<p>Okay, so here's the deal. As many of you know, I want to apply ED to HMC.</p>
<p>One problem: My Dad makes about 120k and is a professor, and my mom makes about 200k and is a periodontist. My dad is willing to pay between 10k-20k for college, which will probably be his calculated contribution. My mom however, only wants to pay 5k a year. Obviously since my mom makes a lot of money, I won't really be declared as having financial need. I do not want to take out 28-38k in private loans annually. I sent emails to both admissions and financial aid offices about this, and they both basically said, "we can give you some information on how our financial aid works, but it really is your decision."</p>
<p>Should I just apply RD because of this? : /
Is there a better way to pay for Harvey Mudd than taking out immense loans?</p>
<p>Please add any insight you have on this.. I really want to go to Harvey Mudd. However, I do not want to end up $152k in debt! (Assuming you graduate in 4 years?)</p>
<p>Are you saying your parents make $320k per year? That is a large amount of money and will not qualify you for need.</p>
<p>If so, then I would not apply ED unless you know you can come up with the tuition and fees. You will not get any need based aid and unless you know that HMC is going to give you “merit aid”(not sure if they offer any), then you should be in a position to be able to pay for the whole thing based on your parents income and what you are willing to take out in personal loans.</p>
<p>ED is only forgiven if you don’t get what you expect based on “need”.</p>
<p>Do your parents know how you feel about taking out such potential large loans? Do you parents know this is your dream school and that you should not be burdened with such huge loans when they make such large salary’s??? Why is your mom only willing to pay 5K??? Does she even know what it costs to go to school these days?</p>
<p>I hope your parents will reconsider(esp. your mom) how much they can and are willing to give you for college. Also, did your parents save any money ahead of time for you in college savings plans etc…???</p>
<p>Yes, I am saying my parents total around $320k a year in income. However my mom only wants to contribute 5k annually (my parents are divorced, I live with my mom).</p>
<p>Yeah… my mom… even though it’s not nice to say this… is a bit stingy. I mean, I’m glad she’s helping out, 5k is a lot of money. Whenever I talk to her, she gets angry saying she’s not going to work another 5 years to pay for my tuition. My dad thinks she’s crazy and selfish (he keeps joking with me to tell her it’s better to give with a warm hand, ie: while she’s still alive, unless she plans taking it all with her haha, but I would never DARE say that). Given, she said she had a rough year this year and made about 80k this year, which is still a pretty good amount. She wants me to be pretty much on my own and doesn’t want to pay more than 5k a year for 4 years. She also said after the first year, she’s only helping with tuition, not room or board. She’d much rather have me go to UCSD or Berkeley than a private school.</p>
<p>You said your mom is only willing to pay 5k. I go back to my other question. Does she realize that HMC costs roughly 47-50k per year? 5k is not even a dent in that. </p>
<p>Also, does your dad pay child support or not? Even based on your moms income of 200k per yr you will not get any need based aid. With that said the only other thing you can do is take out loans and or emancipate yourself from your mom. I am not suggesting that you do that, I am only telling you what your options are. Some kids have had to do that to afford college in these situations. If your mom is claiming you on her taxes, than she has that benefit as well. </p>
<p>Basically your dad is willing to pay 10-20k for college. Is that per year or for the whole four years?</p>
<p>If it’s per year than you have roughly 15-25k per year and would need loans of about 25k to 35k per year which is huge. </p>
<p>I don’t mean to meddle, but I don’t think 5k per year is generous at all esp if your mom makes 200k annually. Does she really want you to be strapped with such huge debt for undergraduate school? How did she pay for all of her schooling? Have you sat down with her and had a heart to heart talk?</p>
<p>Yes, she does understand it’s expensive. That’s why she wants me to go to a UC school because she doesn’t want to pay more than half of the UC tuition, which is about 5k. That’s where she got her number from. She knows Harvey Mudd is 53k and says if I want to do it I’m going to have to figure out a way to get it. The kind of not-so-right thing she is trying to do is get her patient who works with a guy who works in admissions to give me an edge on merit aid, which I told her seems wrong.</p>
<p>Yes, my dad is going to pay 10-20k a year for college. He understands and appreciates private education. He went to Brandeis and Yale, although on need-scholarships</p>
<p>My mom went to college out of the country, and then went to Loma Linda and I’m pretty sure she had some kind of scholarship. She says she would go to UC so she wouldn’t give me more than what she would give herself. From what she’s talked, she doesn’t really value private college education that much.</p>
<p>I know 5k isn’t very generous when having to do with private school college tuition… but I’d rather have her know I’m grateful I’m getting anything than have her get angry at me and call me ungrateful and then give me nothing.</p>
<p>I understand HMC is your dream school - it’s mine too, only I graduated from Big State U a very long time ago. I can’t make suggestions about your mom - I’m sorry about your situation. But I would certainly not recommend ED for you - HMC says they don’t favor ED anyway. There are a lot of state schools with honors programs that we are looking at, or schools where you could get merit aid (I’m assuming anyone who could get into HMC could get merit aid at lesser schools). From my research, it appears that about 70% of schools are truly lovely for about 70% of kids - don’t be crushed if you can’t swing HMC.</p>
