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<p>I agree. If mom is used to giving DD whatever she wants, she may not be used to saying, “no.” The amount of money you would save by having DD go to UF or FSU could go towards something big.</p>
<p>I’m always hesitant to answer these questions, because people’s ideas about what they can afford vary so widely. In this case it sounds like going to Auburn would be a luxury–that’s the way to think about it. Is it a luxury that you’d like to spend money on or not?</p>
<p>" has a beautiful campus and a football team. "</p>
<p>I have to believe there is a college in Florida that fits that bill too.</p>
<p>I am an Auburn grad.</p>
<p>Actually Auburn’s campus is nice and pleasant, but it is not beautiful. I liked the campus well enough, but it is not special. 'Bama and U.Georgia are nicer (and I bet U.Florida is too). At a minimum, she needs to visit to see for herself.</p>
<p>Florida State makes this top 50 list, and so does 'Bama and Ole Miss, but not Auburn.
<a href=“http://www.thebestcolleges.org/most-beautiful-campuses/”>http://www.thebestcolleges.org/most-beautiful-campuses/</a></p>
<p>Not on this top 100 list either, but again 'Bama and Ole Miss:
<a href=“The Most Beautiful College Campuses In America”>http://www.bestcollegereviews.org/features/most-beautiful-college-campuses/</a></p>
<p>Auburn will not make getting a job on the East Coast nor California any easier.</p>
<p>OP, I’m well on my way to spending a million dollars combined for my kids’ educations, I’m happy to do so, and I usually encourage parents to find a way. That said, I would not have spent a nickel if the reason was “a beautiful campus and a football team.”</p>
<p>I encourage you to get your D on the Auburn campus. Not sure if Auburn would allow her to stay on campus overnight? But she needs to get connected with real students, hang out with them, eat in the dining hall, check out the bathrooms in the dorms, etc. And Auburn doesn’t have enough dorms anyway, she might have to rent a house or apartment, and miss out on the traditional freshman experience. (That could be good or bad, depending on her personality.)</p>
<p>I have a nephew at Auburn now, and he loves it. But he is also getting free tuition based on in-state merit scholarship. He wouldn’t be attending there without the free tuition.</p>
<p>That’s a family and financial decision. Families often pay for private school even when there is one considered good, even excellent that is their local one during K-12. It’s truly a discretionary expense.</p>
<p>Some friends of mine, husband and wife are grads from state Unis and swore that their kids would all go to state schools, since their state had good choices. And so did the first two. The third one? Well, they looked at him and looked at the state schools, and just knew in their bones that a small school would benefit him So they bit the bullet and paid for a small private college that was not as renown as their state schools because they truly felt it was a better fit. They knew how the state unis worked from their own and their children’s experiences, and it just didn’t jive with who their third child was.</p>
<p>My brother lives in a state with excellent public schools. My nieces, his DDs, are similar to your student. Decent students but not going to make any honors programs or get merit money from their state unis except the ones that are directional LIke your DD, they wanted big school, “rah rah” atmosphere, not a directional university. Both of them ended up going to an OOS public and he happily paid the difference because he wanted to do so and could afford it. I’ did the same with one of my sons He liked a particular OOS public much better than the SUNY choices and so there he went even though it was double the cost. In his case, we had set a limit on what we were willing and able to pay, and he could go there within that constraint and so he did. Would have cost $20K a year total for us in state and it was double for that to go to the OOS public. But we had said we’d pay $35K a year and were willing and did pay that towards his choice of school, and he made up the $5K or so difference each year himself with his own savings, summer work and working at school. Sophomore year was tough as on campus housing for upperclassmen was expensive and he did not have a good choice due to his lottery number. But junior and senior years, he lived off campus with a roommate and found something in the student ghetto for significantly less. He only had to go into the DIrect Loan situation one year, that sophomore year, and actually paid that back before finishing college </p>
