@mom517 asked following question.
“How can college not be affordable even after we have done our best to save?”
Answer: It’s not affordable because you have done your best to do everything right. These colleges only reward privileged and poor, not hard working frugal families who already know value of hard work and frugal living. They are supposed to live like that and give it all to colleges so colleges can look good by giving aid to others.
That’s a pretty harsh way to describe it.
The reality is…families are first in line to pay for colleges.
NOVA has a $70,000 plus a year price tag. It is not going to be affordable for every student who applies. Some families have other obligations financially that make paying their family contribution more difficult.
This needs to be considered when crafting a set of colleges to apply to. It just does. If you have other financial obligations then consider your ability to pay while also meeting those other obligations.
College can be affordable for middle class families. It takes forgoing applying to schools based on wants and applying based on financial affordability. That option might include commuting to the local CC or local directional U.
Many of us are looking at the college picture from a very privileged position, whether or not we can pay for that privilege. THe most expensive school are PRIVATE schools. Take a look at the costs of private boarding schools for your pre college kids. It’s not like they are inexpensive either. We don’t expect our society, our government, or those schools to pick up the costs to send our kids to these schools. Why do we expect those options for PRIVATE colleges, sleep away colleges, to be subsidized and that they are, to some degree, want more?
Unless you join the military or other organization that specifically includes room and board costs, of course you have to pay for living expenses anywhere. Why should a private school be offering free admissions to everyone? That they do for anyone is a huge step. There was a time that you simply did not go to college if you could not pay for it. Hardly anyone got money to go there unless the plate or hat was passed. It’s not been that long that the financial aid system has been in place where private schools have a systematic way to offer those whose parents cannot afford the costs get them subsidized.
IMO, it’s the state schools, the public schools, especially the local schools, the community colleges that need the most subsidies. Not going to be a popular stance here, but IMO the government should end the student subsidies to the private schools and focus on making the state and local public colleges financially affordable for everyone. We are close to that now. Most areas in the US do have accessible colleges that are affordable, at least for the first two years of college. For those who have few financial resources, those schools can usually be covered by the PELL and other government, including that from the state, grants and the Direct Loans and Work Study.
Where we are lacking and differ from many other countries is that the schools best regarded in this country are private schools. I wish we would work on having nationally designated public schools that get that regard and are free to all who gain admissions.
College can be affordable if you go to less desireable ones.
No. It’s only affordable for high EFC families if students are high achievers merit qualifiers compromising for colleges they don’t want to attend. If not getting merit or not high acchiever then you pay for less desireable colleges which less qualified get for for free even though you are paying high income tax to support those colleges.
There is no such thing as free edible lunch for these families, no matter how hard they work or save, system keeps draining their accounts and doesn’t let them cross the status quo.
$26K/year is not only unreasonable, but undoable for many many people. Where are you going to get that $26K a year? In many ways, it’s a good thing you are not able to cosign for him, because too many parents do who should not be doing so and end up in dire financial straits, unable to repay these loans that only increase with interest.
What schools are local to him? WCU is about $9500 a year in tuition . With Direct Loans alone, he can come up with $5500 of that. It’s the room and board, the sleep away aspect of college that is what is driving up the price of the state schools. Most kids cannot afford to go away to college, cannot afford to go to private colleges just as they cannot afford to go off to private boarding school before college. Finding sufficient scholarships or benefactors to pay for options that cover one’s living expenses is difficult. Not much out there to pay it all.
In his case, look at your local state colleges. Community colleges included. He can work part time, borrow some and a small grant (maybe your family qualifies for some PELL or other federal funds, some state money) to make it work out.
You are absolutely correct that racking up the kind of debt that is on the table for your son to go away to college is not wise.
@CupCakeMuffins Affordable is not synonymous for “less desirable.” It is bogus to state that schools with large merit awards are less desirable and top merit students compromise by attending schools that they don’t want to. My kids have absolutely LOVED (or currently loving in terms of my Top Scholar at USC) their UG yrs. I’ll take their UG and post UG outcomes any day!!
Cupcake, everyone views the issue through their own lens. You made a decision to support family overseas if I recall your posts from last year- an outlay of significant resources, which is not recognized by financial aid as a hardship. You are to be commended for supporting your family, but the financial aid system in the US would fall apart if everyone sending money overseas got those dollars replaced.
I am a member of a women’s networking group, and it astonishes me how many of the women are bitter (and make comments like the ones you make, anonymously, but theirs are out in the open). They feel like college’s have %^&* them and their families; evil, evil colleges who take money from hard working people to give it to the lazy poor kids who are undeserving. After all- some of them already get subsidized rent- they live in housing projects!
Some of the more outspoken members of the group have pointed out- in a tactful way- that taking a 15 or 18 year maternity leave, as many of these financially “disadvantaged” women i the group have done, is a choice. A choice with financial consequences of course, as most choices have. You can leave a job as Director of Marketing for a regional bank, where you made 120K per year, and take off almost two decades- and only a lunatic would think that you’re going to get hired into the same job, making that salary plus inflation. These are smart people whose skills are rusty, who know computer programs which are totally obsolete, and are thinking “list management” when corporate America has moved to big data, analytics, and AI. Oh- and they won’t travel because they still have a kid at home. And forget working late- they’ve got soccer pickup.
I get that they are angry and frustrated (like you). The plan was that they’d go back to work when the youngest started high school, and at $120K per year they’d be putting a dent in college expenses for the older one, plus saving for the younger one. But that picture is pretty different when you’re grossing $25K a year doing part-time financial marketing at a small ad agency ('cause that’s all you can get) or making $60 an hour at the local yoga studio a few times a week. Their plan was delusional, and now those delusions are coming home to roost- but it sure ain’t the fault of the adcom’s that their “second income”, after taxes, can barely cover what they thought it would.
