If your family earns less than $60k, Harvard is free

[erbiumfiber]

There's apparently some new move to decrease tuition at Ivy League schools. This is ahead of Congress moving to regulate schools with huge endowments to pay out 5% of the endowment value per year (consistent with other charitable trusts). My school has a HUGE endowment, in the top 5 or so, I think, so I never feel guilty about not giving them a lot of money. It was damn expensive when I went and I got jack from the school so I usually just give them about $100 per year.

If you make under $180k, you only have to pay 10% of your family income towards tuition.

Sure, NOW they decide this, after my daughter is already going to school overseas (which is cheaper than current tuition at an Ivy League school).

Maybe this trend will catch on and more private schools will lower their tuition. Right now, it's a pretty unfair system. If your family makes below a certain amount, you get a virtually free ride. If you're upper middle class, you pay through the nose (and pay a larger percentage of family income towards college costs than those below the cut-off). It's ridiculous- something like 3/4 of private school college students are on financial aid of some kind. What about just lowering the tuition for everybody (while still keeping financial aid)?

It's a strange system. And why college tuition has risen at such an incredibly high rate is crying out for investigation.

Anyway, this looks like a step in the right direction (along the lines of lowering tuition for everyone) but only because it appears that the threat of regulation is looming.

Here is the related article:

http://finance.yahoo.com/expert/article/generationdebt/64241;_ylt=Are_cM29jIfYHagQZRFjT2u7YWsA

Anyone else heard anything about this? Please post any other links you have.

[qwert]

Ivy League schools are for the privileged who are prep'ed for the SAT from day one, the lucky, hard working, intelligent poor, racial minorities with big plans, and those who went to the special few schools from which a few kids are selected every year.

I go to school with a kid who's father is a very wealthy man. His brother made a little over a 1200 on his SAT and was allowed into Brown. The kid at my school also had the choice of attending Rice, but didn't "like the atmosphere."

[Citizen]

I'm kinda glad I wasn't traditional Ivy League material because I had those types of kids in several of my classes in high school and they were annoying as hell, afraid/offended of/by everything, and seemed completely unfit for life in the real world, including social lives. They probably have breakdowns if they go to college and can't maintain the perfect 4.0 GPA they were groomed to keep in 6th-12th grade.

Though it's nice to see that they're making payment easier for the normal kids who are smart enough to get in but normally wouldn't have been able to due to financial issues.

[Pierrot le Fou]

The Valedictorian of my high school went to Harvard. Her mother and father were both Harvard-educated astrophysicists. She nearly had a heart attack when she didn't end up with the highest score in the school on her math SATs. She nearly had a nervous breakdown when she had a C GPA in her first year at Harvard.

Of course, I'm envious as shit. Harvard is a great school in a great place, and I could have "Fucked up some smaht chicks" as it goes.

[qwert]

I'm kinda glad I wasn't traditional Ivy League material because I had those types of kids in several of my classes in high school and they were annoying as hell, afraid/offended of/by everything, and seemed completely unfit for life in the real world, including social lives. They probably have breakdowns if they go to college and can't maintain the perfect 4.0 GPA they were groomed to keep in 6th-12th grade.

Though it's nice to see that they're making payment easier for the normal kids who are smart enough to get in but normally wouldn't have been able to due to financial issues.

They probably have a nervous breakdown because they see their entire worth as person being related to what GPA they can obtain. Hence the reason why some high achievers are kind of messed up.

Then again, nothing beats the satisfaction in bettering an egotistical academic who lives in his high ivory tower. You can literally see their face fall as their world comes crashing down.

=-=-=-=

edit: Who cares that Harvard is offering this kind of deal? It would mean more if this were for public schools. No one has to go to Harvard. Most likely they are doing this bc people complained and want to make themselves look good. Congrats to the 100 or so kids per year that this will help.

[Citizen]

Maybe they're doing it because there are thousands of public schools and only one Harvard.

If you took the money they spend sending a handful of non-rich kids to Harvard each year and spread it out to all of the public schools that need more funding, it probably wouldn't buy diddley.

[Urameshi YuSooKey]

Maybe they're doing it because there are thousands of public schools and only one Harvard.
Not to mention the fact that many public schools won't do anything really productive with that money when they get it. They many times will buy new computers and equipment when they just purchased computers a couple years earlier, just because its seems like something good to get. Recently in my city, mayor wanted to do an audit on the city school board. He refused to give $5 million to the school system until the did so. The school district sued the city but the court ruled in the mayor's favor.

