People say it isn’t fair that their child ‘worked his butt off’ in high school and gets nothing but a state U college to attend. Would the student have worked one bit less if told at the beginning of high school that he could only go to the state U? Would he have put in less effort on the athletic field if told at the beginning there would be no athletic scholarship? Would he have not volunteered at the library knowing it wasn’t getting him to Fancy Private College? Mine would not have changed a thing. They joined clubs and worked hard in high school because that was their job at the time. Very little was done with the expectation of getting into college, with the exception of trying to get higher ACT scores.
Seems like 50 kids from OP’s high school are making the same choice of State U. I bet a few are thrilled, that it’s the only school they wanted to go to. They have the attitude needed to have a great college experience. At my kids’ school, I bet 50 of the top 100 graduates (class of 430) went to one of the state schools, most to the Big 3. Most by choice, some by financial necessity. Others found an equally good opportunity either at a private school or an OOS public. It was a school of middle class kids, so very few could make a college choice without considering finances. A lot of military kids so they were looking at where their GI benefits would work, ROTC, yellow ribbon schools. I only know of a few who could go anywhere, damn the costs, and most of those went to a state school anyway.
Most of my community of 1 percenters send their kids to state schools. Most of us are like @sax son- we survived and thrived post state school. If my kids feel deprived, they haven’t let on. One caveat is that our state schools are pretty good (Texas).
I have always made a point to talk up the state school AND the local community college (both of which are good) to my kids and their friends. You never know where a kid is going to end up, and I hate the fact that some kids think their state school is beneath them or that they’ve failed if that’s where they end up. I was appalled to once hear the mother of one of D2’s friends complain about a grade by saying “you’re going to end up at community college!” (She did - in part because of family finances - and I told her it was an excellent school that could give her a great start. Unfortunately, I think I’m the only one who had anything encouraging to say about it).
I live in a community of 1 percenters, and well over half of the kids from our HS go to state schools - some to our own state flagship, and others to those of other states. There are top 10% kids from our HS at the state school, and other students who aren’t as accomplished. But those kids aren’t necessarily going to have the same experience, and college is what the student makes of it more than the school name on the diploma. I think people can get too caught up in prestige.
No, you’re not along in feeling that. The situation is much more prevalent than is commonly believed. Personally, I have found CC to be invaluable in educating me about the reality of the situation.
Part of the problem is the widely-held perception that attending a top college is simply a function of hard work. In reality, it’s that PLUS the willingness to pay for it.
No, not alone, but I think you’re looking at this incorrectly. Your child’s hard work and service earned him admission to the honors college (are all 50 of the classmates who attended his high school going to be in the honors college?) and admission to the biz school, where he can graduate without significant debt. How is this a disappointment? Why would this be tough to digest?
I’m one of those people in a “special situation.” I work for a small, private university (church affiliated) and my kids can attend school on tuition remission (at my employer) or exchange (schools in the consortium). BUT, whenever people gripe about how lucky I am, I point out that they would have had the same opportunity had they been willing to work for what I am paid. Most people definitely are not. If I’d been paid more, I could have saved more, and given my kids choices that weren’t on the exchange list. While fine schools, I’d be hard pressed to call them “top” schools. Maybe “top” regional, but national? No. And believe me, my kids worked hard and had the laundry list of activities, which I hope they did because they wanted those experiences. (How awful to do things just because they “looked good” on a college app!) They just knew going in that money was likely to be the determining factor in where they went to school.
It comes down to choices and circumstances, you have to work with what you got.
Fortunately the fact that we could not afford our EFC did not hinder our D from attending an excellent school, because her grades and scores made her eligible for a great scholarship.
Our FAFSA-EFC is a good fraction less than the advertised cost of son’s top choice school. Although this school says they guarantee to meet financial need of admitted students, their own calculation of our “family’s financial strength” suggests that we can afford the cost without any aid from them. We were surprised, we thought we would qualify for some aid (we had played with their NPC, but hadn’t really done the work to understand our full financial picture yet). The reality is, that, yes, ultimately, we can manage to send our son to that school without aid from the school, if that is where he chooses to go. Yes, it will involve sacrifices. Yes, it might involve tapping assets that we had not envisioned ever having to tap. Yes, it might involve taking on some debt.
Is that unfair? Is there some reason that we should expect to be able to continue along in our merry lives while sending an offspring to a top-tier, but expensive, college, without having to make sacrifices? As mentioned above, any college is a privelege, and none of us are entitled to a comfortable ride to a college of choice. But there are choices. In our case, son has also been offered a very generous merit scholarship from a less selective school. Our resulting contribution would be well below our FAFSA-EFC. Good for us! But is it the right choice for our son? Should we push him towards this choice instead? Maybe, maybe not – each family has to make their own decision.
Good Luck to all who are struggling with these issues.