Meanwhile, the drones like me went back to work after a few weeks off, took every promotion, moved, and had to figure out the child care and the ear infections and not being in school for the poetry reading at 10 am or the school play at noon. (Hard to manage that on your lunch hour if you have an hour commute each way). That’s a choice I made, and I’m happy that I made it. Other families chose a different path.
But your bitterness isn’t about the system- it’s about how it worked out for YOUR particular child, who you’ve posted is unhappy at his college, and is likely aggravated that he couldn’t attend his first choice college because of the choices YOU made as a parent.
Does the other parent feel the same way that you do???
That’s what I thought, $26K is ridiculous. As far as WCU, he would have to live on campus to room and board brings it to $20K. In state full commuter is $10,411.76
@Alucard41 : who are you addressing?or your post on ended up on the wrong thread?
(Op has a daughter and is considering Pitt v. UMD, not wcu).
We had to have a talk with our D19 on Sunday. D19 is a high stats kid with plenty of options. We don’t have a pile of money for college. We went on the hunt for merit in this process.
D19’s #1 choice did not come through with the merit we needed. We had hoped D19 would come to the smart conclusion of not going there herself. That didn’t happen. There were some finger pointing during the discussion about why did she apply there and some other places. Well when you hunt for merit you just don’t know what you will get. Not many schools are like Alabama where you know exactly what you will get. It sucks and is part of life. It was an emotional discussion for sure.
I think in the end she will calm down and see that she will make the best decision. She will be able to go to a school that meets her future needs well and get out with no or little debt. Compared to her #1 choice of probably being $30K in debt walking out of school. Some may say $30K isn’t that much, but when you want to go to grad school having debt pile up is never a good idea in my opinion. My wife and I lived with college debt and it wasn’t fun. It is also the reason she can’t go to her #1 choice. I would have the $30K extra to send her to that school if I didn’t have debt myself.
My only advice with dealing with your kids is to be as crystal clear about the situation as possible from the start. I thought she knew the plan but she claims she didn’t. Teenagers will try to twist your words for sure. Or will easily forget things you said. This was all coming from a time back in the fall where I was being told that I wanted to talk about college too much.
D19 was our first child to go through this process. We have learned some things for sure. We will do things slightly different for D23.
I guess the lesson is over-communicate even when they don’t want to listen.
^ if the 30k debt is total at the end of college, it’s federal loans and those match what a college graduate can reasonably pay back over 10 years. It’s doable. There’s also an income-based repayment system for people who have a low salary/service profession. It’s quite unlike debt you carry into your 40s.
Loans above that limit however should be avoided at all costs.
What sort of graduate school though?
If PhD, she’ll be funded - no PhD is worth doing if not funded.
If medical or law school then keeping undergraduate debt to a minimum is wise.
@MYOS1634 D19 is going into science and wants to go to med school. Either way I figure she will end up in grad school.
Also the $30K is in today’s tuition rates which will rise and she end up at $35K easily.
If she is going to go the med school route I would prefer she only work if it helps for the med school application. I know med school is all about GPA and MCAT. I would like the least amount of distractions while in undergrad and working would be one for sure. She has become a little addicted to work her senior year of HS.
Also I didn’t mention she would like to double major with Spanish.
Lastly the two schools are pretty close in rankings. Neither is top 20. And the cheaper school has accepted her into Honors and another program as well.
@gpo613 Our position is similar to yours. We are anti taking out loans, even federal student ones. All of our kids have managed to attend on between $0-$7000/yr and no loans. Zero regrets. Great outcomes.
Ds in grad school is thrilled to have no debt. He is getting married in May. Awesome to be debt-free when starting out your new life.
@gpo613 : If med school is on the horizon, no loans is the best solution. (If the loans are the federal loans, they’re strictly regulated: 5.5K first year, 6.5 second year, 7.5 each of jr and sr year. They add up to 27K total, which make 31K with interests.)
Spanish is a GREAT double major to have if she wants to go to med school - she should volunteer in setting where she will be able to use her skills, perhaps even check if there’s a “Spanish for medical professions” class at her college!
Med school applicants need to volunteer and work in relation to their chosen field. She could work in a lab in order to participate in research (at first, they’ll see how far they can trust her, she may just wash test tubes 
and needs to persevere.) I recommend she check the tumbler by AFrenchie36.
@blossom will you be my friend? You stated very eloquently the trade offs. And each choice has something to regret and be happy about. I really like state schools and wish the ones in each state were more affordable for residents. I don’t think that a relatively high income family with a not superstar student should have endless subsidized choices. But I do think all students should have access to some form of higher education that is affordable without crippling loans. And if it’s community college with transfer that seems ok if folks don’t want to make sacrifices of 100% of one parent’s income for a decade plus funding more choices.
I don’t have any problem having free college tuition options. Any and everybody who wants to go to college, willing to take the time to take the courses and can get through them with passing grades and comprehension to move to the next level should be allowed to do so without money being an impediment.
That does not mean sleep away school or private school. Some states are starting to see this Tennessee has made community colleges free. NY is trying to make public college affordable, free and low cost for those who make less than certain threshholds. I support these measures.
Free college would be a good thing for our country, not a bad thing.
@blossom It’s more about the choice of government and colleges to take from A and give to B and look good doing it. Individuals doesn’t get to decide how they want to spend their charity.
^Look to France for that and let us know. No skin in the game if it’s free - no money for facilities or to improve.
There is a lot of opportunity between free and 30-70k that makes more sense.