<p>It sounds like she did the east coast tour to show daughter some variety of campuses, AND get material to write an article. Great idea, I wonder if you could expense account or write off the airfare and hotels of college visits?</p>
<p>Can we at least have the author's name?</p>
<p>Kathy Kristof, LA Times Staff Writer</p>
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<blockquote> <p>If she was only willing to put up $20,000 a year for child's college then she should explained and laid out the rules to the child. Why even bothered to tour the private schools??<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>I don't have the problem of letting a kid tour private colleges with the understanding that no one is allowed to fall in love with a school because without the right aid package or without enough outside scholarships, an acceptance can't be taken. </p>
<p>I do know kids who don't qualify for need-based aid at non-merit universities who won full scholarships to those schools from outside sources. But that is so rare...</p>
<p>Agreed that expenses of the trip are probably business related on the part of the mother. Actually, I will be interested to hear how this situation resolves itself come next spring.</p>
<p>OH MY GOSH!!!! She give advice on financial issues and college savings etc!! But.....seems to me she couldn't even take care of her own child's college need and the rational approach to the matter, how is she going to give advice?? OH MY GOSH!!!!!!!!</p>
<p>She did have a RATIONAL approach to the matter, McCash...$20K to go toward a UC education. Why spend more when you can get a great UC education for a great price?</p>
<p>But she didn't count on emotions--hers and her daughter's! Maybe the ex will bring sense back into the picture! Either that or he will buy into Georgetown and kick in more $$.</p>
<p>Cynical of me, & you'all will probably blast me.</p>
<p>What if Mom is sending an appeal to Geargetown admissions? "We love you so..."?</p>
<p>Ellemenope: I guess our approach to the matter is different, I wouldn't bother to fly across the country to see different private colleges and known that I can only pay $20K/yr. To me that's not practical and waste of time and resources. UC's and Cal States are great schools, just go to these public and forget the private.</p>
<p>We love you so but can't afford you so...please don't accept my daughter...</p>
<p>"There is something really annoying about this article... I can't quite put my finger on it."</p>
<p>The story is a bogus as they come. </p>
<p>My son only applied to schools that fit our budget,appx $22,000 net cost or less. He would ask me, "Dad, if I get in, can I go to X? We looked up the costs, factored in his chance of merit aid, and he then decided. He knew that if the scholarship did not come in, no deal, as he did not want to burden himself with student debt, and I don't blame him.</p>
<p>For example, Syracuse, $45,000, no schoarship, can't go.</p>
<p>UConn, $31,000 gross, OOS gets $9000 with 1400 SATand top 10% grad. class. He had a 1330 SAT (M and V), and top 20%. Sorry.</p>
<p>He was fine with the whole process. It would have been a cruel tease any other way.</p>
<p>Ohio State, National Buckeye Plus, Trustees Scholarhip, appx. $22,000 net. Bingo, starts next week!</p>
<p>We visited of course, and the school had to fit, but you get the drift.</p>
<p>This approach was given to us by his assistant principal during our first college application lecture at his old H.S.. This approach might not work for everyone, but it is at least honest.</p>
<p>This writer pretends to know finance, and then looks at schools that don't fit the budget?!</p>
<p>Typical northeastern school snob, and I am from the NE, unless the whole story is made up....</p>
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<blockquote> <p>What a horrible woman.<<</p> </blockquote>
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<p>Let's not get carried away. She's guilty of letting her emotions overrule her logic. She's guilty of not properly doing her homework. She's gulity of wanting something she can't readily afford. These are pretty routine human follies, and falling into them does not make someone a horrible human being.</p>
<p>Haven't you ever toured a fancy house that you knew you probably couldn't afford but found yourself wanting to buy it anyway? At the big car show do you spend all your time at the Kia exhibit or do you go look at the Ferraris as well? Give the poor woman a break. She clearly realizes that she has created a problem for herself. It will be interesting to read in coming columns how she resolves it.</p>
<p>LOL -- fortunately, as we all know, the kid will probably need more than a subscription to Newsweek to get accepted to Georgetown.</p>
<p>I looked up the book: "Taming the Tuition Tiger: Getting the Money to Graduate--with 529 Plans, Scholarships, Financial Aid, and More" -- by Kathy Kristoff. </p>
<p>I agree that it's better for people with real-life experience to write how-to books -- then they become aware of some of the real issues at stake. It's not just emotional -- it is being from the outset of the qualitative differences between public/private education, and also of the consequences of poor planning. In this case, Kristoff probably had the sort of information at hand at least 5 years ago (book was published is 2003) that she could have been investing in a way so as to leave her daughter with more choices now. </p>
<p>In any case, Amazon provides an excerpt of Chapter 1 of her book, and I see that it has a solution to her problem. It seems that the best way to afford college is to start with the local community college: "Two year colleges are the best thing we have going in higher education." "... the education is often comparable to the best of the four-year schools ... at a fraction of the cost ..." </p>
<p>If d. follows mom's advice, then she'll head off to Pasadena City College next fall. ;)</p>
<p>If that doesn't work, the mom needs to refer to her own Chapter 9... "Generous Relatives"</p>
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She's gulity of wanting something she can't readily afford.
