Personally we’ve found it’s pretty difficult to try and explain to #3 kid that he shouldn’t look at schools with higher price tags (and honestly, in the Northeast, they are all pretty high. Even flagship state schools come in at 25K+). We definitely were hoping that merit scholarships could tip the scales to make some of the 45-60K+ colleges affordable/doable. Sadly, it worked out for some, but completely closed the doors for others, regardless of how much his interest was in them. And you don’t know that until after you’ve been admitted and your package arrives. The site calculators are not always spot on. And some schools surprise you, in both directions.
It’s reality and it does hurt as a parent to have been able to afford xyz for the first two kids, and then have to tell the third, sorry.
It’s also hard reading some of the comments in this thread. It might be good for folks to try to imagine some different scenarios (walk in others’ shoes), rather than blaming the parents or “entitled” kids. To those with supportive posts, thank you. Sorry if this sounds negative, I don’t mean it to be, but we are definitely walking this line right now and it’s awful. And his financial safety, zero interest.