Pre-college summer programs: what do you recommend?

[Kamban]

q-school wrote:

Yet i’m balking at the 70k per year even though i’ve saved diligently and have it in part because i know i’m subsidizing others. It’s an ethical dilemma for me. I look at the endowment sizes and just think the universities are gouging people like us-can afford it but definitely not wealthy enough to ignore costs.

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You have brought out the nub of the problem. The reality is that the mean of the education cost in nowhere near 70K. It is more likely $30-35K. But then they want to give all these financial scholarships and yet protect their endowments and therefore resort to gouging people like you and me who are well off but not immensely wealthy like the hedge fund managers or Gates. If only they could charge us $40K and use the money from endowments to pay for all the financial aid they want to give - but then I dream

As far as the value of networking, it might help the ultrawealthy whose kids get to know other kids with similar social and wealth background. Unfortunately my kid is unlikely to get much networking like these kids. So if it not a top 10 school, I am not willing to pay that kind of money for a second tier college or University that offers no reduction in tuition. Better to go to state university for <25K per year and use the money for grad education.

[q-school]

Kamban wrote:

q-school wrote:

Yet i’m balking at the 70k per year even though i’ve saved diligently and have it in part because i know i’m subsidizing others. It’s an ethical dilemma for me. I look at the endowment sizes and just think the universities are gouging people like us-can afford it but definitely not wealthy enough to ignore costs. 

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You have brought out the nub of the problem. The reality is that the mean of the education cost in nowhere near 70K. It is more likely $30-35K. But then they want to give all these financial scholarships and yet protect their endowments and therefore resort to gouging people like you and me who are well off but not immensely wealthy like the hedge fund managers or Gates. If only they could charge us $40K and use the money from endowments to pay for all the financial aid they want to give – but then I dream

As far as the value of networking, it might help the ultrawealthy whose kids get to know other kids with similar social and wealth background. Unfortunately my kid is unlikely to get much networking like these kids. So if it not a top 10 school, I am not willing to pay that kind of money for a second tier college or University that offers no reduction in tuition. Better to go to state university for <25K per year and use the money for grad education.

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Why are you so sure your kid won’t get the benefit of networking?   Sometimes it’s just by virtue of being an alumnus (according to bean70s recent post).   Sometimes it’s 2 degrees of separation, not one, so that even relatively introverted people might benefit.  Sometimes it just protects you from getting fired in a downturn.  Who knows?

 

[Kamban]

q-school wrote:

Why are you so sure your kid won’t get the benefit of networking?

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I have seen the circles the wealthy move in and I am sure that neither my kid nor I fit into that. We are Walmart people, not Saks 5th Ave types. Networking won't help much.

[CordMcNally]

Kamban wrote:

q-school wrote:

Why are you so sure your kid won’t get the benefit of networking? 

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I have seen the circles the wealthy move in and I am sure that neither my kid nor I fit into that. We are Walmart people, not Saks 5th Ave types. Networking won’t help much.

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I also don't want to be in those circles.

[juststarting]

Last year, my daughter enrolled in a pre-college program.  Yes, it was expensive and didn't add much to her resume.  However, I was happy she attended.  She was able to board a plane, made it safely to a destination 500 miles away, roomed in and got along with 4 perfect strangers in a dorm (… to find out what happens … when people stop being polite … and start getting real), learned about college life, worked together with people she had just met to produce a video about some social issues.  I was relieved she had a fun time and to know she could make it on her own.  In fact, when I dropped her off at the airport, she never looked back.  Hmph!!!

[Lordosis]

I worked summers.  My parents told me they wanted me to work hard so that I value my education and not get stuck working hard forever.  You can argue that medicine is still working hard but it does beat manual labor.

 

Thinking about the other thread I started about rank in high school and where you ended up.  It seemed that it was not correlated very well.

Thinking about who had summer jobs and where they ended up I see more of a pattern.

