FAFSA wrong in what a family can afford? Oh gee, what a shock

Paying for College
21

It’s tough. I know someone who works in FA at a prep school who had a family explain that the country club membership was a necessity as the rest of the family, not just the student, relied on it for their quality of life. Imho, there’s a choice to be made if you can’t afford both.

But I am also very sympathetic to families who live in high cost areas, often out of necessity (because of jobs, schools, for example.) It’s super hard to amass savings when the rent/mortgage on postage stamp real estate is exorbitant (and getting out of the tiny home is a necessity but always involves spending money on something), etc. Having a chunk of money set aside for college isn’t always possible.

Often, areas with higher wages also have even higher cost of living. I agree that there are also often affordable options. I also don’t think many parents know what the costs are until they get close to having to pay it. And really, at that point, it’s late!

22

@chipperd - “Unnecessary” facilities upgrades? Maintaining facilities is essential as is updating worn or outdated services to be both cost efficient and attractive to students with comfortable dorms, up-to-date labs, smart board technology, etc. in classrooms, etc, improved food service, making buildings more efficient and LEED certified to lower operating costs and the impact on the environment, even improving recreation and green spaces isn’t frivolous spending. Its necessary. How they manage the budget/costs of these improvements may have room for improvement, but to say they are unnecessary seems to miss the forest for the trees.

23

At multiple points, this family could have chosen otherwise. Her local comm college offers programs that would have gotten her started, for 5k/year. A good animation program includes more generalized art studies, as a basis.

We don’t want to be unsympathetic. But there were various points where they could have smelled the coffee. And typically, the media focuses on the hardship, the outrage, tugging heartstrings. But I don’t see where it was discussed that her talents, experience, and opportunities are so vast that she “must” go to an expensive OOS college.

It’s true animators can make big bucks. But also that many fizzle out, for one reason or another.

24

This is a tough one. We made financial decisions ever since our oldest was born to ensure we could afford college for him (and then his sibs). That meant choosing to live in a community with outstanding public schools so private school was unnecessary, but buying a home for less than half of what we qualified for, and then aggressively paying off the mortgage in 10 years. We also chose from job offers in a lower cost region to avoid ever being ‘house poor.’

We knew that our eventual kids’ education would be our top priority. That being said, we also were willing to spend more than we should (we are not wealthy) once we learned our kid could possibly be admitted to an elite ($$$$) school. So that same emotion - wanting the best for our kid(s) - worked both ways. We just were aware of the need to be as frugal as possible right out of the gate. Hindsight is 20/20, though. We were lucky.

25

Nobody put a gun to their head and forced them to send their daughter to a school they couldn’t afford. There are PLENTY of cheaper options than what they chose. It was a want, pure and simple.

Yes, life throws curve balls. I can attest to that for sure…I don’t think anything in my life has gone as planned. But, if I remember correctly (not going back to read the article), the wife has been disabled a while. This isn’t something that happened after the daughter was enrolled and the income suddenly dropped while she was in school. They knew what they had to work with going into it.

Would you be saying people were unsympathetic if this was about him having to work two jobs to make his Mercedes payment?

26

We started saving for college for our 2 kids when they were born. Whenever possible we increased the monthly contribution. One thing that I would say is shocking and can be difficult to plan for is the constant skyrocketing cost of college. Tuition has increased over 40% at some schools over the last decade. Here in PA the community colleges are ranked low and the state system is expensive. I do sympathize with families who are struggling.
I agree that with the example in this article, this family has really dug a financial hole.

27

I have advised many friends and relatives about college choice since my first child went through the process and I am constantly amazed at how many people have never heard of a NPC and/or believe that the EFC from the FAFSA is what they will pay. Many of these folks are well educated with professional degrees. Many did not track rising college costs and were shocked to find out what a public residential college experience costs, much less an elite private one. Or they believe that there is hidden merit at need-based only schools and that their kid will get it. Some suffered setbacks like a costly divorce or took a big hit during the last financial crisis.

For me, the main takeaway point is not to judge the life choices of people who didn’t or couldn’t plan ahead. It’s what happens next. If you’re not picky, most young people can go to college. It might be CC with transfer to a 4 year, it might involve commuting, it might require residence in an area that is unfamiliar or unappealing. It might be a school with zero name recognition. It might take longer than 4 years. But it is possible.

