4 ms·
The best college advice I ever received was from my middle school history teacher: Go to the cheapest college you can. Harvard doesn't have a secret extra org
by rprospero 13y ago
The best college advice I ever received was from my middle school history teacher: Go to the cheapest college you can. Harvard doesn't have a secret extra organ to teach you about.
Just about everything in undergraduate education is well established enough that you'll learn the same material anywhere. You'll find variation in the material covered (e.g. Catullus versus Ovid), but it's mostly window dressing on the same core concepts. By the time you get to a graduate level, it becomes important to pick the right institution to ensure that your personal area of research was well represented, but paying extra for undergrad is simply a waste of money.
- aianus 13y agoGoing to Harvard is less about learning things and more about meeting people. It's a lot easier to start a startup or join a big firm when your roommate's (girlfriend's, teammate's, etc.) daddy is a VC or a Partner.
- astrange 13y agoHarvard has need based financial aid for 100% of your tuition (aka, perfect price discrimination). If you can get in, you can afford it.
- driverdan 13y agoThe problem with need-based aid is that the numbers they use don't make sense. When I went to college (not Harvard) the financial aid dept told my parents they made too much money to get assistance. My tuition was over 50% of their post tax income and I have a brother who was only 2 years behind me. How are you supposed to afford spending that much on a single child's schooling and still have enough to afford the rest of the family, retirement, insurance, mortgage payments, etc? Sure they could have planned better and saved for 20 years but the reality is that a very small percentage of people do that.