<p>He could have also gone to private universities and had to have borrowed and/or gotten merit money. Whatever he did was his choice with what we were willing to contribute. He could have gone to college pretty much at no cost had he picked one local school that offered him a full tuition award. Something a number of his friends even with well heeled parents chose to do.</p>
<p>Now if he had gotten fixated on a private or public school that was not doable even with our $35K a year limit, that would have been an issue and we’d really have had to discuss the merit and advanatages of our going into debt and straining our finances for this and whether it was worthwhile. And that’s what you have to do, just as you do with any major purpose. When you buy a house, you have to weigh whether it’s even affordable, or doable or advisable to go up over budget or other adequate homes to get some extra that you really would love to have. The same with college. I</p>
<p>We looked at fit and cost for our two kids and ended up paying out the wazoo for schools that truly are the best fit.</p>
<p>For us ‘best fit’ means the school from which they will be happy, work hard and graduate from. A poor fit is school from which they would likely drop out, flunk out or skate thru.</p>
<p>I mention this because I’m going to say in your case, in state school is the best. Going oos for an unspecified degree at school you never visited because you like the marketing is not enough to spend $40 per year. </p>
<p>No, you’re not stingy. It’s not your legal responsibility to fund college. It’s a gift and a very nice one at that.</p>
<p>I do feel there are cases where certain kinds of students may be better served at a small private LAC than a big state school and THAT might be worth paying a little more for. However, if you are comparing big public universities then no. Being a spectator at football games is no reason to double your costs. </p>
<p>We limited D to the cost of an instate public because that is what we could comfortably afford. If she wanted something else, she needed to get scholarship or into a school that would make-up the difference and that is what she did. It’s a choice we know most kids in our circle were given. I’d give your D the same.</p>
<p>I recommend:</p>
<p>1) Letting the daughter apply to Auburn, but only if she visits first.
2) She should apply to at least two Florida public schools too. Visit them.
3) After admission, compare cost versus benefits and preferences.
4) Maybe offer to buy daughter a car, if she goes to a Florida public university. That is only one year of tuition difference (a 4 to 1 return on investment).</p>
<p>It is rarely worth the time to talk somebody out of what they want. They have to see it for themselves or be bribed. Sometimes they just want what they want.</p>
<p>The questions to ask yourself:</p>
<ol>
<li><p>Is the extra cost of Auburn over a Florida public university something that you can afford easily, afford barely, or have to take out parental loans for?</p></li>
<li><p>If there are younger siblings, could you afford the same extra cost for the younger siblings’ colleges if you spent the extra cost for the current kid’s college?</p></li>
</ol>
<p>I would offer some money to get set up in the northeast city of her choice after she graduates.</p>
<p>Also tell her that she is interested in business…if you could by a product at $10,000 or a very similar one for $40,000, which one would you pick? To you, she is choosing between a big school with football, or a big school with football. You are not willing to pay $120,000 more for her just to be out of the state. She will certainly have opportunities after she graduates to do that.</p>
<p>NOT stingy, practical. Also- she would NOT be instate as mentioned already. It sounds like your D is college material but not an elite student. Therefore many schools will give her the academics appropriate for her abilities. It doesn’t make sense to pay another state a lot of money for an education that is no better than she can get at UF or other FL schools. There are so many students who want to get away for college but don’t have the finances. It is nice to dream, but reality needs to rule. </p>
<p>Let the burden of proof be on her. If she can show how an Auburn degree will trump a top Florida U then she should go there. I don’t see how that will happen, especially if she is planning to move up north. You could tell her if that school is willing to give her significant scholarship money (not loans) she can go there (unlikely from what you say).</p>
<p>I agree with putting the burden of applying to, getting accepted to, and figuring out a way to pay for Auburn on her. It can be done, but she needs to do it. Is she willing to get her test scores up? Is she willing to apply for scholarships? Give up some activity (band, senior trip, vacation?) to save the money for college? ROTC? Work? Loans? How much extra can you afford? She will be able to use FL Prepaid,but it won’t cover OOS, only what Florida would have cost. Were you going to pay R&B for her at a FL school, and if so, will you pay it at Auburn? </p>
