Dream schools are marketing hype that creates this admissions feeding frenzy. He should have a dream life and there are many schools that can be a stop on that dream life.
I sincerely hope he can move forward on that dream life with an option that you can afford. If not, be assured that there is a list that comes out in early May with colleges still accepting applications. Every year there are some surprisingly good schools on that list.
Be very cautious. My wife and I had 250,000 in medical school loans and it took over 10 yrs to pay back at doctors salaries. Debt is reasonable for some majors but my D is in undergrad at school and on full ride and she says always take the free ride unless OUTSTANDING reason for a school like Wharton for business etc. Most college educations are the same. My S is now likely to turn down few top 20 schools to go to 40th or so ranked school full ride and we can afford it if we had to. He is making a good choice to save money for grad school. Money does run out and sometimes things happen to parents, illness, disability or death and they help
Make a safe choice.
@201MomOfBoys, if the scholarship your son earned to his prep school was merit-based, that’s the reason he likely didn’t received a comparable scholarship at the top colleges he applied to: They don’t generally award any merit money. Rather, financial aid is need-based. If you have two students in college, that should have been factored in, so contact the school and make sure a mistake wasn’t made in calculating your son’s financial aid eligibility.
I hope he also applied to one or two safeties that guaranteed him merit money for his stats. While it is definitely disappointing not to be able to attend your top choice because you can’t afford it, it’s nice getting a big merit scholarship, even if it’s not from a tippy-top school. It’s a pretty big consolation prize.
@201MomOfBoys Where all did your son apply? Did you run the NPCs?
Since this is child #2 in college, is this catching you off-guard now?
What are your child’s stats? What is his major?
@ClassicRockerDad No one was saying that UA is better than UMD or that UMD wouldn’t also be a good choice (if affordable).
We dont know how much the parents will pay each year. UMD will cost at least $10-15k per year more (student got no aid from UMD). That may not be a big deal…or it may be a huge deal. This is a family who long-thought that dad’s job would be paying. They may not be prepared AT ALL to pay for college. They may have a younger child to put thru school who won’t qualify for much aid. We don’t know.
Going from thinking that college is paid for and then suddenly having to pay $25k-30k per year could cause problems in many families (yes, we know, not yours. lol 
)
But, we do know that if money is a concern, Bama is his cheapest university option. He could borrow $5500 and choose less expensive housing if the family needs their costs to be below $6k per year.
This student is MechE. I highly doubt that UMD is better or much better than UA is with MechE. Bama has amazing facilities (you should visit!). MechE is one of Bama’s original Eng’g disciplines.
UA is one of the first 5 universities in the country to have an engineering program.
ABET acceditation started in 1932. Bama’s MechE (& AeroE, CivilE, & EE) has been accredited since 1932, the first year possible. All other E disiplines & CS at Bama are also ABET accedited.
Did this happen between the time u applied and now?
U Alabama Full Ride all the way.
Unless your UCLA education will 100% guarantee you a 200k+ income yearly-which it doesnt’-I would never take 180K DEBT when I have FREE MONEY
It depends on what you want. But honestly, if you are unsure about UCLA, you should go to a more affordable school, yet still a good one. It isn’t necessary that you will be more successful in life if you attend school with higher ranking. Many people here, including myself, are accepted to their top choices, but have to give up on those schools with costly tuition & fees.
I think the student knew when he applied because he wrote this is October…
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If he thought the employer was paying at that point, he would have said so.