CC admissions stories are breaking my heart

Parent Cafe
1

No, not the stories of where people were rejected or waitlisted, and definitely not stories of difficult decisions, but those of “I got into my dream school but can’t afford it.” Why aren’t parents involved early in giving realistic expectations of what can be affordable. Lots of research is needed because realistic expectations of costs need to be known.

There’s also a lot of misinformation out there about financing an education, like not realizing what an unbearable burden a very large student loan debt can be, or knowing that the majority of grant money will come from the school, not from outside sources. People seem to think that elite schools will offer tons of merit scholarships (false… they don’t have to). Or people make assumptions that, in the long run, state flagships will be cheaper than private colleges.

But the main source of heartbreak is that there seems to be (judging from the posts on CC) NO prior discussion of how to afford various schools. And sometimes students run out of options after acceptances are out.

2

I think in our culture talking about money is so taboo that we don’t even do it with our kids. You get these bombshells in late March and early April because that’s the last possible moment you can drop it. (Well, I guess theoretically they could wait until the end of move-in day, when the kid is about to hug them good-bye in front of their dorm, before they admit that they can’t pay for any of it…)

You see a lot of threads where there’s no real understanding of how much the parents can contribute or want to contribute each year, how much financial aid is available, asking what a FAFSA is, etc. and you can just tell that their focus was pretty much exclusively on getting admitted and not on anything coming next. That’s probably resulting from misinformation.

3

I feel you on that one @digmedia‌. I am on the phone with families every day who are trying to figure out how to afford to go to the school I work at…it breaks my heart having to tell them to look for a more affordable option. The month of April is going to be the worst.

4

The online college calculators are supposed to reduce the risk of this happening.

A few years ago, there were millions of families who thought they could afford a certain college - until the Great Recession hit. If a family thinks they can just barely afford a college - you can’t afford it. There will always be unexpected expenses to a student and to a family in the course of 4 years (such as a leaky roof, a need to replace a furnace, a car accident, a decrease in income, or an illness), and if you have no margin of financial safety, you will be in big trouble.

I’m really really glad that we realized that the most expensive option for my son (which had been his first choice) was not worth the price. Once he gave it a chance, he then realized that he liked his second choice college much better than the more expensive choice.

I suggest that families keep the PLUS loan option as a last minute emergency source of funds for unexpected expenses. If you start out counting upon large PLUS loans to pay college expenses each year, then parents may be endangering their own financial security after retirement. Just tell your kids: sure I’ll take out PLUS loans, as long as I can move into your house after I retire.

In any case, remember the golden rule - find an admissions safety that also serves as a financial safety, and where you could be happy.

Also, keep in mind that there are plenty of colleges that are still accepting applications, and some are still offering merit aid. Students also should not be too quick to ignore the community college option - you will often have much much smaller class sizes than you would freshman year at a large university. Many community colleges now have guaranteed transfer programs with many 4 year colleges. An employer will not care where you went to college for the first year or two - they will only know the name on your degree.

5

Not buying this! If you go shopping at the Ferrari store, you’ve probably got a good idea if you can afford a Ferrari.

But this is what makes these kids’ stories so compelling. The parents aren’t involved so it makes the kids interesting. The kids whose parents are involved so that they can write the essay about the big game have parental guidance but that makes the kid too vanilla for the dream school.

Not buying this either. The kids want everything for free and the system has shown them that if they cry poor hard enough for long enough, someone will give them everything for nothing. It’s like the time I squeezed my vendors to sponsor a “poor” kid so that the kid could play a season of competitive sport. As soon as the kid’s fees were paid, he shows up with a $250 pair of cleats to play in. Couldn’t afford the $500 registration but could afford the $250 cleats even though others on the team had offered to provide slightly worn cleats to help out.

But they, and their parents can brag about how they were smart enough to get into said dream school. Meanwhile, equally smart kids whose families researched, sacrificed, scrimped, saved, and executed a well thought out plan are shut of dream school.

Live by the sword, die by the sword. Happy Easter.

6

Great post, @digmedia. I, too, am hearing heartbreaking stories about affordability after acceptance. Thankfully, we have escaped this reality but I can see how it happens, as irresponsible as it seems to many on this board. We are admittedly not as financially savvy or realistic as others here and, for a variety of reasons including public service careers, have greater financial constraints today than we once did. So we are guilty of denial to some extent. We aren’t completely reckless and yet I am ashamed to say that when our first child applied to college, we did not sit down and discuss the realities of what was truly doable. Part of that was magical thinking (“It’ll all work out”) and part of it was this sense that if our amazing, beloved, (insert > adjectives) child who had worked so bloody hard ended up matching with Dream School or “Perfect Fit” (define as you wish) then we might just have to consider raiding our retirement (yes, I know this is a terrible idea but we clearly aren’t alone in thinking this way), or the child (or we) would take on greater loans (as my spouse and I did for both undergrad and grad school - again, not ideal, I know, and I realize that times and the job market have changed but the modest debt we took on did teach us some fine life lessons and help us establish solid credit early on). I can’t even convey a cautionary tale here - please don’t flame me for this - because we frankly got lucky. Child received an amazing FA package that round (which, to me, seemed to mimic “merit aid” at the super-select level - you have to gain admission and thoroughly justify the financials to get it). But, absolutely, it could have been a disaster and it was foolish in hindsight. Next time we are going to be smarter and more realistic with our child – right from the starting gates.

