@Empireapple I feel your pain as my wife and I are in the same boat. My son worked very hard to get a 3.9 GPA so he would have options. That was the motivation we told him. You have to work hard so you have options when you graduate. We felt at the time that the most limiting factor would be grades and not cost. OMG! What an eye opener when I began to dig into the data and found out the reality. Now we find that the so called good private schools (not great Ivies) are getting easier than public honor colleges. Why? Because nobody can afford to go private anymore. Private colleges have lowered the standards to fill the classrooms with people willing to pay. And pay they do. Mortgage the house, raid the 401K, load the kid up with debt, etc. How do you and I compete with these people? In a capitalist society, how do we compete with people who are willing to pay more? Who mortgage their life forever and risk financial ruin? It is really beginning to get insane. I figured having $100K available would be fine given some merit aid. Not even freaking close. The price of college is insane.
Unfortunately the choice now comes down to cost. As a dad I cannot see how to justify sending my son into adulthood being 30K or 80K in debt to start off. The conventional wisdom now is to just accept the debt. People say…“Would you buy a house without a mortgage? But a car without a loan? Of course not, so why should college be any different?” Colleges want us to accept that debt is inevitable and once they do that they can continue to squeeze more and more money from us. It is insane.
Finding out your poor is a tough thing for people. It really hits you deep. But it is reality. Unfortunately he will have to deal with what your family can ultimately afford. Which might not be much. It might be he just has to commute to a local area NY state college. Not everyone can afford Club Med and stay at college. That wonderful experience is reserved for the wealthy. Do you really want to look your child in the eye and say “Yeah. What a great idea. Take out a 10 year student loan for that cheeseburger and fries”.
Then again, you too can be like so many that borrow until they choke on the debt.
We live in NYS too. I quit working to homeschool (my youngest is dyslexic, dyscalculic, and dysgraphic). I was making good money but not enough to pay for commuting costs and years of private school, so we made the choice to give up one income. We’re fortunate. Many parents don’t have that choice.
My eldest is a college sophomore. He got into a lot of great schools and got aid at many of them, but we couldn’t pay $20k or more a year out-of-pocket while we’re still living on a ~$60k/year income. We have some college savings so we could have made several schools work by borrowing an extra ~$5k/year over the federal student loan, but since our plan is to repay the loans for our children that would make our total debt over $90k for two kids. Why would we put ourselves in that position when we have so many great schools in our own backyard? My son is commuting to a SUNY and plans to cross register at a very good private school. He loves his life.
You set the tone for your kids. I know it’s disappointing to not be able to provide your kids with what you want. I was a low income student who started college at 21 and spent 8 years working my way through school (by way of a local cc). I hoped to be able to pay for my kids to go to a residential college, but it didn’t work out that way. What did work out is that my kids won’t have to work full-time to be able to afford college, they’ll be able to start at a 4-year college and spend all four years networking, and they’ll graduate before they’re 30. What I’m working for is to provide them with a college education. It may not look like what I envisioned, but they’ll have a degree. Your kids are fortunate that you can help them get one too. If they can get it at a residential college, it’s a bonus. You shouldn’t feel badly about that.
What you’re not hearing about is the large number of other families in the exact same situation as you are who do make choices based on cost. Why? Because the response when you’re asked where your kid is going is “oh, but they’re such a great student, they could go to a much more prestigious school”. Yes, they could. But they couldn’t go to the more prestigious school and graduate without debt.
Look at all your options. A state school is not “settling” since you’re in a state with a strong university system. Also look at more regional private schools, rather than nationally-ranked privates - many “less prestigious” schools, especially those without engineering schools, are looking for good male students to help correct gender imbalance. There are a lot of lesser-known Catholic schools that offer good merit aid.
What’s most important is that you provide your child with the foundation to be successful in life. There’s more than one path to get there.
Oh, the moral outrage at exploring different options in changing times. LOL
Do you have such indignation at institutions taking advantage of their Federal tax exempt status to increase prices at 2-3X the rate of inflation or creating a platform for their administrators and professors to enriched themselves due to the unique supply of risk free capital (federal back loans)?
The historical advantage colleges have had by obscuring the true costs of education are staring to be mitigated by transparency and full disclosure. Caveat Emptor.
the challenge with your analogy that if your cild gets merit $$ that they can just ditch ED is that ED is an honor bound system that has an expectation that you have done your due diligence before applying.
this means having run the net price calculators, getting and early read or speaking with the financial aid department at your ED school and you as a family making sure that it is an affordable option before you apply. The whole premise of ED is that in exchange for an early decision if admitted, you will attend. You will withdraw all other application (including the EA apps that gave you merit $$ and not make any new applications).
