<p>BobWallace - spot on. Best schools where she might be able to get some help in order to reduce the cost to something tolerable. What I want to do is spend this summer looking at more colleges but I don’t want to drive several states over to visit a college that if she likes and if she gets in, they’ll still stick us with a 60k price tag. Don’t want to waste the time. thx!</p>
<p>Dang it!! I tried to reply to the individual posts inline but they ended up at the end. Sorry folks. This is the first time I’ve been to this forum. Thanks all of you for the very excellent information!</p>
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<p>LOL! You make it sound so unreasonable. </p>
<p>I’m working my entire life to pay roughly $500K for 2 kids and I enjoy seeing the benefits that attending a top private university provides to my kids. I’ve earned the right to enjoy it. Maybe I’ll retire someday - it’s not something I look forward to. Then I’ll die. </p>
<p>To each his/her own!</p>
<p>Thanks Beantowngirl - I hadn’t seen the Kiplinger’s list. I can look up those schools that I rank as better than U of MD and see if they might be a possibility.</p>
<p>Kenyon is a college with a particularly strong writing/English program that offers some decent merit money. Not enough to bring cost down to the cost of your state university, though.</p>
<p>ClassicRockerDad - I hear you. To me it comes down to relative cost vs relative value of the education. She can get a very fine education at U of MD. Nothing to sneeze at. We can get that for practically free. I think, might it be better to go to U of MD for about free and then aim for the very highest Law school? With the money saved from NOT going to a Swarthmore for undergrad we could pay for Harvard Law. Then again, would she have a better chance getting into Harvard Law if she went to Swarthmore? Dunno. I hear it both ways.</p>
<p>Cool - I’m hearing about some colleges I didn’t know about that aren’t that far away. Thanks for the tip to Kenyon and Denison. We’ll check them out…</p>
<p>I think the emphasis on relative value is important. How that is defined depends on the person defining it! I’m not faulting you for not wanting to spend $250,000 on education. I just don’t happen to agree with you. I also don’t fault people who want to buy a new car every three years, but I don’t agree with that either. </p>
<p>My ds is in a position to earn some significant merit money at some schools. At least full tuition at three schools to which he is applying - potentially more. However, he is also applying to some places where he will likely get $19,000 to $20,000 per year at schools costing around $55,000 per anum. He will get zero money at his reaches. We will be full freight for those, and we can afford it. He also will likely go to graduate school, but there is only so much money! We have a dollar amount we are comfortable offering him for ALL of his education. Once decisions are in, he will have to determine how he wants to allocate that money. At the end of his undergrad we may be in a position to offer still more, but we don’t know that today. All I would say is that if you are not willing to spend $60,000 per year on undergraduate education you need to let your daughter know that. If you are not willing to pay that then don’t let her apply to schools that will cost that much where you know there is no merit aid to be received by her or anyone else.</p>
<p>Paying off the business and house loans should mean that you have a higher cash flow. I would also ask if there are other things you could do that would provide you with some addtitional funds - downsize your house? sell some assets? I am NOT saying you SHOULD do this. It’s none of my beeswax. I have known familes who live in $600,000+ homes with vacation homes as well who insist their children go where they get merit money. That is certainly their choice. It just wouldn’t be mine. </p>
<p>I am completely on board with ClassicRockerDad.</p>
<p>Xrb…NEED BLIND is an admissions term. It simply means that your financial aid status is NOT considered when your application for admission is reviewed. It has NOTHING to do with the awarding of financial aid! NOTHING.</p>
<p>Schools that guarantee to MEET FULL NEED for all students come in a variety of forms. This is where financial aid comes in. Some of these schools offer merit awards as well as need based financial aid. Some only offer need based aid. You would need to check each college to see their policies!</p>
<p>Tough call when it comes to comparing prices/value/worth and of course we all want what’s best for our children. We always tried to answer the question, “Is college A worth the $?” For me this thread becomes somewhat incomprehensible as we were able to send 3 children to 3 fine schools (not the top but always near the top of some list :)) and we have only topped 1/4 of the OPs income. Yes, one child did get full tuition scholarship and yes, that was a huge bonus. But really, $400 K income and house and business loan is paid for? I remember wondering what I would do with the $ when we finished with diapers? OK, more realistically when a car was paid off. But clearly there are funds for saving and out of pocket costs with those 2 debts off the books.And even before the debts were paid you got front UMD costs for older child. Had to vent.</p>
<p>Oh brother…I missed the part about the $400,000 per year income!</p>
<p>If this OP’s kid is a competitive admit for those competitive colleges, AND paying the college bills is REALLY a concern, there are those merit awards in the thread posted upstream.</p>
<p>None of my business really…but we too paid for expensive private colleges on about 1/3 of that income out of current earnings…with no difficulty whatsoever. Can’t imagine really having college financing issues on an income that size…sorry…just can’t imagine it.</p>
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I say the same thing. There are many reasons to consider ultra-elite Big Name schools, but an improved shot at top law schools is not one of them. Law school admission is very much about the combined LSAT/GPA. I’ve read a lot about law school admissions in the past few years; my overwhelming impression is that factors such as the rigor of the undergrad major and the name of the undergrad institution count for very little, if anything. You can get some valuable input on this issue in the CC Law School forum.</p>
