FAFSA EFC of $47K

Paying for College
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<p>Geez. </p>

<p>My kids took out the maximum stafford loans AND worked for their own spending money (including cost of books, cost of food, etc.) because I didn’t have the money to finance their college otherwise. I had to pay almost half of my share via PLUS loans as it was – so obviously if THEY were the ones going to college and Stafford loans are subsidized with no-interest charged while they are in school and lower rates than the PLUS loans, then it made sense for THEM to take out the loans.</p>

<p>If you have to debate or rationalize whether your kids should work, take out loans, or otherwise contribute to the costs of their own education, then you are obviously in a much stronger financial position than those of us who simply have no other choice. </p>

<p>If I am in a financial position to help my d. pay down her loans after my PLUS loans are paid off, then of course I will do my best – but fortunately my d’s earning enough money to keep up with her payments without my help.</p>

<p>And as far as public/private - my kids would have had to take out loans in either case.</p>

<p>“Skin in the game?” It is their LIFE. They have to pay for it because they are grownups, and that’s what grownups do. They are very fortunate that their mom was able to subsidize the bulk of their tuition and housing costs. But I certainly wasn’t in a position to pay for that part which they were capable of providing on their end.</p>

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<p>Egads, ‘it’s their life’…not speaking of your particular situation,but it is OUR responsibility as PARENTS, to do whatever we can for our children…you did as much as you could,and that is great…i have a problem with some parents who can pay,though it might mean cutting back,but choose not to,and insist on 'skin in the game nonsense…</p>

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<p>I also don’t understand why NYU gets so many applications even when having the worst financial aid program in the USA.</p>

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<p>Legally that responsibility ends at age 18. Whatever moral obligation you could argue exists is going to be dependent on circumstances. A parent may be far less able to take on debt than the child – the parent is older, nearing the end of their most productive wage-earning years, may need to focus on the financial needs of their other younger children (or older children with disabilities), as well as their own aging parents. </p>

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<p>I considered part of my obligation as a PARENT to raise my kids up so that they had the ability to support themselves, if necessary, at age 18. I lost my own mother when I was in my early 20’s, so it was never far from my mind that I might not be around forever. Obviously I wouldn’t expect an 18 year old to support themselves and pay for private college, but the vast majority of the young people my kids went to school with and grew up do in fact pay their own way through college, attending community colleges and the local CSU. </p>

<p>My son in fact was on his own and supporting himself at age 20. I think my kids are both better off because they had workplace skills and experience before they went to college. My daughter definitely has the sense that her first job out of college puts her at a higher level of responsibility than most of her classmates have, and she probably could get that job because she truthfully could indicate that she had the type of practical experience they were looking for as well as educational background.</p>

<p>I don’t think parents are doing their kids any favors when they shield them from taking on responsibility in their lives. Parenting is about a lot more than giving money.</p>

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… hmm … the first semester I was responsible for a significant part of my college bill by GPA went up by 1.5 GPA points (yes that says 1.5) … it was far from nonsense for me when blowing off classes, homework, and studying was wasting my own money.</p>

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<p>dumbparent, I haven’t read every post, but I wanted to give you my perspective. When my oldest child wanted to go to CMU, we received almost no financial aid. Our income and assets were both less than yours, but we were probably still in the same boat. I felt sort of angry and resentful, too. The kid worked so hard to be the best and we saved as much as we possibly could. We made a reasonable comfortable middle-class life and were told that we should be able to afford to spend half of our take-home pay on tuition. Just not possible. That child went to a state school and was very happy and successful there. </p>

<p>Fast forward three years. My husband died. I lost my job. Then we really had no income, so the second child got more financial aid and my EFC is lower. Still, amazingly, the EFC is now about 2/3 of my AGI. Although my 2nd kid got more financial aid, I am worse off than I was before! Trust me, I have no disposable income and am lucky to meet my monthly expenses. So, the moral of the story is this: don’t be too angry about the financial aid system, because you could be worse off than you are.</p>

