<p>“I am almost beside myself with anxiety: we got our financial aid letter today from the school my daughter got into, early action. Over the phone they said my “worst case scenario” (their words) was $9,000.”</p>
<p>and </p>
<p>“She has National Merit status and we turned down full scholarships to several colleges because I thought we could afford this school.” </p>
<p>I am not sure how to react to this—for some one who has limitted resources to make a decision like this based upon what they were told over the phone as opposed to getting a formal confimrmation in writing is not very prudent. Unfortunately, they only compounded the problem by prematurely turning down scholarships to other schools. I am sorry for the OP, but she really did not use good judgement.</p>
<p>She further says:</p>
<p>“I am extremely conservative with my finances, living off interest from a small life insurance policy.”</p>
<p>I don’t know what this means in light of her current situation. I would not describe her decision making as “extremely conservative” with regard to her finance. Being conservative would imply ensuring she has the resources to pay for the tuition as opposed to being dependent upon a verbal confirmation/offer of aid.</p>
<p>I do feel badly for the OP and her daughter, but frankly, she really created this situation.</p>
<p>Private university education is ridiculously expensive , but the expectation that the private universities have an obligation to subsidize that expense is just as ridiculous.
FA is an cost of doing business at both public and private universities , not an act of generosity. We are a capitalist society and the ability to pay is one of the burdens of that society.</p>
<p>If one does not have the ability to pay full sticker and the salesman won’t discount the price , you have to buy a more economical , but not necessarily inferior model. Can’t afford that BMW , buy the Ford , the Ford will do everything the BMW does except feed your ego.</p>
<p>I dont think it is so easy for a 59YO with no job history to find a job. Is she able to stand on her feet all day at Starbucks? I think that type of thinking by anyone is somewhere between insenstive and arrogant.</p>
<p>This is a lady who has spent the last 4 years volunteering full time at her child’s school. She’s also chaperoning a class of seniors on an Italy trip. She would have the stamina to work a job. </p>
<p>Possibly, a parent of a child at her D’s school could hire her as a receptionist or something at his/her company.</p>
<p>*At the end of this month we’ll also have acceptances and financial aid packages from one Ivy and an Ivy wannabe–so we’ll have some alternatives and comparables. * </p>
<p>How do you know that your D will be accepted to these schools?</p>
<p>PLEASE, if you are sincere about your actual financial need, go back to those safety colleges with the generous NM offers and reactivate the files. If possible,* do that before you take off to Europe **-- just make the phone calls first thing Monday morning. Those schools offer the scholarships because they very much want students like your daughter, so right now (before April 1), they may be very happy to reopen her file and reinstate the offer. After April 1, when you get back, it may be too late. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>I agree. I think that waiting until after you hear back from GU is a mistake. Get Plan B and Plan C going now.</p>
<p>“I have a lot more sympathy for OP. She may not have understood process etc. She is aksing for help, no need to dump on her.”</p>
<p>She should have understood the process–this is not like buying a gallon of milk. FI she did not understand the process, there are virtually infinite resources (including this board which she obviously knows about) that are available to her.</p>
<p>*Now I have no husband but I have $300,000 and **compassionate businessmen-friends **who locked me into a generous return on loans to them. </p>
<p>*</p>
<p>this is what I’m referring to in my above post. Perhaps one of these friends could hire her in some kind of job that doesn’t require being on one’s feet all day long.</p>
<p>I would think it’s a good idea for the OP to work some to bring in more money to just pay for the unanticipated expenses associated with having a child in college. this mom is obviously very close to her D, so either she’ll be flying her D home more than once a year, or the mom will be flying to see her D at school.</p>
<p>Whatever her investment strategies are, whatever her employment prospects are, do not enter into the financial aid calculations. They look at $X in assets and $Y in income. The big questions are what items should be included in those categories in unusual circumstances. Also financial aid is based on what happened in 2010 with some leeway sometimes given to 2011 circumstances, but with the level of assets sitting in wait, I don’t think there will be that much sympathy given.</p>
<p>I knew of a situation where the breadwinner husband died and left the finances in a shamble. The watershed year that he died was one heck of a financial mess. There was a college situation with Holy Cross, and they just could not come to any agreement as to what the need was. Student took off the year and went the following year when the picture was clearer and the assets were not double counted as income and assets and prior ended income was out of the picture. The aid was still not what the family would have liked but doable which is usually as good as it gets anyways.</p>
<p>PROFILE OF FALL 2009 ADMISSION GEORGETOWN UNIVERSITY </p>
<p>Overall Admission Rate 20% of 18,616 applicants were admitted
Women 20% of 10,612 applicants were admitted
Men 20% of 8,004 applicants were admitted
Students Enrolled 1,628 (44%) of 3,682 admitted students enrolled
Women 908 (44%) of 2,071 admitted students enrolled
Men 720 (45%) of 1,611 admitted students enrolled </p>
<p>With Georgetown as competitive as it is, there is no need for their Financial Aid Office to
use their institutional funds to make their yield! </p>
<p>Obviously schools like Boston College & Georgetown determine your need, in their own way so meeting 100% of your need is based on HOW they interpret your need.</p>
<p>Woulda, coulda, shoulda is not helpful to the OP. She is where she is and the idea is to give support and advice going forward.</p>
<p>As far as a job, she’ll find something. Right or wrong she’s maneuvered herself into her current situation through a network of connections and friends and those type of interpersonal skills will help her find a job if she goes that route.</p>
