Passing up Ivy League Schools for Free Ride at Alabama

[jennipurrr]

I read this article the other day and thought it might be interesting you the mustachian community.  I actually live in Tuscaloosa, so my facebook feed has been an interesting mix of reposts of this with "Roll Tide" from diehard UA fans, to several of my academic snob type friends decrying the decision on academic merit/rigor. 

I think it is a pretty solid decision considering he is planning on being a doctor.  UA has a rigorous honors program that will allow for him to get into top medical schools.  Entering medical school with no debt, in contrast to six figures of debt required to finance an ivy league education sounds like a pretty wise fiscal decision.

http://www.businessinsider.com/ronald-nelson-turned-down-every-ivy-league-school-for-university-of-alabama-2015-5

[forummm]

I would take the free ride over an Ivy. If the Ivy offered guaranteed aid for 4 years that got it down to close to free, I might go there instead. I think he made the right choice.

[bacchi]

Why'd he apply to all of those schools?

Anyway, for post-bac study, it's far more important where you go to graduate school. He made the right choice.

[I'm a red panda]

I thought Ivy's usually offered generous scholarships to those who need them?

That said- I went to a fabulous state school and have no qualms with others going to them.  I had no interest in an Ivy league education - I applied to a few to see if I could get in (I could) with no intention of going.

If his plan is to go to medical school, all he needs to do is to go to a school with a program that will prepare him for that, and many state schools will- and still allow him to go to TOP medical schools.

Now if his plan was politics, the Ivy connections would probably be worth it.

[socaso]

I am glad someone posted this! I read about it today and thought it sounds like that kid is way ahead of the game financially with his decision making.

[mamagoose]

Good choice, especially since he wants to go to med school. Now kick ass in undergrad and get into Stanford med school :)

[James]

Really impossible to know if the long term financial impact of an ivy school would pay out. It's possible that the debt from ivy school would be more than compensated in some long term return, but I doubt it, and much better to take the "bird in the hand" he was offered from UA. Smart kid.

Regarding applying, it would be an incredible honor to be accepted at all those places, nothing wrong with finding out. It won't hurt him being able to say "I was accepted to all eight Ivy League universities", and might open doors or make a difference in the close calls of gaining acceptance to various openings along his way.

[forummm]

I thought Ivy's usually offered generous scholarships to those who need them?

They are need based, and usually not merit based. From the article I assumed he was probably from a family that did not have much need based eligibility. That's why he could get the merit based scholarship from the state school.

Why'd he apply to all of those schools?

Anyway, for post-bac study, it's far more important where you go to graduate school. He made the right choice.

Probably because he didn't know if they would give him money or not before he applied. It's a big crap shoot.

[gimp]

Ivies and similar schools are essentially free if your family doesn't have much money. In fact, their limits are generous enough that it's probably not a terribly onerous sum of money, regardless of your finances, unless you either suck at saving or have ten kids (and they do take that into account as well.) I'm sure this person made the right choice for themselves, just pointing out that the money thing should not be a big reason not to go to one of the top schools.

[forummm]

Ivies and similar schools are essentially free if your family doesn't have much money. In fact, their limits are generous enough that it's probably not a terribly onerous sum of money, regardless of your finances, unless you either suck at saving or have ten kids (and they do take that into account as well.) I'm sure this person made the right choice for themselves, just pointing out that the money thing should not be a big reason not to go to one of the top schools.

My understanding is that at Harvard, if your parents make, say, $40k you get a free ride (more or less). If your parents make, say, $150k, you probably pay something like $60k/year total. I think that's enough of a reason to go with the free ride at the state school. Many people on the forum would be saving more than $60k per year on a $150k income, but we are not representative of most parents.

[gimp]

Quite a bit more generous than that.

Let's use harvard as an example... and let's say you live in MA for simplicity since that's where Harvard is. Let's also say you are a single child, two parents.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/23214-harvard-initiative-to-attract-low-income-students-includes-free-tuition.html

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator?citizenship=USA&residence=MA

Key takeaways:

- Under $65k/year income: free (mostly grants, but also a small amount of student work study money)
- $100k: $5k/year cost to parents (including not only tuition but also room and board)
- $150k: $15/year cost to parents; as the link said above, under $150k, max is 10% of income.

If I earned $150k/year and couldn't find $15k for my hypothetical child's tuition to harvard, well, fuck me sideways.