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<p>Archiemom- How do you know that information on ND? Our family is in that income range and my daughter got nothing at ND. Meanwhile some families I know (dentists and other professionals) got significant scholarships based on financial need. I don’t know what I did wrong but my daughter really wants to go there. She has full rides at other schools but I may just have to bite the bullet and send her to ND. Any info you can give me would be great.</p>

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<p>What’s the plot behind this thread so far? I haven’t been following this thread. Can someone give me a summary? It almost has as many views and posts as the Georgetown Fairfielder thread. Here are some statistics:</p>

<p>This thread: 226 posts, 11,141 views.
Fairfielder’s Georgetown thread: 361 posts, 26,692 views</p>

<p>Also what does “skin in the game” in this context mean?</p>

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<p>chaospaladin, since you like statistics: you have posted on CC 200 times in the last 22 days. If you have that kind of time, you have time to read through a thread that interests you. No one has the time or desire to write you a summary. </p>

<p>“Skin in the game” means having a personal financial interest in the outcome of an endeavor–as used here, if a student has responsibility to pay for part of his own education, he will take college seriously and feel the need to make the most of his college studies because he has put his own money at risk.</p>

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Here’s mother wondering why no FA or scholarships at ND, but is willing to pay $225K for 4 yrs vs a free ride for a pre-med student. As they say, a sucker born every minute. There’s plenty room for college prices to go up, maybe at 100K per year someone like this might start to say no, even though snowflake “really wants to go there”.</p>

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<p>3togo, are you telling me whenit was your parnets money,you weren’t a very good student,were blowing off classes,homework and studying,but when some of it was YOUR money,you became a a very good student,one who studied and more involved???</p>

<p>This doesn’t speak much of your character,as it seems you are only motivated by your OWN money and not that of your parents…very disrespectful to them…sorry…</p>

<p>And the comment by another poster about cutting your kids loose at 18 is incredulous,yes,they are ‘adults’,but they are not like a car lease.you just don’t ‘turn them in at 18’…</p>

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<p>From someone who’s been there with D1, ‘skin in the game’ doesn’t mean a whole heckuva lot when they’re 18 and you tell them the Staffords of a few thou per year are in their name. But, my jaded, cynical friends, when they hit 22 or 23 & they have to start making payments, direct deposit-like out of their paycheck, all of a sudden it hits home. Amazing!</p>

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<p>Counting other people’s money is not a very productive activity when you are not given all the facts. That this family or that got financial aid is not something easy to figure out when you are not given the financial info the school got. I know many, many well to do families that were eligible for aid. They may be living in a house paid by Grandmom and a lifestyle subsidized by family. Their reportable and/or reported income could be very low. They could be cheating on the forms. The possiblities can go on and it really doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is whether there is anything about your situation that can net you more aid legally. I would not be looking over others’ shoulders trying to figure out how they got the money when they are not going to be upfront and complete with you about their situations.</p>

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<p>^^^^^Probaby true, but the whole concept of ‘incentive’ by having so called skin in the game doesn’t work then,as they don’t realize it until they actually have to make payments…</p>

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<p>qdogpa. Exactly. Skin in the game only works if people understand the situation</p>

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<p>Depends on the kid. My kids want NO loans. They were willing to work to avoid taking them. They understood loans very, very well. They could feel the scraping of their skin in the game as they paid their expenses from the money they earned. That’s not to say they did not have some financial irresponsibility issues either.</p>

<p>Where I have seen the most appalling disregard for the significance of huge loans is when kids take out such astronomical amounts that they cannot see repaying them. I have a friend whose D owes $90K and she feels its hopeless. So hopeless that she took out all she could senior year and had a grand ol’ time traveling and living as well as she could since she felt the extra was insignificant in terms of being able to repay any of it. She is not self sufficient by a long stretch 2 years post graduation and does not have a full time job. How this is going to work , I have no idea. And there are many like her.</p>

