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<p>However, in the first post, it appears that they did not do their homework on costs, financial aid, and scholarships at the pre-application stage, and their frugality has not rubbed off onto the student. Hence the resulting dilemma, where there may have been an implied promise that they may not be able to deliver on.</p>
<p>Some of you have figured us out so well! As to the idea of deferring a year to earn money, it has been suggested. Son was eager to do that if he had to. College said they approve gap years for an educational, or for a pre-career, job-shadow-type purpose, but not just to earn money. He’d have to apply again, and it puts off earning a real salary another year. He is really very eager and ready to start now. I do like the idea of trying to knock off a term or more using AP credit and community college credit if they allow it.</p>
<p>We are sure the EFC will drop next year from $52K to about $32K with 2nd child in school. We are a bit older (56), have separate retirement funds but they don’t fully fund us through our 90’s; maybe 80’s. More money really should be routed into retirement although we are already doing the maximum through work. We do have lots of deferred maintenance that needs to be done (roof, etc.) and I am eager to spend that money down before next year but I don’t think it’s going to change our EFC for next year. We will not do parent loans, so the most my son will have is the maximum Stafford. I think we’ll have a little money left (at least 100K) after 5 years of this. What makes it painful is the whole uncertainty and lack of confidence we have in the world right now. There could be a job loss or maybe terrible inflation…who knows. I was really hoping son would want to attend one of those other colleges and we visited them all in the past few weeks. He has read reviews very extensively online and set up pro and con lists, etc. I’m going to ask him one more time…and then get online to the national merit web page before 5:00! I wish I could feel excited that this is all done, but instead just feel weary and exhausted.</p>
<p>And I need to say thank you to all of you!</p>
<p>Best of luck to you. </p>
<p>I sympathize with your dilemma - it’s hard to determine if it’s “worth” it and you might never know either way. It would be nice if we could live our lives in parallel universes, see the results and then chose the best one 
Don’t forget that you are better off than most people (because you did save all these years)!
Also, in case of job loss finaid will be increasing. Not something one wants to count on but still…
My friend lost his job one month before his kid’s college started and was able to get increase in finaid.</p>
<p>I see my future in your last post except we won’t have a second child in college after a year or two. Good luck and let us know what you decide.</p>
<p>If you have retirement funding through your 80’s in dedicated accounts, you are doing waaay better than the vast majority of Americans. Hats off to you. </p>
<p>Does the LAC take AP? I’m under the impression some of those schools are pretty stingy with AP credit, desiring their students to take the courses they offer and get the full experience.</p>
<p>Hope it turns out happily for all involved. </p>
<p>Well, of the top 10 LACs, we can eliminate Wellesley, since your kid is male. Of the remaining 9, all of which are great schools, with unique character, I think that Williams and Amherst are the most likely to have the financial-world clout/connections that previous posters have mentioned–at least in NYC and Boston–with Bowdoin probably running third. If that is important to you. I wouldn’t be surprised if CMC and Pomona weren’t more influential on the West Coast, Davidson in the South. Carleton, Middlebury, and Haverford aren’t particularly known for turning out finance types. Nor is Swat. Not that their students aren’t perfectly capable, it is just that perhaps the students there tend to be interested in different things.</p>
<p>On the other hand, perhaps your S isn’t particularly interested in finance.</p>
<p>Wow. This is a sticky wicket, but if you’re paying the yeoman’s share of the costs I think you reasonably have a lot of input into the decision. If kid hadn’t gotten into top 10 LAC would he have been totally miserable going to one of the other choices? The LAC might be a good fit, but is it the only fit? It’s clear that somebody is going to be put out by whatever decision is made, so who’s going to get over it sooner, if ever? Also, if the kid is going to try to save money by getting thru college in less than 4 years I’d think twice about the expensive LAC – a huge part of the value of these elite colleges is the experience of being there. It’s going to be a tough day. Peace and good luck.</p>
<p>I have an MBA from NYU, and have worked in Boston and New York, as well as Europe, and I have to admit I had to look up half the LAC names mentioned above. Even the ones in the northeast, where I live. I certainly know of Colgate, Amherst, Williams, Bowdoin, but the others I just don’t know. And if I didn’t live in the NE, not sure I’d even know the ones I mentioned. Only throwing that in to say that while I don’t doubt the connections you’ll make there would be valuable, I really don’t think the name recognition of these LACS alone make them worth the price. It would have to be a real combination of perfect fit in every way, including child’s major etc and no other real alternatives, to make me spend that kind of money. Otherwise, I would say only worth the money if you honest and truly have it to spend. I’d probably heavily consider spending it on HYP etc, but I can’t think I’m the only relatively educated, traveled person not to recognize the name Haverford or Davidson (for example). And in the past I’ve worked at big international banks with lots of people from top notch schools. I’ve also worked in education and now in non-profit management. Not implying those aren’t wonderful schools, deserving of the top 10, as I’m sure they are and are really great schools, but they are not necessarily household names so I personally wouldn’t have problems telling my child gently but firmly that it just didn’t make fiscal sense for any of us.</p>