Over $150k it goes up around 2:1; at $200k parents would be expected to pay about $40k a year.

People tend to have more than one kid, though. Let's say you're pretty well off - $200k a year - and have three kids, two in college. Cost to parents: $25k.

All of that assumes no federal financial aid.

All things considered, I'd say it's very affordable until you start earning enough to make you fairly wealthy... in which case, really, it shouldn't be much of an issue in my opinion.

The best schools are cheap; the 3rd tier private schools are much more expensive.

[forummm]

Interesting info. The article made it sound like he wasn't getting much aid at all, so maybe his parents are loaded.

[MandalayVA]

Interesting info. The article made it sound like he wasn't getting much aid at all, so maybe his parents are loaded.

His dad is a engineer with the FAA and his mom is a manager at FedEx.  Not loaded, but probably enough money to discourage the Ivies from offering a lot of financial aid.

[SanDiegoFIRE]

gimp is correct that Ivies are the most affordable option unless you are in the top 2% of income earners already

I find it fascinating though that people put such a low value on the quality of individuals to surround yourself with: if the point of university is to learn how to think and get a credential and network that will help you for life, it seems like paying up a bit would be a wise decision if you could surround yourself with the best and brightest

[badger1988]

I'm impressed that he put a lot of thought into it and made the choice that he perceived as being best for him, rather than chasing after the "prestige" of the Ivy League schools.

I do find it slightly interesting (but not surprising) that most people think the obvious best choice would be to go to an Ivy league school rather than a good state school, assuming equal costs. When I was in high school I knew I wanted to become an engineer, but had no desire to go to any of the "best" schools and chose to stay in state (Wisconsin). Some of my teachers and guidance counselors tried to push me to apply to  MIT, Stanford, and the like to "see if I could get in," but I figured that would just be a waste of time. I knew that, given the option, I would just choose Wisconsin anyway. Nine years later, I can honestly say I would follow the same path if I were given a do-over. I guess it has something to do with embracing my Midwestern upbringing, and having non-typical opinion of what "success" really looks like:)

[CommonCents]

I think the best decision depends on a lot of factors including what you intend to do afterwards and how much the schools cost.

I went to an Ivy undergrad (and grad) and don't regret it a bit - I'd do it over again in a heart beat.  It's opened doors for me in interviewing for jobs, getting into grad school, and of course, meeting my husband post-college.  My college has one of the tightest and strongest alumni networks (although not the largest), which is quite helpful.

[Roland of Gilead]

My wife chose an Ivy (Brown, although she could have gotten into any of the others...1590 SAT and valedictorian) over a state school.  She had about $70k of student loans left when we married.   I have to balance that against her income of the last few years, which was over $260k.   I guess she made a good choice?   It opened her view of the world a bit, getting out of our po dunk state and rubbing elbows with millionaire's kids.

[SanDiegoFIRE]

having a high paying job makes FI much easier and, for those who are motivated, can really decrease the time to get there

seems to me that having the most number of options to choose from by being able to 'signal' to the job market that you are of high caliber makes getting a high paying job a lot easier

last week's Economist had a good article that spells out the formula of "How to Join the 1%":
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21651207-book-persistence-elites-unexpected-guide-getting-good-job-how-join

thus obtaining an Ivy League degree gives the individual a proper credential that tells the job market "I'm definitely not a moron and probably quite smart" and lots of opportunities to get one's foot in the door

the benefits of having a strong alumni network, interacting with other bright students or even getting a better education are all simply additive

[CommonCents]

having a high paying job makes FI much easier and, for those who are motivated, can really decrease the time to get there

seems to me that having the most number of options to choose from by being able to 'signal' to the job market that you are of high caliber makes getting a high paying job a lot easier

last week's Economist had a good article that spells out the formula of "How to Join the 1%":
http://www.economist.com/news/business/21651207-book-persistence-elites-unexpected-guide-getting-good-job-how-join

thus obtaining an Ivy League degree gives the individual a proper credential that tells the job market "I'm definitely not a moron and probably quite smart" and lots of opportunities to get one's foot in the door

the benefits of having a strong alumni network, interacting with other bright students or even getting a better education are all simply additive

This is it, exactly. 

And some of us appreciate the education for its own sake.  I like learning.  I've attended a pretty good state school (while in high school - I went to the school and was indistinguishable from other students in the class) and an ivy college, which by far challenged and interested me more.