<p>It’s smart to consider how your d would pay for law school, which has become a pretty risky investment (said as the mother of a rising 3L). Limiting undergrad debt makes a lot of sense for anyone, but especially if law school is on the horizon.</p>
<p>The merit scholarships at schools like Duke, Chicago, Vanderbilt, WUSTL, etc., are usually awarded to students with extremely high stats and high achievement in extra-curriculars and a compelling, unique, or extraordinary voice or personal story. They are tough to get.</p>
<p>One school your d may want to consider is Syracuse. They have a strong writing program, a Writing and Rhetoric [Major[/url</a>] , and their top merit award is for full tuition: [url=<a href=“http://thecollege.syr.edu/students/visitor_center/CoronatScholars.html]Coronat”>http://thecollege.syr.edu/students/visitor_center/CoronatScholars.html]Coronat</a> Scholars](<a href=“http://wrt.syr.edu/major/]Major[/url”>http://wrt.syr.edu/major/) .</p>
<p>Our income is considerably lower but we are choosing to send my child to a top school at full pay over UMD in-state with a merit scholarship. Different priorities.</p>
<p>@OP</p>
<p>If your D’s SAT scores are actually in the low 700s as you have predicted, she is NOT going to be a top candidate for merit scholarships at colleges which are much better than UMDCP. One needs top HYPS stats, plus other credentials, to be competitive for these awards.</p>
<p>the part I didn’t understand was OP’s statement that they’d have to work 5 more years if kids went to private schools. given your situation is that accurate?</p>
<p>The OPs daughter is entering 11th grade. That being the case, she needs to get the best score possible on THIS YEAR’S PSAT as that is the one that will be used for National Merit Scholarship possibilities. </p>
<p>Then she needs to wait until near the end of 11th grade, and take the ACT and the SAT…plus needs to keep her grades up. All of this will be used by colleges to consider possible merit awards.</p>
<p>To the OP…you might want to read about the SUNY schools, particularly Stonybrook and Binghamton. Even for OOS, these would be under your $30,000 price point…and they are fine schools.</p>
<p>Many (if not most) students switch college majors at least one time. So pick a school with options just in case.</p>
<p>And OP, you have two more years to make some substantial contributions to your 529 account now that your business and home are paid for.</p>
<p>A couple of other suggestions for merit scholarships…Oberlin College has the John Oberlin scholarship and Lafayette College has the Marquis scholarship. My son applied to both schools. Didn’t get the Marquis, but did get the John Oberlin (15K per year for four years).</p>
<p>But at this point, the OP doesn’t want to pay more than the cost of University of Maryland or $30,000 tops. These $10 or $15,000 awards are not going to make enough dent in a $60,000 bill.</p>
<p>Couple of thoughts… Firstly what does “One needs top HYPS stats” mean? On income I only posted that to highlight that I assumed we wouldn’t be in line for FA. I don’t want to trail off on another topic, but since others have commented on it I will briefly. Here is the money for education that is still in front of us:</p>
<h1>1 UMD undergrad - $70kish</h1>
<h1>1 grad school - ??? $250k if highest law school</h1>
<h1>2 undergrad - ??? $250k if elite school</h1>
<h1>2 grad school - ??? $250k if highest law school</h1>
<p>So, if we were to go whole hog for all three as yet uncommitted schools, we would be looking at $750,000. We make around $400k. That means we make enough income to be in the highest income tax bracket and not enough money to hide any of it. Thus, we pay just about half of our income in taxes. That means we get to keep let’s say $230k. Over the past years the money has been paying down the mortgage and business loans. Now let’s say we spend 100k a year on whatever. That leaves $130k. So if we save all of our money for the next 5 years we could pay those bills. I know it’s great to even have that option. I’m not convinced it’s necessary. For example if we go U of MD for #2 undergrad then we only have a $500k nut (only sounds funny…) which at least is better than a $750k nut! </p>
<p>I’d like to retire someday, not work until I’m 70. I paid for my grad school. My wife paid for her grad school. My wife paid for her undergrad school while working 20 hrs a week and graduated summa cum laude. My parents paid for me to go to a state school in PA. (Ok. I was a B student, but my kids get their brains from their mom!) I guess the other thoughts that go through my brain are, Susan went to Villa Julie, an average private college in MD. I went to Millersville U, an average state school in PA. We both went to Loyola of Baltimore for our MBAs, a good but nothing special private college. …and we are doing fine. Do we really need to spend 3/4 of a million dollars on college education? I don’t think we do. I want to get as much/best education as we can, but not at any cost. My #2 is PERFECTLY happy going to U of MD. She really likes the place. I just want to do due diligence and see if there are other options that might raise the bar and still be tolerable. Otherwise she goes to U of MD and we have that much more in the pot to help out with grad school. Thanks again all for the insight and comments.</p>
<p>Like many on CC I’ve let my 3 kids know I have saved and work hard so that I can support them through college, I had the same bucket available to each of them. My first two kids got great merit scholarships at great schools, and thus that same money for “college” became theirs to use for grad school. If they hadn’t chosen those great colleges that provided said merit money that pot of money would have been used up leaving the cost of grad school on their shoulders. I paid for my own grad school, and personally see that as the responsibility of each adult. You sound like you are taking on both college and grad school for your kids, but you might consider a specific amount you can make available to your kids, to be used as they see best.</p>