<p>My daughter wants to attend college in California. Her grades and numbers are top 5 in the school, and our income is incredibly low, so I know she'll receive numerous handsome offers. My only issue is how do we even afford to fly her out there and back? Just to help her move in would easily be a $1000+ affair. Are low income students typically forced to move in alone and possibly not make it home for breaks due to travel expenses?</p>
<p>Moving in alone is not that big of a deal. I went to school far from home, moved in alone, and also spent most breaks away from home. If she wants to go to school far away on a limited budget, that’s the way it is. I would not use the term “forced”. But you are wise to take into account these expenses as you plan her budget.</p>
<p>Our kiddo went to college 3000 miles from home. She came home for the Christmas break and summer only. We did not fly her home for thanksgiving or the spring break, or any other school breaks. She knew this would be the case when she chose a school far from home. </p>
<p>Most schools have a transportation line item in their cost of attendance. But this does not guarantee that your daughter’s travel expenses, OR other college expenses will be fully met. The very vast majority of colleges do NOT meet full need at all. And many of those that do require a student contribution for things like transportation and other personal expenses. </p>
<p>Of course she can apply to these far away schools, but I think you need to establish the financial ground rules with her. If a school ends up NOT providing enough aid to make it affordable, she needs to be prepared to walk away from their offer of admission.</p>
<p>A lot of this will really depend on individual school policies and how badly they want your daughter. If you are sure you can’t afford airfare then have her apply only to schools that cover travel expenses at least some of the time. The main thing is for you to be very clear with your daughter what you can afford for the total cost of attendance.</p>
<p>Grades and rank are very important but so are SAT or ACT scores. Has she taken them yet? What schools is she looking at? What major? Someone on this board will have info about their financial aid policies.</p>
<p>Agree this depends on the college. The more generous will up her travel allowance to reflect the distance. But she likely won’t be able to afford more than Christmas at home. You want to run the NPCs (Net Price Calculators) for each college now, so you have some idea what “could” come through. Actual aid depends on a variety of factors, so bone up on the Fafsa and what the CSS Profile will ask for. </p>
<p>But also understand that colleges that review holistically (all that use the Common App) will look at more than her grades and numbers. Never assume- not about admissions and not about fin aid. </p>
<p>ps. what many families do is find the airlines where you can advance book for a sweet rate. Once you know, eg, when finals are done and dorms close, you can book a less expensive flight sooner rather than later. </p>
<p>Another thing to consider, what if you need to get to her? This was something that others brought up when DD was considering Stanford. Of course the need for that money may never arise, but you will need to have funds at your disposal should you have to fly to her for some unforeseen reason. It’s highly unlikely, but life happens.</p>
<p>You could consider having her do what many other kids do. Work part time in school and full time during the summers for incidentals. Don’t go with her to move in, only have her come home during the summer, buy super saver tickets. Many internationals don’t even go home over the summer. If you or she can’t come up with the money, and the school has decided a full ride is generous enough, then she can’t do it.</p>
<p>Working during the summer is another issue. Not that OPs DD is in this situation, but many students who are looking to apply to medschool need to do research over the summer. Sometimes making it impossible to work, unless they bartender or wait tables at a place that has late hours. Many students have complained that working summers conflicts with those ever so important summer experiences. Just something else to consider. </p>
<p>Is she a friendly, outgoing kid? If so, she’ll probably have someplace to go for Thanksgiving and other breaks, even if she doesn’t come home.</p>
<p>As others have said, it very much depends on the college and what goes into their travel allowance. For ds2, I looked at the travel figure given and asked why it was so low. Turns out the travel allowance only covered two trips – to and from school for the fall and spring semesters. No T’giving or spring break travel was part of the award. We ended up not bringing him home for T’giving but doing so for spring break. His school also has a long Easter break, and he stayed on campus then, too. Ds1 went to a school on trimesters so his award included three trips. </p>
