Can't a doctor pay for two college education?
Maybe I need to google how expensive it is these days.
2: From a utility maximization perspective, she could have turned to evil medicine and you could have offset the evil by doing good things. Maybe working in a food pantry or dressing up like Batman to fight crime.
I honestly expect my kids to attend public institutions and that we'll be able to help them with loans by then. Anything fancier than a public institution needs to be supplemented with substantial merit scholarships.
Along with this, we put money away towards retirement, but not towards a college fund, on the premise that college funds get used against you in the financial aid computations but retirement funds do not.
Illinois has (or had) a very good public institution. It has an historically significant cornfield right in the middle of campus and there's a nearby bar with a signed picture of Larry Linville on the wall.
That said, I still don't want to stay home with the kids.
And you'd need three more kids before you could tour as a "Sound of Music" company.
How much can a doctor make moonlighting one or two nights a month?
I can't be specific enough to advise you to adjust your plans, but I absolutely expect macro and global conditions to change in the next ten+ years to the extent that your plans will be as dust in the wind. Or sand in the desert.
Hey it could be in a positive direction! Collapse, commonism, free education, Mao pajamas.
In theory, mine have in-state tuition covered by the state as part of their adoption settlements, though probably someone like our current evil governor could get rid of that eventually. I'm choosing to use this as an excuse to not do particular saving toward that and just seeing how things work out when we get there.
Fashion is in the other thread.
Illinois has (or had) a very good public institution. It has an historically significant cornfield right in the middle of campus
I've been there. One branch of my family lived just a few blocks off campus. I may have been to the bar, too, though I wouldn't have recognised Larry Linville (by name, anyway).
Yes, I googled him. I'd recognise the character, but I had no idea who played him.
It's always a good idea to make your kids feel guilty about your life choices at a young age. That way you'll have more leverage when you're trying to stop them from following their true love and joining the circus.
If they want to abuse elephants, what else can they do?
Think of the hubris it must take to yank a soul out of nonexistence into this meat, and to force a life into this thresher. The death of my daughter -- she spared me the sin of being a father.
The older one is 5, right? Mine started asking questions about (1) whose job was important and (2) how much money we had at that age. The only answers she gets are "everyone's," and "enough," neither of which are especially true, but there are no other answers I wanted her spreading around hippie kindergarten.
This is probably blinkered of me but I can't imagine not getting insanely bored without a job (or school). A job has to be pretty deeply abusive before even a fully-funded "no job" life seems appealing. I am sure someone who was better at self-regulation could enjoy joblessness heartily, and I save for retirement for the tax advantages, but fully plan to work until I am physically or mentally incapable of it.
(Saving/college/all that stuff in a (my) blended family is weird & protectiveness comes out around that in ways it doesn't in other areas. I don't save for college for the reasons Heebie describes, also because I think it will be cheaper in 12 years, and because there's some grandparent money; if I made a lot more I might save. But I'm also fiercely unwilling to divert money that might someday be useful to my daughter to boyf's son, and despite liking and trusting my daughter's stepmom, raised hell about ex + stepmom having a prenup and wills that protected my kid, likely at the expense of putative future half-siblings.)
my daughter to boyf's son
I kept thinking this was one single complicated label.
She is Greek mythological, after all.
That would be incredible & Greek tragedy-pseud-appropriate. That person ALSO could not have my money.
an historically significant cornfield right in the middle of campus
Wow, sign me up.
That's what I said, but then Ohio State offered me a fellowship.
Mrs M and I have shit all chance, I think, of funding xelA's university education. We have shit all chance of funding a house for ourselves, or a non-impoverished retirement, either. This stuff still makes me fucking furious, because we earn (by national standards if not by London standards) a fuck-ton of money.
I'm confused. I did think Uni was free over in places that call it Uni.
27. The past is another country. They do things differently there.
re: 27
More expensive than non-Ivy League US now. Something like $30,000 a year, including living costs. Fees alone are around $12,000 a year, although I expect will be substantially higher (and not just inflation adjusted) by the time xelA is 18.
27. The past is another country. They do things differently there.
On that note, Charlie Stross just had a post talking about how British Politics has become far more crazy than his satirical version of it.
30 is actually not more expensive than non-Ivy US college though a quick google says it's about on par with in-state costs for most US states (though some are cheaper).
26: yeah, lourdes and I are close to the breaking point with our version of that. Not that it's remotely clear what the nature of that "break" is, as I'm sure it's not for you either.
My family has decided to move to Santa Cruz. After many years of trying to make it work in Palo Alto, my husband and I cannot see a way to stay in Palo Alto and raise a family here. We rent our current home with another couple for $6200 a month; if we wanted to buy the same home and share it with children and not roommates, it would cost $2.7M and our monthly payment would be $12,177 a month in mortgage, taxes, and insurance. That's $146,127 per year -- an entire professional's income before taxes. This is unaffordable even for an attorney and a software engineer.
An article that linked to that one pointed out that a development in Santa Clara was recently shot down because it "would create far too many jobs" and exacerbate the housing crisis. I don't know where those particular job creators are going to take their jobs (Portland/Austin/Denver/Utah etc. aside). It's a real problem. Obviously these economic units can't coordinate on urban planning across state lines, although the link between, say, the Bay Area and Portland is obvious to all.
(and yes I feel like posting about Bay Area real estate is like rickrolling at this point, but the question of how to evenly distribute jobs comes up less often.)