[forummm]

Having an Ivy degree is great. But if you only plan to work until FI, and that Ivy degree costs $250k, it's probably a bad decision. You could start employment life with $0, and a smaller salary, and still end up ahead of someone starting with $250k, a higher salary, and a lot of interest payments to make. In a lot of fields, your degree doesn't matter as much as what you do with it.

[SanDiegoFIRE]

Having an Ivy degree is great. But if you only plan to work until FI, and that Ivy degree costs $250k, it's probably a bad decision. You could start employment life with $0, and a smaller salary, and still end up ahead of someone starting with $250k, a higher salary, and a lot of interest payments to make. In a lot of fields, your degree doesn't matter as much as what you do with it.

It's a fair point, although in the vast majority of cases the cost is not $0, but probably more like $100k for even the lowest cost state schools with a good reputation (to make a valid comparison to your $250k estimate).

But the reality is hardly anyone pays the sticker price at the top schools unless you are already deemed to be 'wealthy'.  From Harvard's website:

"More than 65 percent of Harvard College students receive scholarship aid, and the average grant this year is $46,000"

Those are grants (gifts), not loans.

So it sounds like more than half of Harvard's student body actually pays significantly less than an in-state resident to schools like UC Berkeley, U Michigan, U Virginia, UNC Chapel Hill, etc.

I think it's also important to note that most of the really high-paying (think investment banking, consulting, tech engineering) job opportunities out of undergrad are disproportionately skewed to graduates of top-25 universities.  The ability to repay any loans accrued to attend a top-tier institution is pretty easily made up when total compensation starts at $75k+ a year as new grad, with ability for most to earn $100k+ 3yrs out of school.

[bacchi]

This kid is going to medical school. What matters is what medical school he graduates from and where he did his residency, not where he went to undergrad. When you go to a doctor, do you look at their undergrad diploma, if it's even on the wall, or do you notice that he went to Johns Hopkins or UC-SF?

Further, he's going to become an MD(/PhD). He'll make plenty of connections in 4 years of med school and ~4 years of residency.

Given his ambitions and his obvious intelligence, there's no reason not to suspect that he'll graduate with honors from Alabama with plenty of activities and some cool senior research, along with a 40 MCAT, that'll impress medical schools.

[forummm]

Having an Ivy degree is great. But if you only plan to work until FI, and that Ivy degree costs $250k, it's probably a bad decision. You could start employment life with $0, and a smaller salary, and still end up ahead of someone starting with $250k, a higher salary, and a lot of interest payments to make. In a lot of fields, your degree doesn't matter as much as what you do with it.

It's a fair point, although in the vast majority of cases the cost is not $0, but probably more like $100k for even the lowest cost state schools with a good reputation (to make a valid comparison to your $250k estimate).

But the reality is hardly anyone pays the sticker price at the top schools unless you are already deemed to be 'wealthy'.  From Harvard's website:

"More than 65 percent of Harvard College students receive scholarship aid, and the average grant this year is $46,000"

Those are grants (gifts), not loans.

So it sounds like more than half of Harvard's student body actually pays significantly less than an in-state resident to schools like UC Berkeley, U Michigan, U Virginia, UNC Chapel Hill, etc.

I think it's also important to note that most of the really high-paying (think investment banking, consulting, tech engineering) job opportunities out of undergrad are disproportionately skewed to graduates of top-25 universities.  The ability to repay any loans accrued to attend a top-tier institution is pretty easily made up when total compensation starts at $75k+ a year as new grad, with ability for most to earn $100k+ 3yrs out of school.

I paid less than $0 (and I worked most of the time, so I saved money) to get my undergrad degrees from a mid-tier state school. And could have gotten a good job right away. I instead went to a good graduate program. YMMV.

[Mirwen]

I made the exact same choice.  Got a full ride at the Tide (including tuition, stipend, housing, and a laptop computer) and took that over an Ivy League.  I was very poor so my mom couldn't even afford housing for me.  I probably should have explored other options but I didn't know they existed.  I sometimes wonder about what MIT would have been like, but I had a great experience at University of Alabama.  It's a beautiful campus and I had lots of great professors.

[dramaman]

Quite a bit more generous than that.

