The following is a post by Katharine Rudzitis, a Yakezie Writing Contest winner. She wrote a thoughtful post after winning second place entitled, “Prestigious Expensive University Or A Free Ride Elsewhere?” on April 11, 2011 when she was still in high school. The post discussed her decision between Amherst College for $60,000 or Macaulay Honors College of CUNY for free and a stipend to study abroad. Here’s a first hand follow up.
Two years ago, I faced a difficult decision. I had to choose between attending a state school with a full-ride scholarship, or paying approximately $5,000 a year to attend Amherst College, which is consistently ranked the #1 or #2 Liberal Arts College in the USA. After talking to my mother, college counselor, and a handful of peers, I read through all the comments that my original post on Yakezie received. After a stressful few weeks, I decided that I would give Amherst a college try.
Once I’d packed all my belongings into a car, only one hurdle remained: figuring out how I would come up with $20,000 over four years. I was opposed to student loans because I wanted to escape the average undergraduate debt of $27,000, so I decided that I would do my best to pay out-of-pocket each year. I calculated that if I made some money each summer interning, I could work 20-30 hours a week during the school year to cover the rest. Thanks to how my summers and school years have been going, I’ve saved enough to avoid loans for all four years.
While it would be nice to just spend time with friends or completing schoolwork, working during college has made the entire experience better for me. It forces me to take my education seriously. If I add up the hours I spend in class each school year, I can see that each class period costs me a few dollars more than my jobs in the library and the dining hall pay per hour. I can’t escape thinking of how much each class is “worth” over the entire semester.
I’ve loved my time at Amherst: I’ve met wonderful people, had fascinating conversations, hiked mountains before breakfast, and gotten the chance to live on my own. However, I’ve come to believe that my school, along with other top colleges, aren’t worth anything near their sticker price. For what I’ve gotten out of my first two years, I find it hard to imagine paying the $50,000 a year that colleges charge, even if my family were in a different financial situation.
My first two years at Amherst haven’t served the purpose that I thought they would. In tenth grade, I’d come to believe that high school, with its grades, tests, SAT/ACT prep, and APs, was building up to something better. College was supposed to be the doorway to my adult life, and by senior year in high school, I could not wait to cross the threshold. What I found instead was yet another holding pen before I hit the Real World: in college, I get to live in a new place, meet people I would never have encountered otherwise, and only take subjects I enjoy, but I am still stuck.
I have two more years to go before I get my diploma that shows I sat through eight semesters of classes, each of which I enjoyed, but none of which I can honestly say will translate into job skills. Even Mathematics, one of my majors, has lost some of its promise as one of the more useful fields, because computers can do the vast amount of what I’ve learned to do by hand.
I want to learn how to do my taxes, act professionally in an office, ask my boss for a raise, find an apartment, and choose a car mechanic without getting ripped off. Those are reasonable expectations for things I will encounter in the adult world, and I’m slowly learning how to handle them through internships, real-world experience, and advice from others. College hasn’t taught me how to be an adult. It’s taught me all kinds of strange facts about David Foster Wallace, some beautiful math formulas, and thanks to a mandatory alcohol education meeting, that filling a standard Solo cup to its lowest line approximates taking a shot.
Perhaps if I were learning more immediately applicable skills, I’d find a greater benefit in these four years. It seems to me that the purpose of college is just to end up with a degree, not to graduate with life skills and the ability to navigate the workforce. If this is true, then I see no justification for the five-figure fees colleges charge.
I also don’t understand why there is a $40K difference between my Amherst degree and the one I would have gotten from my other choice, a New York State school. If Amherst isn’t giving me real job skills and is instead letting me have an enjoyable time and allowing me to put down “Amherst College” on my resume, why is a SUNY school’s degree so much less likely to get me hired? One name may be more recognizable than the other, but I see no reason why a higher-rated school is supposed to better prepare me for the workforce. I don’t feel that I’ve learned anything that could make my experience somehow superior to what I would have gone through at a lower-ranked college.
Maybe I’ve misunderstood the real reason for college. I love Amherst’s scenery, professors, classes, and general vibe, but I can’t help feeling that my four years will turn into two sentences on a resume, leaving me only with memories and no real-life skills. I wish that college weren’t the huge milestone that it is in our culture, because it seems to exist as a means to an end; while the means is exciting, only the end matters to others. I don’t think that my potential as an employee should be dictated by what my “Education” section contains, and I’m frustrated that there isn’t another way for me to prove myself as a young adult.
Readers, did anybody who went to an expensive private university feel the same way during college? Did your feelings change after you graduated? Would you have traded your expensive private university degree for a free ride at a much lower ranked school?