To me it comes down to the simple fact that I refuse to let my child, or myself, take on that kind of debt for undergrad.
“Need” is very subjective for schools that are not FAFSA only based as may be the case in the 2 privates you mention. For some, they meet full need and for others they do not. Need varies, not only by income but by how many kids in school.
For example, at a certain very good LAC, my S17 will not qualify for anything. When it is my S19’s turn, he might qualify for essentially half tuition as our “need” will have changed now that 2 are in school. Ok, that sounds great on paper but what happens when S17 graduates and S19 no longer has need for his last 2 years? The situation becomes unaffordable. Not fair (to me) for S19 to have a “better” option just because he is younger and ultimately it doesn’t pencil anyway.
I set the stage early with my kids. I am willing to pay for the state flagship. Anything else, they need skin in the game, but loans not exceeding the federal limit of 22K, so the rest they’ve got to figure out scholarships or grants to make other options happen. I’ve also made it clear that I won’t stop them from applying to dream schools but they have to know up front the probability that it is affordable is almost certain.
Neither of them have interest in our state flagship…which is a “runner up” public ivy. So we have to get creative and it’s going to be hard on one of them, potentially on both. But they know the parameters, like it or not, and they do know they are lucky to have options at all. So many do not.
For many 2008 really hurt college funding scenarios. I know it did for me. It is what it is and while to a degree it upsets me, I also don’t personally think any undergrad degree is worth that kind of money. I know some (especially here) will disagree but even if I had it to spend…the idea of a quarter of a million dollars on an undergrad degree…well, there are other things I would do with that money.
After hanging out on this website for a year and a half now I feel more strongly than ever that kids applying to college NEED to know the financial parameters before they complete a single application. It is breaking my heart to read the posts by kids and their families who are just not realizing their options are not affordable.
If a family is wealthy or strongly believes that the high priced private is the only option for their kids and planned for that with money management that made that goal a reality for their children, that is great. Go for it, you achieved a goal that is important to you as parents.
There are many of us who have nice incomes and assets who can’t afford, don’t want to afford, or are unwilling to pay the full price of today’s private college education, and that is okay. But kids (and their parents) have to know this before they start applying, not now when faced with admissions that they can’t or won’t afford.
When we make the “if you work had and get good grades you will be able to get into college” comment when our kids are young, we aren’t promising a top 20 prestigious college or an expensive college necessarily. We are suggesting what needs to happen in order to get into college.
Kids who work very hard to achieve in high school for whom college entrance is a goal, in my opinion, do “deserve” to go to college. I’m not sure where the view that they “deserve” the best college that money can buy versus the best college that they (and their family) can afford. And if they are a very strong student and they don’t have “need” as defined by the colleges, they do have a lot of merit based scholarship opportunities to bring the price down.
Northern- I agree with you but I see two factors at play-
1- Parents aren’t good with money from the git-go, so they wildly overestimate their ability to save in the four years while their kid is in HS; are overly optimistic about how good they are making investment decisions; think “I can augment my savings by drawing on my HELOC while the kid is in college.” Guess what- you’ve already tapped the HELOC to replace your car last year, you’ve always spent every nickel you earn and having a kid in HS didn’t change that dynamic, and the nice college fund your parents set up for your kids has a lot less money in it than it should because you thought emerging markets were a “can’t lose” investment strategy for a 15 year old.
2- Parents are ambivalent or woefully unprepared to help their kids make a realistic list of colleges even after they understand their financial picture. “if you get into Yale we’ll find the money”- this is not a strategy. “we want you to have skin in the game so if you get into BU you’ll have to finance it with loans”, disregarding the Federal cap on loans for an undergraduate. “Lots of kids work their way through U Mass”. Umm- sure. U Mass Boston, they commute from grandma’s house where they live rent free (and someone prepares their meals and does their laundry), and they find a job downtown, and it takes them 6 years. Nobody is living in an apartment or dorm in Amherst and earning enough from a job to pay their entire nut for U Mass. Again- unless they work full time and take classes on a “when convenient” basis.
You said it very nicely- have this conversation before applications go out. There are some sad posts this week on CC.
Or the parents themselves worked their way through college without parental help or financial aid and expect their kids to be able to, not realizing that, back then, (a) a high school graduate was more likely to be able to cover living expenses with earnings from work, and (b) s/he more likely had enough left over to pay the then-trivial tuition and books cost at a nearby state university.
It’s America. If you don’t have the money, that means you haven’t tried hard enough. Success goes to they who try. We are the country of opportunity and striving.
@romanigypsyeyes, why does it have to be sarcasm? My husband and I and all our friends are first-generation immigrants (most of us came to U.S. as kids or with college degree from home country), and we are all doing well. Yes, some families in our circle are better off than others, but mainly due to our own choices - 1 or 2 parents working, slave away at start-up or take a more manageable (hours-wise) job at the established company, etc).