<p>You might look at Cal Poly SLO if you are interested in engineering. A fraction of the cost of HMC and still a great education … very hands on and amazing students.</p>
<p>Do you know if your parents made any kind of legal agreement regarding your educational expenses when they got divorced? It depends on the state, and well as the attorneys that drafted their agreement, but it is not uncommon to have such an agreement, especially if at least one parent values higher education the way your father does.</p>
<p>If I were you, I would not apply ED. It sounds like you will need to compare merit packages. If your stats are great, you might get some from Mudd. If your stats are good, I would also look at other schools that might be matches and safeties for you (not necessarily UC’s) where you could get substantial merit money.</p>
<p>Thank you to all the moms who shared their input, it is really helpful. I appreciate all the information you’ve given and any additional information you may have.</p>
<p>I was also wondering if any current students/ past students have any input on this?</p>
<p>Yes, ED is only for students who are really sure they wanna go… with parents who are really sure they are willing to pay the full bill. We once knew a family that had huge headaches at another college with ED because they didn’t understand this. The financial package didn’t meet what they had expected, and they had a heck of a time out of the deal so they could apply elsewhere. </p>
<p>My research at one point led to Cal Poly SLO too. If we were CA residents, we would have been even more interested.</p>
<p>Another thing to tell your mom is that 5k is no way or shape half of the cost of going to a UC. A lot of ppl think that going to a UC is only about 10k, but they don’t realize that the cost of housing and fees makes the bill go up to mid to upper 20’s. </p>
<p>You sound very bright and I agree with the others here who have suggested applying to other schools that may be able to offer you more in the way of merit aid.</p>
<p>Always remember it’s what you do with your education that matters far more than where you go.</p>
<p>You need to be a grown-up and do one of two things:</p>
<p>1) Sit your mom down and talk to her about how education is an important investment for the family. Making $230k/year and only saying you are going to pay $5k/year for your child’s education is ludicrous. She sounds like she has her priorities backwards… and you need to help change them. I’d be willing to answer questions via email or PM on why Mudd is worth the money. (Does she realize that many parents blow their entire life savings and sell their house to put their kids through Mudd?)</p>
<p>2) Depending upon your age and family relations, you could declare yourself as independent of your parents and thus your financial aid package would be adjusted accordingly. This is pretty extreme… you would have to work every summer and take out some loans but in the end you’ll pay less money. You’d probably come out with $30k of loans but at least you’d stick it to the man.</p>
<p>I don’t know your exact situation but unless something big is missing from the picture (like you have 15 siblings) your mom just sounds lost.</p>
<p>Before we beat up Black Roses’ mom too much, did we overlook this sentence?</p>
<p>Given, she said she had a rough year this year and made about 80k this year, which is still a pretty good amount. </p>
<p>If Mom is used to making $200K and now she is suddenly making 80K, she may be grossly overcommitted with bills (mortgage, car, who knows what) and she may be really scraping to spare 5K. Black Roses, I think you need to look at this a bit more sympathetically from your Mom’s point of view. </p>
<p>You should definitely not apply ED. Apply RD and apply to the UC schools too (and maybe even CalPoly, as some have suggested), put in your financial aid applications, which will ask about Mom’s 2009 income, and see where the chips fall this spring.</p>
<p>My mom knows the COA is in it’s 20s, but after the first year she will only be helping with tuition.</p>
<p>Rocket DA,</p>
<p>My mom does not see it as an important investment. I’m afraid to talk to her more about it (because she thinks I should be grateful for 5k and gets angry when I bring it up), but I will try and pray that it works. When I tell her how much it means to me she says I should find a way to pay for it through scholarships. Yeah, I can get 38k annually in scholarships(sarcastic). She thinks UC education is perfectly fine, and wants to pay half of the tuition for that with my Dad. As for blowing entire savings/house, she would NEVER do that for me. She constantly tells me she’s not going to work another 5 years and ‘kill herself’ to get me through college.</p>
<p>I’m 17 years old currently. I don’t get along with my mom that well, never have, but we’re ok. I was actually thinking of moving out when I was 18, but the problem being a few things… 1. I’m not going to go into detail, but of course that would make it INSANELY hard to get by. 2. When applying for financial aid, I believe, they go off of the last years tax return, so it would show that I was financially dependent.</p>
<p>Also, I am an only child. (Well, I live alone with my mom and step dad, my dad just had my half sister who’s less than a year old… and yet he’s willing to contribute more than my mom, on top of the fact that he has a smaller salary than her… given she did say her income went down to 80k this year since she had a bad year, but that won’t show up since it’s all based on 2008)</p>
<p>mother<em>of</em>perl:</p>
<p>Yeah, she has been really stressed about this, and I do feel bad. I don’t like seeing her stressed out so much with her job (which has always been the case) but now the fact that all her hard work doesn’t seem to be paying off as much. It makes me even more reluctant to bring the topic up.</p>