<p>I think your $40,000 estimate is low for OOS at Auburn, but figure out what it would cost and how she can get there. I gave each of my kids a budget that was basically what a Florida instate would cost, and they worked from there. One goes to a private school in Florida, the other to a public OOS. The private kid came in way under budget because of merit and other aid, the OOS is slightly over budget but I was probably a little too low in setting the budget as the things that put her over budget would have been incurred in Florida too - increase in tuition, r&b, books, dorm set up costs, so I did pay that difference.</p>
<p>My OOS daughter really wanted to go to college in California. I didn’t say no, but merely asked how she was going to do that within the budget. It wasn’t football drawing her there, but a boyfriend. There probably was a way to make some school in California work, but she wasn’t willing to put in the work to find it, and I certainly wasn’t.</p>
<p>With all due respect to NROTCgrad, I recommend not bribing her with a car ( unless that’s what you want to do) and not sending her on a recon trip to Auburn. You’re willing to pay for her college education in full and that’s not a small thing. There are tens of thousands of people who dont know how they’re going to pay for college or who struggle with their college debt who would gladly trade places with her in an instant. If money is not an issue for your family or if the other school offered something substantive she couldn’t get at her state school or even if the kid had really distinguished herself academically in HS I might be inclined to think differently. </p>
<p>Set your budget. Let your daughter apply to Auburn, but she can only go IF they give her some merit money to reduce the cost to be within your budget.</p>
<p>Make it VERY clear that she will need to walk away from Auburn if the money is not forthcoming. And stick to your guns.</p>
<p>Re: offering to,buy her a car if she goes instate…we tried that. Our kid was offered a very fine scholarship to an OOS public which would have been 1/3 of the cost of the private she attended. She declined.</p>
<p>But…we did NOT let our kids apply to any schools that we would not have funded.</p>
<p>Stingy? Not in the least. Smart? Yes. I don’t understand why your wife doesn’t get this. Total fiscal sense.
Your D will understand the second you say you could now afford study abroad.</p>
<p>Visit more of the schools in FL. UCF is sort of spread out. USF is very welcoming–your D may really like it there.</p>
<p>Auburn is a very pretty campus with great school spirit. I understand how someone would like to attend but finances are a MAJOR consideration as an OOS student. If you lived in AL it would be a consideration, but you don’t. To attend ANYWHERE outside a safe financial circle there needs to be a clear advantage. And you will NOT qualify for in-state tuition. It’s gonna cost.</p>
<p>Do like we did… “X school or better”…We would only pay for a school outside the financial circle if it had CLEAR advantages in major /academics.</p>
<p>
Okay, I knew the car bribe was outside the box… but what is wrong with going on a recon trip? This is standard practice, and highly advisable in all circumstances. In this particular case it is doubly advisable because the daughter is under the impression that the Auburn campus is beautiful and considers this a major factor. She needs to see if this impression is accurate.</p>
<p>Make the trip. Totally worth the time and money.</p>
<p>Your in-state colleges will probably have overseas study opportunities, and might well have exchange programs with some other colleges. She will not have to spend all of her time at that particular campus. I also presume that Auburn would be pretty easy to transfer into with a good GPA from FSU or UCF. Go over the options with her. In our household’s case, my sons knew that more expensive colleges would exhaust their trust funds, and limit their future prospects for unpaid internships, graduate study, travel, etc. The car wouldn’t necessarily be a “bribe,” but simply reminding her that she might be able to afford one if in-state, but not at Auburn, could help tip the scales. </p>
<p>If she is also interested in the active Greek scene the cost of Auburn would also go up. The extra cost of the active culture (clothing, formals, crafts, dues, etc) would add to the cost. It may be a huge assumption but great football/fun campus sounds like Greek membership is not out of the realm of possibility. </p>