Families in the Northeast pay twice as much for college

[MU82]

I don't know what it is about this topic that gets my goat. 

Geez, MU82.  You and I are about the same age.  Back then people were just impressed that you were going to a four year college at all!  Way more kids go to UConn or the state schools like Southern or Western or UMass than go to prestigious private schools so there must be an awful lot of "lookin' down the nose at".  Sure, there are wealthy folks that think that way, but those people exist everywhere.  I see little evidence from your upper middle-class families on down (my social circle, which is also 90+% of the population) that there is anything like that.  Maybe I'm just hanging and working with the wrong (or right) people.

Again, I hate generalizing, and I probably just heard from the wrong few people. You probably have had a much more definitive "Connecticut experience" than I did all those years ago. I haven't been a New Englander since I was 18.

So, I should have listened to my mom and not said anything at all if I couldn't have said anything nice!

[jsglow]

Again, I hate generalizing, and I probably just heard from the wrong few people. You probably have had a much more definitive "Connecticut experience" than I did all those years ago. I haven't been a New Englander since I was 18.

So, I should have listened to my mom and not said anything at all if I couldn't have said anything nice!

That's no fun! Nobody here said anything nasty about anyone in particular. 

[Frenns Liquor Depot]

This turn in the thread rubs me the wrong way too.  The third Connecticut Yankee needs to chime in. 

I think this may be directed at me.

I have been here in total for about 10 years.  I don't find the people here any better or worse than anywhere else.  From a materialistic perspective its not even close to some other places I have lived.  My college attendance has come up quite a bit, but it is usually because people up here like to talk about college bball.  Most have nice things to say about the school and the program.

I would say the NE is a little insular to some extent - what areas aren't. I imagine part of it is because you can do so much in a very small area.  Also you don't have to go a long distance to reach multiple nationally recognized universities (lots of choices).

If someone had a bad experience, I can understand that, I know people that have had bad experiences all over the country.  I would say its a little ironic that someone throws out a charge thrown out about stereotypes - then proceeds to generalize a whole region/state...

[Disco Hippie]

I'm a southwestern CT native, and just recently bought a home there after living in NYC for 25 years.  It's fair to say the town we moved to, which coincidentally is my home town, is a "tony" suburb akin to a north shore Chicago suburb like Lake Forest or Winnetka.  Roughly 20% of the public high school graduates in town matriculate at Ivy or Ivy caliber schools such as Williams, or Amherst or Duke so the academic snobbery many are referring to is alive and well and competition to gain admission is intense.  That said, 80% of the student body ends up going to far less rarefied institutions of higher learning so while 20% is a very high number, it's still a minority.

I don't get the northeastern hate.  To me this is a non story.  Northeasterners pay more for college because the cost of living here is much higher and there are a lot more private liberal arts colleges out here for people to go to so a higher percentage of students attend them compared to the Midwest or say CA which has robust state system that's becoming ever more competitive, and actually part of the reason MU is getting more and more students from CA every year.  CA is MU's 3rd highest draw after IL and WI.  Even more than MN. 

In any event, I'm getting off track here.  My point is, even the less prestigious private schools here are just as expensive as the ivies so to me, this has far more to do with cost of living differences and the fact that there are so many more smaller private schools here, than snobbery since the "name" schools only take so many kids.

I'm guessing there's just as much snobbery in the affluent north shore suburbs or for that matter the north shore MKE burbs, but instead of Williams or Amherst or Middlebury, they're talking about Northwestern, UofC, Michigan, Oberlin, Kenyon etc.  Not much difference as those schools are just as highly regarded among northeasterners as the ivys and such.

[MUEng92]

Appropriate for this thread ..

Since 1999 / 18 years .. Americans have 137% more auto debt.  99% more mortgage debt.  23% more credit card debt.

And 828% more student loan debt.  Eight-hundred-Twenty-Eight Percent !!

https://www.axios.com/american-household-debt-2458678450.html

I think that belongs in your Daily Dose of Doom thread

[Benny B]

This turn in the thread rubs me the wrong way too.  The third Connecticut Yankee needs to chime in. 

Other than my 4 years at Marquette I've lived in New England my whole life.  I never hear at the top of anyone's question list "what school did you go to?" either.  I'm also more likely to volunteer I went to Marquette than to be asked about it, which is a thing that bothers my wife!