Let's use harvard as an example... and let's say you live in MA for simplicity since that's where Harvard is. Let's also say you are a single child, two parents.

https://nonprofitquarterly.org/policysocial-context/23214-harvard-initiative-to-attract-low-income-students-includes-free-tuition.html

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator?citizenship=USA&residence=MA

Key takeaways:

- Under $65k/year income: free (mostly grants, but also a small amount of student work study money)
- $100k: $5k/year cost to parents (including not only tuition but also room and board)
- $150k: $15/year cost to parents; as the link said above, under $150k, max is 10% of income.

If I earned $150k/year and couldn't find $15k for my hypothetical child's tuition to harvard, well, fuck me sideways.

Over $150k it goes up around 2:1; at $200k parents would be expected to pay about $40k a year.

People tend to have more than one kid, though. Let's say you're pretty well off - $200k a year - and have three kids, two in college. Cost to parents: $25k.

All of that assumes no federal financial aid.

All things considered, I'd say it's very affordable until you start earning enough to make you fairly wealthy... in which case, really, it shouldn't be much of an issue in my opinion.

I was heartened by this news until I started playing around with Harvard's net price calculator based upon the idea of being FIRE with a significant stash.

It turns out under such a situation, income plays a very little part of the equation. For instance, the calculator told me that with a family of four and one child in college, an income of $40,000 (from interest and dividends) and a total wealth of $1,000,000, annually I would get $20,700 in aid, but would be expected to pay $44,600.

A stash of $500,000, however, brings the cost down to $19,600 per year, which does then become comparable to one of the better state schools (University of Kansas) here in Kansas.

Interestingly, one's home equity is not figured into the equation, so if one were inclined and able, one could hide their money in a McMansion while their kid was in college to try to reduce college costs.

[Roland of Gilead]

Do they use an honor system to figure out how much your net worth is?   

How would they know about all of your investment accounts unless you give them the info?

How is a 401K balance counted vs a pension?   If I have 1 million in a 401K and someone else has a 50k per year pension, we essentially have the same net worth, but do they get more financial aid?

[SanDiegoFIRE]

I made the exact same choice.  Got a full ride at the Tide (including tuition, stipend, housing, and a laptop computer) and took that over an Ivy League.  I was very poor so my mom couldn't even afford housing for me.  I probably should have explored other options but I didn't know they existed.  I sometimes wonder about what MIT would have been like, but I had a great experience at University of Alabama.  It's a beautiful campus and I had lots of great professors.

Ivy League and equivalents actually do pay for housing for those who qualify (i.e. cannot afford it).  They are also pretty generous about work/study programs allowing students to get jobs on campus that pay a decent hourly rate and work around the students' class/exam/study schedules.

Cost of attendance is no longer an issue for those who cannot afford it - it's just a matter of getting in.

[dramaman]

Do they use an honor system to figure out how much your net worth is?   

How would they know about all of your investment accounts unless you give them the info?

How is a 401K balance counted vs a pension?   If I have 1 million in a 401K and someone else has a 50k per year pension, we essentially have the same net worth, but do they get more financial aid?

After a bit more checking it would seem that Harvard at least exempts half of any balance that is in a retirement (IRA, 401K, etc) account. So 1 million in a 401K would be the same as $500,000 in a regular taxed account. I imagine a pension would be calculated based upon the yearly income it provides.

As for how they know what investment accounts one has, I would imagine they require prior year tax forms which would show income and could deduce if there were some unreported assets that were being used to provide that income. Other than that, I can't imagine how they would know about assets that aren't currently being used to provide income and would imagine that it is on the honor system to report those. As someone who could never countenance lying in such matters, it would be irrelevant to me. Although I'm willing to game the system, down and out lying is just unthinkable.

[dramaman]

Missed the question asking whether a pension that provides $50,000 would get the same financial aid as 1 million. The answer is a definite NO!

A family of four with a pension giving an annual income of $50,000 and no assets would pay $4,600, while the same family with 1 million dollars in a 401K with a 4% SWR giving a $40,000 income would be paying 19,600.

[MayDay]

I got into a top undergrad program in my major (still a state school but out of state) but went to the in state school on full scholarship.

In retrospect I should have applied to MIT/Ivies because although I perceived my parents to be quite well off, I actually would have qualified for a full ride or close to it. "Rich" in rural Iowa is not actually rich, lol.

