Actual tuition bills break down all of the fees. It would be kind of silly to add five more lines to the graphic in order to describe each fee.
Tech fee for computer lab, athletics fee for intramurals, etc.
Fuck the fees, show me where that $65k goes
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Useless amenities, administrative bloat, salaries for alumni outreach for more donations. College is a scam.
Thatās why you go to a country where higher education is free. Plenty of European unis have English language programs.
For foreigners/non-EU members? I know there are lots of hoops to go through in Poland for foreigners to get free tuition (most notably that you have to speak the language - which nobody wants to learn).
I told my kids that if they absolutely blow the doors off and get into one of about half a dozen schools, Iāll move mountains and make it happen. But I truly donāt believe there is THAT much a difference between the #15 school and #100. Northwestern is on the bubble, itās a great school no doubt.
Kid #1 did not blow the doors off and is happily attending WSU for about $30K/year. There are lots of leafy liberal arts schools on the east coast that would have happily taken our kid and $80K a year from us, but no thanks.
Kid #2 is a better student than kid #1. Heās a freshman so itās still early, but it would take a big shift for him to become Harvard material. Hoping he does well enough to get into a UC other than Riverside or Merced, but even that takes a 4.0 for most of them these days.
For the Czech Republic, itās for Czech citizens only. But tuition for foreign students is quite affordable and most schools have programs in English.
I couldāve sworn that it was more open in other countries though.
Not really, my son looked into it, not a ton cheaper in most western european countries than in the US for foreign students.
There are a list of 3 or 4 countries that offer free tuition for foreigners, but the caveats are pretty heavy. Like, Norway offers it, But only in their far northern locations
WSU is a good school. Kid #1 made a good choice.
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Thereās very little rational argument for spending this much money on an undergrad education. If I had a good friend who was dealing with the decision of whether to spend a shitload of money to send their kid to a top tier school, Iād say, āHey man, the sensible thing to do is send the kid to a good public school for undergrad (perhaps even a community college for the first two years), and then aim for a top graduate school if thatās their path.ā
But since our first kid was born, Iāve had the mindset of, āEducation is enormously valuable and I want our kids to have every opportunity to get into the very best schools, and I donāt want money to stand in the way.ā
What @LFS said is pretty close to my view:
Itās easy for me to see the argument that this is a really stupid point of view. The much bigger issue is the hypothetical where my kid doesnāt get into [Insert half dozen āeliteā schools of your choice] and wants to go somewhere that costs $70k versus the place where I work that would be substantially less.
I was told (I guess ālead to believeā would be more accurate) the same thing when I was growing up. I came through, but it did not happen. The reasons were understandable, but it was very disappointing. Took a while to get over it. As a result, I started saving for my kidsā college years before I had even one.
So, just make sure you hold up your end. Of course, I have no doubt that you would.
Its not free but France universities should still be pretty cheap (a couple thousand a year) and this might depend on the field but there should also be some good programs in English.
(Until a few years ago, non EU paid the same as everyone else ie a few hundred but this was recently changed. )
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I think the thing I did right was be very clear with my kids from very early on how it was going to work. When my (imo very smart) kid reached application season with a 3.4 GPA, he knew that his options were the UC system, the CSU system, and the WUE program (Save On Tuition | Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE)). In case people donāt know, your state likely has an arrangement with other states in the region to give out-of-state students reduced tuition at state schools. And even within WUE I was pretty committed to not spending extra money to send my kid to another stateās version of the CSU system when we have a perfectly good CSU system at home. So thatās how we ended up at WSU.
My kid also obviously had the awesome option in California to attend a CC for two years and get guaranteed admission to one of several UCs, but he didnāt want that. And I get it. So this wasnāt 100% my way or the highway. WSU costs us more than a CSU would, and way more than a CC would (if he lived at home).
@Melkerson that sucks. I do not think Iām in danger of the younger one all of the sudden getting MIT grades, but if he does Iāll sell my house if I have to.
My kid also turned down the free CC to go to culinary school. Not my wishes, but you cant make all of them for your kids, despite your wealth of knowledge and experience.
Oh well, I think my second is on the CC -----> UC path, so thats a positive right now.
Good lord, I went to WSU for about 5k in the '80s.
Csu schools when I graduated in 2001 were roughly 3500/semester for in state tuition.
Still expensive, but fuck me, 40K a year is crazy.
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Mrs Rugby testing possed on the pregnancy test.
Would make her about 5 weeks officially
Generally good news, but now Iām pretty terrified of something going wrong. I was planning to quit my job in June. But now will probably hang on a few months to take advantage of the 20 weeks paid paternity leave policyā¦
Not telling anyone IRL just yet, mainly because my two best friends I would tell both had pretty traumatic miscarriages in the last couple of year.
Funny thing is Mrs Rugby has redone the test 5 times in the last week. āJust to be sureāā¦
Gonna be a challenging 7 weeks.
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Best of luck, Rugby. First time?
Yup!
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