<p>Where I live, most people don't take the free rides, so I was curious to see how people from all over decide this issue. I would look at any free ride carefully since the money saved could be huge.
Thedad, did your daughter actually visit U of A? She obviously chose something very different, but since she applied there did she ever consider it? What did she like about the school if anything? Did she look at ASU?
Concerneddad, I love jazz. What instrument does your son play? What kind of jazz does your son like? Did jazz influence his college decision?
Also, how close do you live to U of O? What areas do you recommend in Eugene for people that like to walk to everything? I am hoping to visit Eugene sometime next year.</p>
<p>I'm very curious as to how those of you whose kids went for the merit money convinced them to be so financially sensitive. While we've paid large school bills for some time now, the numbers are about to become truly frightening with a child headed to Columbia (NYC spending $ on top of all else!), one looking at boarding school, another in private day school and the child I'm starting to love best who goes to a UC which actually costs less that his sib's middle and high schools. Was there any guilt in asking them to consider higher level schools? My ex and I both went to Harvard which is clearly an issue making it harder for us.</p>
<p>I have heard of many kids here taking the reduced ride over more prestige. I think with the cost of living so high where we live the families just can't make it work. I know several who took regents and are saving the money saved for grad school. </p>
<p>I know for us we will probably not have cost influence her decision. Fortunately we can swing it but it will mean some cost cutting on the entire family. Though if a free ride came through I would hope she would be mature enough to take some time to really think through her decision. I think most 17 year olds do not have any clue as to how much 40,000 is and how much before taxes it takes to make that money.</p>
<p>Most people where we live do not apply to expensive private schools. In my son's graduating class of about 800, there were 3 National Merit Finalists. My son went to Stanford (no financial aid), the second one (1600 SAT score) went to Penn State on a full ride, and the third one, a brilliant student and top notch musician, went to TCNJ on a full ride.</p>
<p>The problem for students (like me) in Massachusetts is that we really don't have any good state programs. UMass-Amherst is the only semi-decent public university in the state, and its honors college isn't that great at all. Further, there's no pressure to make it better, because MA has the unique honor of being the only state where a majority of students choose private for post-secondary education. Everyone thinks our higher education system is fine because we have so many great private schools, but anyone who doesn't want to pay their own way, or can't afford to, is out of luck.</p>
<p>To make matters worse, anyone who goes to a private high schoolwhich is almost a necessity for smart students who don't live in Boston proper, because there are no magnet schoolscan't qualify for any full-tuition UMass scholarships, because they don't take the MCAS (our state tests).</p>
<p>Boston University does offer a number of scholarships for exceptionally bright students. Still, unless you're brilliant or happened to take Latin or Ancient Greek, chances are you'll only get half-tuition, which makes BU about the same cost as Berkeley or Chapel Hill in-state. It's much better than paying full price, but far from a free ride.</p>
<p>Choosing a better deal over prestige doesn't always mean turning down a private school. A good friend's daughter turned down UC Davis and UCLA for a full ride at the University of Redlands and is very happy with her choice, even though Redlands is not considered as prestigious by some. UCD and UCLA offered her mostly loans in her financial aid package - Redlands offered grants, work study and a very small loan.</p>
<p>I actually chose Stanford over full tuition from USC, and good offers from Rice, BU, and a few others.</p>
<p>If you want more detail, you can check my prstats.com profile from last year:</p>
<p>Jury's still out on whether that was a good decision academically (although I'm really enjoying it here, I don't think I would've disliked it at SC, for example, but I'm gathering that the academics are more challenging gradewise, just based on the student body)</p>
<p>Any questions, just reply.</p>
<p>A friend of mine turned down Brown, Carleton, Swarthmore, Amherst and others for Echols at UVa (in-state). She was brilliant and still didn't get the aid she should have from the schools, but then...echols is pretty hard to turn down even WITHOUT the in-state tuition.</p>
<p>Three of mine chose less prestigious schools for a variety of reason. One turned down Cornell for a small Catholic school full ride with a preferred pathway to med school. Worked out well. Is in her last year of med school. One turned down Cornell (again!) for a variety of reason but since the program was ILR and we got a state tuition break at that time, the cost would have been similar to the school he chose that gave him a nice merit award. D is also at a small Catholic school--she turned down Smith and Oberlin for it. She has a full ride this year but a half tuition her first two years there. The results for her have been the most mixed as she has had a lot of second thoughts about the decision. Many because of the way some things have unfolded. It is still up in the air whether it was the best decision and hinges on some possiblilities. The other two never looked back an instant on the choice, though S did not care for his college. Too much like Cornell, he felt, in atmosphere.</p>
<p>dstark, feel free to email me privately if you like concerning questions about Eugene. No need to bore the others.</p>
<p>Kirmum asked, "I'm very curious as to how those of you whose kids went for the merit money convinced them to be so financially sensitive. "</p>
<p>Our son has a trust account valued at about $75,000 which was set up in my parents will. They did the same for all their grandchildren. Being an educator all my life I know that the quality of a student's education has far more to do with the student than with the college which that student attends. I made that fact know to our S early on.</p>
<p>At the beginning of the the admissions process junior year our family set several "ground rules". One, our S would be solely responsible for choosing which colleges he would apply to. We would not try to influence his decisions one way or the other. A second, he would be responsible for paying for his tuition, books, and academic fees while we would pay for his room, board and medical insurance costs. That was it!</p>