<p>We also are low-income. Sending the kids far away does mean compromise. I never went to ds1’s parent weekends so I’ve never met any of his friends, and I wasn’t able to see him present his senior project. That’s a bummer, but worth the sacrifice of his receiving an excellent education for which we paid relatively little. Not seeing ds2 for the entire fall semester was tough, but he knew that that was part of the deal when he chose his school.</p>
<p>The great news is that if your dd is able to get into a top school often there are programs to support low-income students that help a lot. I’m thinking TRiO, Posse, Questbridge, etc. Look into those options. Ds2’s school has a program for kids and did things like organize T’giving dinner for the kids who couldn’t afford to fly home. It’s more common than you think. She won’t be the only one.</p>
<p>I agree…if your daughter goes afar, there will be some local family who adopt her for those shorter holiday breaks. My kiddo never had a shortage of offers. </p>
<p>Re: staying ON campus, you need to check the school policies. Some close the dorms completely. Others have on,y one or two dorms open (usually for international students) and those staying on campus are asked to go there. I think most close their dining facilities. </p>
<p>Re: summer jobs…after the first summer, our kiddo had a full time job on her college campus. It was a good thing,as we were paying for 12 month rental of an off campus house.</p>
<p>I do think you need to look at the finances. When our kid started undergrad in 2006, we could fly her round trip for $199. When she graduated, it was $399.</p>
<p>And there are NOT a lot of bargain airfares during the holiday periods as they are hugely busy travel times.</p>
<p>Most school awards that I have seen even for Harvard, MIT, etc for low income kids, with EFCs of zero include a self help component. The school will generally expect the student to come up with a student contribution amount that can range from $2K to $6K that ostensibly should be earned by the student through summer work. The most generous schools tend not to include loans in their packages so that amount can often be borrowed on an unsubsidized basis from Direct Loans. That has been my experience, but ones mileage may vary. </p>
<p>The other thing is that schools often go with the official cost of attendance as they provide to the government which is some Average of what the costs are for students. A student cannot get more than COA if getting government money in many situations and when there is government money involved such as SEOG, work study funds and sometimes even PELL when it comes to some COA restrictions, the schools have to go by those rules. So if your student’s situation is such that she can “beat” the COA, she can end up with money in her pocket to do as she pleases. If she lives farther away with higher costs for travel, so that her actual cost ends up more than COA, that can mean you and she have to come up with that extra money. </p>
<p>Some schools might have special funds for such things. But a lot of schools that give what is ostensibly a “full ride” may not give out the money at all until everything is paid and the term is well underway, which could mean that you and your student have to come up with “seed money” for supplies, travel, books. Again, some schools will give out book store vouchers. Some school might let you “borrow” from your award. Most school, from my experience will not. You don’t get that excess money until the school has taken their charges off the awards And sometimes it will take a few weeks before the Bursar’s office will release that excess. Some schools wait until the official drop day before cutting that check.</p>
<p>The other thing is that you may well end up with other charges like health insurance if your student is not adequately covered. Some schools do have provisions for low income families in such positions though now with health insurance a requirement under ACA there could be changes in that provision. Most schools do NOT include health insurance premiums that are from the school in that COA. How that works with fin aid and overages, I don’t know. </p>
<p>So a lot of “full rides’” are NOT full whereas some are overbrimming depending on the individual’s situation. For instance, for us a school within an hour or megabus route from us would bring down transportation costs for us individually way below what most schools allow. But, yes, if we start throwing in the cost for us, the parents driving kid to the school (or flying with him), staying the night at a hotel, eating out, parent’s weekend and the such, we easily go over.</p>
<p>My experience has been with many international students is that the make the trek from far, far away without parents even for move in. Saw it first hand at SUNY Buffalo as we went there at the time the school was allowing international students to move in a bit early. Hardly any of them were accompanied. </p>