Out of curiosity... why does it bother your wife?  Would it bother your wife if you had gone to Harvard and volunteered the info?

During my GA work in Straz Hall, I did some data compilation for a brand loyalty survey that identified respondents only by age, gender, and locale... I can say from experience that the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions (essentially everything east of Ohio and north of Maryland) were the most likely to strongly identify with high-end and luxury brands and the second most likely (behind California) to align themselves with a brand because of how they may be judged externally.

So in defense of the New Englanders, for many it might not be so much an inherent desire to look down their noses at other people as it is not wanting to be looked down from the noses of their peers.  And from there, it turns into stereotyping when observed from the outside.  Just like people from all over the country think that all Wisconsinites drink beer and eat cheese... well, we only drink beer and eat cheese because that's all our parents gave us to eat and drink growing up, and we just got used to it.

[Pakuni]

Geez, I sure hate when those snobby, pretentious, status-obsessed northeastern elitists stereotype us Midwesterners as a bunch of slack-jawed yokels from flyover country.

[MU Fan in Connecticut]

Out of curiosity... why does it bother your wife?  Would it bother your wife if you had gone to Harvard and volunteered the info?

1) Why?  -  It happens too frequently in her opinion.   
2) Yes, it would still bother her.

[Benny B]

1) Why?  -  It happens too frequently in her opinion.   
2) Yes, it would still bother her.

That makes sense.  I suppose if I had a trophy wife, nothing would be more tarnishing than her blabbing about her excellent college education.

[Herman Cain]

A new report from student loan lender Sallie Mae found that families living in the Northeast are more likely than the rest of the US to consider the quality of a university's academic program when choosing a school, rather than the price tag.

Notably, families in the Northeast spend about 70% more on college than those living in the West, Midwest, and South, borrowing money and using parent contributions at a higher rate to cover the cost.

The typical family in the Northeast pays $35,431 for college. That's nearly twice the average amount spent by families in the West — $19,181 — while families in the Midwest and the South pay $21,577 and $20,953, respectively.

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/families-northeast-spend-70-more-141200213.html


tl;dr: People on the East Coast love the name of the school, cost be damned.  Where is MUFNY when you need him?

There is some practical basis in this analysis. The most populous state in the Northeast, New York , has a very mediocre state university that absolutely no one aspires to( with the exception of the ag department at Cornell which is public). As such many people would rather pay up for a private university or will bite the bullet and pay up for a decent out of state public.

[Disco Hippie]

During my GA work in Straz Hall, I did some data compilation for a brand loyalty survey that identified respondents only by age, gender, and locale... I can say from experience that the Mid-Atlantic and New England regions (essentially everything east of Ohio and north of Maryland) were the most likely to strongly identify with high-end and luxury brands and the second most likely (behind California) to align themselves with a brand because of how they may be judged externally.

So in defense of the New Englanders, for many it might not be so much an inherent desire to look down their noses at other people as it is not wanting to be looked down from the noses of their peers.  And from there, it turns into stereotyping when observed from the outside.

This shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone.  The reason the Northeasterners and CA residents are more likely to identify with high end and luxury brands is because there's a higher concentration of very high income people in those areas who can actually afford them, so again I think this has far more to do with much higher cost of living / higher income than snobbery.  When the same questions are asked of folks in areas where incomes/housing costs are much lower and people don't routinely stay at Ritz Carltons and buy Jimmy Choo shoes and Louis Vuitton bags because they can't afford to, they're not going to identify with those brands as much.  I don't think it has as much to do with Northeastern snobbery or CA superficiality.  Not saying neither exists, just that there are some obvious reasons for those results that shouldn't surprise anyone. 

[LAMUfan]

I will add this.  I've heard that until recent years Milwaukee felt somewhat 'closed' for outsiders and that the influx of educated outsiders say in the last 10-15 years has helped some.  I can absolutely see that.  Forever I have said how every Milwaukeean should be required to live somewhere else for two years before being allowed to return home.  Maybe then they won't bitch about $5 parking downtown or that Summerfest is up to a ghastly $15.  Too many in MKE don't know how absolutely great they've got it.

