<p>I'm a parent - a frugal parent. This thread is for the similarly minded. I suppose my kids may be in the group of so-called Ivy League contenders, but we decided to look for schools that we thought would end up costing less than $20k/year in total and be a good education. I hope that a slew of anecdotes of other parents will provide a general starting point for parents who are wondering what attendance actually costs for children of like caliber. We relied heavily on Lauren Pope's book as a starting list for my daughter, while my son will attend our state flagship. Final data are not out yet, and I'll update as more information comes along. Note, that I am not correcting for future cost increases.</p>
<p>Both kids are about 4.6 WGPA, 220 - 225 SAT, National Merit scholars, national competition attendees
No traditional hooks (athlete, minority, prestigious competition)</p>
<p>Daughter: $14k/year to attend a good-very good regional LAC in the southwest. Northwest and Eastern schools of similar caliber appear to be $5- 10k a year more.
Son: Full ride to local flagship</p>
<p>$10k a year savings, $40k total. That isn’t a lot of money. I would not give up a better school for that. </p>
<p>I don’t buy into the notion that an Ivy League education is always worth more dollar-wise. It really depends on the situation and the major. For example, does one of your offspring want to be an investment banker? Pick one of the top schools. </p>
<p>Frankly, I would sell a kidney to send any of my kids to the schools for which your kids qualify (not literally, of course). Forget about the money. What about the experience? </p>
<p>If it will really put you in a financial hole, then pass (although many top schools turn out to be surprisingly affordable if you can get financial aid). However, if you are truly just being frugal, open up the wallet and let the moths fly free.</p>
<p>Spideygirl, thank you for your comments, but I would like to focus this thread on how much school bills are likely to be based on standardized student profie, not discussion of whether more expensive or prestigious schools are “worth it.” There are many, many threads in this forum dedicated to that question.</p>
<p>You reminded me though, to try and be a bit clearer what a “good to very good” regional LAC is. Around 50th ranking in the USNWR rankings; ~ 70% acceptance rate to med/law school; and m/v SAT > 1400 for about 1/5th of the student body.</p>
<p>i guess I approve. But I get the feeling that you told your kids–</p>
<p>“I don’t want to spend a lot of money- I am not willing to pay for ivy leagues- I just want to save money.”</p>
<p>I disagree with this attitude; its the kids who are going to college. Let them choose the college they want and then the parents and kids decide how it will be paid for. I don’t know why but your post gives me the sense that you put quality,the childrens’ interests,and overall fit on the backburner to cost. It shouldn’t be that way.</p>
<p>However, I may be reading the situation wrong. I don’t know you or your family. So I’m sorry if any of my comments are untrue. Maybe it was the phrasing…</p>
<p>^^ nil D, if it will make you feel better – and let us get back to the point of this thread – I’ll mention that my daughter chose to decline a host of schools that offered a full ride to national merit scholars, while my son was told he could apply to CalTech etc if he wanted to, but his parents thought the local school was a better fit where he is already happily adjusted in the science dept and the campus. It sounds like my frugality sentence is raising hackles. It was really only meant to warn away people who value prestige and reputation over cost. The intent of this thread would not interest them.</p>
<p>So, one last plea to consider the <em>reason</em> for this thread: actual college bills for real students, and enough student profiling to help other families match realistic costs to colleges and students.</p>
<p>I consider myself frugal but am willing to spend on education - with that said I still wanted the most bang for my buck in education. My D1 is at a top 15 LAC with a lot of merit, both from LAC, NMF, and outside scholarships. This LAC also took into consideration the tuition I pay for D2 at boarding school. D1 also received FA in addition to the merit. I believe I am paying less than we would to attend Harvard (the only Ivy D1 wanted but was not admitted). D1 was NMF, Pres. Scholar Candidate, Graduated top 10% of class from good boarding school. She got some attractive offers from other schools too but this school had NO LOANS and ended up being her favorite. There were of course opportunities for NMF full rides but we didn’t consider those. D2 will be a whole different story - at a top boarding school but not a 4.0 student. I will rely on guidance counselors/naviance there! I assume I will end up paying more for D2 due to the types of schools she would like to apply to - not necessarily meeting 100% need and include loans. Also I figure when I am sending the last to school I can spend more since I am not trying to save for any other college bound kids.</p>
<p>NEM, if your daughter is a 2009 or even better 2010 freshmen, would you provide numbers ? Please exclude outside scholarships unless they shaved off merit aid that the school would otherwise had provided. Thanks!</p>
<p>It is difficult to explain clearly (D1 is a 2009 freshman BTW). After we got the initial award I called FA about o/s scholarships. When they adjusted they took into account that we needed a new computer (her computer died shortly after apps were done!) and a higher travel allowance due to being VERY far away. So those o/s scholarships replaced $2k of work study and they upped the COA (travel/computer).