I was going to make a separate post out of this:
We say we want housing to be cheap and we want home ownership to be a great financial investment. Until we realize that these two objectives are mutually exclusive, we'll continue to be frustrated by failed and oftentimes counterproductive housing policies.
but maybe I'll just dump it here, since it's on topic.
I just figured out how much less I'd be paying for housing if I cashed out my ROTH IRA contributions and put it toward a down payment on a cheap house in Vermont. Having a three-figure mortgage payment would take a lot of of the edge off the expected cash flow reduction associated with not having a job.
35, 36 The author of that article is an acquaintance and a few years ago I would have guessed (in an awed and friendly way) "someday she is going to be richer than anyone else I have known or ever will." Could still happen.
I'm at the age I guess where peers start buying weekend cabins, but no one owns their own place in the city, or plans to. No idea whether this is a new pattern.
I had a pretty intense reflexive reaction to 37, like a very thirsty person spotting a glass of water. The odds that I'll do something truly irrational are going up.
Christ, is there rehab available for quitting adverb overuse cold turkey, does anyone know? The Elmore Leonard Center or whatever?
31/32: Wish I hadn't read that, since I haven't read The Nightmare Stacks yet. Still, interesting post.
We have just barely started a college savings account for Atossa, but I'm mainly counting on inheritances. She's the first grandchild on one side and the only one on the other. I just hope that my parents and in-laws make good choices about when to die.
I hope a state school looks good, just because it's cheaper. DC has some kind of reciprocity agreement with some (many? most?) states, so if we're still living here in 17 years, presumably we'd have more options of where to send her, at the cost of more paperwork.
So I followed LB's Manhattan first date advice, with moderate success (date ended with her kissing me on the cheek in a way that barely brushed the corner of my lips, just before she boarded a train).
Now I need to appeal to the Mineshaft again for second date advice. I'm thinking stroll in Central Park. Any suggestions for dinner venues to go along with that? Also, suitable bars to go afterwards (she drinks bourbon, neat). Stipulate that the evening will end with her getting on a train at Grand Central Station.
I just hope that my parents and in-laws make good choices about when to die.
Death panels. FTW! Suck it, Betsy McCaughey!
Stipulate that the evening will end with her getting on a train at Grand Central Station.
First of all you need a more optimistic attitude.
I am pinning hopes on some decent school's overwhelming need for a multi-lingual vaudeville all-arounder with an apparently unquenchable fascination with linguistics. Should be an easy merit scholarship to swing, no? Back up plan is I keep working in giant law forever.
45: I *have* a more optimistic attitude, but decorum compels me to suppose that she will go home to sleep in her own bed.
OK, but the thing that kills me about the article about housing costs in Palo Alto is that Santa Cruz is the relatively cheap alternative.
"My family is moving to Santa Cruz" must be the California equivalent of posting links to North Dakota real estate listings.
42 The Raines Law Room at the William is fairly reliable in that area and has couches that are v. good for sitting next to people on, #1 date bar necessity. Plus it's in hotel if the date goes well. It's another insufferably self-styled speakeasy but whatever, there's no point even trying to avoid those anymore. (Reservation worthwile maybe?)
Midtown east date restaurants I can't help with but circle back when you need recommendations for recruitment lunches.
46: Sings, dances, multilingual, and loves linguistics? Be still, my bureaucratic heart!
Yes but...comes with accordeon. Sorry!
53: If he learns the bandoneon, I think I can promise him a full scholarship.
My daughter insisted on an accordion as a birthday present for her best friend. I apologized to the friend's parents at the time, but they'll be thanking me when she has a full ride at Harvard.
He's been learning a bunch of tangos lately! But it's your standard Italian piano accordeon. I lobbied hard for a crazy free base one like Maria Kalaniemi plays but he wanted a circle of fifths left hand. Besides he knows I'd disown him if he went to Harvard.
56: Well! I didn't realize I wasn't welcome here. It's not nice to toy with the delicate black heart of an admissions counselor.
I am confident many commenters and lurkers are grateful for these insights, please don't let my eccentric commitments send you away!
But you really don't want my kiddo, each accordeon practice concludes with l'Internationale (me on vocals) so you see we're really not a good fit.
We are saving for college but nowhere near enough- we'll possibly have about half of what we need if we contribute a lot and market has good returns. There's also the possibility of grandparent money- that's what we both got- but even if there isn't the frustrating thing is that neither grandparents have given any indication one way or another. It would be much easier to plan if they would just say something, even if it's you're on your own. Of course I understand they don't know how much money they'll have but presumably they're either planning some investment strategy based on whether they want to help out or not.
" We say we want housing to be cheap and we want home ownership to be a great financial investment. Until we realize that these two objectives are mutually exclusive, we'll continue to be frustrated by failed and oftentimes counterproductive housing policies."
This drives me nuts whenever I hear people taking about how the "the housing market is doing great!"
Dealing with uncertainty of grandparental help here is easy! Total certainty there will be none!
Something about casting the possibility of hugely advantageous intergenerational wealth transfer as anxiety producing is interestingly massively irritating to me, not completely clear to me why I have such a strong reaction.
Because calculating the possibilities of any grandparental help would be a lovely problem to have? Of course that would be massively irritating.
First, assume a spherical grandparent.
It would be a lovely problem to have a child that could leave home and go to college.
Yes but in theory shouldn't be any more irritating than contemplating my non-existent anxiety producing worry re other intergenerational wealth transfers e.g. (grand)parental real estate.
