What @twoin18 said. Getting a Presidential Scholarship for $20k per year sounds great unless it still leaves you with a price tag of $40k that you can’t afford.
One big difference is that OP is comparing $0 at the Florida schools with schools that can offer some scholarships but rarely cover 100%. Even the room, board, and transportation at Florida schools will be significantly lower than at any of the ‘city’ schools in Boston, DC, NYC.
OP has to decide if he wants to spend anything for tuition if he really doesn’t have to. There are opportunities in Florida. She can live in the capital (Tallahassee), could go to Miami (although this might cost something, it will be significantly cheaper than other private schools), can do the exchange semesters domestically or study abroad for the ‘city’ feeling, etc. She could also get an internship with a Florida Sen/Rep and spend a semester in DC.
If she becomes an NMF, it would open up more opportunities instate and OOS.
When discussing OOS/private options, show her how much she’ll be borrowing in student loans and how the payments work for that. Kids don’t really understand $30k and how that becomes $200-300 per month for TEN years. Show her a budget with rent, car payments, insurance, and that student loan payment.
Agreeing with @Twoin18. Posters on CC are all over the place in what they deem affordable. You need to define your budget and whether or not you are willing to pay thousands when as a NMF in FL she could probably attend for free.
Also, no school actually “guarantees” that any student accepted will be able to attend. Schools expect parents to be the first in line to pay the bill. Just bc the kid’s parents say, “No, that is not affordable for our family,” does not mean that the school meet the difference between what parents say they can afford and their formulated expected contribution.
If your income makes your expected contribution more than you are able to pay, merit is the only way you will see your bill lower than your expected contribution.
I have to disagree that the Florida school will necessarily be cheaper than any of the “city” schools in NYC Boston or DC.
For example; Barnard–here are the average costs broken down by income level, including room and board –
$0 – $30,000 … $6,225
$30,001 – $48,000 … $6,207
$48,001 – $75,000 … $8,078
$75,001 – $110,000 … $19,445
$110,001 and more … $45,389
Barnard is one of the undergraduate colleges of Columbia U.
In comparison the UF costs JUST FOR ROOM AND BOARD AND EXPENSES (not tuition) is about $15K. Does the Florida scholarship cover RB&expenses? or just tuition?
Here are the average costs for Bryn Mawr (with ability to take classes at Swarthmore, Haverford, UPenn and access to Philadelphia, DC and NYC) These costs are averge including room & board
$0 – $30,000 … $11,902
$30,001 – $48,000—$10,812
$48,001 – $75,000—$18,044
$75,001 – $110,000 --$25,621
$110,001 and more–$38,551
Here is Haverford’s cost –
$0 – $30,000 … $10,821
$30,001 – $48,000 —$7,889
$48,001 – $75,000 —$14,922
$75,001 – $110,000 —$21,857
$110,001 and more —$47,068
Here is Wellesley’s cost (and Wellesley makes it known that they can adjust if the person can’t afford the offered package)
$0 – $30,000 … $8,204
$30,001 – $48,000 — $9,948
$48,001 – $75,000 ---- $12,150
$75,001 – $110,000 —$22,080
$110,001 and more —$43,484
Look up the net prices on the website College Navigator.
^ Bright Futures covers Tuition and all other fees except room and board.
http://www.sfa.ufl.edu/news/2017-18-bright-futures-update/
@dustyfeathers Your list demonstrates that people on CC have very different views on affordability. According to your list, Wellesley would cost us $43,000+. Our budget is more around $10,000 (less preferably). They are not going to adjust their offer to fit our actual ability to pay.
If the OP’s Dd is NMF, the possible in-state costs may very well be $0 bc schools like UF allow stacking of scholarships. “UF’s Presidential scholarships will “stack” on top of Bright Futures and the Benacquisto Scholarship offered by the Florida Department of Education.”
Isn’t FSU in the state capital? She could get all the political science she needs right there. That would be tough to beat, imho.
Many families go through this. Many kids are disappointed to find out that their choices are limited by finances, especially those that have worked really hard in HS. Going in-state is often seen as a consolation prize to top students who think they could have worked less and played more and still got into their State flagship (and sometimes that is true).
Depending on your budget, there are schools that may offer enough merit aid to make this possible. Fordham is one. American in DC is another. As others have said, no harm in applying as long as she accepts that an acceptance is not enough, the financial package has to be acceptable as well.
Good luck!
OP – as you can see, CC goes into problem solving mode quickly around giving your D options to consider (myself included). But as others have said, it’s easy to make assumptions and the info really only helps if you share your EFC and what you’re actually willing/able to pay per year so there’s a sense of how much aid you’d need. However, I recognize that wasn’t what you asked in original post so that may not be where you want to go from here.
I hope it is reassuring to know that many (most) of us have had the conversation that costs is a factor and that you are right that getting the high dollar value merit opps is great to strive for and worth a chance – but she needs to have other good options available come Spring in case they don’t work out.
Congrats to your daughter for all her hard work and success in high school!. She will do great wherever she lands!
I’d love to hear others’ input, but I’m thinking OP’s daughter may be missing out on some good possibilities she could be eligible for but which are outside of Boston, or DC. With her stats, and Florida residency she could be an interesting candidate for selective schools that still like geographic diversity. I’m thinking schools like Macalester, Grinnell. Also schools like University of Denver. The midwest LACs have excellent reputations and may be very helpful in her search for Boston or DC internships. And a school like the University of Denver could offer her nice merit aid, and place her with some of the city’s state and federal agencies. (University of Denver is very well connected to the local political and business community.)