I too cringe every time I see a poster declare that state schools are always the less-expensive option over, say, the well-endowed and generous privates for those truly in need. In our case, our child would have paid significantly - significantly - more at every single public in-state (and roughly the price of a new BMW for OOS) option we looked at, from small community colleges on up. We are profoundly grateful that we had the brain power and resources to figure that part out at least.

Would love to see someone give a list of tips and red flags about the misinformation. You’ve already given folks a nice start.

7

@menafrega, that is just unhelpful vitriol. You know nothing about other perhaps less-affluent-than-you families out there and are using a very broad, ugly brush here based on, um, I’m not sure what.

I prefer a more nuanced discussion like the one the OP launched. And BTW, “bragging” is certainly not something that ever entered the equation for us – or any of the other FA families we know. Good grief.

8

To me, match category is pretty hard to decide. They are not 100% need-met schools, so we have to guess how much merit and grant we can get. Net price calculator says it’s not affordable but I read stories about if you are in top 25% of their applicant pool or if they really want you, you have good chance of getting a good FA package. So you want to take a chance and apply those schools knowing the Net Price Calculator was not favorable.

I can see kids getting all rejections from reach schools, getting accepted to match schools but cannot afford, so end up going to the safety.

9

If admission to the school is a match, but getting the needed scholarship is a reach, then the school should be treated as a reach.

10

Families that do think this through, have a plan for paying for the kid’s education. Sometimes the kid is the one who figures that plan out. Sometimes it is the parents. Sometimes they work through it together.

Unfortunately, too many families don’t think carefully about what the money issues might be. That really is all there is to it.

11

That is so true, including on CC. Yet, there is also a LOT of correct information that is available and only as far as a couple of google searches. On this site, for instance, there are tons of people who have responded to inquiries with abandon.

The problem is that, faced with a number of replies of internet discovery, readers tend to focus on what they want to hear. They want to endlessly look for band-aids and believe the information that is easy to … accept: did not do too well on the SAT … yeah, jump on the ACT and repeat the same mistakes. Schools are expensive? Oh yes, take a look at the 3,000,000,000 of “free money” listed at FastWeb. Boy, HYPS are tough to get in? Oh wait, as long as I am in the 25-75 percentile, I should be fine. And on and on and on.

Here’s a reality. College applications reward the educated and reward the person who makes the effort to separate facts from fiction. It is unfortunate the more disadvantaged children do have to DO THIS ON THEIR OWN because their families are poor for a number of reason, including the lack of education or interest in tertiary education.

We all feel for the misinformed and have sympathy for the kids who are blindsided by the selectivity of school or the lack of affordability. We are entitled to blame the adults in the life of the kids: parents and purported counselors. But more importantly, we ought to not forget that the primary responsibility of learning about colleges rests on the … students themselves. There are many stories, including FOB kids, who did just that and survived the toxic environment of clueless expectations of their parents to emerge from their conditions.

Will things change? I am afraid that the answer is no. Despite the massive efforts of individuals and groups, students and their parents are still lulled into believing that college should be an extension of the K-12, where kids are led by the nose and the follies of our education system make parents think that education is the burden of others or the public coffers.

Could there be a solution? Absolutely. The answer is to introduce “reality of life” classes for students and their parents starting in 9th grade. Those classes should be mandatory to continue to obtain educational benefit. What is the biggest problem? That the people in charge are not different from the ones before, except even less educated and talented! And more cynical than ever.

12

I’m not so sure about this when it comes to the financial aspects. Often, parents do not share details of the family financial situation with their children. Thus, no matter how sophisticated the children, they simply do not have the information necessary to make financially well-informed college decisions. Too many times, the parent says “You can go to any college you can get admitted to,” and the child doesn’t realize that the parent is wrong about being able to pay for it because the child has not been allowed to know about how much money the family has or doesn’t have.

13

My daughter wanted to apply to all private schools. They are all over $62000 a year with room and board. I made her apply to Penn State as a financial safety school just in case. She didn’t want to apply, doesn’t want to go, but she understands that if the private schools didn’t give her aid, she was going to have to follow the money.
She did get accepted to the private schools and was offered just as much aid as PSU, but if she hadn’t, I’m sure she would have posted a woe is me post.

That doesn’t mean she and her parent didn’t have the conversation. It just means she tried and failed to get a good aid package.