We lucked the hell out with our daughter. She got a full ride to a local (not awesome) university and then went on to graduate fellowships at Berkeley. She's ABD now and we haven't paid bupkis to any institution of higher learning. Could have worked out differently of course but who says hope isn't a plan? Don't bother to save - live for today!
66: Right on, man!
When I think of all the worries
That people seem to find
And how they're in a hurry
To complicate their minds
By chasing after money
And dreams that can't come true
I'm glad that we are different
We've better things to do
May others plan their future
I'm busy loving you
calculating the possibilities of any grandparental help would be a lovely problem to have?
The trouble is that there are two scenarios for grandparental wealth transfer. One involves generous grandparents, and the other involves dead grandparents. Its the second one that is problematic to consider.
Don't murder somebody for an inheritance. It's too late 19th/early 20th century English.
Its the 21st century, we have Medicare Death Panels for that.
It's the millennium. Motives are incidental.
Twenty years ago "merit scholarships" were pretty rare and rando "grant aid" was pretty common, afaik -- but the kind of aid where the university more or less cuts the sticker price down without bells and whistles doesn't seem to factor in people's calculations. When I got into Reed, in 1996, the financial aid package included a $12K grant, just because; other liberal arts colleges had similar price tags and offered a similar loan package, but were kicked out of the running early because of the grant aid shortfall. When I got an MA, random grants from some pot of money somewhere covered all but $300 of the semester tuition. All of that was determined by financial need, I think. Has it been phased out or do people still get informal breaks like that?
The thing that actually paid for my college education, other than one parent unexpectedly getting a good job, was a loan against the mortgage-free family home that my dad fixed up himself. They sold it a couple of years after I graduated for $300,000 more than they paid for it eighteen years earlier. I've deleted a series of increasingly bleak comments about how undeserving I am of this generosity.
What's in Vermont?
The Long Trail. If I ever get a free three weeks, I'm hiking it.
Unfortunately no. I switched to Chicago at the last minute and got my deposit back. Couldn't commit to a place I'd never seen, and campus visits to the west coast were out of the question.
What's in Vermont?
Vermont is near New Hampshire, where I already own a second home. But I need a first home, with stuff like "decent broadband" and "insulation."
Also, daily trains to NYC and DC.
Formerly (and possibly still, I haven't been keeping up with the politics) Reed did not offer any merit scholarships at all, and had a "meet 100% of demonstrated need" policy for all admitted students. People were talking about that changing more recently but I don't know if it did or not.
Anyway that was a far from standard policy, and it was the reason I ended up there instead of somewhere in New York.
Also, if I quit working now, in eight years my son will be far better poised to pick up one of those need-based college scholarships.
77: I got in under those conditions, and ended up with a pretty fucking nice package (financial aid package, you fucking perverts, though let's just say I'm no stubby fingered orangutan in the other department). I finally paid off the last of my loans shortly after turning 40. Kids these days are looking at hitting that milestone around 60.
I'm still hoping the kids get merit aid someplace they get into and want to go, but there really isn't any way to know for sure until after admission. Mostly, I'm expecting to mortgage the apartment to pay the full sticker price.
My kid wants to go to either Keene State University or NYU. I'll save a few dollars if he goes to Keene State.
I believe that was and still is MIT's policy.
I had heard of other places also having Meet Need policiies, but (I think?) in addition to some merit scholarships.
I wonder about the effect of that on the student body. Rich smart kids could get way better deals elsewhere, so maybe there were fewer of them? Or maybe they just trended richer. Although mostly they were kind of embarrassed about it.
Many books use the shorthand "got a full ride to MIT" to indicate that their character is smart but it just makes me think the author is dumb.
Rich smart kids could get way better deals elsewhere
Could they? At the time I thought Chicago was pretty distinctive for throwing huge amounts of money (100% of tuition+change) at top students to lure them away from the Ivy League. (Disclosure: I roomed with two simultaneously. We all paid $250 a month but I had the tiny room, which made my mother so fucking mad.) That is, I thought there were zero other schools of that caliber with offers like that. I did have a friend turn down Stanford for Rice for money reasons.
77 I think Somewhere In New York had a similar policy when I went though what they considered "demonstrated need" wasn't as holistic as it might have been & a lot of the aid was delivered through work-study. I loved my work-study gig but either everyone should have to work in the gd slide library or no one should.
My ex's college was paid for by someone who owed his grandmother a favor for some unspecified thing that happened in Switzerland during WWII. Have you all combed your family histories for indebted barons? That's the first step in any sound financial plan.
88 leaves an impressively large amount of uncertainty around the moral valence of CS's ex's tuition.
It's what restaurant kitchen managers say when they run out of a dish or bartenders when they stop serving somebody.
90 continued: That is, the quoted material (Rich smart kids could get way better deals elsewhere) was about Reed, where rich smart kids would pay full price, because of no merit scholarships, only need-based aid. So I believe everything in 86, but do not understand what it is in response to.
My point was that I was unaware that merit scholarships for "rich smart kids" were common anywhere, so their packages elsewhere might not have looked too different from whatever they got at Reed. I was neither rich nor smart, however, so I may not have much insight. And actually now that I think about it, I do know of one other example of an ivyish merit scholarship, which I'll omit because I'm way way way over insufferable-namedropping quota.
91 was also a helpful reminder. Thank you, Moby.