This is Katharine’s winning essay entitled, “Memories” if interested. It’s an incredible story about loss and hope.
Recommendations
Refinance Your Student Loans: Take a look at SoFi, one of the leading student lenders today. They look at you holistically in terms of where you went to school, what type of job you have, in addition to your basic credit history. They regularly offer 1-2% lower rates than their competitors.
Manage Your Money In One Place: One of the best tools I’ve used to help reach financial independence is Personal Capital. They provide great free financial tools for everybody to track their net worth! They allow you to also manage your cash flow and check for pesky investment fees.
Updated for 2017 and beyond.
Katharine, this post is awesome. I admire the way you sat down and thought through your college options and discussed what you should do with others before deciding on the school you thought was right for you– especially at those costs.
Even more impressive to me is the way you can objectively evaluate what you’re seeing as you go through school! It seems like people usually get defensive about their university, so it’s refreshing to hear an honest, real-world review from someone attending a prestigious school. BTW, I decided I didn’t want to attend college at all (so I didn’t) and it’s one of the best decisions I’ve ever made. I don’t recommend it for everyone, but I do recommend thinking through what you want to do with your life before you take out massive student loans!
Thanks for the compliments! My mom said that skipping college wouldn’t be an option for me, but it’s always interesting to imagine what my life would have been if I’d started working right away. Hopefully, in the next ten years or so, I’ll see what all the fuss was about!
Katharine,
Crazy how quickly time flies right? I take it you will be starting your junior year soon?
It’s hard to see the value of college until AFTER you graduate from college. Don’t underestimate the piece of paper because it may very well open a tremendous amount more doors than if you went elsewhere. That said, you will never know how many more. All you need is that one opportunity to get you on a great path.
I think a college degree appreciates in value over time. The network is very valuable. Just have to try and fully maximize. You’ll find that the real world is way more about who you know than what you know. It’s not fair, but it’s very difficult to change.
Best,
Sam
I remember all too well when I got to the latter years of my undergrad and talked to alumni who returned at career fairs. I’d ask how well the courses prepared them and how much of the knowledge they learned are they using at their jobs. All of them just laughed and shook their heads. I learned the name of your college helps you out landing that first job if you are going into a company with no inside contacts. After that, it will all be your experience. The college where you got the degree doesn’t matter as long as it has accreditation.
Hi Sam,
I’ve been working in Seoul (my second summer here) and I fly back to start school on Tuesday! Two more years to go! And as I mentioned above, I hope that I’ll start to see its value come into play when I enter the workforce. Connections are definitely important, so that’s what I’m hoping, ultimately, that my tuition has bought.
I actually had a similar dilemma to Katherine as a senior in high school. I received a full ride to a state school, and had to pay more for a private liberal arts college. I decided to go for the state school. Although the state school doesn’t have the name recognition as private university, I believe I received a similar education. I was in an honors program at the state school, and my classes were small, which means interaction was amazing! I made the decision because I didn’t want to worry about where I was going to get the money. Looking back I don’t regret it. I am debt free, landed a nice job after college, and have a network. If I want to attend a fancier, private school (which I do), I’ll figure out a way for my employer to pay most of the costs with their tuition reimbursement program.
It sounds like our classes were pretty much the same! I would have been in an honors program at the public university as well, so it’s interesting to think about how I’d feel two years into a program like that. I’m glad everything worked out for you, and I hope things work out for me similarly!
Great post Katharine. It’s really sad when you end up disillusioned over something you have very high hopes for, but maybe in the future you’ll learn to appreciate what your 4 years and diploma in Amherst will give you.
Thanks! As I said, I’m still definitely enjoying myself, and I see why everyone says that college is a great time in life, but I just wish that the benefits came sooner.
When you go to an expensive college, you have to get the most out of it by networking with rich people. Life skills are no big deal. You can learn that as you enter the workforce like everyone else. Enjoy your last two years and make lasting connections while you’re there. Good luck!
Thanks! I’m working on that, and I hope that it will pay off soon!
As someone who has just completed college, I can certainly empathize with what you are feeling. For my part, I don’t see the value in attending a more prestigious school 99% of the time. Unless that school is Stanford or Harvard, and you are entering a highly competitive field, there are plenty of jobs out there for those with degrees from “lesser” colleges.
Furthermore, most of the time employers are more interested in hiring people who can think, and people that exhibit confidence and character during the application/interview process. Clearly, you possess those things whether attend a more prestigious school or not.
As to the value of college in general, I don’t feel that its value lies in easy to define areas. I also believe that the value is realized more as you progress in your career, not necessarily in the entry-level areas.