<p>I think Cuter1 is totally underestimating her son - if he is as smart as he sounds, then he wouldn’t want to jeopardize his parent’s retirement and financial stability for 4 years of school. Doesn’t mean he won’t be disappointed, but with very good alternatives, with better name recognition, he will figure out pretty quickly that he made the right decision. My daughter got into her reach school and I wish we could have made it work for her, but another, perfectly acceptable school gave us a much better deal and it was her decision to save the money we would have needed for school 1, to go towards grad school, or down payment for a house. She actually let go of her dream school much more quickly than I did… Our kids are often so much more resilient than we think they will be… </p>
<p>So from your post above you already have 3 years of overlap, not 2. That helps the finances a bit. </p>
<p>His parents apparently have already funded their retirement through their 80s. I don’t think he would be jeopardizing anything. :)</p>
<p>But as always, it depends on which schools we are talking about. I’m still a little stunned to hear that the OP’s S comes from Michigan, applied to 23 schools, and one of them was not U of M. </p>
<p>@consolation, I hear what you are saying, and you are probably correct about their retirement, but I get the impression that they are concerned about finances in the short to mid term (or else we wouldn’t be having this conversation at all) :-)</p>
<p>Maybe it’s a privacy concern, not wanting to reveal schools, or say that Michigan was on original list. I feel bad that I mentioned that about Michigan. Sorry, OP. On the other hand, he may be a Buckeye or Bucky fan and traitor to his home school!</p>
<p>OP, Just one data point: We faced a similar dilemma many years ago. We ended up going the costly route (full pay for the first two years!) – and we had not been able to fund our retirement to 80s yet.</p>
<p>Another factor for us is that we have only one child. If we have multiple children, we really do not know how we would decide back then. DS’s alma mater is one with the “household name.”</p>
<p>Even today, we still do not know whether we had made a right decision at that time – and we still have not been able to fund our retirement to 80s today :(</p>
<p>One thought that keeps coming to our mind is that, if he went to a cheaper in-state public, will we be able to help with the funding of his professional school education better now (full funding of it would require 6 figures easily but it is mostly funded by his loans now)?</p>
<p>Just like your family, our family led a relatively frugal life. DS is now in the middle of 20s, and still could not afford his own car. We recently thought of giving him our old car and we tried to get by with one car - We will approach our retirement age pretty soon anyway and we will not need two cars in our retirement. It is quite possible that we may need to retire at a place with a lower COL, maybe even in another country! We are counting the number of years from now when our child could be financially independent. Hopefully, it will be less than 4-5 years.</p>
<p>There is NO GUARANTEE if there will even be any “deal” when there are two in college. It all depends upon how the two schools that the siblings attend treat the situation. Things are changing in that regard too. </p>
<p>Schools that do not guarantee to meet full need anyways, may not even give more aid when there are two in college. So it’s not something anyone can count on. </p>
<p>cpt, I know there are no guarantees, but I have run the financial aid calculator under various scenarios with one child and with two and there does seem to be a 20K difference, at least with this “full need” college.</p>
<p>Oh and I spoke wrong about our retirement savings. It’s not that it’s funded through our 80’s now, but that it will be if we keep up our savings rate and IF they don’t take social security away from us.</p>
<p>I guess I’ll fess about about the most likely alternative in my son’s mind. It’s Fordham where he got a full tuition scholarship. He thinks it’s not a fit because he has read numerous reviews online about drinking, drinking, drinking. My husband would send him to Oklahoma, Nebraska, or Alabama.</p>
<p>The problem with those calculators is that they are for first year students. Financial aid for future years tends to be consistent with that award, but not necessarily fully adjusted for a sibling later going to college. Depends upon the school. And Fordham does NOT guarantee to meet full need even for freshmen. THey tend to give more merit based aid–congrats to him on the full scholarship there, and that would not likely to be adjusted if need goes up or down for that matter. Not saying that the particular first choice school would NOT adjust the costs pretty much as the NPC indicates, just wanting it out here, that it is not necessarily “WORD”. Good idea to check with financial aid about that and get an email verifying that such adjustments would be made for future changes like a sibling joining the college scene.</p>
<p>Let us know what the final decision is, and my sympathies for the stress. </p>
<p>I’ve been following this thread and while I have yet to go through this, red flags go up for me about the assumption that finaid will be much better when there are two in college. I’ve seen too many people on this board post about large differences between what the financial aid calculators say and what the offer actually ends up looking like. That alone would make me very very nervous. </p>
<p>OP, I’ve looked into Fordham and never got the impression that it was a big drinking school, but I don’t have first-hand experience. Sounds like your child is a NMF. Your decision is due today, correct?</p>
<p>I think Fordham is a terrific school and they punch “above their weight” in the corporate community with their grads. I would send my kid there (even with less than full tuition) in a heartbeat over Oklahoma or Nebraska unless there was a particular program at one of those schools which was of interest.</p>
<p>There are fantastic programs in the performing arts and a nice theater/media community. I think there is MUCH less drinking there than at the “not in NY but near NY” schools (Fairfield U, Seton Hall, Sacred Heart) since there is so much going on in NYC for students besides buying a keg and getting wasted.</p>
<p>What a great option.</p>