Oh. I knew a fair number of people (4? 5?) who got (not full, but substantial enough to matter) merit awards to assorted Ivy, near-Ivy, and SLACs. Who were wealthy enough that they didn't get any need-based aid offered, but not wealthy enough that their parents didn't care. So the merit awards determined where they ended up.
And I knew rich kids at Reed who had had to coax/threaten/bribe/convincce their parents that it was worth it even at ticket price. So I assume there were some who were unable to successfully close the coax/threat/bribe/convincing deal.
I guess the first group is also people I knew in high school, and supposedly being a smart kid from Montana is a huge boost there because schools like to say they have students from all 50 states in every class. So maybe that's why. It wasn't real merit, it was just geographical diversity affirmative action.
Merit scholarships are real! I never knew. I stand corrected.
Heebie, I think you should post the real estate link in 36 on its own anyway.
This probably isn't the same thing, but at Nebraska, merit scholarships for smart kids with rich (in the sense of being able to pay full tuition* without hardship) parents were very common. I had scholarship money in excess of tuition and fees. They were trying to buy a higher average SAT score.
* It only $3,000/year when I went.
Of course, that was back when a can of Coke was only $500.
I went to a fancy East coast SLAC, and graduated with little debt because of generous need-based aid. At some point my need based aid was given a fancy title and called a scholarship which makes it sound more merit-y, but it was actually still need-based. It helped my mother took a temporary drastic pay cut my freshman year and my sister started college my sophomore year, so the amount of aid I got was pretty high. My father didn't believe in saving for college because he figured we'd either go to the Ivies or someplace similar, which have comprehensive need based aid, or we'd get merit scholarships elsewhere. My mother started saving when we were in HS, and saved up some but not enough or one year's tuition at a private school. They did count the savings against us in need calculations, so I think my father was actually right. My grandmother also contributed a bit of money, enough to be something but not enough to substantially cover even one year's tuition. My mother didn't make us work in HS, because she said the time would be better spent doing homework and activities that would allow us to get accepted to the sort of school that gives out full need-based aid, and I think she was right about that.
I don't know how much I can help my kids, if I ever do get an academic job I'll hope for a faculty discount, otherwise I'll encourage them to do well enough to get into elite private schools or get merit scholarships. They'll have EU citizenship, so I'm hoping the European university systems remain relatively affordable and I'll make sure they learn Italian so that's an option.
In terms of spending money and feeling poor, I found out today that I have bite issues that require braces and I need a root canal (on top of my chipped front tooth which needs repairing for the third time and gum disease serious enough to require treatment). My insurance expires August 31, and I'm trying to decide if I want to stay on the same student dental plan, which will cover most of the root canal but not the orthodontia, or try to buy something else that covers adult orthodontia. There are also orthodontics discount plans, which I can maybe buy on top of insurance. Anyways, my dentist only does Invisilign, which is appealing but are also really expensive. I do have enough savings to cover the cost, but it's a lot of money and while I have full funding for next year I'm not making a lot and I'm still in a financially precarious situation.
99
So did they let you pay tuition with a 6-pack of coke?
100 good luck getting putative children to speak Italian as a money-saving device, my kid was theoretically supposed to be raised to speak French (she is French) and despite consistent efforts at home including French-only from her father and French summer camp she's having none of it. (On the other hand she's very independent because she decided she'd rather do things for herself than bother acting like she has any interest in learning how to ask for help in French.) I assume if we sent her to the French school here they'd glare it into her but it's stupidly expensive.
I'm telling you guys the only scheme worth having is a shady baron scheme.
When my son (just turned 15) was just a wee babe, a financial advisor told us that we had to (had to!) put aside 500 dollars per month for his college fund. Anything less was apparently a grave abrogation of our parental duties.
So a family with, say, three kids, is supposed to find an extra 1500 dollars per month, over and above food, shelter, clothing, utilities, not to mention music lessons and sports teams and summer camps and all the rest of that extracurricular crap that is supposed to help get the kids into college in the first place?
I'm (admittedly not very rationally) not very fond of financial advisors.
96: So I assume there were some who were unable to successfully close the coax/threat/bribe/convincing deal.
That would be me. Still bitter about that. I coulda had class. I coulda been a contender. I coulda been somebody, instead of a bum, which is what I am, let's face it.
So a family with, say, three kids, is supposed to find an extra 1500 dollars per month,
And that's after I install my luxury closet!
Besides he knows I'd disown him if he went to Harvard.
Their linguistics program sucks anyway.
There's another school nearby that has a better one.
What are the like 5-7 best schools for linguistics?
What's with the Harvard hatred, dq?
110: It depends a little on what kind of linguistics he's most into, but that matters a lot less for undergrad than for grad school. Undergrad programs tend to be pretty standardized and general, with requirements in all of the major subfields. That said, and keeping in mind that this is all from my own personal experience which is now 10 years out of date, I'd say the top schools, not in any particular order except for the first one, are MIT, Penn, Berkeley, Chicago, Buffalo, and Santa Cruz. This list is admittedly somewhat biased toward my own anti-Chomskyan preferences, but I suspect his are similar. All that said, any linguistics program at a school that has one (most don't) is again going to be very similar.
Pretty much any flagship state U, for example, is going to have a ling program, and they're all going to be pretty much the same.
And most, if not all, of the UCs have good ones too.
OT, but my insane gym owner has now started snorting powdered deer antler.
Powdered deer antler is always on topic. Why else snort it?
I'm not even sure of the theory, but you're supposed to snort it "before stretching or yoga." Flexible like deer?
Thanks teo! Yes anti-Chomsky leanings have been expressed.
