Penni--
I agree with Mike that having gone to a big name school can help, especially if upon graduation you find yourself in a highly competitive job market. Another advantage: these schools try to achieve geographic distribution, and their alumni don't tend to stay in the same area once they've finished, so no matter where you go you're apt to find fellow alums who can be of help.
Don't know how things are now, but in my day the Ivies and Seven Sisters all offered financial aid to anyone who was accepted. They calculated the amount according to their ideas about what might put a financial strain on a family, but (I worked in the office one summer) were pretty generous. (Though you should have seen some of the complaints from parents: I vividly remember one who was furious because the insufficient amount offered their daughter meant that they'd had to abandon plans to put in a pool that year.)
But to put it in perspective: in a novel I read a few years ago, one of the characters said that he had to decide whether to pay for his granddaughter's first year at Vassar or buy a new car. And come to think of it, the cost of my own undergraduate education, though far less than it would be today, was pretty much the equivalent of a new car per year.
Janice |
