<p>And a great defense of the liberal arts in general…</p>
<p><a href=“Opinion | Don’t Judge a College’s Value by Graduates’ Paycheck - The New York Times”>Opinion | Don’t Judge a College’s Value by Graduates’ Paycheck - The New York Times;
<p>demeron2 - </p>
<p>And any parent actually:</p>
<p>I work for UPS. Consider this as a suggestion. You can work as little as 3 1/2 hrs, Mon-Fri, Tues-Sat, from 4am, 11am, 4pm, 11pm. You make like $150/week take home, but they have an Earn and Learn program, up to $5k/semester up to 3 semesters. Don’t get me wrong, it is a physical labor job, but I’m a 5’7 140lb female and once I got the hang of it, it isn’t bad. Plus you will get AWESOME health ins. after 1 yr and they believe in promotion from within. Almost every executive started out in this position. That’s how I got where I am. </p>
<p>There are a lot of companies that have similar programs.</p>
<p>Don’t feel like a failure. Times are tough. In this economy, the struggle for paying for college is unprecedented. Don’t call yourself a failure, there’s other people to blame for this.</p>
<p>Before I get too political, let me speak from the heart of a student. Financial aid will obviously be to main key here in unlocking the door to college. You mentioned that your daughter is a bright, smart girl. That’s perfect. If she is a really great, great, great, student, who is from a financially stressed family, she probably will qualify for financial aid. The better of a student she is, the better. The main thing is to prove why she is so special during the application process. How is she different from everyone else? What makes her unique and special?</p>
<p>On another note, you gotta keep your head up. You’ve raised a smart kid who is aiming for college. At least she isn’t a criminal or something.</p>
<p>Best or luck,
-orangesrule108</p>
<p>More important than raising a kid who gets into Harvard is raising a kid who is resiliant and self-confident enough to know that she is going to do just great at whichever college she goes to. We lost a lot of my son’s college funds in the stock market crash and are not poor enough to qualify for aid nor rich enough not to need it. He is now at a state university doing fabulously with a 4.0 in a tough Engineering field and loads of friends. Meanwhile, his friend got into his first-choice ivy league college and dropped out after one semester. A great college experience and education is not a gift that falls in your lap, it’s what you make of it.</p>
<p>I’ve been stealthy following this thread. Yesterday in the mail came a little post card from a top 25 U…it stated …the COA is $62,300. Now, that only included $800 for transportation. Since U is on the opposite coast of applicant S, I assume this accounts for the tips he’d be paying the drivers as he hitch hikes across the continent, or bribes to the freight train engineers so he could hobo style hideout in a transport car. Realistically, we’d have to add about 3k-4K a year in travel expenses. So it’s now 65K+ a year. My point being…the 50 K mentioned here doesn’t even cut it any more. To make it worse, add another 3-5% increase each year…and that’s IF they are trying to keep the costs down.</p>
<p>So, to the OP, you are in no way a failure if you can not pay this…nor is anyone a failure who CAN pay it but recognizes a major guilt/sell job and refuses to be the sucked into the current most popular “gotta have it because it is rare and you are special and you deserve it and if you don’t get it you will never get over the damage to your self worth and there is ONE and only ONE place where you can go to have the ecstatic experience of your life…this offer only valid for 30 days…hurry buy now because if you call in the next 24 hours you will immediate have bragging rights to all your friends…etc”.</p>
<p>Let’s face it, we - those going through the college cycle now, and probably for a few more years to come - are in the midst of an insanity cloud. It will blow over, because everything (remember housing bubble and .com bust) has an end point. Heck even Apple stock is at $450 today - down 30%. The trick, as always, is not to buy at the top of the market.</p>
<p>OP, my heart breaks for you. My husband and I are in our sixties. Our annual taxable income is circa 150K not because we are uneducated–we each have professional degrees and one unrelated master’s degree). Our adopted 15-year-old daughter was recently diagnosed with ADHD and, while I’m sure that her grades at her rigorous private school where is a scholarship student, will improve in the latter half of her sophomore and going forward, they currently stand at only a 3.4. My husband and I could have made a lot of money had we not chosen early on to use our educations to do human rights work. Part of our problem is that we live in NYC where our medical and housing expenses require 80% of our income which means that we cannot come anywhere close to meeting the approximately 27K that financial aid calculators say that we should be prepared to provide. Despite the fact that my husband and I have both taken excellent care of ourselves, my health is poor and my husband’s is compromised. My husband doesn’t feel that it would be safe for us to leave NYC where we can ride the subways and have access to excellent medical care. I love my daughter so much. I don’t know what I can realistically do for her or where to turn. :-(</p>
<p>Ftypeman, your post gave me a bit of hope. Despite the fact that my daughter is a 5’3", self-described “skinny Chinese girl,” she is reasonably strong for her size. I wonder if UPS would have a place for someone like her. Any thoughts?</p>
<p>P.S. One of the problems that I am having with financial aid calculators is that they don’t take into consider the part of the country where one lives. In NYC, with an income that would be upper middle class almost anywhere else, we are “struggling” middle class. I haven’t even been to a movie in two years.</p>