Barry, it's I think mostly a reaction against the assumptions of pretty much everyone I work with, the shared assumption that of course what one should explicitly strive towards is one's children becoming masters of the universe through among other things attending a school like Harvard. This repulses me.
To teo's list I would also add Ohio State.
119 to 117.
To 118: If he does seriously want to major in linguistics, he's not going to be able to avoid Chomsky no matter where he goes in the US (outside it is another matter). The schools I mentioned above, except Santa Cruz, are probably the most friendly to the anti-Chomsky position (yes, even MIT, which has a large and theoretically diverse department), but this doesn't matter a whole lot at the undergraduate level. If, as I've gathered from previous comments, his interest is primarily in historical/comparative linguistics, Berkeley is by far the best option in the US and has been for decades. (If I ever go back for a linguistics PhD, which I consider doing from time to time, it'll probably be there, and if not it'll be in Europe.)
He also suggests a combo snort with cacao.
120: Yeah, I don't know a whole lot about Ohio State's program, but I did consider it as an addition to the list.
I've never been impressed with financial advisors. I mean, I suppose there are some good ones for really wealthy people to deal with tax shelters and whatnot, but most of the ones for common people are, "Save more money than you have available. Now pay me so you have less to save." I guess for people who don't know about paying off credit card debt vs. saving they can be useful but that's also simple stuff you can find for free on any financial website.
IDK. My parents both actually got advisors for the first times in their lives quite recently and think they would have been better if they had done so sooner. My sister is also happy with hers, but that one is supplied by her bank so I figure she's being ripped off. I say all this, blithely, in utter personal ignorance.
As if there were any other way to say things.
One could say things, shamefacedly, in utter personal ignorance.
Financial advisors are OK and most of them do the best job they can, but they're not cheap and in the present climate unless you're in the 0.1% there's not a hell of a lot they can do except stop you doing something quintessentially daft.
Quintessential daftness doesn't seem especially rare.
I've put all my money into warehousing Beanie Babies for when the market makes a comeback. My financial advisor said I was being quintessentially daft, so I fired him. It was for the best, because he wouldn't agree to be paid in Beanie Babies.
And if you think you aren't daft you might have Dunning-Kruger, so you should have an adviser.
And if you don't have Dunning-Kruger you'll overestimate your daftness and get an adviser even though you don't need one. I'm thinking I'm in the wrong line of work.
There's no way I have Dunning-Kruger. I always wear a condom.
That's not necessary for self-service brokerages.
In New Jersey, self-service is not allowed.
I put all my money into Dunning-Krugerrands.
I didn't realize Beanie Babies were so liquid.
|| How is Biles able to bounce so high off the floor? Mostly, because she's a tremendous athlete. It also helps, though, that there are literal springs beneath the surface.
The floor at the 2016 Olympics measures 14-by-14 meters and consists of three layers. The "base layer" consists of "sustainably sourced plywood ... over 2,000 optimally positioned springs to provide a consistent response." Each spring measures 11.3 centimeters in height. The "intermediate layer" is made of "high-density interlocking foam panels giving increased levels of comfort and shock absorption." The "performance layer"--the carpet at the top--"consists of several strips joined together by hook and loop fastener bands." ||
http://www.slate.com/blogs/five_ring_circus/2016/08/16/the_gymnastics_floor_at_the_2016_olympics_has_literal_springs_beneath_it.html
137: If the gas attendant pumps gas for all who do not pump their own gas, who pumps the attendant's gas?
Somebody whack 134-9 into a slideshow and get us some venture capital.
If I had a nickle for every time I've been refused money for making masturbation jokes about New Jersey, I could pay off the house.
Not with nickles you couldn't.
There's a Coinstar by my house, so I could turn it into bills.
Smart. The machine probably can't do assays on its own.
teo this is so nice of you! where in Europe would be good, assuming English, French, German and Italian are on the table for languages of instruction?
Kid C (who has three more years left at school) has several times expressed a vague desire to go to Caltech. I've no idea whether he actually knows about anything about Caltech, but I had a look, went ouch, and got as far as working out that as someone said above, you'd have to be offered a place, and then see what the financial offer was in order to work out if it would be at all doable. I also have no idea whether it would be worth it - have seen suggestions that post grad could be better funded and more useful - but we could look into it if necessary.
Anyway, there's a US college fair in London in September. I asked the boy if he'd like to go, we could get some information perhaps. "No, I hate London." Ok, so you're going to go to America, but you can't go to fucking London? At least it means you can cross Imperial off your list of potential choices I guess!
I have a job now that I like, but 5 days is a bit much, isn't it? If we hadn't promised that we'd pay the kids' rents at university (and there will be two to pay for in September) I'd much rather not work full time.
I had a vague desire to go to Caltech after reading Space. I even applied and got in. I got over it when I got a girlfriend who was staying on the east coast.
Yeah, a girlfriend in this country might help.
And that's after I install my luxury closet!
To be followed by the installation of a 'his-and-hers master bathroom' (yes, that is the industry term) that's about the size of a medium-to-large bedroom, with separate sinks and separate spaces for each half of the happy couple.
I know I'm not being fair about financial advisors, and no doubt many of them provide highly useful advice. But financial planning strikes me as almost the ideal type of a parasitic profession.
the ideal type of a parasitic profession
For celebrities, I'd say the least-to-most parasitical profession order goes (a) lawyer; (b) business manager; (c) agent; (d) personal manager; (e) personal assistant; (d) entourage member/"spiritual advisor"/sidekick. The last is the ideal type of a parasitical profession! (Oddly "business manager" means "personal financial advisor" and "personal manager" means "advisor about professional business.") To be clear, all can be ultra-parasitical depending on the individual involved.