<p>Do we know for a fact that the OP has no job history? There could be any number of significant factors we don’t know (such as the state of her health), but I would not assume that standing on her feet all day at Starbucks is the only option. Look into a paying job at the school where she has volunteered, or at another school. Maybe her business friends can help. </p>
<p>Unless Georgetown is missing some significant information that can be provided, I’d be surprised if they increase the offer to as much as the OP wants. It is worth a try, but the OP needs some alternatives in case that does not happen. Those alternatives will have to involve either reduced costs, more income, or some combination.</p>
<p>*Mom2, I suspect she has no business skills.<br>
*</p>
<p>I think that a woman who has:</p>
<p>A) negotiated getting free tuition for her D for four years at a pricey high school</p>
<p>B) volunteered full-time for 4 years at said high school</p>
<p>C) helped plan, organize and fund-raise for the big senior trip to Europe…and will chaperone…</p>
<p>D) found reliable people to pay her 10% return on her money (which seems to have been going on for about 6 years now, so could be seen as reliable)</p>
<p>Is a woman who is not lacking for business skills.</p>
<p>It is worrying that the OP seems to be engaged in a lot of magical thinking and is ignoring all the good advice she has been given. She mentioned her daughter expecting acceptances to and financial aid offers from two other schools she applied to, and did not give any indication as to why she was sure her daughter would be accepted. She felt fairly confident that her daughter would be able to make a good amount of money after graduation and easily repay loans, despite cautions from others who had not had that experience. She says her daughter turned down full-ride scholarships on the assumption that she would get the financial aid she feels she needs to attend the “dream school”. She did not respond at all to many questions about whether her daughter had applied to any safety schools or to suggestions that she do so. She indicates that she will manage to afford this school somehow, but I’m not sure how this is possible on $32,000. a year with all her money loaned out, unless she thinks she can borrow almost the whole amount. Worst of all, she seems to think that the business men she loaned all her money to borrowed it to do her a favor. Interest rates of 10%, 12% or more are common on private loans secured by property because it is very difficult to get a bank loan, especially on rental property. I certainly hope these loans are secured by some kind of collateral.
I feel sorry for her if she is not used to making these kinds of decisions, but for her own sake and especially for her daughter’s sake, she needs to take a realistic look at the situation. The most important thing she should be focusing on is a back-up plan, not the wording of an email to a school she is unlikely to be able to afford.</p>
<p>“Woulda, coulda, shoulda is not helpful to the OP. She is where she is and the idea is to give support and advice going forward.”</p>
<p>I am giving her advice, which is to be more prudent making major financial decisions in the future. With all due respect to you and the OP—if you share your story on a board like this, you need to have skin thick enough to deal with legitimate criticism. Its not like anyone here betrayed her confidence by telling her story without her consent. I said I feel badly for her–and I do, but that does not mean she is a victim. Life’s a *****—you make bad decisions, you deal with the consequences.</p>
<p>“… you need to have skin thick enough to deal with legitimate criticism”</p>
<p>as well as underserved criticism when possibly erroneous assumptions are made. We should all pretend that we’re giving advice to our best friend when choosing tone of voice. :)</p>
<p>One thing that did strike me based on a comment by m2ck</p>
<p>*I think that a woman who has:</p>
<p>A) negotiated getting free tuition for her D for four years at a pricey high school</p>
<p>B) volunteered full-time for 4 years at said high school*</p>
<p>Was this really employment under the guise of volunteering? IRS interprets payment in kind as taxable, in which case the school would have had to pay FICA and other taxes, the OP would have had to pay taxes on income etc. Again, not knowing full facts I do not want to open a Pandora’s box, but I would suggest that OP not bring up the question of free tuition as this can open up a can of worms.</p>
<p>I feel for the OP and her daughter. I’m sorry they are in this situation and the reversal of expectations is hard to accept. However, her smart and capable daughter will do well in life if she applies herself. An expensive private college is a luxury good, not a necessity.</p>
<p>I guess this situation drives home the importance of having money you’ll need for retirement in designated and protected retirement accounts if you’re planning on applying for need-based financial aid. Otherwise colleges will simply see them as undifferentiated assets for tapping, even if you don’t see it that way.</p>
<p>Also, if you aren’t disabled and you’re below retirement age, colleges will not hold you exempt from the expectation of paid employment. To live off investment income when you are of working age is a lifestyle choice that most people do not have. I am not saying this as a personal criticism of the OP, but you can see why financial aid officers are not going to be very receptive to the argument that it’s harsh to expect the OP to work for money.</p>
<p>Apparently the OP has been living off of investment income since her husband died, and before that, perhaps her husband was supporting her (I don’t know). We are not looking at one moment in time but the result of several years’ if not decades’ worth of choices and circumstances. The OP is not currently employed, true. She has also not been technically employed for years. That is a choice, not a misfortune or the result of age discrimination or being widowed. Being a housewife and volunteer (both noble occupations, nothing against them) in this day and age are economic choices with economic consequences. Most women I know who stay at home (and are not married to very high earners) know that their kids will not be going to expensive private colleges. Life is full of tradeoffs.</p>
<p>It seems that this lady is going to have to choose between a particular college for her daughter, and her own long term economic security. That is a tough but common dilemma.</p>