Advice with my financial situation

Paying for College
1

<p>To start off, I'm a high school senior that has been accepted to Notre Dame, Case Western, and Ohio State. My intended major is engineering, preferably materials, but I really have no idea. Grad school is definitely happening. My financial situation is weak and will, sadly, be the deciding factor in which college I choose. Here's a breakdown of my situation:</p>

<p>-529 plan with roughly $40k
-1 younger sibling (junior)
-Divorced Parents, no relationship with my father due to alcoholism.
-Mother is disabled, but I live with her. Very low income (qualify for PELL and possibly the FSEOG)
-Father is pretty well off, and combined with mother will total over $100k income (he does help here and there with clothes/food but isn't required to. Refuses to pay any type of college fees)
-Will be requesting a wavier of Non Custodial Parent's contribution with a supporting letter from a counselor for Notre Dame (they require the CSS and non custodial)</p>

<p>With this in mind, here is my situation at all three schools:</p>

<p>Notre Dame:
-Favorite school
-Costly at ~$60k
-I'm assuming they will max out federal loans before any grant aid since they meet 100% need. So, roughly $40-50k debt (correct me if I'm wrong)
-Okay engineering (I really enjoyed the program when visiting though)</p>

<p>Case Western:
-Great engineering
-Enjoyable school, I'm a fan of Cleveland
-After a rather large merit scholarship and estimated (by the college, not their calculator) merit/government aid the school will be almost free for all 4 years. Max of ~$10k debt</p>

<p>Ohio State (honors):
-I hate Columbus, but am currently taking some classes here and can live with the school
-Okay engineering compared to the other two (ranked higher than ND, but after taking a few honors classes here I feel that to be misleading)
-Will be free to attend for 4 years</p>

<p>This is currently my situation. I'm pretty torn between the three and am looking for advice into which school would be the optimal choice. I will be happy wherever I go, but, nonetheless, this is a hard choice. Thanks ahead of time for any comments =D</p>

2

<p>All you can do is proceed as is and see what the resulting FA ends up being.</p>

<p>Contact ND ASAP to get the NCP waiver request going. Your dad being an alcoholic will not solely be a deciding factor, that’s just not enough. He is in your life somewhat. </p>

<p>?? With his income, why isn’t he ordered to pay monthly child support? Why didn’t this happen at the time of the divorce?</p>

<p>Since the ND situation is very iffy, you need to be open to more affordable choices…possibly Case and possibly OSU.</p>

3

<p>This is a no brainer, definitely eliminate Notre Dame.</p>

4

<p>Your chances of a NPC waiver at Notre Dame are slim. They are usually given for estranged/abandoned parents. If you and he still have contact and he just refuses to help you out, you will probably not get it. Note that you are only able to take out 5.5k in student loans your first year. Anything beyond that will be a private loan requiring a co-signer, and is a bad idea. If you don’t get the NPC waiver, you will probably not be able to afford Notre Dame.</p>

<p>Case and Ohio State both sound like fantastic options, however, and they are affordable. Congratualtions on making wise choices and having two appropriate, affordable schools you get to choose between.</p>

5

<p>At the time of the divorce a deal went on with a lake house our family owned, so that my father did not have to pay any type of support. There’s some other odd circumstances, but in the end he doesn’t have to pay. </p>

<p>I’m sending an email to request further information about the NCP wavier from Notre Dame. I’ll have to hope they come through, since even if they deny the wavier the NCP portion of the CSS will not be filled out. He refused.</p>

<p>Case is looking like my best option at the moment, but I’m definitely waiting to see how things play out.</p>

6

<p>A lot of kids I know with parents who are in a divorce situation have the same problem you do. A NCP who refuses to even fill out forms, some who pay only court ordered support, some who don’t even do that. I’ve yet to see NCP waiver from ND in any of those cases.</p>

7

<p>Yep, that’s what I’ve heard from many sources. I’m still pretty thankful that Case Western and Ohio State are offering, pretty much, four years of free education. In the end I’m looking for reinforcement to my already known idea that Notre Dame is a long shot.</p>

<p>Between Case Western and Ohio State, which one will be the ‘best bang for my buck’?</p>