That is a great idea.  I grew up in Santa Monica and have lived in Milwaukee since Marquette (2002) and I have given up trying to answer people from Milwaukee when they ask me why I live here.  Everyone one from LA that comes to visit looses their mind about how much fun they have here without traffic and $15 bud light

[jsglow]

That is a great idea.  I grew up in Santa Monica and have lived in Milwaukee since Marquette (2002) and I have given up trying to answer people from Milwaukee when they ask me why I live here.  Everyone one from LA that comes to visit looses their mind about how much fun they have here without traffic and $15 bud light

We have good friends that we served on the Parents Board with who had a daughter that came to Marquette from Orange County.  It was their first experience with MKE.  She graduated about 3 years ago and they still travel here regularly and constantly gush about it.  We've teased them suggesting that they buy a condo.  I honestly wouldn't put it past them.

And you know what?  That mixing of blood from the outside is healthy.  Folks like that are able to tell the 'forever locals' to STFU when they complain that it takes them a whole 20 minutes to drive downtown.

[forgetful]

Honestly, I have never heard that.  And I would assume that I would be hearing that about other people.

Very late reply, but, I friends kid finished as valedictorian, very sold ACT/SAT scores.  When it came to local scholarships essentially got none of them.  When I asked why, I was told that the people offering the scholarships get to choose the recipient and most offering higher dollar scholarships were doing it for publicity and didn't want to waste their money on a kid going to a cheap state school. 

Many parents also snickered about how it was shameful for the family to waste their kids talents.  The kid made the decision to save money, has since turned out to be extremely successful.

Have heard many similar statements from parents over the years.  The parents doing this are typically upper/upper-middle class, who are very concerned about stature.  There are more in that demographic (as others have noted) in the east and west, so it is a bit more common, but it is a demographics issue, not a locale.

[warriorchick]

We have good friends that we served on the Parents Board with who had a daughter that came to Marquette from Orange County.  It was their first experience with MKE.  She graduated about 3 years ago and they still travel here regularly and constantly gush about it.  We've teased them suggesting that they buy a condo.  I honestly wouldn't put it past them.

And you know what?  That mixing of blood from the outside is healthy.  Folks like that are able to tell the 'forever locals' to STFU when they complain that it takes them a whole 20 minutes to drive downtown.

God bless them and their LA POV.  Glow and I smiled when they recommended the Pfister to someone who was looking for a modestly priced hotel in Milwaukee because it is only $200/night.

[muwarrior69]

There is some practical basis in this analysis. The most populous state in the Northeast, New York , has a very mediocre state university that absolutely no one aspires to( with the exception of the ag department at Cornell which is public). As such many people would rather pay up for a private university or will bite the bullet and pay up for a decent out of state public.

So when and how does that "free college" start in New York.
I can see some folks moving to the state just send their kid to college regardless of how "mediocre" it is.

[warriorchick]

So when and how does that "free college" start in New York.
I can see some folks moving to the state just send their kid to college regardless of how "mediocre" it is.

They are only mediocre if you are a East Coast snob.  4 of the SUNY schools are ranked in the top 100 by USNWR.

[TAMU, Knower of Ball]

They are only mediocre if you are a East Coast snob.  4 of the SUNY schools are ranked in the top 100 by USNWR.

I'm guessing Binghamton, Stony Brook,  Buffalo and....who? Albany?

[JWags85]

I'm guessing Binghamton, Stony Brook,  Buffalo and....who? Albany?

Environmental Science and Forestry...seriously.

[warriorchick]

I'm guessing Binghamton, Stony Brook,  Buffalo and....who? Albany?

That would be SUNY College of Environmental Science and Forestry in Syracuse....squeaking in at #99.

Go Mighty Oaks!

[Herman Cain]

They are only mediocre if you are a East Coast snob.  4 of the SUNY schools are ranked in the top 100 by USNWR.

This discusion is about why people pay higher tuition in the Northeast. Which is what I was responding too.