So OP, maybe try to broaden your daughter’s horizons beyond Boston or DC?
Grinnell in Iowa during the 2020 presidential election is something to consider!
There are some amazing internship opportunities available in Washington, DC, but you don’t have to attend a college there in order to take advantage. She can attend a lower cost college and still spend summers or a semester in DC. Plenty of kids do it. I believe GW and the other DC colleges rent their dorm rooms to interns over the summers.
OP, one thing I wish we had looked at more closely last year when S18 was going through a similar process is the requirement (GPA) necessary to keep merit scholarships. He almost went to a school where he was offered $25K merit, bringing the total cost close to an in-state school, but ended up choosing an in-state flagship. It is quite nice to be free of stress about a GPA dip resulting in a huge loss of merit money.
I’d retitle your thread. Your daughter isn’t aiming too high, as it sounds like she has the academic chops to do so, as much as she is aiming outside the budget. It’s so hard to get people her age to think long term (and to think that long term is more than a year out!), but you’re so ahead of the game thinking about budget before application season.
I will add this: I gave my kids a budget. They stayed in it, which enabled them to graduate without debt. The youngest, who just launched, took a great job with a well known tech company in the most expensive COL area in the country. She couldn’t afford to live in the city itself by herself, but she could afford to live alone a reasonable commuting distance away because she had no debt. Even those few hundred dollars a month made a difference. It’s not easy to impress upon a high schooler that choices now can free them or add constraints later, but if you can, your daughter may come around more easily.
For a student interested in DC political internships etc. – those are usually unpaid, plus cost of living for the summer. It can easily cost $5-7,000 a summer to get that experience. Taking the instate, Bright Futures option could preserve a lot of flexibility for summer internships. And as my son working in politics discovered – a lot of the entry level policy-related jobs were actually not jobs, but post-grad, unpaid internships.
She doesn’t actually have a test score yet, right?
“Average” need-based aid is not what a particular family gets. The list that @Dustyfeathers posted comes pretty close to what my FAFSA EFC was, but what I paid to put my daughter through Barnard was about triple that amount, in line with the average for people earning twice as much. Different factors come into play. As a starting point, that list is for average income, but does not consider assets – and home equity is counted. (Which could be all over the place).
So I don’t think that it’s beneficial to the OP to suggest more colleges without knowing anything about his financial situation.
I think it’s better for the OP to tell his daughter the budget limits; insist that she apply to at least 2 safety schools that are certain to be within those limits (presumably Florida publics where the Bright Futures scholarship can be used) – and then beyond that let her apply wherever she wants. She’ll learn in the spring of her senior year what “admit-deny” means. I go with the 2-safety rule because that at least leaves a choice if the end result is that none of her preferred colleges are affordable.
I’d add that my son majored in poli sci at a regional state public in a rural area – and also had a semester-long Congressional internship – working for a very prominent congressman. He received academic credit plus the internship paid room & board, transportation, and a monthly stipend. Sometimes the opportunities are better outside the beltway.
My daughter attending college in NYC had some great summer internships – in places very far away from NYC. She did not have any school-year internships, in part because she had to work paying jobs through her school years. I think there was a benefit to building her work-skill resume as well – but the point is, being in NYC probably had little impact on the internships she ended up finding or creating for herself. She was also a poli sci major.
If the OP’s daughter wants to major in poli sci/ econ --than lesson number #1 is understanding the concept of a budget.
“I’m thinking schools like Macalester, Grinnell…University of Denver could offer her nice merit aid”. But again, “nice” merit aid is in the eye of the beholder. The maximum $20K p.a. in merit aid at Macalester still leaves you paying $50K per year, assuming no eligibility for need-based aid. Grinnell’s maximum merit aid is $25K per year. University of Denver give a maximum of $23K per year (plus $3K towards room and board). So any of those three is going to have a total cost of $45K p.a. or more.
How are any of them a good deal compared to a total cost of less than $20K (perhaps much less) in-state? If OP’s EFC is $50K+ then the only financially rational options are likely to be colleges that offer at least a full tuition scholarship. There are plenty of options in that category ranging from automatic merit (Alabama, UTD, etc.) to highly competitive merit (UVA, USCal, etc.). Personally, I think some of the cohort-based honors college scholarships (e.g. Alabama RRSP, NC State Park, Utah Eccles) are a really worthwhile avenue to explore.
Put academics first. Be sure she realizes that an instate public U could give her a better education, especially with an Honors program/college, than many top tier private schools. She needs to check out what people at UF and other top tier Florida U’s offer majors she wants- perhaps the same internships in the same cities.
People- do not automatically think private schools/LACs, even top tier ones, offer a better education than many state flagship U’s. I get tired of people ignoring better options just because they are public. Perhaps it is not so in some states but there are states that have not ignored making their flagships good. Unfortunately public U’s do not always offer undergrads from OOS much aid.
OP- the teen years are trying. Perhaps having her do more research/homework this year regarding opportunities outside her focus area needs to be mandatory. A “prove to me” you can’t do well instate for your career goals thing.