The thing is, many of the most prestigious employers only recruit from target schools. Amherst is certainly on the list of some of the best employees in the world. It is next to impossible to score a job at a strategy consulting shop for example if you attend outside the target school.
Thanks! I like to hear that people care more about what’s inside someone’s head than the name of an institution on a resume. Hopefully, I’ll find a job at some place that only hires great thinkers, not just people from great schools.
I have heard about the Macaulay Honors College of CUNY in NYC…it is pretty prestigious for those the city university system. I don’t know how well known it is outside of NYC, but if you are planning on staying in NYC…it probably provides great experience. Amherst is a well respected school though, and at least you aren’t paying the full price. I know $20,000 is nothing to sneeze though. And yes colleges tend to teach you how to think but often don’t teach practical skills.
It is a good school for the NYC area, but most people I’ve met outside of the city have no idea what it is. (That’s unfortunate! It really deserves a better, more widespread reputation.) As I had no idea where I would end up, I figured that Amherst would give me a more marketable background, as I have no particular attachment to working in NYC after school.
So glad all unis in NZ are public. Yikes!
I went to a not so prestigious university, because their media degrees are the best. Hands down. (And not offered by the older, more traditional, prestigious ones.) I got great, practical education, and a job right out of it.
I wish that’s how it worked in the states! Since my majors aren’t specialized and hard to find, it was pretty tough to sort out places that were much better at teaching them than others.
As a guy who’s worked for two decades with people who all had six figure salaries…that two lines on your resume is unbelievably important….maybe not as much for undergrad, but grad school degrees with a name brand are a clear door opener.
Second, life is about proximity if you want to build wealth. Use the fact that you’re around people who are going to be future movers to become one yourself.
Maybe I’ll aim for a famous grad school, then! Sometimes it seems like nowadays, you can’t even get a job with just a college degree. As I’m not going to be a doctor/lawyer etc., would getting a second degree in Math or English be useful at all?
I think your first stop for that would be a trip to bls.gov and find out what the target salary is for your profession of choice. Then a cost/benefit analysis is easier.
If you don’t go to grad school then the name on your undergrad degree is going to be scrutinized more heavily.
I would say that there is no right or universal answer for choosing between a public and private university or from deciding whether college is such a good idea in the first place. Some professions benefit from a college education much more than others. I’ve observed that liberal arts programs benefit less than some.
If not for its educational value, consider college as an opportunity to network, build relationships and step a foot into the “real world”.
I definitely agree! The right answer is different for each person and his or her life goals. I just wish that there were a less expensive way to meet people!
I went to a public school that was almost free in undergrad, and then for graduate school I attended a top private school. I would say the difference is that if everything else is equal, the “top” school will give you a better shot at getting a job. Is it worth that extra money to have that name on your resume? I guess you will find out when you start applying for your first “real” job.
Essentially the economic question becomes, is this school’s higher cost justified by the improved employment prospects? That answer will depend upon you, your finances, your desired industry, and your personal goals.
Katharine, you are clearly a very smart young lady and a gifted writer. You are asking yourself the right questions, and your analysis is well thought out. Good luck with your remaining two years!
Thanks; I hope that the next two years go well, too. It’s hard to decide if the cost is justified before I even decide which field I’ll want to work in, but I’m hoping that it pays off. Here’s to finding something great at one of the career fairs my senior year!
I’m impressed by how level-headed you are as a junior in college – I never gave a thought to how my undergrad years didn’t really prepare me for “real life.” Though your college experience may be lacking in learning those life-lessons most of us learn as we live, your education will open the doors to opportunities that would not be available to you if you hadn’t attended. And as Joe mentioned above, the networking opportunities of Amherst should someday come in handy.
This is a difficult question. Personally, I attended 3 public universities for my undergrad and two graduate degrees. Yet, we sent our daughter to a private university. It was a great choice for her, yet her future is still being written. Personally, unless you attend an ivy or top name prestigious institution, I don’t believe where you went to school determines your future. Your personal efforts, networking, making opportunities and lifetime learning lead to success.
Thanks for reading! I like to think that my school won’t be the only way for me to succeed; I’ll work a lot on building those relationships for myself.
Well, if your out-of-pocket costs are $20,000 over 4 years, it’s tough to wind up with $27,000 worth of student loan debt. :)
For certain kinds of degrees, the difference between a state school and an expensive private one isn’t so much the quality of the education, but the quality of the of the name on the diploma. If you want to be a lawyer, a degree from Harvard is worth much more than a degree from Whittier. I’m not sure how much that applies to your field, but I’m sure it exists in some degree in all industries.
I also went to a more expensive school. It was still a public college, but one school offered me a full ride and the other only offered $3500/year. But the one that offered less scholarship was also the best college in the state, if not the region, for the program I originally entered.
