<p>I am attending an expensive liberal arts college next year, and my family will pay the full price, which is above 50 000 a year!!! My parents have a savings account, but they make money by having their own business, which can obviously fail at any moment, or, god forbid, if smth happens to my parents. I feel very guilty for choosing to go to a such expensive college and want to know if anyone else also pays for college.
Also, does anyone know if I can apply for fin aid for my sophomore year (if my parents make much less next year...)?</p>
<p>When my daughter went to Colgate, most of the other students were full pay. In fact, a number of them participated in a program where they could pay the entire four years up front.</p>
<p>susgeek, what benefits did that program provide?</p>
<p>lefleur, those programs typically allow you to lock in the current year’s tuition rate for all four years. Some provide a discount - there’s a current feature thread on this.</p>
<p>Yes, the majority pay full price at many. The very top have generoous aid with a close split between full pays and students on major aid. Below that there is a tier of schools with majority full pay. After that a tier where most get a merit discount to make the cost close to that of state schools.</p>
<p>Sure there are full pay students in all colleges, more in some than others. In the early 80s financial advisors were predicting that college costs would run at the levels that were even a touch higher than actually occured. Whether or not people were able to save and fund those amounts of money is quite a different story but college costs today are no surprise. I remember hearing those words in the early 80s and almost falling off my chair. Yes, so before you were even a glimmer in your parents eyes the predicted college costs for these years were very high.</p>
<p>Yes, many families are full pay. My friend and her husband spent four years living on one paycheck and turning the other one over to their child’s top private college.</p>
<p>At Stanford University, 51% of all students are full pay.</p>
<p>Take a look at the statistics on USWorld & NReport college guide. It gives you the percentage of kids on financial and merit aid for most every college. Those are the folks paying full freight. About half for the more selective schools, I’ve noticed. </p>
<p>I paid full list price for my son at a very expensive college. We did not get any financial or merit aid. We would have had to pay for each of the others as well, but one went to a state school, and the other has merit money. The 4th one is unlikely to get merit money. Maybe a bit of financial aid of sorts since we’ll have two in college for a year.</p>
<p>My sis pays full pay for two kids - one at Vandy and one at Tufts.</p>
<p>My bro pays full for Georgetown, FIDM, VMI (OOS), and Santa Clara - 4 at once - yikes (and one more to go!)</p>
<p>So, yes, there are some full payers out there.</p>
<p>Yes. Most of us don’t brag about it, but there are a LOT of full-pay students out there.</p>
<p>I imagine there are many different circumstances that result in full pay, from parents that have scrimped and saved forever, to families that can fully fund education from current income, to folks that have extra dollars available from inheritances and/or employer bonuses.</p>
<p>“Full-pay” is not the same as “All cash.” I don’t think data is published on this, but I suspect that most full-pay families are taking out some kind of loans (including some huge ones), like Unsubsidized Stafford loans and home equity lines of credit in order to pay tuition.</p>
<p>Absolutely, Bay. The USNews data does not include private loans or PLUS. Certainly not loans against the pension plan, HELOCs, against investments. The average debt figures shown certainly do not include that information.</p>
<p>sk8rmom is correct - those that paid for all four years were unaffected by future tuition increases.</p>
<p>And that is where the colleges can get way with misleading figures. The only loans they count are those that go through the college or those has to count. Yes they have to count stafford loans and perkins or loans that college organizes. They do not count any loans that you are forced to take.</p>
<p>The example I gave in another forum is that of parents who have say $100,000 more equity in their house. Non FAFSA schools consider this for EFC purposes and may increase the EFC by say $5000. What is insult to injury is let us say that family has $100,000 in home equity and they borrows $5000 through HELOC for college. Next year, there is no credit for the $5000 borrowed, and the EFC is still calculated on the $100,000 (assuming no change in equity value). The HELOC is considered as discretionary loan. Please correct me if I am wrong.</p>
<p>Not quite right. If you have $100K in home equity and borrow $5K, you now have $95K in home equity, not $100K. IF the value of houses has risen, the proportionate increase will take into account that you have borrowed $5K from the fund. Some folks say that if this is a real sticking point, to borrow the whole danged thing and pay off something else that isn’t going to show up on your financial aid statements like your cars, other bills, get some things you have been wanting. </p>
<p>These days, you can get those home equity figures down low the way home sales are in many areas.</p>
<p>“The only loans they count are those that go through the college or those has to count.”</p>
<p>If the student doesn’t apply for financial aid, the school doesn’t know anything about loans the family takes out.</p>
<p>Even if the student applies for financial aid, the school does not know about any outside loans he or the family takes. Even PLUS loans that may be indicated to the college are not counted and tracked towards STUDENT indebtness, since the parents are taking it.</p>