I agree. As the parent of some very bright, hardworking students who have academic achievements far beyond the norm AND who can’t afford to attend top schools, finding affordable options(schools luring top students with scholarships 
) way down the totem pole is our application strategy. We don’t believe it is “settling.” It is our fiscal reality. You know what, they shine where they are planted and are successful. They have also found peers with similar ambitions. Lots of kids are in this predicament, so top students are going to be on the lower ranked campuses.
@gmtplus7 You know what they say about assume It makes an a** out of u and me. I am not bitter and I may not be part of the 99% Some peoples values are just different. Look what warren buffet and bill gates are chosing to do with their money I think it would be very instructive to you . I try to work for change for the better.
There are numerous problems with the understanding of college financing by students and families.
Many people assume a Meet Needs school will be a very low cost option as they have determined they have lots of need. They don’t understand the school determines the Need based on additional factors not included in the FSAFA and are then shocked they are expected to make some financial sacrifice for their dear child to attend the most highly sought after universities. Some of those getting a free ride are surprised they are expected to get summer jobs to help contribute to their future.
The biggest issue are the next tier of schools that are expensive and never said they are Meet Needs. Students get in and can’t believe the huge gap they are still required to cover once they receive their FA. The expectation is their child should receive this education that cost from 40-60K for free or at a community college price. This seems to be the largest group where students are surprised they didn’t get the large merit scholarships and have the biggest disappointment.
The OOS students who can’t understand why they couldn’t get FA to highly ranked and popular state schools, You know the list. They don’t understand the Full pay OOS students are being used to help fund the cost of college for the lower income students who are in state.
This doesn’t include the belief by many that certain affordable schools are beneath them when little Johnny or Susie with lower scores got into a highly ranked school and got merit aid. How many times do we see the “which is better, higher ranked large college debt college vs free ride lower ranked state school” thread?
For the record, I am in the same boat with 1st daughter. Her first choice is an in state higher price university that does give out some aid but isn’t always guaranteed. However, she knows if it isn’t affordable, she will have to choose another school. As they are Juniors, my fun is just beginning.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek - I agree with you! We went to my daughter’s music audition at College of Wooster and some of the accomplishments of the students at the audition weekend were Ivy league level impressive - and they offer merit aid.
@florida26, so what changes you are working towards? What exactly you are proposing?
I see current US higher education system as convoluted and very complicated making it difficult to navigate for unsophisticated students without adequate support. But this system still offers the best opportunities for the wide variety of students.
@florida26, please stop assuming that those of us who operate as “realists” don’t agree that things need to change with regard to income distributions in this country and that many of us in fact vote towards that change. The fact remains that it is very expensive to have children in the USA and even more so if you want them to attend college. Magical thinking isn’t going to change that, and too many people, including those with very good incomes, seem to operate on that level when it comes to paying for college. There are no guarantees in life, but hard work coupled with some prudent financial planning, will make the likelihood of a good outcome that much greater. Students’ hearts are broken because they have unrealistic expectations with regard to both admissions chances AND affordability. Nothing is free in life, and if you happen to be lucky to be awarded a scholarship or have your full need met, great, FANTASTIC. But NO ONE should count on that.
Parents need to sit down and discuss realistic options as early as possible with their kids. Ninth grade is not too early for those hard-driving, Type A students. For the rest, find “teachable moments” to help lay the groundwork. If you’re sacrificing for them to do certain activities, let them know. Not to make them feel guilty, but to help them realize that very few families have unlimited resources. Middle- and upper-middle class families whose kids attend the colleges of their choice typically have sacrificed or taken on debt to make that dream come true. And you can never know who’s who by the cars they drive or the vacations they take.
Also, it’s not healthy to teach our kids to resent others. Yes, the system is broken and frustrating, but, like it or not, it’s the one percent who build up the endowments that help fund all this financial aid everyone is competing for. My advice is to take advantage of the opportunities that exist NOW and work for change for the future.
We gave guidance to DS to eschew pricey, no-merit ivy schools. It was a strategy that paid off handsomely.
Look, @florida26. We get that. I certainly also get that 30 years ago families had to make choices. I know mine did. It used to be easier to get into Ivy League schools but harder to afford them once you did get in because the need based aid wasn’t there to the same degree. Yes, costs have gone up astronomically. That has nothing to do with the phenomenon of kids and families feeling that because they worked hard in school they should be able to afford a top tier private college or university that does not award merit based aid. As Stanford says, everyone who is admitted has academic merit or they wouldn’t have been admitted.