(a) lawyer; (b) business manager; (c) agent; (d) personal manager; (e) personal assistant; (d) entourage member/"spiritual advisor"/sidekick.
Do you have to have all of them to be a celebrity? Like, say you've got a layer, an agent, a spiritual advisor and a sidekick. Is that enough to get you on game shows?
Like maybe called up from the Price Is Right audience, but not Hollywood Squares.
The absurdity of navigating such divergent choices for individuals at their most susceptible to snap-decision-based-on-coup-de-foudre!
He also suggests a combo snort with cacao.
Chomsky does? Christ, what an asshole.
154 ❤
This.
I guess I'm willing to relax my standards of anti-capitalist outrage somewhat, when it comes to celebrities. People who make ungodly amounts of money in the entertainment fields probably should have bland, boring, and reliable pencil-necked geeks looking after their affairs.
If your manager is into tantric sex or something like that, you risk losing your life savings. As Leonard Cohen learned the hard way.
Until Cohen fired her last fall, Kelley Lynch had been his personal manager for almost 17 years. Back in 1988, she'd been working as an assistant to his then-manager, who died that year. Because she was knowledgeable about Cohen's business affairs and recording contracts, he had her take over. Over the years, the two developed a personal and professional relationship. Fifteen years ago, they had a brief affair. "It was a casual sexual arrangement. It was mutually enjoyed and terminated," he says. "I never spent the night."
Oh, what could possibly go wrong?!
You've got a 5 year-old, but I assume that the 3 year-old is in preschool, daycare. The one that makes me sad are the women who want to work but stay home, because their paycheck would be less than the cost of daycare.
I have a couple of male friends who stay at home to look after their kids for the same reason.* Child care here is expensive -- on the order of 800-1000 GBP a month per kid, dropping as they get older. If you have a couple of kids, you need to be earning a decent amount more than median wage just to break even, and even at a further decent chunk more than median wage, you are basically working a full working week for minimum wage or less.
* in both cases their wives earn more, or, in one case, the wife earns about the same, but the husband has the kind of job where he can pick up casual freelance work,** so it makes more sense for him to stay home and earn on the side.
** film editor.
For ling programs in Europe, off the top of my head Leiden, Konstanz and Uppsala all have programs I have heard of. There are a few people in the PhD program who came out of undergrad & masters in Barcelona and Bologna, if Southern Europe is more his thing. I'm sure any major university has a decent program. I'm not sure undergrad in Europe is beneficial to a US student unless the primary goal is specifically to study in Europe and/or live in Europe afterwards. If his ultimate goal is grad school I know American schools can sometimes look askance on an American who chose to do a degree abroad, but it shouldn't matter if he's an exceptional student and a good fit for the grad program.
Yeah, Leiden was the first school that came to mind for me. I'm not sure quite how undergrad programs relate to research programs in Europe (i.e., whether having a strong research program means the undergrad program is also good), but it probably varies by country. A lot of the German linguistic research I'm aware of comes out of the MPIs; I'm not sure how they intersect with the university system, if at all.
I feel compelled to clarify that my "❤" was in response to the fabulous ranking of celebritude to whit "Like maybe called up from the Price Is Right audience, but not Hollywood Squares." Although I am sad that my ❤ couldn't just hang out there mutely bleating.
Thanks bcup et teo! Attraction of Germany is *free!* as in no tuition. He'll probably apply to UK schools as well bc has a UK passport although alas undergrad no longer as reasonably priced as it used to be. Very happy to hear about UCB and UCSC having good programs!
FWIW, my friend had a pretty horrible experience in Ohio's graduate linguistics program. Dunno if that has any bearing on their undergrad, which I would anticipate, pace teo above, is pretty much like any other flagship state school's.
Yep, German universities are still free even for foreigners, so persuading your kids to learn German could be a good money-saving method. I wish I had learned German in secondary school to take advantage of that, but I was too young to think of such things.
I know we've had this dick measuring contest before but "expensive -- on the order of 800-1000 GBP a month per kid" made me snort.
Very happy to hear about UCB and UCSC having good programs!
UCLA's program is also very good. UCSC's program has more of an emphasis on Chomskyan syntax than the other two, but at least in that subfield it has probably the second-best reputation in the whole country after MIT. Several of my friends from undergrad who went on to get ling PhDs went there. That prominence probably does filter down to the undergrad program, which I'd expect to be more general because they all are.
Like I said above I'm less familiar with European schools, but if there are independent reasons to favor Germany it's definitely worth a look. The Germans basically invented historical linguistics as a discipline in the nineteenth century, and they're still very prominent within it. I don't know much about specific schools that are particularly prominent, but given what little I know about the German higher education system in general I'm sure there must be some. Buttercup mentioned Konstanz, so that might be a good place to start looking.
FWIW, my friend had a pretty horrible experience in Ohio's graduate linguistics program.
Huh, interesting. Like I said above, I really don't know much about their program.
Dunno if that has any bearing on their undergrad, which I would anticipate, pace teo above, is pretty much like any other flagship state school's.
Pace me? Isn't that exactly what I said?
Yes. So you can at peace with it.
