Great point about tuition increases, @Dustyfeathers ! This is especially important if you are comparing need-based aid offers that will change when family size changes - such as an older sibling graduating college, or a younger sibling graduating high school and not going to college, etc. It is important to figure the full 4-year (or more) cost
There are also travel costs to consider if your daughter goes out of state. I think a lot of students underestimate how much they want to go home for the shorter breaks and sometimes the finances don’t work out to do that (hard for parents too!).
FLA parent- one piece of advice which posters here loath (except when they email me privately how useful it was) is to sit down one night with your past three years taxes, cancelled checks, credit card bills, any recurring expenses, bank statements, etc. Create a simple chart out of that which shows just how much money you can pull out of your lifestyle to spend on college. (monthly, not annually. People over- estimate their ability to save annually, but monthly makes it very granular: Do we cut out cable, eating out?)
That, plus any college savings you have (divided by four), plus your D’s loans (fortunately capped by the federal government… she can’t borrow 100K without a co-signer, and you won’t co-sign) is her budget. Period.
I have seen SO MANY families go down a bad path where one parent is thinking, “Well for XYZ college we could come up with another 6K a year” and the other parent is thinking “I can’t spend every vacation at grandma’s apartment eating dinner at 4 pm”. If XYZ college will be an extra 6K per year, beyond what your math has shown- where is it coming from? That’s $500 a month you’ll need to “find”- every single month for 48 months.
If you couldn’t save as much as you wanted to last year because you had to replace the dryer… guess what? Your D’s freshman year it will be time for the fridge to go. Or the washing machine. So before you commit to your “here’s your budget” figure, do the math and find out what you can cut and how much money it’s going to yield.
I have neighbors whose “college financing plan” was to stop eating out and cut their own grass.
Well ok- when you find a college which charges $150 a month let me know. Do the math, get a handle on your ACTUAL expenses, not your fantasy “I’ll give up the gym/never drink coffee/stop getting haircut” expenses.
Then your D can figure out how to play the hand she’s dealt.
Some of the private colleges in FL are very nice it’s $$$ for instate high scorers. Rollins, u Miami, for example. In terms of law, grad, dental, or medical school, it helps to be at a FL UG.
Whoops. I wrote but didn’t post until a day later. I totally agree with Blossom. I joked with my son that if he got into XYZ, I’d find a way to pay for it. So, I’m still working. Just saying …
Again, I didn’t read that the OP couldn’t pay anything for Georgetown or Tufts, but that he was asking if it was worth it if Florida schools would be so much cheaper (or free). Can the family give up vacations and the tennis club membership? Maybe, but they may not want to even if the high school junior thinks that would be just fine.
I didn’t need to pull out tax returns or bills to show my kids. I told them what the budget was based on what I though I could contribute and that was it Actually showed one on the back of a receipt while sitting in a restaurant that school cost $X, I had $Y, she needed $Z in scholarships, loans, work income; really no need to discuss car insurance or electric bills as she wasn’t getting that money. The OP seems realistic that he can afford $XX and that big scholarships are unlikely to be awarded; it’s his 16 year old who seems to be dreaming. Showing her tax returns that show the family makes $100k and spends $80k will not convince her that they can’t afford W&M because her sibling might need braces, and in fact may have her arguing that of COURSE they can afford to spend that $18 grand on her, leaving $2k for the braces.
I’d first try the Net Price Calculators on each of these examples to see where your costs stand compared to your budget. Out of those three, BC meets full need and W&M is out of state.
As you are probably aware, BC’s merit only goes to a handful of students in an effort to poach them from Ivy-level colleges. Likewise, W&M’s 1693 scholarship typically goes to students graduating in the top 1% of their class and >1500 SAT according to the website.
These three are medium-sized universities and two are Jesuit. Are there particular aspects of these choices that may provide clues for expanding her list to potentially more affordable schools?
@blosssom – good advice, but there is no indication from @FlaParent in the OP that he doesn’t already know what his budget limitations are, and what if anything could be raised for college.
He did NOT ask “what can I afford?” or “what colleges offer good financial aid for my daughter?”
He did say, “I continue to tell her that we can not afford full freight (or anything near) at these schools but she continues to push for these…”
Sometimes the answer is simply NO.
And it is 100% acceptable for FlaParent, if he so chooses, to say to his daughter: you are eligible for 100% tuition if you attend a public university in Florida. The cost of room and board, transportation and incidentals to attend one of these colleges is $X. That is what we parents will contribute toward college. You can go anywhere you choose, but we parents will only contribute $X.
Or he can give his daughter any other figure.
And it doesn’t matter whether there reason is because the family would have to go without eating or simply because that’s what he is willing to put in. There are perfectly good public college options in Florida.
The problem is the “continues to push”.
So that’s why I favor simply setting the budget and telling the child that it isn’t going to change. If the kid does get into a dream school and the costs are only marginally above the budget – then it is easy enough for the parents to decide on their own that they can stretch and make it work — but I think much easier if it is always understood to be a parental determination, and not something that the child should expect will happen. There’s a big difference between the decision to pay $25K a year when the anticipated budget was $20K – vs. looking at $40K vs. $20K.
Cal- I agree with you in theory but I know plenty of people in real life (as I’m sure you do) who thought they could stretch the 20K budget to 25K and then found out the hard way that they couldn’t.
