School Responsibilities

HoustonSaint68 said
Second, I totally get and agree that the "My kid goes to _________ " phenomenon is a real thing and is pretty ridiculous. But sending your child more than a day's drive away from home for college can be a really great experience for them. I agree that it's not worth going into heavy debt for, but if you're fortunate enough to avoid that through scholarships or being financially blessed, it's a great life experience. I'd say that's especially so in NOLA and Louisiana -- it's perhaps not as bad as it used to be, but the provincialism here can be pretty stifling.

That really depends on the individual kid and if they are surrounded by close minded people. New Orleans certainly gives you the opportunity to experience a wide range of people and cultures. It's not like it's the backwater of civilization. So, there are many cultural opportunities here that can't be had in other places. It just depends on of the kid is willing to take advantage of those.

Beyond that, given the cost of college these days, (I think U.T. for out of state was like $60K for the year) unless you are truly rich, as in top .5% rich, someone is going into debt to go to those schools unless you have a kid with a perfect ACT/SAT Score and perfect grades in H.S. with amazing extra curriculars that get you a full ride or close to it. The competition for these schools and for scholarships is a lot more fierce than it was 30, 20, or even 10 years ago. I know a kid that went to Ben Franklin, that has a perfect SAT/ACT score with a 3.9 unweighted GPA that couldn't get into multiple schools that weren't even Ivy, Stanford, or M.I.T.

So, while it might be a great experience for some kids, it's really not practical for most kids or their famalies. And while it might make sense to go to U.T. or somewhere similar, it would not make sense for Alabama, Ole Miss, Georgia, Florida, etc.