<p>FooMonChew…my parents have been saving for decades and decades of their lives. Forgone vacation, family time…it’s why I have pretty much no relationship with them. Anyway…they grew up extremely poor…saving is the kind of mindset they will always have. Yes, they do regret saving so much now knowing how everything works, but it’s too late to do anything about that now. Asking them to pay MORE than they make in 1 year for 1 year of college…that would be unimaginably selfish of me. Do I still want to know if there is any chance I can attend my dream school? …Of course…</p>
<p>hey131313, you are mistaken if you think your parents would have been better off if they had not saved so much. If they were very, very poor, and had no savings at all, and you got into a school that would meet your full need w/o loans – do you think they’d be better off? Of course not. So no need to try and make sense with logic like “Yes, they do regret saving so much now knowing how everything works.” That’s just absurd.</p>
<p>Would you be better off under the circumstances above? … yeah, maybe. So your issue really is with your parents and their decision as to how to spend their money. I applaud you for being sensitive to their “mindset”, as you call it, however many parents save to --among other things-- pay their children’s college costs. The fact that your parents do not (at least to the extent you feel you should have available for a big ticket college) is not on anyone’s doorstep but theirs. It is their right to use their money as they see fit, but it’s not as though there is any scenario where they’d be better off having saved less.</p>
<p>Can you attend your dream school? Well, probably not if they’re not willing to help you with the costs.</p>
<p>Alternatively, you could dream of a school that would fit your budget along with perhaps giving you some substantial merit aid.</p>
<p>'rentof2 - you’re right, I was thinking of all of that after I posted my last response. I’m probably just going to attend an in-state school but I just wanted to see what my options were at this point</p>
<p>The OP is only a junior this year; he has a lot of time to overcome this horrific problem. I don’t think colleges make a distinction about how the money was accumulated, only whether it is there or not.</p>
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<p>Now I get it. ‘rentof2’ is right, you’re always better off having the money for school. Financial aid is never quite enough, it might involve loans, and it would mean that your parents didn’t have the assets that they have, which they need for retirement.</p>
<p>All schools look first to parents for tuition. Only when the parents can’t pay does financial aid come into consideration. Is it fair? Maybe not. I got frustrated knowing one of my cousins got his full tuition paid at an Ivy League school because his father was chronically unemployed. But then I just have to remember that my cousin’s parents still have nothing, I don’t want to trade places with them.</p>
<p>Given your parent’s assets I don’t think you will qualify for financial aid anywhere. Given their mindset I think you should plan on them contributing what they have already offered. It would be asking too much of them to pay the full freight at an Ivy League school.</p>
<p>If you want to see what your options are beyond an in-state schools dig into the possibility of merit scholarships, as earlier posters have suggested. If you have the stats for an Ivy League school then you might be in the running for some good scholarships at some very good schools.</p>
<p>What “horrific problem” does the OP have? He says he can spend between $10K and $20K per year for college. If he adds in the Stafford loan which is $5500 for freshman, gets a summer job and works about 10 hours a week during school, he should be able to fully pay for his instate public university. </p>
<p>There are MANY students who don’t have between $10K and $20K to spend on their educations…and MOST don’t have families with assets approaching $1million dollars.</p>
<p>My advice to the OP…start looking at your cup as “half full” instead of “half empty”.</p>
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<p>Looking at his past posts the OP identified himself as a rising junior in May of 2009, which would make this his senior year.</p>
<p>OP, what are your stats like? With high enough stats, you could be in the running for merit aid from schools like WUSTL, Emory, Rice, and Vanderbilt. Of course, those are EXTREMELY competitive and thus would be unlikely and require a very good app, but the point is, even if you go the merit aid route, you may still have a shot at top schools, albeit small. Even a step down from there, very solid schools like Case Western, Alabama, and Tulane could be potential options for merit aid.</p>
<p>investing stocks can give the picture the op presents. the problem with stocks is that they are very volatile, you can have paper losses of 80 to 90% in one year followed by paper gains of 500% in another year followed by another 300% paper gain the next year. so even if your work income is very small, you can have huge paper gains reaching to the amounts of what the op has said. on the other hand, you can be wiped out in the succeeding years.</p>
<p>it would be interesting how the schools will view it.
to the op, keep us updated.</p>
<p>OP…you make it sound like your instate public universities are awful. I just can’t believe that you live in a state where the public universities are ALL awful…sorry…just don’t believe it.</p>
<p>The in-state publics might not be awful, but they don’t compare to the Ivy Leagues, which are, of course, the best of the best and the be all and end all of college experiences?</p>
<p>*My mom says most of our money is in buildings…like our home, their small businesses, etc. and stocks. Not really anything in retirement, but I will ask my father later to clarify.
Thank you everyone for the concern/help!!</p>
<p>P.S. 10-20k is how much I can spend per year. *</p>
<p>???
They own multiple small businesses yet only have an income of $45k per year? That sounds like net income after taking a lot of business deductions. If so, some colleges may add some of those deductions back in.</p>
<p>The student is a current senior. The earlier reference of being a rising junior may have been a mistake.</p>
<p>Your parents would NOT be better off if they hadn’t saved.</p>
<p>HOW would situation #1 be better than situation #2???</p>
<h1>1…little savings and student gets a free ride to Harvard</h1>
<h1>2 …$800k-1M in savings. Spending $200k for an ivy, which leaves family with $600k-800k in savings.</h1>
<p>I’m not advocating #2 (spending $200k) but situation #1 is CLEARLY not the better option. At least with option #2, your family would still have a lot left in savings.</p>
<p>mom2 –</p>
<p>if I get this right, you’re saying that it’s better for someone who actually did what they were supposed to and saved part of their income instead of squandering on crap year after year to be GOUGED by the college financial process while someone who didn’t bother working and probably didn’t even pay taxes should get a free ride to one of the most expensive and respected universities in the world? How could that POSSIBLY be fair? This isn’t the america that the OPs parents were bought into… :rolleyes:</p>
<p>^^^
Re-read my post. I’m not in support of the family paying $200k for a pricey private.</p>
<p>But…if they CHOSE to do so, then they would still end up with over $600k in savings.</p>
<p>That’s a heck of a lot better than being low income with little or no savings! </p>
<p>That’s a no-brainer.</p>
<p>This isn’t the america that the OPs parents were bought into.</p>
<p>Uhh…actually, the America that our parents once knew was one where families paid for most college costs…the concept of big financial aid is rather new.</p>
<p>The OP is talking about financing a pre-med education. Are there any states that have public institutions that don’t provide an adequate pre-med education. It would seem really irresponsible on the part of their state legislature if they couldn’t do this through at least one university in their state, but maybe some states don’t have such schools.</p>
<p>I was surprised to find that Hawaii doesn’t seem to have any Tier 1 schools. Not that the ones they DO have are inadequate.</p>
<p>bthomp1 -to answer your question, as I am sure you know premed is nothing more than 4 semesters of chemistry (2 freshman, 2 organic) with labs, a year of biology with lab, physics, and calculus, and they like to see an English course that demonstrates basic writing skill. That’s it, so of course EVERY state school, including the University of Hawaii mentioned in the post after yours, offer those courses at a perfectly competent level.</p>