If you are looking for merit money that is not guaranteed with your ED application, then the process is simple; don’t apply ED and pursue all of the EA merit money opportunities that you want. At the end of the day. it is the school that is and fellow students that get the short end of the stick when families don’t keep the ED commitment. Personally, I think if one does their due diligence they already know if the school is going to be affordable before they pull the trigger to applying.
I know at my high school, when a kid is accepted ED everything stops; no further applications are processed, any all all schools where the student is applying or has been accepted EA are informed that the student has been accepted ED else where and the school will not be moving forward with providing any additional information until they receive formal written notice that the student has been released from the ED commitment.
Until the student gets a written release from the ED school, no midyear reports and definitely no final transcripts are sent anywhere (essentially leaving you with a worthless piece of paper. Your response may be “I am going to complain, take it to the school board.” However,the high school as gate keepers in the process are only doing what they have signed off to do- keep people honest and from gaming the process. (Remember they also signed off on your ED application and they explained the process and that you understand the process.)
@sybbie719 - I like that system, I wonder what percentage of HS do that (and wish more would!). Though, how does the HS know if a kid is accepted ED? Does the college inform the HS?
A GC worth his/her salt knows or should know who from their school has applied early anywhere so it is very easy to follow up. In many cases yes the school will receive an email about students who have applied or the GC can call their regional admissions rep at the college to find out the status of their application.
In most cases, schools will ask for mid year reports whether the student has been accepted ED or EA.
Not arguing the nuts and bolts. My point is the macro picture is changing, those who do not realized it will be disadvantaged. This “information gap” between the colleges and the applicant is what the schools have always relied upon to have the upper hand. This is staring to change, ironically spurred on by the feds, but the consumer/applicant needs to adapt or it will be just business as usual.
S3- I don’t know what world you live in, but I don’t know anyone with college age kids who doesn’t do their research, goes into the process with full knowledge of the relevant facts.
If you know people who don’t do their homework- encourage them to educate themselves. But exactly what “upper hand” are you talking about?
@s3 ,I am still curious what has changed that makes it OK to not honor the ED commitment?
Can you explain that to me? I am sorry for being dense but I would like to know. If there is an acceptable logic, it would be very useful to many people here.
@blossom … " I don’t know what world you live in" … nice, but I’ll play.
“college age kids who doesn’t do their research, goes into the process with full knowledge of the relevant facts.”
… Just scanning this tread illustrates how many people are shocked by their child’s college application experience, at least the first time around. Full knowledge ? I don’t think so, which is to the college’s advantage.
Hopefully the advantage is being neutralized somewhat by progress in transparency and timeliness.
Most ED decisions come out before EA. I THINK what you are trying to do is play the spread between notification of EA and notification of ED so you can pull your kid’s app. Setting aside the unethical nature of this- I don’t think it will work unless you are specifically targeting one EA school that would give the merit you need and you KNOW that they will release it before your ED results date.
P.S. Now I know why colleges are super ambiguous about exact EA/ED release dates. This really bugs kids on CC in the month of December when they are waiting to find out about schools. I always wondered why schools didn’t say (even the day before we think the results are coming out -they always say “By December 31st”.) Its to avoid cheaters cheating.
@s3, The bottom line is that the ED agreement is the ED agreement. It is a contract signed by the parent, student, and counselor that says if you are accepted, you will attend. Period. Yes, there is an out if you cannot afford the school, but if you apply ED having run the NPC, and the actual cost comes close, then you have a moral obligation to go.
To your point, perhaps with the changing landscape, sometime down the road, colleges may have to change the ED agreement to provide students with more flexibility. But for Fall 2017 ED applications, that’s not the case. What am I missing?
@s3, There’s a limited time to accept ED offers. You can’t wait around for others to come in. You’re right that nobody can stop you from letting your kid apply ED hoping to get a bump in admissions while still planning to compare offers from any EA decision that comes in before your ED acceptance response deadline. I hope this daughter is your youngest. You may get by playing that game once, but no GC in their right mind will sign off so you can play it a second time.
Apologies @s3 , but to my comprehension not one thing in your post #49 answers the questions or objections posed by @mjrube94 , @suzyQ7 , @TomSrOfBoston , or myself.
What, specifically and with citation, has changed that makes it OK to not honor the ED commitment?