Yes, I see many people on CC seeking to attend an OOS public that is not significantly better than their in-state public flagship. Then they are angry they can’t afford the OOS. There are a few OOS universities that are worth paying a large premium to attend, but most are not. I think it is a case of the grass is always greener over the state border. Some students just don’t want to attend the same university as many of their classmates, or demand a warmer climate.
Charlie- great point. The kids in New Hampshire want to be at U Mass; the kids at U Conn want URI, the kids in NJ are applying to UMD in droves.
I think this is a fine phenomenon as long as you’ve stared the out of state costs and fees in the eye and know you can swing it. But seriously- I have neighbors going into big debt for Delaware. Which is a fine university. But SO much finer than our own state flagship???
So true! The niece of a friend was looking for marine science programs and before they understood the financial picture she was dreaming about Stony Brook and Oregon State. They have quite limited financial means and she lives 15 minutes from the University of Washington. No brainer! Thankfully she got her mind around it and was admitted. A happy ending.
I think there are two conversations going on here. One is that college is very expensive and you may not be able to afford it. The second part is what are we doing to fix the problem. I dont want us to lose sight of the second part. Sometimes we think about the immediate issues and not the long term issues. We can and should deal with both.
Maybe it would be better to have another thread about what we should do, as a society, about how expensive college is. Then we could leave this thread for talking about what an individual family should do for their own children’s educations, given the system we have now.
It may seem brutal to say this, but I think that what individual families should do is save enough money so that they can send their children to their flagship state university (or, if appropriate for the child’s educational needs, to another college in the state system) with no financial aid of any kind.
This may mean living in a smaller home than you otherwise would (perhaps an apartment instead of a house). It may mean no vacations, no sleepaway camp, no new cars, no smartphones, no cable TV, and almost no restaurant meals. It may mean hand-me-down clothes for the kids and a single shared computer for the whole family. It may mean parents moonlighting on top of their regular jobs and children getting part-time jobs as soon as it’s legally possible. It may involve many other sacrifices. However, it ensures that your children can get a college education – and even the most academically talented child can get a decent college education at a flagship state university. (Of course, that child may also get sufficient need-based or merit-based aid to make it possible to go elsewhere, but if that doesn’t happen, the state school is there as a backup.)
I realize that even with numerous sacrifices, this is not achievable for every family. But it is achievable for a lot of families who don’t do it.
Sure, but at CC we are presented with families that are already in the situation they’re in. A family has as much money as it has, and now they need to come up with a strategy for their high school junior. Useless, at that point, to say what they should have done fifteen years earlier. When they come here, we need to steer them away from further mistakes (that we keep seeing!) like imagining the Financial Aid Fairy is going to give them tens of thousands of dollars of aid that will not be forthcoming.
You’re absolutely right, Cardinal Fang. I just get frustrated because there’s so little anyone can do for the family with the high school junior that could have put more money away for college but didn’t.
There’s plenty that hypothetical family can do, but sometimes we need a sledgehammer and a chisel to get the truth into their heads. No, hypothetical family, your kid is not going to NYU. You cannot afford it and there is no Aid Fairy who is going to shower you with $50K a year. But your kid might be able to go to your state’s flagship, or community college for the first two years, or a small lesser-known Midwestern LAC that will throw money at kids with your kid’s stats.
I don’t know that it is truly the parents’ responsibility to pay for college 100%, even if it is at a state school. I admit my perspective is different than some, however. My mother gave up her opportunity to work and have us be a two-income family in order to home school us kids and give us a better education than she had as a kid. She gave up well over 20 years of working as a well-paid engineer to do that. She gave up a lot for our education starting from a very young age. Yes, she could have sent us all to public school and worked full time, which would have helped her and my dad to have a better outlook for retirement. But she thought that home schooling was better for us kids, and in many ways, it is proving to be the case. But my parents have already sacrificed a lot of money for our education. Am I supposed to expect my parents to pay for college too? I am lucky to have gotten a great scholarship that will pay for the majority of my expenses for college. I dreaded having to rely on my parents for 4 more years of education, after they have already given me 13+. I hope to be as independent as I can in order to not be their burden as much.
I’m not trying to be self-righteous here - I recognize that everybody’s situation is unique and that there is no right formula for everyone. All I’m saying is - is it always the parent’s responsibility to pay for college? If I have kids, I will definitely try to help (within reason), don’t get me wrong. I am grateful that my parents will help me as much as they can. But it’s a privilege and a gift, not a right or obligation.
In our case there isn’t a single undergraduate program for music therapy in our state, so we by necessity had to look out of state.
@albert69 You should address your question and comments regarding responsibility of parents to fafsa