I know that isn't really related but it brings up the question as to where all these tax dollars go and why would the district fight so hard against an audit. What's there to hide? Lots of public schools are in the toilet financially, and it seems like more and more money is being allocated to schools, yet the schools don't improve grade-wise, structurally, or in faculty.

[Knife-Fingered Sue Sanderson]

I don't know why people make such a big deal about Ivy League schools. You're paying for the name - that's it. Whatever bad images you may have about public schools, I've gone to them all my life and I am quite satisfied with the eduaction I've received.

My high school English teacher said something to me that made me stop worrying about the "prestige" of the college I would attend. "Most schools offer similar course, use similar textbooks, and have similar tests. And just because your professor is famous doesn't mean he or she can teach you diddly-squat. You can go to almost any college in the U.S. and get a good education." And basically I've found that to be true, especially after I studied abroad and got the chance to meet kids from different colleges around the U.S. I met four Ivy League school kids, and they weren't smarter than anybody else. In fact, two of them were really REALLY stupid.

So I think it's good that Harvard is trying to make their school more accessible to kids coming from lower-income families, but I hope it's really the start of a trend for private schools around the country to help anyone who has the chance but not the means to go to college.

[erbiumfiber]

The point the article was making, I think, was that this helps the people who were falling through the cracks. Say your family makes $125k-combined salaries of mom and dad. You live in a high cost-of-living area so mom and dad can make that good income and you can go to good public schools.

On paper, you look very well off. In reality, you're just living a middle-class lifestyle.

If the parents want to send their kid to private college (and most private colleges don't cost that much less than Harvard), they're going to be shelling out over $45,000 per year for tuition, room & board- more than a third of the family income. Or the parents/child will be taking out some pretty hefty loans. Under the new plan, the family would lay out $12,500 in tuition, a much more do-able proposition.

Sure $125k seems like a lot now, but by the time you're in your forties, you'll probably be making at least around $60k, if you have a college degree, and your spouse will probably be making the same. In the neighborhood I moved from when I left for Japan (No. VA, D.C. suburbs) a single family house goes for about $700k (1950's split level, 1900 square feet 1/3 acre lot- my old house, approximately). So you have this tremendous "asset" which doesn't feel like much of an asset because you've got a large mortgage and tax bill each month.

Yes, you don't have to go to private school and, yes, you are paying for a name. Is it worth it? Well, having gone to a private undergraduate school with a great name I know it opened a lot of doors for me. I transferred from a "big name" law school to an in-state law school to save money at the time of my divorce. I got more questions concerning the change than just about anything else at interviews. This was the case even though the state school had a whole fantastic program in patent law which the brand name school did not. I think I got a better education at the state school than the brand name school but if I had to do it all over again, I think I would stay at the name school and take out loans. Yes, I know, it shouldn't be that way, but it is. People use the screening process at name brand universities to substitute for their own investigation of job candidates.

For my undergraduate degree, there was no school comparable in terms of engineering programs so I know I made the right decision there.

[Sock Full of Boiled Dimes]

I like this idea of poor class families that are able to send their kids to these schools. Imagine someone in the dumps who works really hard at their education.

They deserve something like this.

I am a product of poor education and my own procrastination. I wouldn't be able to focus clearly in an Ivy League school without help. It's a sad point in our times when 52% of Arkansas college students have to take remedial classes which basically means you can barely function in a high school level in whatever course you are taking.

Anyway, I'll stop before I get into a rant here.

[Pierrot le Fou]

Perhaps erbium isn't being clear.

This isn't about poor people.

I went to a top-30 liberal arts school in the US, where 70% of students paid full tuition. As a kid from a middle-class family, I was given moderate tuition assistance, and ended with around $20k in debts (give or take). On the other hand, lower class students would come out ahead, because they were given more assistance resulting in a totally free ride, along with subsidies for books and the like which gave them pocket money to boot.

It's just as bad for someone making twice as much as what my family was making. They'd get no assistance, and end up with debt, and that would hurt their finances.

This sucks.

[erbiumfiber]

Yes, that's what I meant.

For families making under $60k, Harvard was already essentially free.

If you are lower middle class or lower, private school is pretty damn affordable. If you're middle to upper middle class, not so.