<p>But it varies from school to school what a full award, the top award, and most importantly, the awards your daughter actually gets, as to how much extra there would be in there for discretionary expenses. </p>
<p>Don’t count your “handsome” financial aid packages before they are hatched! </p>
<p>Tempemom is so right! I think it’ s fine and encourage your DD to apply to schools that interest her regardless of cost and distance if the possibility of getting sufficient aid is there. An international student needing financial aid, for instance, would be wasting time applying to a school that excludes internationals from fin aid and merit money. But absolutely, if the possibility is there that it could work out, give it a whirl.</p>
<p>However, at the same time, the most important schools to find for the list are the ones definitely affordable, that will certainly take your DD. Those are the ones that should provide the base of the application list. Then you can buy all the lottery tickets you can afford.</p>
<p>I moved myself in and didn’t go home until Christmas during fall semesters, especially considering Thanksgiving fell so close to finals period that I personally felt it made no sense to break my “college rhythm” for 4 days only to have to amp it up for finals. </p>
<p>Only times other than Winter/Summer breaks when I came home early was the few times I had to go back to NYC for academic reasons (researching special rare materials at Columbia’s libraries) or a serious family emergency at the beginning of senior year (Older relative’s funeral).</p>
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<p>I’ve spent some Thanksgivings with local families…including some Profs. Great food and conversation. :)</p>
<p>most schools do NOT include enough in their COAs to cover travel…they certainly do NOT cover enough to cover $1000 to move-in. </p>
<p>air travel isnt just air-fare…there is often also round-trip shuttle costs. One trip home can cost $500+.</p>
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<p>YOU CAN’T ASSUME THAT AT ALL !!!</p>
<p>There are schools in calif and elsewhere that will expect you to pay most of the costs.</p>
<p>Most schools dont give handsome offers no matter what the grades are.</p>
<p>Most schools dont cover basic school costs, much less personal expenses, travel, etc…not even close.</p>
<p>UCs wont give aid that covers the OOS portion, so a minimum you’d have to pay if she went to a UC is $23,000 per year PLUS full student loans PLUS work-study…not a handsome offer for a 0 EFC OOS student at all.</p>
<p>where does she want to apply? chances are her list will need tweaking because either the schools wont give her the aid she needs.</p>
<p>What are her test scores?</p>
<p>what is your home state?</p>
<p>EFC 0 does not mean that schools have to give you huge aid. all it means is that you would get a 5700 fed grant and a 5500 loan…not enough to pay for most schools. EFC is a fed aid app…it is a misleading acronym.</p>
<p>make sure that your D applies to a few schools (either in your state or elsewhere) where you are absolutely sure that you will have all costs covered.</p>
<p>For move in…in addition to airfare…if a parent accompanies the student, there is also hotel and meal costs. While students can move into the dorms, their parents cannot. </p>
<p>I accompanied my daughter on her college move in 3000 miles away. At the time, airline tickets were $199 round trip,so that was the cheap part. Then I had three nights in a hotel, and two nights with a friend (this was over a weekend…I took three days off of work). I also needed a rental car, and had to eat. </p>
<p>That was my last trip there until graduation four years later…three tickets at $399 each. Hotel for several days and rental car. </p>
<p>We never went to Parents Weekend. Never saw any of DDs many orchestral concerts, never took her out to dinner, none of that. Between the time change, distance, and cost, trips there were just not possible.</p>
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Just to help her move in would easily be a $1000+ affair.
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<p>That sounds like you are planning on going, too. Not only would there be no aid for your costs, but likely not enough aid for her costs.</p>
<p>Even the schools that give the best aid to 0 EFC kids (Ivies and similar) usually have a “student contribution” of a few thousand each year. And even those schools usually don’t calculate much for annual travel costs.</p>
<p>Seriously, the smallest of your concerns is this travel issue. The bigger issue will be getting full aid, since most schools give rather lousy aid and give huge gaps.</p>
<p>Does your child have a non-custodial parent? If so, then the schools that give the best aid will use the NCP’s income as well…and the income of any new spouses. Those schools use CSS Profile.</p>
<p>If your OOS student is planning to apply to the UCs, she will likely be on the hook for at LEAST the $23,000 differential between instate and out of state costs. The UCs typically do not provide OOS with need based aid to fund that differential.</p>