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<p>Actually, we really don't know that. All the we do know is that private schools costs more than mom (and dad?) were planning on paying. They ARE full pay customers, so mom's income could be planned for something else; perhaps the parent poster with the $1 million dollar mortgagte?</p>
<p>Of course you have all the rights to look at the fancier houses and or colleges, but, wouldn't it be more practical to take her daughter to see the different UC's, say UC San Diego, Santa Barbara, Berkeley, Santa Cruze etc and along the way stop by fancier schools of USC, Pepperdine and Stanford etc. Flying across country seeing fancy schools of east coast while you can only afford $20K/yr just don't make much horse sense.</p>
<p>She didn't SAY she could only afford $20,000 a year; she said that she had PLANNED on paying that. If she is not eligble for financial aid, then she has the money, or access to the money. Obviously, she isn't wild about paying that much, but looking at the fact that they took a trip to see these colleges, my guess is that she is planning to revise her contribution amount upward by a significant amount.</p>
<p>^I hope so. If not, then taking her D to tour these schools when mom had no intention of paying and has to know there is little chance of an outside scholarship and none for merit aid, is just plain cruel.</p>
<p>The D was in love with UCLA. She was satisfied to go there. How can showing her something else be anything but an emotional monkeywrench? It is not like touring a house you can't afford, because it's about the kid, not you.</p>
<p>Unless the author plans on ratcheting up her contribution, this article feels really icky to me. Emotional toying with the D, who had been happy with her previous choices--look, isn't this nice? Sorry, you can't have it.</p>
<p>Maybe the article is meant to be a lever to pry more money out of the dad?</p>
<p>But now she has the skinny for another book. LOL. Actually, the quandry she is in now is where a book about higher ed. should start. For some, the state school is the ideal solution and feels right, but for many the lure of the name brand is just too strong.</p>
<p>So, she is now where she should have been when she started the first book: understanding the emotional component of making this decision. It's very different when she's advocating community college for someone else's kid than when it's her own.</p>
<p>What the author did do, though, was recognize her prior cluelessness....emotional and financial...and admit it in public so that others might benefit.</p>
<p>She was wrong. She admits it. She is torn. She is sharing it.</p>
<p>I felt much the same when S fell in love with a school we could not afford. The $ balance, he knew, was up to him, though I silently played with some really stupid ideas of how to help to make it possible for him. Didn't help that I could see that it was a great match. Fortunately for him, the various sources of money worked out, we have not put ourselves in the poor house, and his debt will be very reasonable.</p>
<p>But, in the first weeks after he fell in love (though he tried not to and didn't admit it because he knew money was a big part of the story), I felt much as the author did.</p>
<p>Well, as a parent, I am just so thankful that I've gleaned such helpful and good information on our college searches from this forum. I would never have even heard of the two colleges my kids ended up at - and we are so happy with their decisions. (So far anyway!) And the fact that we can pay for them and still retire and live our fairly normal lives (haha) is just icing on the cake. :)</p>