The Initial award included $10k merit and $24k FA and $2k work study. After adjustments it became $10k merit, $2k nat’l merit scholar, $7.5 other scholarship and $20k FA and $0 work study. She did get a campus job anyway which helped. SO with the $9,500 in post FA award scholarships we netted about an extra $5.5 k but ONLY because we could justify raising the COA for travel, credit against the work study, and a new computer (which we got a really nice one with that extra money).<br>
This year will be different since the $7,500 was one year only. There are a few scholarships she will apply for sophomore year and I don’t expect it will affect the award but my theory is that they have been so generous it would be the right thing to bring in as much merit for her school as she can. Plus we love her school! The total COA is @ $54k</p>
<p>Thanks for the data point, NEM. When you say FA, does that mean loans, need-based aid, or both ?
If I was not clear earlier, I am trying to collect data on the discounted CoA for students of different standardized testing strata. Perhaps a way to think of this is, how much is the college bill this year ? The payment method – whether federal loan, grandparents, or work-study, does not matter. In my OP, I started from (tuition+fees+room+board) and discounted merit aid to arrive at the college cost.</p>
<p>If you are up to it (and remember!) the attendance cost for the schools that your daughter did not attend would be interesting data too. And since she is not going to them, naming names is safe ;-)</p>
<p>Ah heck, now I am confusing myself.
I am interested in college cost NOT taking into account loans, need-based aid, outside scholarships, or work-study.</p>
<p>Sorry everybody. I should have made clear in my OP that need-based aid did not play a part in the calculated costs.</p>
<p>OK. I can give one example. Since we applied for aid at all but one school. Apparently you want information on what desirable students who do NOT apply for aid receive in merit only. Right?
D1 applied to Boston University (asked for no aid) and received the Presidential Scholar Scholarship (full tuition 4 years) worth about $38k/yr. All her other schools had a combination of merit and FA.</p>
<p>^^^
Maybe I’m misunderstanding…I don’t know if the OP cares if the person applied for aid.</p>
<p>I think he wants stories of great merit received that reduced a student’s costs. Whether some FA was ALSO received probably doesn’t matter…altho he doesn’t want that included in the cost reduction. For instance…</p>
<p>Student A</p>
<p>COA of University Qwertry: $45,000</p>
<p>Presidential merit: $30,000 for ACT 32, GPA 4.0 (this he wants to know about because it’s stats related)</p>
<p>Pell Grant: $5500 (this he doesn’t want to know about because it’s income related)</p>
<p>I don’t know how he wants merit included when the school has required a FAFSA submittal.</p>
<p>The point I was trying to make it that a true cost analysis of various schools cannot be done by looking at tuition bills alone. This has nothing to do with prestige, or the subjective merits of an elite education. It is about dollars and cents. If you save $200,000 on the undergrad education, but your aspiring M & A math whiz cannot get one of the few best employment spots, how much have you saved? Your family has likely lost millions of dollars.</p>
<p>Any top shelf student can get a full ride somewhere with a “good education” (considerably less that $20,000). I guess I am not sure what the point is of your OP (no disrespect intended).</p>
<p>Is this the type of information your looking for?</p>
<p>My student… (Current college freshman)
Top Tier school per USNWR rankings…
COA $48,750 (tuition, room, board and $120 fee) no books, travel etc…
Merit aid $30,000
GPA 4.867w 4.0uw SAT 1920
Co-Valedictorian</p>