14

Part of that is true. However, there are also no reason why one should accept the “dismissal” of the reality. Students are often seeing opportunities to apply to program, including some that are reserved to low-income students. Some of them expect the filing of tax information. I fully understand the parent’s reluctance to share that information on an untimely manner, but when will they be old enough? The day that the financial aid office asks to upload documents to IDOC or extract the 1040 from the IRS retrieval tool? I think that that was the point of Digmedia.

My point remains that, ultimately, is the student’s onus to find out all the details that will orient his college life. Access to information is ubiquitous and, despite having perhaps too much of it or too much of dubious quality, students can find everything they need if … they wanted to.

PS Obviously, students who have proactive parents who accept to be both cheerleaders and administrative sleuths do have a leg up over the less lucky kids. Yet, that again reinforces the need to assume the responsibility of their own destiny.

15

With as much due respect as I can muster: really? Dang us lowly 9-12 educators, it is obviously our fault that parents are not researching, calculating and sharing financial realities with their children. With such power, why would I be cynical?
Let me also suggest that your average, even college-bound, teenager given a thorough douse of financial education Will. Not. Get. It. They will go on hoping that they will get what they want.

I, who spend my days with high-schoolers, have a very unpopular view. I would no sooner leave applying to college and figuring out how to pay for it to a teenager than buying a house. Parents need to set the parameters: here’s what we can afford, here are the neighborhoods we can consider, let’s figure out the monthly expenses (there’s more to affording a house than paying the mortgage) and here’s what still on the table for us. And you can’t always get what you want (but if you try real hard…).

16

Scout–your view is popular at our house! Applications, financial concerns are really not the teens venue. We were upfront about how things needed to be.
But honestly, you don’t know the financial part until after you apply to some of the schools. So no matter how much you try it can be a disappointing result.
I think the CC crowd has always been upfront about loving your FINANCIAL safety.

17

Hmmm, perhaps I should finish the quote for the younger set: if you try real hard…you get what you need…

18

The informed parent will either dissuade their child from applying to schools that are too expensive, or at least insure the kiddo is applying with his/her eyes wide open.

But the Finance Talk is a tough one for many parents. Teens have no idea about money. GC are overworked. There’s less & less FA for white, middle/upper middle class kids. Researching schools and FA takes time and commitment and some realism.

Together, it’s a recipe for these “heartbreak” threads.

The good news: for most kids, where they end up is just fine.

19

Mustering respecting or not, I am afraid you missed the point entirely. Lowly 9-12 educators are, as far as I know, not really in charge of establishing curriculum. Unless you lump school boards and administrators in the broad category of educators, I do not see why there ought to be an outrage.

As far as the students “not getting” it … it is hard to get something that is kicked down the proverbial road as an empty can of soda. Does your school organize a “college night” and present basic facts about colleges and getting scholarships? Are there a few folios disseminated and an invitation to check with the GC in … the junior year?

There is a world of difference between detailing one’s finances to children, and one of ascertaining the reality of the future. Would parents and kids benefit from more information and especially honest information? Absolutely.

To keep it simple: ninety percent of what is discussed on a forum such as CC should be of interest to high schoolers. As far as this information coming out of the four walls of your typical school, all I can say, and with as much respect as I can muster, is … it ain’t happening in too many places! There is a reason a site such as this is popular: it brings answers to questions that are rarely addressed correctly in the various neck of the woods around the country.

Twist and churn it as you like, but delaying the correct information until it is mostly too late is a huge disservice to the next generations. And I do not make any apologies to express that view, including that I have seen no change of improvement in the communities I am familiar with. Yours might be different!

20

Perhaps I shouldn’t be, but I’m stunned and dismayed by the lack of knowledge concerning college costs and how financial aid works among the parents I know. Parent #1: Family is solidly middle class; two children who are seniors in high school; one won’t be going on to college because of a severe disability. Father told me repeatedly that other child, daughter, would be going to any college she applied to “because she has a way of getting what she wants” (from other people). I tried to gently explain the concept of need-based FA. This fell on deaf ears. Daughter probably will be attending our state’s flagship. Parent #2: Until this year, stay-at-home divorced mom of three children, two of whom (twins) are seniors in high school; family’s finances are dicey because father irregularly pays child support. One of the twins has been accepted to an OOS flagship. I asked parent #2 how the FA is; she said (two or three days ago) that she doesn’t know because she hasn’t filed her taxes yet. And she is wondering how they’ll pay for college, but not “I know I can’t pay,” but “oh, this will be hard, but we’ll do it.” Parent #3: Family is socially middle class, economically close to poverty level, because of parents’ underemployment by choice. Mother originally thought daughter, now a senior in high school, would not be able to attend college because of the cost. I suggested that she at least apply, because of need-based FA. Daughter has gotten into several great schools, most of which will be affordable because the family’s income and assets are so low. Now mother’s comments are, “I can’t believe they expect us to pay anything!”