Do most parents and students have a pre-application money talk, or do most leave it until April?
This topic was suggested during another thread at http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18389225/#Comment_18389225 .
In that thread, this post http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/discussion/comment/18388364/#Comment_18388364 describes a student who had a pre-application money talk with the parents, resulting in a relatively stress-free April, while observing friends who did not have a pre-application money talk having battles with their parents and frustration over wasted efforts applying to unaffordable schools.
I don’t know what most parents do…but we had this discussion before applications were sent. We also discussed any other criteria with our kids prior to applications being sent.
Until coming to CC, I thought most parents did talk to their students about money. My parents did with the 4 of the 5 of us who went to college, my ex’s mother covered older D’s college, but it wasn’t unlimited so they discussed the limitations, and with my youngest H and I have set parameters all along. The goal as we see it should be to apply to schools where she will find what she needs for her major, where there are options should she change her mind, that are in cities where she feels comfortable, and that she will get significant merit money. There is a perfectly good flagship and 2 directionals where we could afford full pay if necessary and would meet her needs, save for the part of the country they’re in. But she knows she would like any of them if push came to shove.
Her friends’ parents seem to be up front about money as well, save for one whose parents played the “We won’t pay anything” card at the last minute. She no longer visits her home but once every few months, and stays with an aunt on breaks. Honesty seems to be the way to go.
We did, and everyone should. The way @OrchidBloom and her parents handled it in the second link was perfect.
Absolutely pre-application in our family. But I’ve done research on colleges and costs and spent a lot of time on CC for years. Way more than most parents I know. This year our high school has a class all sophomores take for 1 quarter titled SAT prep but which is more a general preparation for college choice and applications. My class of 2017 daughter has learned to use NPCs and knows that with our financial situation out of state publics are not going to be possibilities unless she scores really high on the SAT or ACT, and most of them not even if she does score really high. Fortunately, she was willing to listen to the teacher of this class, and now believes what I’ve been saying for years (though she still doesn’t want to hear it from me; she says I’m obsessed with colleges and CC).
kidz-D’s school does a lot of that too, beginning with “What do you want to be when you grow up?” in 6th grade to start them thinking, to running NPC with a variety of numbers in 9th, to investigating the real cost of attending various schools, to actually applying, on school time, as seniors. As a result, the kids apply to schools they or their parents can afford-the school will even go to the families’ home to help them. So it seemed natural to have a running discussion with her about cost.
@sseamom Wow. I’m impressed by the extent of your schools’ programs.
I’m the student mentioned in the second link, I must say, I wish programs like the ones @sseamom and @kidzncatz mentioned were more common!
From observing my friends, I think that a lot of the lack of communication pre-application stemmed from a desire to protect them from “adult” matters such as money. Many students at my school come from upper-middle income families, and have generally never had to worry about money at any other point in their lives. Their parents don’t know how to approach them about it and feel bad saying no to their kids’ dreams, so they opt to avoid the topic. Instead, they hope that it will resolve itself, and when it doesn’t, conflict and frustration ensue. The thing is, most of my friends wouldn’t have minded it at all if their parents were upfront about what they were willing to pay, since they would have known not to waste their time applying to unaffordable schools.
You’re absolutely right. A lot of wishful thinking that it will all work out somehow and a tough conversation can be avoided.
We made a family visit to D’s college last fall about six weeks before the ED deadline. Thinking we were being efficient, my husband and I made an appointment with a financial aid adviser while D sat in on a class that she was interested in. The FA adviser’s first question to us was “where’s your daughter?” He was adamant that she should be “in the loop” when it came to financial aid and aware of any budget or financial constraints before she applied (especially because she was applying ED). As he said, “it’s her education and she needs to know how much it’s going to cost your family.” He’s continued to work with our family through the whole application, merit aid, and financial aid process.
Ellie, mind telling the name of the college? It deserves kudos!
Orchid and kidz, D’s school is sort of the opposite of yours, Orchid. Most of the kids are lower income, some are immigrants, and many have parents who didn’t go to college, some who never even finished HS. But it’s a public school supported by a foundation committed to get exactly these kids interested in higher education. So far, it’s working. Nearly all the kids go on to at least community college, but we’ve got engineering majors, pre-med, even an Ivy this year, and this is only the 4th graduating class.
We prepared DS starting when he was a sophomore. He knew that he needed merit aid and he applied accordingly. Luckily his first-choice school was one of the best financially, but we also stuck to the promise to pay even when a state school came in with a very low price as well.
The entire process was financially driven so yes, absolutely from the beginning. I have a friend who was the opposite because she and her husband still haven’t sat down together and really figured out how they are paying. Kid is excited, dad just says don’t worry, it will work out. Mom is out of the loop on their family financials but knows they are already heavily in debt. I think they are planning to use parent plus loans. When I asked her if those were already arranged, considering they are already in debt, mom just said she didn’t know. I feel for the kid, but part of me thinks the best thing that could happen would for the loans not to work out and him not to be able to go to this school.
Absolutely. S will apply this coming fall/winter, so we’re in the process of picking colleges for apps. He knows precisely the amount of money in his college fund, which is fortunately good but not a full ride to WhereverYouWant U, and understands that we are not taking loans. So we’ve got a nice little list that we’re all happy with of Affordable Publics, and now it’s all about choosing colleges to look at as financial reaches – which, if he got into, would be doable or not based entirely on non-loan aid packages. We’ve made an Excel spreadsheet with relevant columns so colleges can be compared, and one column is for the difference between the total cost (tuition plus room and board) and our college fund. No secrets here 
We thought it nuts to be paying a quarter of a million dollars for a fullpay undergraduate degree, so didn’t support DS applying to schools which do not grant merit money. It turned out to be a good strategy.
Our kids grow up with discussions about finances. They have to balance needs/wants and costs of extracurriculars/summer programs. They have to make trade-offs. They don’t grow up getting everything they want. College apps are no different. They have applied to colleges we know going in that they cannot afford, but only if we think that they are competitive for top merit scholarship. They won’t know if they don’t apply. But not being awarded one of those means it is immediately wiped off the list.
Fwiw, we have never had to have “the talk” about finances when it has come down to choosing amg their final options. They have all eliminated schools that they think are too much by themselves. They wouldn’t ask or expect us to pay 10s of thousands more.
We are already researching possible affordable options for our current 10th grader. Her interests are not as mainstream as her older siblings, so finding a school that offers what she wants at an affordable price is slightly more difficult. But finding an affordable option is the only option. it is something we all spend significant time researching.
Part of the general household ongoing dialogue about finances, and wants vs needs. We were plain about both what we had saved, and the fact that they should apply wherever they wanted just to see what happened but understanding that we probably couldn’t afford it.
Our public school hands out fact sheets with bullet points of what to do to prepare for life after graduation, each year. There’s a class on financial management for juniors, career exploration for sophomores, summer job classes, PSAT orientation/exploration, co-ops and job placement and licensing for students going into skilled trades, and even a cooking class for seniors.