<p>You are working hard -- most of you, anyway ;) -- with college in mind. Some of you may have a dream college in mind already; others might have a few schools in mind. </p>
<p>But I wonder if you have taken the financial aspects of college into consideration. It's heartbreaking to see threads from students who find out, too late, that they cannot afford to go to the college of their dreams. It's also heartbreaking to see that some students think little, or nothing!, of taking on way too much debt for their college education.</p>
<p>So my plea is this: please talk to your parents about college financing throughout your high school career. Freshman year is not too early. Some parents don't know a lot about college costs these days (which leads to other heartbreaking threads); some don't realize how much the cost of college has increased relative to income. Learn about debt -- how much is too much, what is manageable for a student and recent college grad, why you should generally avoid it. Use online or other financial calculators to see how much payments are for various debt loads, and how much one must make to be able to comfortably service (pay) the debt.</p>
<p>Learn now so that you can align your college expectations with what is doable, and help your parents learn, too, if they need to. Please. Don't let your heart be one that's broken because you, or your parents, find out too late that you cannot afford to go to the college you thought you'd be going to.</p>
<p>my parents told me early on that they could afford maybe 10K a year to send me to college. because I know that early, it is helping me to shape my college list. I'm still going to apply to some expensive, reach schools, but the majority of my list is colleges that have extensive merit aid for students.</p>
<p>Personally, money is not a big problem for my family, but that doesn't mean that I've ignored the financial responsibilities of college. I've been looking at scholarships since freshman year because I know that we're not going to quality for need-based aid but I'd still like to have my parents not have to shell out $50,000 a year.</p>
<p>Fortunately, I'm relatively "poor" (not poor enough to qualify for waivers though) in terms of college admissions, so I think my FinAid package should be fine at whatever school I choose to go to. If there are any surprises come award time, I've already decided to take on whatever debt necessary on my own if it is my dream school. If it comes down to any other school I might just consider staying in-state and going to school for free. Also, the FAFSA Forecaster is a little application that you can fill out online that will give you your predicted EFC before you have to fill out the real thing.</p>
<p>Good advice,
My family has too much money for Need-based and not enough to pay for a private school like it's nothing. So I'm looking at some very attractive state schools at the moment(Binghamton/Geneseo)</p>
<p>I wish that I had talked to my parents about tuition earlier. I don’t think they have saved anything:/ At least the UC’s aren’t too expensive for California residents.(although I’d like to apply to other schools too)</p>
<p>My parents planned, from birth, for me to either get a giant scholarship or go to Yale. So they (and my great grandparents, and grandparents and aunt) have saved about 50. Anyway they sent my sister to Northwestern, so they now both agree that it would be unfair to deny me any school. All’s well here.</p>
<p>Actually two years. I don’t really know how it worked out to be two years, but it did. So maybe they actually saved more. I’m not sure. But it’s not as if they don’t have money laying around to spend. Yes, my sister will have loans, but not huge ones.</p>
<p>Owlice, thank you for putting this out there!
I actually had a few schools in mind, but when I did the financial calculations, I found out that the only schools I can afford without burdening my parents with serious debt, are state schools.</p>
<p>I have no problem attending a state school, especially the University of Texas-Austin (public ivy), or the University of Houston (located in a cosmopolitan, vibrant, world-class city).</p>
<p>So, my parents made it clear they weren’t paying for college very early on in life. Right now, I apply to, on average, a scholarship a day. I suggest the next few generations of seniors do the same.</p>
<p>I know, but it’s not $20,000 a year. It’s actually around $8,000 to $10,000, which I know is still a lot, but it’s not as much as some other colleges.</p>