Why should the lower middle class kid come out with no debt and the middle to upper middle class kid come out with $40k to $60k of debt?

There is also no scale that seems to take into account the cost of living differences in the U.S. A family making $120k in Manhattan (or commutable suburbs) is just getting by while a family making $120k in Mississippi probably has live-in servants.

Thus my point that the family making $120k with a $700k house looks good on paper, but can't afford to divert $45k to tuition and living costs at a private school.

Basically, I'm living this situation now. A HUGE chunk of salary goes to the UK each month towards tuition (we're paying out-of-country rates, about $26,000 U.S. per year, still plenty cheaper than Harvard). Yes, she could have gone to a state school but from what I've seen of her work, it would be considered graduate-level studies in most U.S. universities. She's made the right choice and I'm standing (financially) behind it but I still think the system (U.S.) sucks.

Not that the Harvard plan would help me because colleges ALMOST ALWAYS factor in the non-custodial parent's salary, even long after divorce and even though the non-custodial parent is not required to contribute anything towards tuition or support during college (by law- in my settlement agreement, he agreed to a pro-rata share of "in-state" college costs, which he is currently not paying anyway. Yes, I could go after him, no, it's not worth it to me).

So I end up with a "family" income (ha!) over the limit and would be screwed no matter what.

Still, I think it's a great idea and these hedge funds, oops, I mean endowments, should be required to pay out at the same level as other charitable trusts.

[Pierrot le Fou]

It's really funny how that works, eh? Were I half as wealthy going into university, I would have come out infinitely wealthier. It was really my own damned fault though. Clark University offered me a full ride, but I passed it up. Syracuse accepted me for a 6-year law program which would have left me with a shot at a bar exam and a job busting my ass at some shitty NYC law firm, along with fewer debts to start with.

It doesn't excuse it, and we all do have choices, but I wonder at what income (economically speaking) the break-even point between a compromised education and a reduced tuition comes into play.

[erbiumfiber]

I'm probably still bitter that my just-off-the-boat Russian roommate got a free ride at MIT while I had to sell my soul to the Air Force (just about the only purely merit-based full-tuition scholarship out there at the time).

Since each student, following graduation, should theoretically have the same earning potential (the lower middle class student having the same opportunity to study hard as the upper middle class student), each should graduate with the same debt load. Why should the upper middle class student be saddled with $20k to $40k debt (solely the debt of the student, no parent involvement) and the lower middle class student be debt-free?

Yes, if you're just over the line between getting a free ride and paying through the nose, it really, really sucks. A lot depends on your parents assets (read, house) not just salary. And how many brothers and sisters you have. So I guess because I figured that I could really only afford one kid (if I wanted to be able to afford private school, family vacations, summer camp, and private college), I should end up paying through the nose for college.

I think in Japan the tuition is the same for everyone. Seems to be that way in the UK as well (about 3000 pounds- $6000- for everyone). I agree that schools should be accessible but the present system is out of whack.

[Pierrot le Fou]

In the US, yes, indeed it is. But I think that a lot of the problem is that parents want to send their kids to the best named school, rather than the best school for the money. I can't say I blame them (or you erbium) for wanting to pay the premium for a better education, but I feel like the free market hasn't stepped in to mark 'best schools for the value' or somesuch like we do with cars or vacuum cleaners.

After all, there must be schools with a great reputation that don't cost as much and have flexible and accommodating faculty.

[Vic_Rattlehead]

I think in Japan the tuition is the same for everyone. Seems to be that way in the UK as well (about 3000 pounds- $6000- for everyone). I agree that schools should be accessible but the present system is out of whack.

The tuition fees are the same, but they were once free! But in regard to the UK system, things like grants and loans are still from a means tested basis.

To get the full whack (£5000 in loans and grants) you either need to be:
-From a family with an income of less than £16,000. (ME!)
-Over 21 years old at the start of your degree. (if you're over 21, you are assumed to be an 'independent student' and therefore have cash thrown at you).
-Married

Personally, I'm paying my own way into Uni. I'm already about 9k in debt anwyay. This is even despite the pliviledges I get from being a poor git!