<p>He decided that he did not want to spend all his trust money for undergrad college or graduate with hefty student loans to pay off. So he did his research, paying for the USNews college data base to screen for those colleges offering significant finaid, finding colleges who seemed to overperform in terms of graduation outcomes(the Franklin and Marshall PhD study helped him uncover several colleges which, in his estimation, were underappreciated), using the Coin3 college admissions data base available through his hs guidance office which could be logged onto from home, and talking to his guidance counselor who was very helpful.</p>
<p>He did his homework well, applying to 6 private colleges and the state flagship university and getting merit scholarship offers totally more than $350,000. The only one that didn't meet his screening criteria was Oberlin and sure enough, the came through with only $1800/year.</p>
<p>The result-he is attending Rensselaer for a bargain junior college price of $2250/semester, enjoyed his first semester at the "Tute", is excited about his interdisciplinary dual compsci/cogsci AI major, a formal program that seems unique to RPI, and still has about $73,000 in his trust account. And it was totally his choice!</p>
<p>Jamimom, is your family affiliated somehow with Cornell? I return periodically to visit and play the University golf course-a fine RTJ design. A friend and I were runners-up in the Leo Speno Memorial member-guest tournament two years in a row many moons ago. I also ran several x-country races on the course. As I recall the Section 4 state qualifying meet was held there each year. Ah, the memories.</p>
<p>originaloog, I like the idea of giving the kids a financial stake in the process. It gives them a huge incentive to be engaged.</p>
<p>yeah, my college was sort of the same way originaloog. my parents and i talked about it and they basically said they would pay for xxxx amount , and any thing in addition to that is my responsibility. i don't have a trust fund though, so the "my responsibility" is a loan in my name :) (as well as grants, scholarships.. whatever) plus, if i go longer than 4 years, anything additional is 100% my responsibility. i believe my loan is about 12k-15k total, somewhere in there (for my 4 years). i know a lot of people at school whose parents are paying for everything and theyre dilly dallying around and taking 5 years or so to graduate. I think they would of been a lot more responsible if they were paying for that fifth year.</p>
<p>The $80,000 my son "saved" by virtue of the decision he made, is roughly 80% of the cost of attending medical school in Oregon as a state resident -- a fact that did not go unnoticed or unappreciated by his dear parents who have two more kids heading off to college in the not-so-distant future.</p>
<p>I do wonder about the grad/undergrad equasion. What we've seriously considered is letting all of the children chose their dream colleges, getting a free ride from parents, but making the on their own for grad school. We figure this will give us time to financially recover in time to retire at 80. Has anyone taken this approach?</p>
<p>Kirmum, we took that approach. We also told him that if medical or law school were in his future, he'd have to anticipate taking grad school loans. We told our son that while finances should not be the only issue, it certainly belonged on his list of considerations.</p>
<p>He didn't apply to the schools which would have given him free rides, but UCLA with a Regents was in the running until the very last few days. (Our daughter went to UCLA and never applied to anywhere but UCs) He ultimately chose Columbia -- yikes, on the list of the ten most expensive schools. But the idea that if he goes on to grad school, he has to pay his own way unless he gets fellowships, continues to motivate him. He also applied for and got a couple of outside merit awards, which he is using for spending money along with earnings from the summer. He's responsible for spending money and, though NYC is expensive, we find he is much cheaper with his own money than with ours! He hasn't tapped the merit awards yet and says he's spent less than any of his friends.
Of course many, many California kids choose the UCs and never apply to private colleges or universities. I suspect he might have chosen Berkeley if it weren't four blocks away.</p>
<p>In my son's case, Stanford actually turned out to be the cheapest choice. He did not apply to any state colleges, as there were no colleges around here that had what he wanted (a strong engineering program, a good Japanese program, and overseas study in Japan). He was also accepted at Case Western and Purdue, but their financial aid offers were not as good as the need-based aid that Stanford offered. He also had a couple small outside scholarships to help lower the amount of loans needed.</p>
<p>He will graduate in June with only $7500 in loans--it would have been less except for the overseas study. It is the fifth year engineering program that he wants to take that may be a problem, as need-based aid does not cover that.</p>
<p>He loves Stanford, had a wonderful year in Kyoto last year with their overseas study program, and is focusing on finishing his Japanese major and getting heavier into engineering this year. For him, it was an excellent choice.</p>
<p>Susan</p>
<p>The issue is that this is only a debate for those who don't qualify for need based aid. What you describe Susan, is so true, if there is need the dream college may well be cheapest. I get a lot of strange looks when I explain to parents who don't know the system thAt Harvard may be their cheapest option!</p>
<p>I like your approach sac and this is the one I'm most tempted to take. My fiance and I have seven children between us with many different interests. We debate whether we should help out the duture MDs because they probably won't make nearly as much as our future JDs and MBAs!</p>
<p>Our approach was to tell both kids that graduate school is up to them financially. However, we ARE tempted to try to even things out, if we have the wherewithal, if our daughter chooses to go to grad school, because her choices all the way through school cost us so much less and because any field she enters (art related) will probably never pay what our more mathematically inclined son is likely to earn. These equations get complicated. I will say that we have always made our kids aware of the costs and that our son shows his appreciation in many ways -- from taking advantage of lots of opportunities at Columbia to working hard to finding ways to earn money. Of course, I'm not crazy about his chosen gig: bartending.</p>
<p>We also made clear our opinion that we thought he could get every bit as good an education at a UC. (We're both alumns). And, that if he thought he might take a year abroad, UCs were by far the best option. Shows how much he listened to us! (LOL)</p>