Absolutely no one aspires to go to a SUNY in New York.  It is simply not in the mindset. I have been on school boards at top ranked public high schools and have reviewed admissions patterns for years. It is not snobbishness at all. People would rather spend their money on some school like Denison or Dickinson or Getttysburg than send their kid to Binghampton. Or alternatively they will pay out of state Tuition to go to some place like Michigan , UNC , Cal, Virginia etc. I am not saying that is always a smart decision at all. In fact it is in many cases its a lousy economic decision. I actually think a lot of the people sending their kids to private schools should send their kids to Community College first, but that is another discussion.

If New York had a reasonable flagship state school like U Conn, Penn State, Pitt,  Vermont, New Hampshire and other states in the Northeast then maybe things would be different in terms of the willingness to pay higher tuition. In the midwest there are so many good state schools that people are proud to go to , the case has to be made for spending the additional money for private.

This whole discussion is why I am so keen on MU reverse engineering its US News ranking. There is now way in the world that MU and SUNY Binghampton are remotely in the same league academically or , college experience wise, yet they both have the same US News ranking.

As far as I am concerned MU should be in the same category as Villanova with aspiration to be moving toward BC level.

The guy at Northeastern is a genius who reverse engineered their rankings from 147 to 39 and they became a self full filling prophecy where kids and families are now excited to go there, and as a result they have been able to build an incredible coop program that students and employers are flocking too. A virtuous circle.

[Disco Hippie]

This discusion is about why people pay higher tuition in the Northeast. Which is what I was responding too.

Absolutely no one aspires to go to a SUNY in New York.  It is simply not in the mindset. I have been on school boards at top ranked public high schools and have reviewed admissions patterns for years. It is not snobbishness at all. People would rather spend their money on some school like Denison or Dickinson or Getttysburg than send their kid to Binghampton. Or alternatively they will pay out of state Tuition to go to some place like Michigan , UNC , Cal, Virginia etc. I am not saying that is always a smart decision at all. In fact it is in many cases its a lousy economic decision. I actually think a lot of the people sending their kids to private schools should send their kids to Community College first, but that is another discussion.

If New York had a reasonable flagship state school like U Conn, Penn State, Pitt,  Vermont, New Hampshire and other states in the Northeast then maybe things would be different in terms of the willingness to pay higher tuition. In the midwest there are so many good state schools that people are proud to go to , the case has to be made for spending the additional money for private.

This whole discussion is why I am so keen on MU reverse engineering its US News ranking. There is now way in the world that MU and SUNY Binghampton are remotely in the same league academically or , college experience wise, yet they both have the same US News ranking.

As far as I am concerned MU should be in the same category as Villanova with aspiration to be moving toward BC level.

The guy at Northeastern is a genius who reverse engineered their rankings from 147 to 39 and they became a self full filling prophecy where kids and families are now excited to go there, and as a result they have been able to build an incredible coop program that students and employers are flocking too. A virtuous circle.

As a fellow NYC metro area resident, I agree with most of Jackie's sentiments.  He is right that the SUNY schools are rarely the first choice of students or their parents that are in a certain social strata and live in the right type of suburb.  The type of people who live in certain Westchester Co. suburban towns with annual property taxes of $20K+ even for the few modest homes one can buy in these places that cost less than $1M, and yes, $1M will only buy you a very modest home in most of these areas.  Maybe  a 1700 Sq ft home built 100 years ago that shares a driveway and doesn't have a garage that needs six figures worth of renovations to get it up to snuff.  That's why we moved to CT.  Better housing stock and half the annual property taxes, but a longer commute. 

SUNY Binghamton and Stonybrook are good schools and academically at least as good as MU, I would guess they're both slightly better and have slightly higher test scores and a lower acceptance rate too, but have no facts to verify my gut instinct so I disagree with Jackie that they're not in the same league as MU academically.  They definitely are.   In terms of College experience though,  Jackie is right, MU is much better as are all the other state schools that he mentioned for whom parents in this area happily shell out out of state tuition that rivals the ivys and is more than Marquette's in many cases.  SUNY athletics are all D3 and most students go home on weekends so their campuses are nothing like UNC, UVA, Cal, etc.

But that's why MU needs to take rankings more seriously.  My high school sends 10 kids a year to Madison.  Maybe more and they have for 30 years.  I live in Southern CT for god's sake!  MU thinks people here aren't willing to travel to go to a school like MU and and pay private school tuition yet people routinely pay just as much if not more to go to Bucky and it drives me insane.