<p>oldermom99 -</p>
<p>The affordable choice for generations in NYC has been the CUNY system. Some if those options would be excellent for your daughter. Make certain that she visits some of them and gets to know them. They would be good choices for safeties. You also should be meeting with her IEP team and her guidance counselor so that you can begin the process to get her any accommodations she may need on any standardized exams she plans to take. Once you have any scores, you can return her for advice on pinning down some merit based aid.</p>
<p>To be honest, given your financial limits, the NPCs probably are useless. You need to look at your own budget and see what your family truly can afford. That is the number that will determine where your daughter ends up. Knowing now, and accepting your situation now, will help you come to terms with this whole process.</p>
<p>Thanks so much, happymomof1. While the CUNY system schools are not the shining lights that they once were, Hunter college has a lot to offer. I can certainly wrap my head around certain SUNY/CUNY options but given the fact that at least a third of her classmates will be attending Ivy League schools–not an option for her–I don’t want her to become dispirited. She is interested in schools where family members have matriculated like Yale, Michigan, Berkeley, UCLA, Columbia and Berkeley, and I am going to have to help her understand that she can use an education at a less competitive and expensive school as a springboard to a positive future and a happy life.</p>
<p>@ oldermom</p>
<p>There’s actually a girl who works for me who has got to be about 100lbs soaking wet and she’s insane. She destroys guys three times her size. </p>
<p>And something my mom told me was your bachelor’s degree will state where you graduate from, not where you started out. Going to a CC, or a much more affordable 4 year, doesn’t mean Ivy league is out. I actually think people who transfer up are smarter in the long run because they get the same piece of paper for half the cost.</p>
<p>FTYpeman is right! I came across 2 physicians with backgrounds I thought could not exist. One physician never graduated high school (GED) or college. You only need 90 college credits to apply and enter most medical schools. He ended up being number 1 in his medial school class and he is now a very successful and great orthopedic surgeon. Another doctor was home schooled, attended community college, transferred to a state university which she never graduated, attended medical school and is now finishing her residency. What I learned from those two individuals is there are so many paths for our children to become successful. If one path is unattainable, whether it is due to costs or other causes, we should help guide them to pursue a different path. I have noticed that every parent on this site care deeply for their children. So, don’t feel like a failure and get to work on a better alternative.</p>
<p>I have read every post and have enjoyed the contributions of all. I would expect that many of us can identify with the OP’s sentiments in one manner or another. As the parents of a daughter who is a Junior we are deep in the midst of the College search. We will not qualify for needs based aid and are not nearly in a position to carry the cost of the elite privates.
Our daughter has worked incredibly hard and is highly ranked in her class.She has also overcome a significant illness. It has been a bitter realization as a parent knowing that particular educational opportunities will not be available to her, not because she doesn’t have the academic credentials but because of the financial particulars. It is not the end of the world and there will be many excellent college opportunities for her but I still don’t like it.
It seems that she will be choosing between schools that are generous with merit aid or our State flagships. Again,certainly not the end of the world. I do wish the universe of educational opportunities were completely open to her.</p>
<p>^There’s always grad school, or undergraduate honors programs at state schools. Plus all the great LACs. Sometimes a smaller, less cutthroat environment is perfect for a kid who really wants to stand out academically–he or she will get a lot of personal attention from faculty, research and internship opportunities, and other benefits that would be harder to come by in a setting where everyone was a star in high school.</p>
<p>OP updating here. Our daughter was admitted to Earlham with a renewable 17,500 merit scholarship and a 14K grant… bless you, Earlham. She’s planning to attended admitted students’ day, and if it’s a good fit, we will all be very happy and relieved.</p>
<p>Congrats on the merit scholarship and grant. Hope she loves Earlham!</p>
<p>Congratulations! I wish it worked this way all of the time. </p>
<p>For future sufferers, OP back to update the thread. I benefited from the advice here, focusing on a good safety-- such a weird dismissive word, when a safety is the college you want to kiss on both cheeks while you burst into grateful tears. Juniata and Earlham came back early with very good merit aid and some need-based grant money. So she had two affordable, appealing options by January. She ended up with admissions to Grinnell, St Olaf, Haverford, and Bryn Mawr as well as the first two. Net costs ranged from a low of about 15K to a high of about $26K. She has committed to Haverford, making her alum father very happy, at a cost we can do-- fingers crossed. Thanks for the invaluable help, everyone. So glad this process is over and I have six more years to gird my loins and pad my bank account before we do it again. </p>
<p>Congratulations, Demeron! I hope it doesn’t take six years to recover.</p>