Personally I think the help provided for people from poorer backgrounds is great. I'm not too sure about America, but I feel there's (still) a strong class issue in the UK, and I think the entitlements to education are among the primary factors for this. Hopefully, if this boundary is finally broken, then maybe all graduates of the future will go about the correct way and pay in full for education. But you just can't turn away a student based on his/her family income...that's something from a typical oliver twist scene! Especially if they have the correct grade for entry aswell! Again, I dunno about in the US, but UK students who have UNDER the threshold are at a 10:1 ratio anyway...so I dont see the big issue clearly.

Of course, this is from a student's (and not a parent who has to pay) POV. But, if you are earning over xxxamount then you shouldn't see the big problem with sending your kids off to Uni, especially if you have been sending your child to a non-state school (and paying probably alot more than you'd ever pay at Uni) But make sure to keep in mind that it's not as if poorer families are reluctant to pay for their child's education. If they had the money, they'd pay also. Just the fact that they don't have the money.

Of course (again) this is the opinion of one of the poorer students getting these new entitlements, but the fact is that none of us (fellow peasants) would be able to go to Uni without the generous financial support, even if we got straight As etc. Infact, I'd be working in a car factory or some call centre now if it wasn't for these financial entitlements (again, despite the fact that I got among the highest marks in the country). The fact is, I can only live on what I recieve from the government, theres NO WAY in hell that I could ever ask my mum for any sort of loan or whatever, basically because she just-doesn't-have-it.

In regard to the REAL issue here; I can understand about people who have to pay in full. It does suck indeed, but sadly, that is democracy. :( The ones that have the real problems in Unis in the UK are the ones who JUST hit above the threshold. Just above the line, but still unable to provide as much financial support. Due to my degree, I'll probably have to cough up in full for my children's education. Plus, I'm the first in a long list of Connors who have made it to Uni, so the generous government could have potentially increased the lifestyle for my potential children and so on! Ta!

[erbiumfiber]

Still with tuition at a MEASLY 3000 pounds, you're not going to get very far into debt. Plus a lot of degrees only take 3 years.

When tuition is $35,000 or so, for four years, well, that's a different story.

And, PLF, I don't think there are so many "value for the money" private schools as they seem to charge nearly the same tuition (plus or minus about $7000) no matter what the level of prestige for the school. Where are the price-fixing investigators on this issue? As a result, parents figure they are going to spend an arm and a leg anyway, they at least want a name brand on that degree (I am partly of this mindset. Yes, I think my daughter is getting a great education but I wouldn't be as happy if her degree did not carry the imprimatur of "Cambridge").

There are so many wasted faculty and researcher positions in universities- people who don't do any teaching or maybe teach part of a class for one semester. And don't get me started on how undergraduate tuition subsidizes graduate school "research assistants" and "teaching assistants" who aren't paying any tuition and getting a handsome allowance as well (no one pays tuition in graduate engineering programs at research universities). So the poor undergraduate is supporting a hell of a lot of infrastructure.

I'll go back to not caring about this issue in 2.5 years.

[Vic_Rattlehead]

Still with tuition at a MEASLY 3000 pounds, you're not going to get very far into debt. Plus a lot of degrees only take 3 years.

When tuition is $35,000 or so, for four years, well, that's a different story.
.

The things is though; my degree IS four years long, I'm not even at a prestigeous university, so I won't get the 'perks' that an Oxbridge student would. My tuition will come to around: 12,000.00 GBP = 23,683.57 USD, most likely more as the tuition costs spring up each year. That is indeed 10grand under the US one, but that's over a length of four years, as well as the chance to go to a prestigeous Uni.

That's only the tuition fees too. I've got loans out for housing, food , due to my low family income etc. So'll probably end up with the £12000 tuition debt, another £5000 a year on housing/food/social, as well as seperate travel costs to Japan etc. That's pretty much £32000+ debt before I'm 24.

Its only undergraduate where the standardised costs come into play in the UK. I'm intending to do my masters too, that's going to be another £10000 or so if I don't get the scholarship. I suppose that's the path I'll have to take alone due to not having the family to financially support me. :P

[Pierrot le Fou]

Vic, private schools like Harvard in the US cost $35,000+ per YEAR -- not for the degree. In other words, you're paying $10,000 less for a degree than an American has to pay for a year...

[Jetsetlemming]

My family makes somewhere in the range of $20k. Does that mean they'll pay me to go to Harvard?

[Vic_Rattlehead]

Vic, private schools like Harvard in the US cost $35,000+ per YEAR -- not for the degree. In other words, you're paying $10,000 less for a degree than an American has to pay for a year...