That’s why I’m an advocate of real numbers- where is every dollar coming from- which savings account, which expenses will be cut. period, full stop. Figuring “we can stretch to 25K” ignores the fact that in year one it’s an extra 5K. Year two with tuition increases, and maybe travel increases as well, that’s an extra 8K. Year three it’s 11K and by senior year (when for god’s sakes kid- just graduate already) it’s an extra 15K. So parents have now nickle and dimed themselves into… what- a Heloc? Not contributing to the 401K for four years? Borrowing against their life insurance?
All fine plans- when those were on the table from the git-go. Terrible plans as a last resort-- since experience tends to show that the family’s life doesn’t stop for four years. And property values on your house always go up except when they go down. And not contributing to your retirement for four years is great if you are a 45 year old, healthy employee with good skills who can always get another job- but a terrible idea if you are a 62 year old who is hanging on to the current job and would find it difficult to replace that income if her company moves her division to Costa Rica next year.
That’s why I advocate a granular game plan- I don’t like “marginally above budget” since a teenager thinks an extra 5K per year is “marginally above budget” when for some families, that could be just terrible financial planning.
I think you are doing everything right. keep in mind too that your student is not the first time at the rodeo for her college counselor. They all advocate to aim high, middle and low. And see where you get in and what the FA packages will be. You try to get into the colleges first, then once you have lots of options, then the ball is in her court, and she can pick and choose what’s best for her and her family, but you gotta get in first…
Oh boy! I did not read all the replies to your post, but I would let her apply to the other schools and see what happens and see if any scholarship money would be offered. I would also say that being in Tallahassee, the state capitol, would be a great place for internship! I would contact that department and see what internships other students have gotten from FSU. Good luck!!
But my point is, that is not what the OP asked. That’s all well and good for a different thread, but Mr. FlaParent has a different problem. His problem is that his daughter has pie-in-the-sky ideas about where she wants to go college, – and he wants to know how to get his daughter to focus on more realistic and affordable options. The kid doesn’t even have her PSAT scores and already is spending the NM scholarship she has not yet qualified for.
I do see the father’s concern. My 2-safety rule can still leave a kid who ends up quite unhappy, but I was willing to let my daughter take that fall if had come to that – but definitely a student who works up some enthusiasm for within-family budget options is likely to be happier with their choices if it comes down to money in the end. This is not spring of senior year when the kid has several offers in hand and the family is facing the can-we-stretch question. This is fall of junior year when the student is starting to consider options … and I think the dad wants to redirect his daughter’s attention before she latches onto the idea of a dream college that offers a Presidential Scholarship she is unlikely to get.
I don’t know what the best approach is, really. Let the kid play the lottery, with the likely result that she goes grudgingly off to the state U in the end? Or don’t get onto the roller coaster in the first place? I’m sure there are thousands of kids who know from the get go that their in-state public is their only option – apply early in their senior year to a rolling admission option – and have a relaxed senior year without the anxiety of applying to a dozen reach colleges only to find out in the spring that even if admitted, they can’t afford it. But there are probably some who really need to go through the process and see the end result on paper.
“I don’t know what the best approach is, really. Let the kid play the lottery, with the likely result that she goes grudgingly off to the state U in the end? Or don’t get onto the roller coaster in the first place?”
It’s fine to play the lottery, but do pick lotteries that actually have the possibility of getting a winning ticket (and preferably with at least tolerably decent odds). Firstly if there’s no chance that the EFC at a need-only school is affordable, make that clear now. Similarly if $20K off at a $70K LAC won’t cut it, drop that idea. If there’s one big regret I have it’s that we weren’t definitive about that early enough. You have the time to do that now during junior year and for her to get over it.
Then think about probabilities when you have a PSAT and SAT/ACT score, so you play in a league where you might win. Is winning an ultra-competitive scholarship like UVA Jefferson or W&M 1693 really a possibility - for example would her teachers say she is one of their most outstanding students in the last 10 years? Alternatively is an Honors College competitive full ride at a middle or lower ranking University or full tuition somewhere like USCal a realistic possibility - for example is she in the top 1% in her class with great ECs and a good story to tell? Or does she have the scores or NMF qualification for an automatic full tuition scholarship somewhere?
When you know that, pick the places that she has a chance at and that might actually be more appealing (financially and academically) than staying in-state. Having been through this last year with twins, I think D18 had a much better outcome (and process) when going after scholarships where she was competitive (and she liked the school) than S18 did in going after ultra-competitive scholarships and colleges where the maximum merit didn’t make the final price particularly attractive (because those colleges were less compelling than his in-state options). He won a merit scholarship of one sort or another at 8 of the 9 places to which he was accepted, but half of those weren’t even worth considering and we should have figured that out in advance.
I’d add that my kids got merit money all over the place, but none of the merit money came close to meeting our need – it was only helpful in cases where it was offered in combination with need-based aid. It’s not at all difficult for a strong student to get an offer of $20K or $25K in merit money from many excellent colleges --the problem is that can still leave the family holding the bag for a huge COA.
That’s why I referred to “pie-in-the-sky” ambitions. Yes, some students do get full rides or full tuition merit scholarships – but without knowing test scores it’s premature to assess chances. The daughter could score 219 on the PSAT (the score that made last year’s cutoff in Florida) – only to learn that the class of 2020 cutoff is bumped up to 220 … and that’s the end of that option.
FWIW, we were pretty open with our kids about finances. They had no idea (until we told them) what we were paying in real estate taxes, mortgage and income taxes (both federal and state). That made it a lot clearer why even though we make a decent income there isn’t as much left at the end of the month as you might think.