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I have my masters from one of the top 5 private colleges, but I am not an engineer.

My family's lifestyle is very STEM-centric. It's my husband's thing and my son already expresses interest (at age 4) in hands on, mechanical type "work." I will absoultely support my son in whatever it is he wants to pursue, but with the guidance that comes along with having 2 parents in lucrative fields. I want him to be his own person, but I also want him to have some financial security and not have to backtrack in his formative career years.

Neither of us went to the schools on the list, but in general my philosophy would be to steer my child into a career-appropriate school. They can pick their own field of study, but if they want to be a teacher like me then I would encourage them to go to a cheaper state school. If they wanted to go into a higher-income field, I would probably still encourage them to look into public schools or at least private schools that would give substantial scholarships.

My husband and I both went to state schools for undergrad and our masters--he has no college debt (his parents helped him and his schools were cheap), and I just have a bit left (no parental help).

I have a teacher coworker who has 1,000 of student loan payments each month. I think that's totally insane when we make what we do.

I went to school in Canada so my school is not on the list. The school I went to is top 1 or 2 for my stem program.

I would encourage my LO to choose a field of study where passion and practicality meet. One of my mom's greatest wishes for me was to be self sufficient and not to have to rely on a man or anyone else. I want the same thing for my daughter.

@swurlygurl: I'm with you! Both my husband and I are engineers, so I'll be surprised if my kids end up being more interested in liberal arts. I'm totally fine with it, but I will be confused and not have much advice for them!

I just saw this article too. DH and I are engineers too, I went to a private school and he went to a state school... and now we're at the same company making the same amount. Personally, I would encourage a state school and don't think that it really matters after a few years of work on the resume anyways. I work along side people from MIT and CalTech to unheard of school to state schools. My 100k+ education vs my husbands 40k got us to exactly the same place. I think the article is misleading. The reason the engineering schools made the list is not cause of the school, but just the fact that it's a higher earning profession.

@PurplePumps: @blackbird: I think going to an elite school opens doors that may be harder to open if you didn't attend one. It's not to say it's impossible because top employers like Google, Facebook, etc. and brilliant entrepreneurs come from a variety of schools.

However, there is no denying that top employers specifically recruit from Stanford, MIT, Caltech with larger recruiting organizations. There may be 1 recruiter staffed to handle students from "all other schools in the states WA, ID and OR".

In my experience employers are viewing my LinkedIn profile and cold calling me because of where I went to school and I have had interviewers comment on my school as well.

@sunny: Oh i think that's the case, particularly depending on what company is recruiting (i work for a top engineering company). But I've also my fair share of recruiters contact me, and I didn't go to MIT. I did, however, attend a well known state school for engineering. But at my company, we all start on the same page and it really doesn't matter where you go. The experience you gain AT the company matters more after a few years. But also, those elite schools have more money for the fancy research projects that look good on resumes....

I will certainly not try to steer her towards any lucrative career, because I think that loving what you do means far more than making a lot of money. In terms of colleges, though, I plan to save for a state school. If she wants to go to something else, I'm going to really encourage her to seek grants and work, because coming out of college without any debt would make a huge, huge difference in a young person's life.

I will make paying for college contingent on her coming out of it with some useful, employable skill, though. So she can either choose a major that leads right to a career or to the next step in school (any health professional, teaching, prelaw/premed, etc), she can study something and work in the field afternoons or summers, or she can study art or something, and go to a community college during the summer and get some kind of useful training in something like phlebotomy or paralegal or whatever. I'm for sure not going to save my money up now to fund her degree in art later without knowing that she'll be able to support herself with it someday.

I went to grad school at one of the private schools on the list (I also majored in a STEM field in college at a school not on the list). I think my parents sort of forced me into STEM because I was naturally good at math and science as a kid. I resented them for awhile but am now grateful about it because I have a job that I love. I am not going to force LO into anything, but I will try to expose her to STEM ideas when she is young, and I hope she will end up falling into it naturally.

I went to a small school that's not on the list and I owe a gazillion in loans, so...

I wouldn't really try to steer my child towards anything. I wanted to major in communications and my parents really wanted me to major in english. Im glad I went the comm route.

That said, I will be actually saving money for my child's education and will be fine with them going to public or private school. No public schools in my state had a comm program when I was going to school so I appreciated my private school program.

I think there's a million things that go in to college and career choice. Do I want my kids to love what they do? Of course! But what if they choose to follow their passion and fail? My SIL is like this. She wanted to be a fashion designer and has mostly worked dead end, minimum wage jobs. If, on the other hand, she had chose a less competitive field maybe she'd have a job she likes and has a future.

As for college choice, I think it's very important to consider the ROI. DH went to a very expensive private school and came out with $100k in debt. Even in his fairly lucrative STEM career, he could barely pay those loans. Meanwhile, friends of ours went to UMass and paid a fraction of what he did and have the same job, probably making similar money.

I will encourage DS to have interests in STEM areas as well as artistic areas. I have a career that straddles art and technology, and as a kid I was into music and sports as well. If he insists he wants to be something like a classical musician, then he needs to be well aware how tough that life is, and how only a very tiny percentage ever make a livable wage, much less make it big. But I'm sure I'll be a tough sell, because in my mind jobs are for supporting you, and hobbies are for fun. If you can combine both, awesome. If you can't, well I'm not going to support you for the rest of your life so that you can follow your passion.

I'm a Ramblin' Wreck from Georgia Tech and a hell of an engineer! DH is too! GT always ranks really highly on the various ROI lists that come out. Our degrees have served us well!

Considering our personal interests and the interests of many of our family members, I'd be really surprised if our kids are not interested in STEM because they will be exposed to it constantly from a very early age.