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<p>Cpt, i would think this is where a parent needs to ‘guide’ their children…having this type of debt load leads to a path of financial distress</p>

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<p>It does. And it should not have been permitted. Under no other scenario would that student and her pracatically bankrupt parent have been permitted those loans.</p>

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<p>qdogpa, for heavens’ sake, 3togo chose to be honest (and thank you for that, 3togo) and doesn’t deserve a whole lotta backward judgment for copping to a very well known, frequently-occurring characteristic of a maturing human! And as for your comment about cutting kids loose at 18, perhaps you’ve just lived a sheltered life and don’t realize exactly how often this actually occurs in some quarters. I was one of those who was “turned loose” and was told if I wanted college enough I’d find a way to do it on my own, otherwise, I could just work full time at my waitress job and move out on my own, thank you very much :wink: I’m not advocating it as a parenting methodology, but at the same time there is not a global or even culturally mandated rule about precisely what responsibilities a parent retains after a child is legally an adult. For example, my parent who held with this philosophy you find so unbelievable herself began her career and lived on her own at age 16. So we all can guess where SHE got the idea ;)</p>

<p>Dumbparent, I appreciate your point about the opportunities you missed in college, because I missed them too – entirely self financed, and had to go back 3 times to finish, the last time as a young mother. I certainly don’t think working without a net is the answer (if a net is available) either, but I do think that there is an individualized balance where you can foster self-determination while still supporting a young adult – and at the same time, many cases where that may be completely unnecessary. </p>

<p>It’s kid specific and situation specific. In my case, (and yes, everyone says this :wink: ) my kid is a doll. But because I did have it a little tougher as a kid myself, some might say I’ve indulged him, to a minor degree, in the past. Eg. didn’t want him to have a p-t job in highschool so that he could pursue music and his studies in depth. (So as you can imagine, I’ve had to explain to his grandma on numerous occasions that his 4-yr-tuition scholarship was WORTH his not working at a fast food restaurant during HS :wink: ) Gave him flex work with my own company instead, and ad hoc (eg. academics came first). Extended myself to give him arts camps and a summer abroad, etc. But the decision to have him have some skin in the game was in part due to a sense that while he’s very bright and creative and wise in a million ways, he didn’t have a strong grounding in fiscal or day-to-day management. </p>

<p>We also found out first year that he has ADD-primarily inattentive type, which (finally) explained why a kid with such a high IQ always took SO LONG to do work (processing speed issue common to the PI type.) Biologically, that means the part of the brain that houses Executive Function is about 30% “younger” than chronological age, and it means that such kids benefit from opportunities for “guided executive function” (cognitive behavior therapy)-- especially in things like long-term financial planning; getting the sense of impending consequence, connecting immediate events to future events, etc. In our case, treating his education like a “business partnership” in which we are financial partners (to whom there does need to be some accounting, just like a ceo reports to a board…) has really helped him develop some of those skills that he didn’t need to or have the opportunity/capability to develop fully in high school.</p>

<p>Earlier, someone made the comment that if a student needed to have skin in the game, maybe they were not “ready” for college. Given the volume of college drop outs (and notably only 5% of kids with ADD-PI in particular graduate from any college, let alone a rigorous one) perhaps that comment has value. But it might be more of a case of whether or not a smart student needs opportunities – with a net – to practice at maturity, impulse control, self-management/determination. After all, I know many adults who have clearly never mastered those skills – and they ARE skills, which can be taught and learned rather that just disposing of the human in question with a dismissing “you’re not ready/not college material.” In my son’s case, this method has produced a more even/consistent performance and an elevation of GPA and the retention of scholarships (touch wood ;). And he has already been told by his department head that he will be recommended for a grad program based on work to date – so this is not just my take on it.</p>

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<p>Sheltered life?? Hardly…but thinking of ridding yourself of your offspring at 18 is selfish at the very least…i’d work 3 jobs so my kids wouldn’t have to leave college with mountains of debt…i don’t think this stops them from ‘maturing’ or understanding financial issues…</p>