MU has taken some great steps forward on the research front, moving up in the Carnegie Classification rankings, and they maintain a dashboard to see how they compare themselves to other slighter higher US news ranked schools on all kinds of other academic criteria, but as long as they continue to have a 75% acceptance rate, that really cancels out much of the good progress they're making in these other areas and they either write that off as irrelevant or flat out refuse to acknowledge the negative impact our high acceptance rate has on the brand in the northeastern US.  Here is a link to the dashboard for those of you that are interested.   There's some fascinating stuff on there if you have the time to go through it.

http://www.marquette.edu/strategic-planning/theme-academic-excellence.php

http://www.marquette.edu/strategic-planning/referents.php

When one googles any top 100 institution, the stat that is front and center is the acceptance rate, not how many people return following Freshman year, or how many graduate in 4 years and then how many graduate in 6 years.   To say things like we don't want east coast snobs with those attitudes infiltrating our campus is not helpful.  If MU wants to move up they need to play the game a little bit.  I would not advocate doing what  Northeastern did since they completely manipulated everything, but give them credit.....It did work.

If MU wants to be taken more seriously and become a destination school for more students in the Northeast, they need to get that stat down. The acceptance rate of the schools on the dashboard and how MU compares to them is nowhere in sight so I think they're well aware of the issue.... they just choose to ignore that stat, despite it being the most readily accessible stat of all, because MU looks pathetic by comparison, so the only conclusion I can draw is they don't want to double the staff of the admissions office to process the substantially more applications it would take to get the acceptance rate down. 

All I've ever asked for is they get it down to the 55-60% range where it's historically been. MU is never going to achieve BC like status in the academic world.  That's not going to happen but they are a better school then they're ranked, Jackie is absolutely right about that and it frustrates us both that they don't act like it.

[GGGG]

Thank God Marquette doesn't care about acceptance rate. It's a meaningless stat. If kids go elsewhere because of it, fine by me. If those kids or their parents think it is indicative of "quality," then they're idiots.

And if that means that they aren't viewed favorably in the northeast. Oh well...

[Disco Hippie]

Thank God Marquette doesn't care about acceptance rate. It's a meaningless stat. If kids go elsewhere because of it, fine by me. If those kids or their parents think it is indicative of "quality," then they're idiots.

And if that means that they aren't viewed favorably in the northeast. Oh well...

It's meaningless in terms of the quality of the education the institution provides, I agree with that and MU wouldn't become a better school overnight because they accepted 15% less students, BUT they would be perceived to be a better school.   Again I agree with everyone who says that stat has no bearing on quality,  but because some people feel otherwise they have to at least take it into consideration.  In an era when the cost of private higher education continues to skyrocket, the notion that MU isn't doing everything it can to enhance their brand (including exclusivity) is mind boggling.  If MU doesn't think it's an issue why don't they own the stat and wear it as a badge of honor and say we know we're great despite the fact that we let almost everybody in?  I wouldn't necessarily agree with that Trumpian approach but I'd at least respect them for giving the finger to the academic elite.  Would it work that's the question?

Instead they go out of their way to hide it and don't use the single most readily accessible stat that every school publishes to compare how they stack up against others.    Again I say all this as someone who is in total agreement that acceptance rate is meaningless in terms of academic quality, but it absolutely unequivocally is NOT meaningless as a recruiting tool.

[jsglow]

Here's what MU is really interested in.  2,000 Frosh every year with a slow uptick in student quality.  What they'd also like is not to have to subsidize quite as many via scholarship with the endowment as it currently stands but that's not practical at the moment. 

Let's remember, MU is located in an area of declining local college age matriculation candidates.  Our bread and butter was always Wisconsin and Illinois and those simply aren't and won't be growth markets.  The first two years of the new targeted admissions recruiting has been an acknowledged success in achieving the university's goal of maintaining the Frosh class size and standard.  If that flies in the face of some folks expectation in some parts of the country, the university is willing to live with that.  The perceived yield is just too small for the massive investment necessary. Purposefully gone are the days of 25,000 apps. coupled with lots of rejections.

Frankly, I hear way more about Admission's west coast activity.  I honestly think they believe that they get way more bang for the buck out there.