Kid Dodges all 8 Ivies for University of Alabama: #Smartchoices

Now this is a kid that is interested in his financial future.

Yet despite the accomplishment, Nelson declined offers from Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, Cornell, Dartmouth, and Penn. He chose a state school instead: the University of Alabama. His reason for choosing to Roll Tide? Nelson wants to avoid mountains of student loan debt.

Nelson, who is his senior class president, has a 4.58 weighted GPA, is an award-winning saxophone player, and has plenty of merit-based awards to his name, told Morning Joe Monday that he analyzed all of the offers and asked himself one simple question: “Where am I going to get the best education possible, while still making sure that it’s financially reasonable for both me and my family?” said Nelson.

In other words he chose free college instead of having to work for decades to pay off a mountain of debt he would get from an Ivy. He can always choose to go to an Ivy for grad school or maybe law school if he was so inclined. Instead he gets 4 years of free college then he can go into debt for a fraction of the amount he would need. Smart kid.