I took Miracle Boy "school clothes" shopping yesterday. I told him it was probably the last time I would ever buy him school clothes as he leaving for collage. It was just he and I. And we had a great time. We laughed, we talked about some serious topics, he opened up about things. In general, it was awesome. I love spending time with that boy. Ahem, young man.
Waiting for him while he was in a changing room, I struck up a conversation with another mother also waiting. Her daughter, soon to be a sophmore at Johns Hopkins University, was also getting school clothes. We had a nice converasation about where our kids were going to school, what they were studying, and the cost of post secondary education. Her daughter is attending Johns Hopkins, a very prestigious, very expensive school. A school full of "spoiled, ivy league rejects" as she put it. She had a great sence of humor.
In the course of our conversation she indicated that although her daughter received several scholarship offers from other schools, she insisted on going to Johns Hopkins. Johns Hopkins does not award merit scholarships. We learned this when Miracle Boy wanted to attend Stanford. There are no merit scholarships at these schools. Probably because everyone who applies is a great student. So, her husband writes the checks every year totalling $60,000 per year. Thats right folks, $60,000 per year. As in $240,000 for a four year undergraduate degree. Almost a quarter of a million dollars, if she finishes in 4 years.
After our conversation, I started to wonder. Can a 4 year degree really be worth a quarter of a million dollars? Is a degree from a school like Johns Hopkins or Stanford really worth 3 to 4 times what a degree from our local state collage is worth? Will someone who graduated from one of these schools really make that much more money? Be that much more successful? Be that much happier and more satisfied with life? I just can't wrap my brain around it.
Clearly this family could afford to pay $60,000 a year for their daughter's education, or so it seemed. But I started to wonder, would I do it even if I could? I simply do not believe there is that drastic of a difference in the education, or the resulting knowledge or earning potential. I know there are studies on this, I looked briefly. What I found is that there is no consensus. Where one says overwhelming yes, it is worth it. The next says overwhelmingly no. And the numbers cited, about the average incomes of this prestigous group? Well, I was making that income in my prior life. 6 years after graduating from a small, local, private school. (On scholarship, otherwise it would have been the local state school) So, I just can't buy into it. Yes, you may make great connections and contacts. But this is not necessary to be successful or happy.
I ended up with a completely different internal response to the conversation than I thought I would have had. I would have thought that I would have felt bad that we weren't paying more of Miracle Boy's educational cost. That I would have felt guilty that I only gave him $250 for school clothes instead of the $1,000 the other girl was spending. That I was being miserly telling him that we weren't going to fly him home for Thanksgiving, that he wouldn't come home until Christmas.
But surprisingly, that's not how I felt. I honestly felt good about our decisions. When Miracle Boy was born, I started a college fund for him. As the time approached for him to start making some choices, I showed him the balance and told him that is what we were contributing. No more. He needed to make a decision based on what he could afford based on that information. And he did. He's attending a good school out of state that offered him generous scholarships. He worked 2 jobs all summer to make up the difference between the scholarships, what we are giving him, and the remainder for room, board, and books. He's happy with his decision. And more importantly, he's contributing to his own education. To me this is critical.
In this world were we (especially as mothers) second guess many of our decisions, wish we could do more, feel inadequate; it's a nice change to feel good about something for a change.
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