<p>Thank you Momto4inSocal and Mom2College kids, for being patient with my confusion. The data from Momto4in SoCal is exactly what I had in mind. Please add any hooks that might also affect the merit aid amount. </p>
<p>I am amazed people have figured out my intentions, when I posted them so unclearly. It really just comes down to how much merit aid different colleges are offering students of varying standardized testing caliber, in the context of CoA. I want to clarify that I hope anybody offered merit aid will post, so that future students can match themselves to similar profiles.</p>
<p>I have hesitated in naming specific colleges in order to keep my daughter anonymous, so I understand the ambiguity. Nonetheless, the more specific we are, the more helpful others may find this data. Perhaps something like ‘LAC ranked in the 25 -50 group’ will work ? Now that USNWR allows ~ 250 LAC and national universities into the ‘top tier’, a wide range fits into that group.</p>
<p>My younger son will be entering college this fall.</p>
<p>Top tier USNWR Master’s University (West)
COA approx $47,000
Merit aid $17,000
GPA 3.75w SAT 1820
More or less unhooked; will walk on to a sports team (school is Division 3). We have no evidence that the coach had anything to do with the merit award.
Son showed lots of interest in the college during the application phase.</p>
<p>We were thrilled with the merit award as it was much higher than expected. Son received merit awards at similar colleges in the range of $10,000 to $19,000/year.</p>
<p>I have no intention of limiting this thread to genius students, and in fact would like to see a wide range of merit offers from a wide range of colleges given to a wide range of student profiles. I am afraid my writing ‘like students’ has been mistakenly construed to mean “similar to EricLG’s kids”, when I meant profiles similar to a future reader.</p>
<p>I imagined this data to be helpful in answering hypotheticals like:
“What colleges are possible matches for my kid’s profile, given our financial decision to spend $xx,xxx on the undergrad education?”</p>
<p>vballmom, thanks for the excellent data point. What is a Master’s university ? As I mentioned earlier, could you be more specific than ‘top tier’ rank in describing the college ?</p>
<p>Everybody, please feel free to include merit offers from schools that were not matriculated into. That information is equally valuable.</p>
<p>It seems March is the month to finally hear college merit offers. A bit more data from my daughter (stats noted in OP):
$27k merit of $41k CoA from Southwestern University;
Full tuition of $46k CoA from NorthEastern U (leaving $12k R&B);
Full tuition of $46k CoA from Fordham U (leaving $11k R&B);
$20k merit of $45k CoA from Wooster LAC</p>
<p>I have only included tuition, room and board in my CoA amounts, although it should be understood by all that personal expenses, college ‘fees’, travel, books and perhaps health insurance have to be paid for too.</p>
<p>If you save $200,000 on the undergrad education, but your aspiring M & A math whiz cannot get one of the few best employment spots, how much have you saved? Your family has likely lost millions of dollars.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t know how many math whizzes can’t get great jobs if they want to. Especially if they use their talents to get into a strong grad school. After that MS or PhD graduation, no one is going to care that the undergrad was from a flagship instead of a top private. </p>
<p>My little bro called me this morning …he’s a director for Canon USA. He went to a Cal State for undergrad and USC for grad school. He’s making a very high income. My other brother did the same CSU/USC for undergrad and grad. He’s a VP for DirecTV. My H went to Big 10 schools for undergrad/grad. He’s done just as well. It’s just not true that a person has to spend $200k for undergrad to nab a high paying position.</p>