Looks like I was fooled; I went by the following statement. Probably read it wrong.
When tuition is $35,000 or so, for four years, well, that's a different story.

Btw; silly question but I'll ask anyway. Do these fees in America come with boarding of some kind?

[erbiumfiber]

Sorry, I meant it as "$35,000 for each of 4 years."

Yeah, living expenses are a bit higher at U.K. unis than at U.S. unis.

But didn't you say you were getting financial aid for the housing as well? Well I guess 5,000 pounds in loans and grants doesn't take you too far when tuition is 3070 pounds.

What I love is that there is an extra 4,000 pounds to the student's college at Cambridge University. Apparently this is paid by the goverment or not charged to the UK students, but we overseas students get to pay. So if my daughter had gone to any other uni in the UK, tuition would have been only 9000 pounds but for Cambridge (or Oxford), it's 13,000 pounds. Not complaining as it's still much cheaper than a U.S. private school, as I said above.

Vic, you'd be in about the same position if you went to a state university in the U.S., in terms of final debt. You might have gotten a better deal at a private university in the U.S. at your family's income level (and being the first to attend uni).

Oh and room and board will run at least another $10,000 to $15,000. Add to that books, travel, etc. and you're right around $50k per year. Ridiculous.

[Vic_Rattlehead]

Heh, at least when you're too old to wipe your own arse, you'll have a very rich and grateful daughter to tend to you! :P I know that would be the kind of contract I would make with my children when/if I have to fund their education! :D

[erbiumfiber]

Here's Harvard's total costs for the year. Pretty close to $50,000 when you add in personal expenses and travel. The school tuition, fees and room and board are $45,000

http://www.fao.fas.harvard.edu/cost.htm

COST OF ATTENDANCE for 2007-08
Tuition
$31,456

Health Services Fee
$1,426

Student Services Fee
$2,116

Room
$5,856

Board
$4,766

Subtotal - billed costs
$45,620


Estimated Personal Expenses
$2,930

Estimated Travel Costs
$0 - $2,400

Total billed and unbilled costs
$48,550 - $50,950


I guess I should be "grateful" that boarding school last year was a "mere" $34,000- that includes everything, room, board, etc. And she couldn't have concentrated on creative writing the way she did in any other school in the country so it was worth every penny.

Two years of international school plus two years of boarding school = over $100k just for high school.

Oh yeah, I cannot afford more than one kid like this. She is super bright and has always brought me a great deal of happiness so I do not begrudge her the high cost of private education. I just wish the burden was more fairly spread to all students.

Edit: She is going to a state-supported school in the UK- pretty much all unis save one or two are government supported schools in the UK. They don't have the U.S.'s state school/private school thing going on. Guess that's why I'm saving on tuition.

[Pierrot le Fou]

The problem in the US is that people don't want to feel like they're skimping on health care or education, and as a result they both get absurdly expensive.

Hrmph.

[erbiumfiber]

The problem is that in the U.S., people are no longer directly paying for health care or education and the costs skyrocket as a result. I read this thesis in an article in Reader's Digest (yes, I know, but I was stuck in some waiting room...) and I completely agree. In the old days, when I was born, my parents had to pay for the cost of my birth (and they still do in Japan, I think). People had health insurance that pretty much only covered hospitalization. People paid the cost of going to the doctor out of pocket. As a result, costs were affordable. Once insurance stepped in, people stopped looking at the cost of a doctor's appointment and also went more frequently since they didn't have to "pay." The also felt that they had a right to exotic and costly tests (I've never had an MRI but pratically everyone else I know has had one) because they weren't paying for the tests themselves.

We're at the same point with private colleges. When 2/3 of students at private colleges receive some form of financial aid and with students everywhere (including public universities) taking loans, the immediate pain of the cost is not felt. As a result, universities have added a lot more esoteric junk that costs a lot of money knowing they can pass on the cost to the student. When you're borrowing a certain amount of money, what's another $5k to $10k paid out over the cost of 20 years?

So people without health insurance (who don't have negotiated lower doctor's office visits and lower negotiated prescription prices) pay "full retail" for these and people who are upper middle class and above pay "sticker price" for college. I'm in both categories as I only have catastrophic health insurance with a company that is not like Blue Cross that can negotiate for reduced doctor's visit costs. And I'm paying bust-out retail for college, that's for damn sure. I would have gotten nothing except some crappy loans (and I think not even the kind where interest payments are deferred) if my daughter went to school in the U.S.