[q-school]

Lordosis wrote:

I worked summers.  My parents told me they wanted me to work hard so that I value my education and not get stuck working hard forever.  You can argue that medicine is still working hard but it does beat manual labor.

 

Thinking about the other thread I started about rank in high school and where you ended up.  It seemed that it was not correlated very well.

Thinking about who had summer jobs and where they ended up I see more of a pattern.

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I’m not sure anyone should judge where someone else ‘ended up’.  We all have our own journeys and our own hurdles.  And many of you are still so very young.  Life is very hard in many ways.   People will have health issues.  Money issues.  Marital issues.  Drug issues.  Even the hyper achievers on this board.

I don’t honestly see that summer jobs is going to hold up as a strong predictor of ‘success’.  A lot of the most motivated teens i see are going to summer school, volunteering, involved in travel sports, etc etc.  the ones who do work summer jobs are the children of successful parents-who arrange job specific internships for their kids.

Certainly, there are lots of hard working kids who have jobs in the summer though- but the ones i see tend to be from families who are truly middle class or below.  I tend to encounter these kids at restaurants or lifeguards or at the club.   most of our kids are really not going to feel motivated to work because the basics their parents provide them are not good enough.

there are a lot of factors that go into making the decision, and being happy counts for a lot in my book.

plus if everyone here retires in their 40s, the most common response soon is going to be unemployed (and for decades).  Or retired, depending on how you choose to answer the survey.  

jmo

Ymmv

 

[Lordosis]

q-school wrote:

I don’t honestly see that summer jobs is going to hold up as a strong predictor of ‘success’.  A lot of the most motivated teens i see are going to summer school, volunteering, involved in travel sports, etc etc.  the ones who do work summer jobs are the children of successful parents-who arrange job specific internships for their kids.

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I agree there is not one thing that sets someone up to be successful.

Work in my opinion teaches grit which I think is important.

Also if you do not earn money you really cannot learn to save.  No one taught me to save as a kid but I just naturally had that tendency.  Most of my financial mistakes were there that I was saving too much in savings accounts earning nothing.  If I only knew about RIRAs way back when.  Even a brokerage account would have been great.

I want my kids to work to learn how money is earned and also to see what they do with it. The money they earn is minuscule but hopefully the lessons are important.

[legobikes]

q-school wrote:

I’m not sure anyone should judge where someone else ‘ended up’.  We all have our own journeys and our own hurdles.  And many of you are still so very young.  Life is very hard in many ways.   People will have health issues.  Money issues.  Marital issues.  Drug issues.  Even the hyper achievers on this board.

 

 

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I don't judge where other people end up, but I do judge their jobs. Many of which are various incarnations of the same soul-deadening service of the Machine, and humanity's crime against humanity. I stocked groceries, and whereas other jobs are terrible in the abstract sense from the outside looking in, I can draw on my experience of that same Sisyphean drudgery that stocking and other menial jobs of the like entail. Not that someone couldn't be satisfied, possibly, in some factory assembly line, but for the vast majority of people...

 

juststarting wrote:

...off at the airport, she never looked back.  Hmph!!!

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Ha, my mom still says that about the time I went to visit some family in another city alone. I was four and very happy in the arms of the stewardess.

 

 

Edit: the original topic of this thread makes me feel gross and I hope I don't have to send my kid to some fake thing for the sake of a college application.

[Tim]

“I’m not sure anyone should judge where someone else ‘ended up’. “

I had the opportunity to attend a frat reunion with about 40 old brothers. A few surprises on both the personal and financial paths.
Rule 1: Personal happiness
Rule 2: What is best for your career and wealth

Pretty easy to see most faired better following rule 1.
Most seemed capable of making trade-offs when needed. Hope my kids learn to handle both.

[MedAg07]

Buy them a ticket to Beijing and then a return ticket from Moscow and let them figure it out. THAT would impress me when interviewing kids for med school.