Oh well, I still got into MIT for grad school (though I opted not to go).

[Easy Does It FI]

My friend's little brothers graduated from Thomas Jefferson at ages 15 & 16. They both did the tide free ride and the younger one is now 20 and starting med school in the fall. Their older brother (my good friend) and myself both did a free ride to Florida back when that state had government money to spare.

Overall, I feel like it's most important to find a school culture that fits you (irrespective of the pedigree). I got an engineering degree and, despite being from Georgia, would have been incredibly unhappy going to Georgia Tech or an Ivy. The little brothers above love sports. In fact, the 20 yo plays for the women's basketball scout team so he's technically a D1 athlete. The schools we all selected energized us.

On the flip-side, I also had smart kids I graduated high school with start at Chicago and Penn and end up transferring to UGA for non-academic reasons. Another family had legacy at Dartmouth and loved it.

I'm not sure how the fit for the kid in the article will turn out. He seems very driven, and although there will be pockets of similar values in the honors program, being around an entire student body of kids driving to start major companies, become president, or join NASA may energize him more. Of course, if he was burning out in highschool, easing off the gas for a few years could energize him and help springboard him through the heavy workload of med school.

Not saying fit is more important than any other consideration so far raised, but it is a personal consideration which makes generalizing ROI for a degree difficult.

[Dicey]

This topic is thoroughly explored in Malcolm Gladwell's "David and Goliath". Perhaps he read it before making his decision.
Recommended read, BTW.

[expectopatronum]

This is an interesting topic to me because it's in line with the choices I made. No, I didn't get into "all 8 Ivies" and then some, but I turned down spending oodles of money on the top school for my major.

I did think that it's a little absurd that you would spend so much money on applications; this kid applied to fourteen schools. Holy crap. I understand not putting all the eggs in one basket, but...

Anyway, 5-6 years later, the decision not to spend $200K on an undergrad education gave me the courage to walk away from my current career and apply to PA school. And they don't care that I went to state school vs Hopkins. I do wonder what life would have been like if I'd gone to another school and wish that more kids like Ronald Nelson would be praised for making smart financial decisions and that state schools wouldn't be seen as so inferior.

[velocistar237]

...
How is a 401K balance counted vs a pension?   If I have 1 million in a 401K and someone else has a 50k per year pension, we essentially have the same net worth, but do they get more financial aid?

After a bit more checking it would seem that Harvard at least exempts half of any balance that is in a retirement (IRA, 401K, etc) account. So 1 million in a 401K would be the same as $500,000 in a regular taxed account. I imagine a pension would be calculated based upon the yearly income it provides.
...

From the Harvard Financial Aid website: "Home equity and retirement assets are not considered in our assessment of financial need."

If you're rolling over 401k money into a Roth, that will count as income, but the assets themselves won't. Most likely, a pension counts as income.

Get those assets into a mega-backdoor-Roth if you can!

[flyingaway]

I know a person (single mother) working at Walmart and his son went to MIT with everything (tuition, room, and food) covered.

A daughter of a friend of mine was accepted by Princeton with no aids, but Emory offered her four-year tuition scholarship. She liked Princeton, but her parents talked her to go to Emory. After that, she got accepted by Yale Medical School for a MD/PhD program with all expenses covered. That was the best story.

[forummm]

I know a person (single mother) working at Walmart and his son went to MIT with everything (tuition, room, and food) covered.

A daughter of a friend of mine was accepted by Princeton with no aids, but Emory offered her four-year tuition scholarship. She liked Princeton, but her parents talked her to go to Emory. After that, she got accepted by Yale Medical School for a MD/PhD program with all expenses covered. That was the best story.

Very cool! Other than cost, it really doesn't matter much where you go for undergrad if you're going to grad school afterwards. And it also doesn't matter much anyway. There are definitely some network and prestige benefits of an Ivy, but I don't think they are worth going into huge debt for.

[StetsTerhune]

Interesting discussion. I got a (completely unsolicited) free-ride offer from a large state school, but decided to go to an ivy league school instead. Family paid for it (with no financial aid), so... not a decision I was making with much logic at that moment in my life.

I've always been curious looking back as to what the actual ROI on that decision is. I don't think I make much more than I would have if I'd gone to any other school, but that's partly because I passed up many more lucrative options (which I doubt I would have known existed if I'd gone to a state school). On the other hand, I got my wife out of that decision, and that's worked pretty well, personally and financially.