Sucks.

And while people can say, well, you're well-off, come back in 20 years when you have worked yourself into a higher tax bracket and tell me why you feel you should pay more for everything.

Sorry for all the rants, it just does get to me sometimes. I just made a huge payment in January and another is coming up in May and I get worried about the exchange rates and such. It's all rather painful.

[Shuft]

Private Universities are silly.

That's right. I said it.

If you need to go to one for the level of study you need, you're going to make way too much money for me (or anyone else) to care about what debt you accrue.

[Pierrot le Fou]

erbium, though I'm sure you probably know, you could look into putting her tuition on a credit card with frequent flier miles to at least reduce flight costs.

Also, you may want to look into getting a savings account in British Pounds if you have a bunch of cash lying around, and putting in money when the rate is good.

[ミュー]

Does anyone know why private education is so cheap in Japan? I only pay $13,000 a year for what Americans pay like $30,000+ for. Of course, it levels out if I add in cost of living, but it's still a ridiculously cheap tuition >_>

[sutebun]

Anyone know if this applies to Harvard law school? I can't find any details about that...I'm assuming it doesn't though.

edit:

No Loans: In calculating the financial aid packages offered to undergraduates, Harvard will not expect students to take out loans. Loan funds will be replaced by increased grants from the University. Of course, students will be permitted to cover their reduced cost of attendance through loans if they wish.

Guess I found the answer. Disappointing, but given that a Harvard law degree will probably yield huge returns (whereas a bachelor's doesn't guarantee anything), I'm not too surprised.

[Trump]

I took full advantage of a TA position in my engineering graduate degree. Free tuition is amazing. However, I am also sure the students in my class appreciated having a teacher who could speak English well.

I really can't speak for private schools, but there are plenty of public schools that will get you a great eduction with a good name to back it up.

[Kaji]

Some of the state schools are ridiculous to try and get into, though. Regardless of qualifications, the University of Virginia only allows 30% of any incoming class to come from Virginia. It requires that the rest be out of state and international students.

[erbiumfiber]

erbium, though I'm sure you probably know, you could look into putting her tuition on a credit card with frequent flier miles to at least reduce flight costs.

Also, you may want to look into getting a savings account in British Pounds if you have a bunch of cash lying around, and putting in money when the rate is good.


Can't pay by credit card. I pay using debit from a British savings account (my daughter's) as that's the only way we can do it (can't get a checking account as a foreigner- there may be some way but it's incredibly difficult and I think requires a 10,000 pound balance or so).

So I do try to send money to my daughter's account when the rate is good. The rate used to be 200 yen to the pound but went up to 250 yen to the pound over the summer. Yikes! At the beginning of the school year, I had to send money at about 236. Now it's about 210 and I hope it stays there. The British economy has its own housing woes and I believe had to cut interest rates recently which sent the pound tumbling. It was way over-valued, in my opinion (not that my opinion is worth much on currency matters).

If the rate stays at this level, February's paycheck will be headed to the UK.

Re state universities. I continued to pay income taxes for four years to the great state of VA just so I could qualify for in-state tuition, even though I was living in Japan (I own property in VA and have a VA license, etc). When she decided not to go to a VA school, I stopped paying taxes there (other than property taxes). So now my daughter wouldn't qualify for in-state tuition in any state...:gloomy:

Re Harvard Law School: I am willing to bet a lot of money that this new rule doesn't apply to law school, medical school, business school, etc. For those, you are still screwed...

[kitsunepixie]

I agree with what was stated above about getting a good education taking precedence over the name of the institution. Coming from a middle class family, my parents knew that we were in a category that is bound to get hosed, and so we went for getting the best deal for our money where education is concerned, since it is an investment--and a college education doesn't necessarily guarantee one a good job that allows you to bounce back from that debt right away. Moreover, since I knew off the bat that I wanted to pursue some form of grad school, minimizing my undergrad debt just seemed like the best thing to do. So far, no regrets. :)

The thing is though about Ivy League schools is that many companies/firms/etc. are actively recruiting graduates from those schools, never mind if they did well at those schools or not. This isn't always the case with state universities. I noticed too that in grad schools, there is a trend to take Ivy League grads with mediocre GPAs over grads with much higher GPAs from less prestigious schools. It's not always the case, though.