grew up middle to upper middle class and with three siblings my parents struggled to send us all through college. We fell in the just "rich" enough to not get much of any aid but just "poor" enough to make it a struggle. A lot of my friends at Wake were in similar situations. Your point is a straw man for effect and you know it.
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This is the camp I'm in; Enough money to not get aid, but far from being rich. Had I not started a business, I probably would have been in the camp where I would have gotten some aid. The point - colleges like Wake Forest need to trim the fat and try to make the cost more affordable. The fact that other privates colleges are expensive too, isn't much of an excuse. One day this idiotic model will collapse, and only the most select private colleges will be able to gouge consumers. Wake better move up into that group or they will be in big trouble one day.
 
Just saw that UNC-CH is $51K for out of state attendees.
 
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Everyone should make sure they donate to scholarship funds at Wake to make more available for everyone!
 
deac85 said:
Let's say there are 4 kids, each with the same qualifications. Here's how the monies would be distributed by family income:
1. High Income family would pay $60k (no financial aid)
2. Middle Income family would pay $35k
3. Lower-middle family income would pay $15-25k
4. Low income family would pay next-to-nothing.
For this discussion, assume the "actual" cost to educate a kid at Wake Forest is $40k. Parents of student 1 are basically subsidizing students 3 and 4. Wake loves high income families, as the whole model would break down without them.
Unless a student from a high-income family is in the very top 1/10th of 1% (and Wake is competing for Harvard for the kid), that student isn't going to get any money based solely on merit. As I mentioned, less than 5% of financial aid at Wake is based solely on merit. The college FA and merit scholarship people directly told me this. So about 50 of the 1,000 students in a WFU class are benefitting from scholarship money based only on their accomplishments. There are plenty of other qualified kids on a waiting list who will take your kids place if you don't like this system. I told folks at the college that my son will probably be leaving, and they basically said "nice knowing you".
So here's what happens - Student 1 from the above example can either pay the full price at Wake or pay substantially less at a top public university. Also, Student 1 might be attractive to a lesser-prestigious private college. Roanoke College would probably offer Student 1 some merit funding, as Student 1 far exceeds their criteria. So here are the choices:
Wake $60k
William & Mary $30k
Roanoke College $30k
Unfortunately, in reality, the process is even less fair. Student 1 could be a far better candidate than students 2-4, and the same process would take place.
This experience has made me very cynical. Private colleges such as Wake are a business, and they primarily care about your money. And there is no effort to try to minimize cost. How many assistant and associate deans does the college really need? I don't care how much money you make - $65k is a lot of money and its not a good deal.
Good luck to those of you out there with higher income and younger kids, who think that their kid is going to have money thrown at him or her because he or she is smart and gets good grades.
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College is one of the very few things that gets priced based on the seller's determination of "what the family can afford to pay," but with a top-end cap that limits the total amount for people who could afford just about anything. This pricing arrangement ("price discrimination") is a great deal for people who get tuition at below the cost of the public option, a fair deal if the price break keeps it near the cost of the public option, and not a big concern for wealthy families. Also works out especially well for families that get financial aid, when the grandparents are actually covering some or all of the cost.

Still, most of these families are shopping on value or perceived value. That's why people compare financial aid packages. Middle and upper middle class families are going to shop on the basis of value, too. From a value standpoint, Wake doesn't make any sense for that last category, at least IMHO.
 
Bill & Mary is the obvious choice. They are #33 vs. our#27 on USN&WR and costs half as much.
 
tjcmd said:
Libertroll
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How so? It's not by design that Wake has so few scholarship opportunities, though there has been a significant investment in the last decade thanks to very generous donors. If you love MSD, which I think most of us do, and would like to see her be more affordable, which I'm confident all of us do, then donating to scholarship endowments seems like an obvious way to make a direct impact on that.
 
They could also stop hiking tuition at two and three times the rate of inflation every year
 
During my son's recently completed 4 years at Wake, tuition alone went up $2K+ a year. His scholarship did not.
 
But donating for scholarships is almost like buying into the tuition hikes
 
We need to get some private equity guys up in there to tighten up the operating costs
 
Hard to believe that during my time at Wake in the mid '80's it was considered a "best buy" bargain school!
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Is it? Not donating leads to tuition covering more operating costs.
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It would be cool to see a campaign by concerned alumni that established a trust to subsidize each student's tuition, provided the sticker price for somebody paying full freight would never be more than a reasonable multiple of the highest in-state tuition. If UNC-Pembroke is $10,000 a year, the trust would pay out if Wake was $25,000.00 or less. Giving money to people who set tuition north of $60,000.00 seems like rewarding tone-deaf cost structuring.

I trust that the OP will inform the PTB of his or her reasoning on their way out of the door. May not do much good, but it needs to be said and heard nonetheless.
 
jhmd2000 said:
It would be cool to see a campaign by concerned alumni that established a trust to subsidize each student's tuition, provided the sticker price for somebody paying full freight would never be more than a reasonable multiple of the highest in-state tuition. If UNC-Pembroke is $10,000 a year, the trust would pay out if Wake was $25,000.00 or less. Giving money to people who set tuition north of $60,000.00 seems like rewarding tone-deaf cost structuring.

I trust that the OP will inform the PTB of his or her reasoning on their way out of the door. May not do much good, but it needs to be said and heard nonetheless.
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Comparing Wake to public schools isn't apples to apples. One of the best things about Wake - being small without sacrificing the student experience - isn't conducive to a value based price point.
 
I know it makes us all feel better, but is Wake really that different than some other options that are more affordable? I'd like to think the extra $$ my parents spent was for good reason, but I'm not convinced of that.
 
Deacfreak07 said:
Comparing Wake to public schools isn't apples to apples. One of the best things about Wake - being small without sacrificing the student experience - isn't conducive to a value based price point.
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One of the worst things about Wake is "$45,638" says "Beat it, poors. Those 'best things' aren't for you."
 
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