160: A coworker of mine was looking at $300 for 2 days a week. So would that be 200 pounds? 800 pounds for 8 days a month? If you wanted a whole month at that rate would be 2,0000 pounds a month. So, twice what you're talking about My hospital has a subsidized. $750 is more than my weekly paycheck after you take out family health insurance and retirement contributions.
re: 166 - 170
I think when xelA was under 1, we were well over 1000 a month for 4 days a week, but it drops (because the statutory staffing ratios change) over time. 800-1000 is probably a reasonable average for a toddler, though. It can be quite a bit lower, or quite a bit higher depending on where you live, and what kind of care you pay for.
But still if you have a couple of kids, 2000 quid+ a month is more than net median wage.
Seriously, guys, move somewhere less interesting. Our place is $800/month for infants up through $600/month for school-aged children during the summer. I'm about to write my first check with the older two girls only doing the after-school program, which is going to feel great.
And that's full-time, though they close at noon on the last Friday of the month, which is annoying. Kids in the after-school program can still attend at least.
It's really funny to read this and then read Pittsburgh boards where people are complaining about how gentrification has destroyed the city because there are no more $500 apartments right on the bus line.
Of course, we have to buy a new central air conditioner, so that's going to mean that for one month our housing costs will be comparable to what people pay in coast cities.
Our costs are right in line with Thorn's. When Hawaii was a baby, it was $650 for the baby room on down to $450 for the preK kids, though, so inflation has been rapid.
It's been swift here, too, though I don't remember the exact amounts. I suspect it has to do with the new governor, as most of the kids get various subsidies when they're available.
You can only subsidize kids or corn. And which one would you rather see used to make a sweetener for our nation's soda.
I see Moby's YA dystopian trilogy is coming along very well.
May the fructose be ever in your syrup.
Children of the High Fructose Corn Syrup.
"It's really funny to read this and then read Pittsburgh boards where people are complaining about how gentrification has destroyed the city because there are no more $500 apartments right on the bus line."
If only we could recreate the lost art of making new bus lines.
I am discovering the joys of how expensive dental work is. I need a root canal, gum scaling/root planing, a chipped tooth repaired, and braces. The first three will be somewhat covered under the university dental insurance I bought, but Invisilign is $6,000. My top two front teeth have rotated in a way that is slowly knocking my bottom two teeth backwards and eventually could knock them out of my mouth. My bottom two teeth are already wiggly, and my dentist said the reason my chipped tooth won't stay repaired is probably because my upper tooth is knocking on the chip, eventually knocking it out. On one hand, $6,000 is an incredibly amount of money to drop on anything as a grad student. OTOH, I actually can afford it with my savings, and my teeth are the only set of teeth I'll get. The benefit of Invisilign over metal braces is I won't be on the job market with braces, and once you look into non silver metal braces options, the prices aren't that different from Invisilign.
My new dentist is (I think) also out of network, and frugal me says I should find one in network, but I really don't want to. I switched because I was unhappy with my last dentist, and all the in-network dentists nearby get really meh reviews* while these dentists get amazing reviews and so far I've had a great experience with them. They also seem reasonably priced for the services I've had so far, and they're very good at pricing things out for me in advance and scheduling things in ways to maximize my insurance benefits.
*The dentist I wasn't happy with gets the best reviews of the in-network dentists nearby.
171: my co-worker's kid is 2. I don't know what it would have cost an infant.
185: I think I remember hearing that regular braces work better than Invisalign.
I have it times so my mortgage ends right when my first one goes to college, so I just have to change the address setting in my bank's automatic payment system. Oh, and then double it.
I've turned down braces. I just don't see the point.
I understand that my bite is incorrect (my teeth only hit in a few places) but nobody has ever explained to my satisfaction why that means I need to experience pain and expense.
187: My wife's had a good experience with Invisalign, at least so far. She just finished a 2 year course and is so happy... when still occasionally shows off her perfect bite marks in bread.
We're actually in the more expensive end phase, where she's had bone grafting and has had a post for an implant installed. (The second and final post is next month.) This has been a very expensive year, but both the dentist and orthodontists have insisted that without these anchoring implants, the remaining would migrate and be prone to falling out early.
184: When he says "bus line" he means what's essentially a bus-rapid-transit corridor that goes through a gully that's an old railway right of way. It's a unique geography that provides a quick route to Downtown for half the neighborhoods in the East End (not mine, alas) without creating barriers between neighborhoods that wouldn't be there anyway. This is common in Pittsburgh--two neighborhoods on adjacent bluffs, a transportation corridor (road, busway, rail) in the valley between, with bridges between the neighborhoods.
still occasionally shows off her perfect bite marks in bread
The customers at her bakery are less than thrilled.
When your bite changes due to braces can they no longer match you to pre-correction dental records? I'm think that would make a good plot device...
Apparently, you'll have an irresistible urge to leave your new bite mark in bread.
When your bite changes due to braces can they no longer match you to pre-correction dental records? I'm think that would make a good plot device...
There's a Dorothy Sayers story about a dentist who fakes his own death by killing some other guy, burning the body, and then post-mortem giving the victim the same fillings as he, the dentist, has. Maybe that could be updated for the Invisalign age.
Sorry. Fillings first, then body burned.
That was also in the plot of "The Whole Nine Yards".