Amherst does a pretty good job with everything, and I know that it’s a respected school, so I hope that it will end up being worth it. However, my majors (Math, English, Classics) are pretty common for any school, so I don’t think that there’s anywhere I could have gone that is excellent for all three.
College has it’s place because unemployment rates show clearly that college graduates have WAY lower unemployment rates than non-graduates. The biggest problems with college are that most people who go to college end up working in a job that either doesn’t require a degree in the first place or that has nothing to do with what they went to college for. So therefore other than what you said, that you learn to live on your own, make friends for life, and in my opinion “learn to learn” which is helpful for life, you really don’t learn in college much of what you will need afterwards. and most importantly you don’t learn how to make money and take care of you and your family financially. I even have written a book that is coming out in book stores on 9/10 with the title Forever Cash that talks extensively about this. So my stand is, the first degree is worth it because it increases your chances to not live on the street or work for min. wage, but after that the benefit of college becomes very questionable and the time should be rather spent on learning extra real life skills and/or making money outside of a job that can be turned into what I call “Forever Cash”
That sounds like a great topic for a book! I definitely agree that learning life skills is more important, but I still recognize that it’ll be easier to get jobs with a degree.
College does not prepare you for life or a job! It is another competitive environment where you can show what you learned and accomplished. The better the school, the more competitive environment. I have a good friend who went to Williams (undergrad) and Brown (masters). Whenever I talk with him, he raises my game. I went to work for a Fortune 100 company after graduation where everyone was the best. It raises your game and you learn a great deal. That is the benefit of going to a really good college. The payoff is what you do with it! Good luck.
Well, hopefully I’ll rise to the top! I definitely like being in a competitive place, because I agree that it does bring out my best academic side, and I hope that I’ll find somewhere to work that does the same.
I’d agree with many of the previous comments that college doesn’t necessarily prepare you by learning life skills, what it does do is prove to future employers that you’ve got the commitment to stick with studying one field for multiple years. Could this be achieved by just holding down a job in the field? Of course it could, but at the end of the day you need to start somewhere and unfortunately it’s almost become a requirement for any white collar job to hold a bachelors degree.
Only you are able to make the decision that best fits your goals Katharine and Amherst is a very good school. Most important is what you do outside the classroom. I went to a small but very good State University in Pennsylvania, IUP and was very happy with the choice. I feel what got me the job was networking with my professors and University Leadership, holding a leadership position in the student accounting association and dorm adviser, volunteering in the community, and finally the work experience of several jobs and an internship in the University’s Controllers Office. The recruiter from Westinghouse knew I could learn and had a decent work ethic by looking at my grades but more importantly he wanted to know if I was self-motivated and had leadership potential. In fact, we never talked about academics during the interview, instead we talked about golf and tennis! To this day, I believe Rich (yes I still remember his name from 1987!) was more interested in learning about me as a person and if I could work well with other people. One of the interviews I had was in a bar, that’s right, in bar! If you were not comfortable in a social setting you were not invited for a second interview! My advice for you Katharine is to get involved with a leadership position in a student organization of your major and seriously consider an internship in your junior year. Best of luck to you!
Those sound like great interviews! I’m the vice president of an Amherst chapter of a global non-profit, so I hope that helps show that I can get things done. I’ve also done internships every summer since tenth grade, and I imagine that I’ll continue doing that the summer after this year. Thanks for your tip about getting comfortable in social settings; I’ll make sure that I work on building connections and talking to all kinds of different people.
I experienced both public and private high schools and saw a HUGE difference between the two. As far as colleges go, perhaps the difference isn’t as significant. It’s natural to feel out of sorts at college and wonder how what you’re learning is going to be applicable in the real world or not. Consider taking some business classes. That may be more up your alley. I think a lot of the extra cost of private schools is seen in the quality of the professors, career centers, libraries, labs, class sizes, quality of the grounds/buildings/dorms/food/amenities/athletic programs, etc. Having a strong alum network at your fingertips is also fantastic but you have to be proactive about taking advantage of it. Best of luck with finishing school and congrats on working hard and being able to graduate debt free!! That is a huge accomplishment.
It seems like most people have the same kind of opinion; it’s not where I go, it’s who I interact with. I definitely see the extra cost reflected in Amherst’s faculty, facilities, and classes, and I do appreciate it. I’ll make sure to keep reaching out to others! Thanks a lot.
I also “forked up” for a private school degree, and it was well worth it. Great networking with well to do classmates, and would’ve paid more if I chose private elementary-high school. Went to public elementary-high school. Wouldn’t do anything differently!