What's interesting that no one has seemed to discuss here is that, while I agree that Alabama may be the right decision if he wants to be a doctor, I doubt he actually does want to be a doctor. When I got to college, there were lots and lots of kids who "wanted to be doctors." But A. they were 18, nobody knows anything when they're 18 (if you're 18 and reading this, sorry, but you don't). B. They mostly wanted to be doctors because that's the most "prestigious" profession they were aware of, and they were "smart".  I don't think a single one of those became a doctor. They were ivy league kids now, they became consultants and I-bankers and hedge fund analysts and phds.

Meanwhile all the smart kids I know from high school who didn't go to prestigious schools became doctors. All of them.

I'm not saying one of those options is better than the other (though that might be an interesting discussion as well). I'm just saying, that's the biggest impact of the decision that this kid is making by going to Alabama instead of Yale -- he's picking his culture for the rest of his life.

[forummm]

Interesting discussion. I got a (completely unsolicited) free-ride offer from a large state school, but decided to go to an ivy league school instead. Family paid for it (with no financial aid), so... not a decision I was making with much logic at that moment in my life.

I've always been curious looking back as to what the actual ROI on that decision is. I don't think I make much more than I would have if I'd gone to any other school, but that's partly because I passed up many more lucrative options (which I doubt I would have known existed if I'd gone to a state school). On the other hand, I got my wife out of that decision, and that's worked pretty well, personally and financially.

What's interesting that no one has seemed to discuss here is that, while I agree that Alabama may be the right decision if he wants to be a doctor, I doubt he actually does want to be a doctor. When I got to college, there were lots and lots of kids who "wanted to be doctors." But A. they were 18, nobody knows anything when they're 18 (if you're 18 and reading this, sorry, but you don't). B. They mostly wanted to be doctors because that's the most "prestigious" profession they were aware of, and they were "smart".  I don't think a single one of those became a doctor. They were ivy league kids now, they became consultants and I-bankers and hedge fund analysts and phds.

Meanwhile all the smart kids I know from high school who didn't go to prestigious schools became doctors. All of them.

I'm not saying one of those options is better than the other (though that might be an interesting discussion as well). I'm just saying, that's the biggest impact of the decision that this kid is making by going to Alabama instead of Yale -- he's picking his culture for the rest of his life.

The financial industry is notorious for just going to the Ivy grads for their recruiting, and throwing so much money at them that they detour into finance. It makes sense the grads would do that. Why go to school for longer and work a lot harder to make a lot less money?

[libertarian4321]

It's free (actually, he might even make money going there).  Plus he's going to have a whole lot more fun playing that Sax in the band at an Alabama football game than at some lame Ivy league game. 

So go to Alabama debt free, have a little fun, then go to Hopkins or Harvard or whatever for Med school.

[gimp]

Interesting discussion. I got a (completely unsolicited) free-ride offer from a large state school, but decided to go to an ivy league school instead. Family paid for it (with no financial aid), so... not a decision I was making with much logic at that moment in my life.

I've always been curious looking back as to what the actual ROI on that decision is. I don't think I make much more than I would have if I'd gone to any other school, but that's partly because I passed up many more lucrative options (which I doubt I would have known existed if I'd gone to a state school). On the other hand, I got my wife out of that decision, and that's worked pretty well, personally and financially.

Which woman was it who wrote that article about finding a husband in college, and got jumped on (largely by other women)? Lots of words about how college was for education, not for finding a boy, feminism, and so on.

Truth is... a lot of people meet their future spouses in college. Huge glut of available, intelligent, ambitious young people? Yeah, no shit. The better the school, the higher quality the students. (This is tautological, high quality students make a high quality school and a high quality school makes high quality students.) If you're gonna find a life partner, the better you do, the more comfortable your life will be, on average.

People graduate school at 22-23, which is about when they'd be starting families through all of history except the past couple generations. Biology ticks. If they go to grad school, they might not be done till 24, 27, sometimes 30. If you want to get hitched, and you're 30 and just finishing school, and you're not on the path... well, shit's harder, a lot of people are off the market; if you're going to be in school for twelve years, good chance you're going to marry someone you met there. Again, it works out that way, biological imperatives, large availability of potential matches. If that's how it's going to go, may as well have a better dating pool, eh?