199 That's how I would do it. But perhaps I've said too much.
So, am I being insane for picking an out-of-network dentist, given I'm a grad student and dental costs are expensive? I feel like it's sort of a gratuitous expense, but now I have dentists I like and I've scheduled several procedures it would feel weird and awkward to cancel. They've already done exams and x-rays to diagnose the problem, which I'd probably have to redo somewhere else. I talked to my dentists and they are not in network for any insurance coverage. I will end up spending several hundred more to go to my current dentist than I would going to a PPO dentist.
202: weird, around here almost all dentists are in the delta dental premier network. Fewer are in the PPO. I've never seen a dentist who took no insurance.
202 No, you're not being insane. That sounds like a lot of money when you're a poor grad student but you'll be grateful you've taken care of your teeth. You only have one set of teeth. Go for what you think will be best for them.
Yes, Buttercup, you foolishly traded in your first first set of teeth for a few coins, so now you only have one set left, and you better take good care of them.
That's why I keep all the ones that fall out from my kids, they can be used later if necessary. And I'm sure they'll share with their siblings too.
The first set of teeth is wasted on the young.
Yes, Buttercup, you foolishly traded in your first first set of teeth for a few coins, so now you only have one set left, and you better take good care of them.
Peep is the "keeping it real" tooth fairy.
So what the hell does the Tooth Fairy do with all those teeth? I figure the dude must have around two trillion of them by now.
See Hogfather, by Terry Pratchett: the teeth are used to control the minds of the children.
A thousand dollars a month is a steal for daycare where I live, and as I've mentioned, for a couple months even that wasn't available to us.
200: Good movie, that.
172-176: We've thought about it. Not that seriously, but in the context of moving closer to grandparents. We've concluded that it's not worth it unless at least one of us has a job lined up, which we could live off for at least a while. Then we drop it because we like our current jobs, more or less, and have almost no chance of making more in rural areas. It may offend one's sense of frugality to live in a place with a high cost of living, but it generally means that salaries are high too. (Obviously, the calculus is different if you aren't making ends meet.)
By the time I have my prospective children it's likely I will get (monetarily) free childcare, but the cost is I will have to live with my MIL. I am not sure how I feel about this trade-off.
193 makes me imagine Pittsburgh as being like the Walled City of Kowloon but with hills instead of highrises.
I can't really get past the sickening feeling of being transformed entirely into Homo Economicus, except in appearance more like the women's bathroom icon, whenever I consider moving "somewhere cheaper." Everything in the last twelve years of my life: whatevs. But lower housing costs! A glorious future! In a house! In City X! With Job Y! No, there has to be some other pull factor.
Meanwhile, I was just yesterday directed by my confused browser to real estate agents for another coastal city, one where I dreamed of living for a long time. The thought of waking up in a house in that place filled me with a rush of longing. It's slightly cheaper than here (everything is) and jobs are plentiful. I would still feel 85% adrift on economic tides if we moved there, but not entirely. If I moved to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, or for that matter to any of the places where we have extended family, it would be wholly effacing without something to do: something to build there, a project, some kind of infrastructure. (How do you look for something like that? Get lucky?) But for those of you who live there, it's not effacing. It's home. It's a place to stay. The low costs help it to seem more homelike, I suppose: more hospitable.
I don't have a project here, and I do have the one non-remunerative project I need to do somewhere, which might be reason enough to move: all projects under this roof have to pay their way. But this is home now, so I'd have to leave home a second time.
Academic careers were supposed to mediate this even distribution of intellectual types across the country. That would once have been a reason for us to end up in, say, Maine. Now the only reason is whimsy.
Well, I'm not an academic and don't have a career. I moved closer to home after college because my scoliosis seemed to be worsening rapidly and I was afraid I'd be too damaged physically as well as already mentally/emotionally to start a whole life on my own. And then everything's cheap and that's easy. But I do sort of regret it in a there-must-be-more-to-life way even though once you have kids you don't get to have regrets because that would undo them.
The low cost does maybe make it easier for you to get into social or volunteer things, at least. So one friend moved here and started a translations reading series. Another has a regular RPG night. That would be harder to wrangle if everyone was just scraping by, maybe. (I'm not sure if this is true or not.)
Another has a regular RPG night.
God bless the 2nd Amendment.
This spring, we thought we'd be sending the kid to full-day kindergarten and paying ~$400 a month for aftercare rather than ~$1500 for preschool. Instead it's half-day kindergarten (space issues), $950 for aftercare (not a boutique service, the city-run program at the school), and our landlord hiked our rent by $700 by threatening to evict us and extorting a market-rate counteroffer. So the expectation that costs would go down when kid started public school was way off: they'll be higher this year. I have a very twitchy middle finger at present. I also need a wisdom tooth removed, because clearly the rotten wisdom it bestows is for shit.
If I moved to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, or for that matter to any of the places where we have extended family, it would be wholly effacing without something to do: something to build there, a project, some kind of infrastructure.
I sort of agreed to move here when I got married. I didn't have a project lined-up, or even a job. It was a little effacing, but I got over it.
If I moved to Pittsburgh or Cincinnati, or for that matter to any of the places where we have extended family, it would be wholly effacing without something to do: something to build there, a project, some kind of infrastructure.
The solution is to not do anything worthwhile with your free time to begin with. Not counting errands, chores, home maintenance, etc., my free time consists of eating out, going to probably an average of one social event per month or hosting same, watching TV, and playing computer games. Unfogged is as edifying as I get.
202: It would never occur to me to go to an out-of-network dentist in that circumstance, mostly because I'm a serious cheapskate, but also because I consider dentists to be 90% interchangeable.
My old dentist retired. His 10% was employing a dental hygienist who hated him.