8

<p>I don’t know. I lived in Cleveland for years and Case is a “favorite son” of a school there, and Cleveland is a great city, IMO. A friend of mine there with 3 in college at the same time (twins and anther a year older) could have sent them all either there or to Ohio State for about the same amount of money (they all appled to colleges the same year and got into both schools) In fact, the choices were pretty much a private school with aid or Ohio State full pay, which came out about the same for most serieis. They all chose Ohio State, and loved it there. It really is a different environment, and since you do live there and make friends and contacts, it makes a difference how YOU feel in each environment. You could probably make the same opportuniies in either place.</p>

<p>I guess one issue to bring up is the risk of losing the aid. Some years ago, Case was infamous for having kids lose their merit money due to the tough grading curve and rigorous courses.</p>

9

<p>Between Case Western and Ohio State, go with Case, if that’s the school you prefer. A debt of $10k should be more than manageable. As you yourself said, it’s a choice between “free” and "almost free’ - so go with the school you like better!</p>

<p>Edit: Cross-posted with cptofthehouse. If her concern about losing merit money remains valid today, then that’s definitely something to consider.</p>

10

<p>With engineering, you may be able to get some well paying summer work or internship, which would also lower what you might need to borrow. Do go with the better financial choices.</p>

11

<p>Case does not have a GPA requirement for their merit. I believe their policy says something along the lines of must maintain adequate academic standing (can’t be put on academic probation). I read somewhere that they changed their policy because they did not want students to avoid challenging themselves by taking easier courses, which is what they found was happening with the previous GPA requirements for merit.</p>

12

<p>I’ll have to make sure to look into the GPA requirement, but if what soxfan99 said is right that will be great! Cleveland is, in my opinion, a much better city than Columbus. My main pastime is running and I normally go for about 2+hrs at a time. Around Ohio State there aren’t any scenic areas to run, but Cleveland’s park system is more developed and I’ve ran on a few trails fairly close to Case’s campus. They were beautiful.</p>

<p>Again, thanks for all the advice! I’ll make sure to keep it in mind when making my final decision.</p>

13

<p>Go to Case. If you happen to hate it, you can transfer to OSU. OSU has a much cheaper price, so even if you get poor transfer FA, it would be doable. If you went to OSU and tried to transfer to Case you may find out your merit award was only good for first time fall freshman and Case will be way out of your price range. Of course if ND comes thru- congratulations!</p>

14

<p>I’m glad Case made the change. Some years ago, I knew a lot of kids who lost those awards and it became an issue. It’s a tough school and getting below their threshholds was not hard at all.</p>

15

<p>Well, you’ll have to wait to see how the FA comes out for ND. We all have our own opinions but ND is one of the few schools I’d recommend my son take on some significant debt to attend. Is $40-$50k debt too much for a ND engineering degree? I don’t think so.</p>

<p>Case is a very strong school and VG engineering. I think it ranks ahead of ND for engineering in US News, but let’s face it, CWRU is NOT ND, engineering or otherwise. ND has recently spent a ton of $$$ to upgrade their engineering facilities and labs - VERY impressive. Some people know CWRU is a tough school for smart kids… EVERYONE knows ND is a tough school for very smart kids. </p>

<p>Obviously, this is a different decision for different families. However, I wouldn’t just say “forget ND” because you may wind up $40k in debt. Now, that said, the grad school thing also has to play a part in your decision. You certainly don’t want to be $100k in debt when you’re all done with schooling.</p>

<p>Anyways, all three are great choices! We visited all of them with my kid and I have to agree with you on the part of Cleveland CWRU is in. It’s very nice and, what surprised me, a very cultural area as the best Cleveland museums and philharmonic are right at the CWRU campus! Nice parks around, nice college/cultural town area. Bus to the real city for pro sports, etc., Lake Erie waterfront. I’d say a MUCH nicer location than ND.</p>

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<p>Some things to point out since we are talking engineering. All three are ABET accredited so there should be little difference in the programs. CWRU is rated higher in research funding than ND, and tOSU is higher than Case. <a href=“http://mup.asu.edu/research2000.pdf[/url]”>http://mup.asu.edu/research2000.pdf&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;