28

Hmm, my kids braces cost $5500 and $5900. The ortho did have us pay in installments however. And we did shop around and got three estimates, and no one gave us an estimate less than $5300. I have never heard of braces costing just $2000.

29

What I learned from this article is that Mass has a state-supported art school. Yay Mass. Residents can go for $13k a year (tuition).

The rest of it is pretty typical financial aid news reporting IMO, most of it is awful.

30

just $2000.<<<<<<<<<<

With insurance, my 3 kids cost around that each (approx). This was maybe @6 yrs ago though.

31

“I do think that the FAFSA EFC is a misnomer. They should call it a Pell Eligibility Index or something so people have a better idea about what its purpose is, but families should be doing their due diligence too. If they read the FAFSA website, researched each college’s financial aid website, then ran the NPCs I don’t see how their net cost came as such a surprise.”

I agree and have told people many times EFC is a misnomer. I can understand how a first time college parent could be confused by the acronym. However, somebody with the ability to post an article in the NYT should also have the acumen to understand just what the FAFSA is for and what EFC really means and the fact that the federal government does not and cannot determine the price a university (particularly a private university) charges a particular family.

32

The schools have listed their price and are not overcharging the families - they are charging them exactly what they have said they would charge them. The daughter doesn’t HAVE to go to the specialized school, but wants to, so the family has to pay for it. My kids want all kinds of things, but if I can’t pay for those things, they can’t have them.

I don’t have empathy for a family, or kid, who will only look at the expensive, unaffordable, schools. The family said they would be happy to be ‘only’ paying the $15k of the EFC. There are a lot of schools in most states that do only charge that $15k. Both of my kids had that as a budget and both stayed within the amount and one went to a private (~$55k per year) school and one went to an OOS public (~$22k) school, so I don’t think they were limited to ‘only’ state schools or lesser schools. We searched for and found schools we could afford, that gave merit aid, that were less expensive to start. When I recommend Wyoming, people react with stun and horror! They won’t make their kids suffer like that! Well, it is a really good school in several departments. It has excellent engineering facilities, a gorgeous new theater and dance facility, the Dick Cheney international studies school (with lots of money for study abroad). I’m sure the girl in the article could have attended Wyoming for her EFC - or less! Parents from the east coast don’t want their kids going ‘so far’ for college and won’t consider the south or even the midwest, but of course California is fine.

Most Americans sent their kids to the local public schools for K-12. Why? Because that’s what they can afford. Would those kids get a better education at the local private schools or going away to boarding schools? Maybe. Probably. The parents could pick exactly what they wanted in a school, the special art or music classes, the best sports teams. Do we feel sorry for the kids stuck in a public school? No. There are often some local options like a charter or magnet school, or a scholarship to a local private school, but most just go to the local public school and make it work (take after school enrichment, club sports, private music lessons).

More than 50% of college students commute to CCs or local colleges. Another huge percentage go to their state colleges. Very few get to go to private schools or OOS publics.

33

We purposely limited our family to two children largely in part to recognition of escalating college costs.

We also paid off our student loans (state schools - grad school and med school) before starting our family) by saving every bit of extra money we had bc we didn’t want to pay any more on accruing interest than necessary. So we continued to live like college students way past the time our salaries indicated otherwise.

We purchased prepaid plans for our kids when they were born and couldn’t believe that the younger child’s total cost was over $4k more than our older child’s was 3 years prior.

That difference in cost was always on our mind so much so that we opted not to pursue a 3rd child. We didn’t want to be limited in our future education options. Yes, “lucky” to have our advanced degrees that provide nice income but we definitely live much more simple lifestyle than others with similar positions. We are addicted to saving and hate spending money unless necessary. But we also now have options for OOS, etc depending on what our children feel is best place for them to pursue their degrees.

So for us, college costs have been on our radar since newborn years. No regrets here.

34

Sorry but I just don’t feel that badly for families that don’t save anything for college AND somehow expect the bill to picked up anyway. I have 3 teens, live in a very high cost area, and saved for college for all three. Good thing since our very new income level makes us ineligible for finaid. If we had chosen to live less frugally and not saved we would now be hoping for state school admissions or merit aid somewhere. I’m glad this isn’t the case as those two options are so limited these days. I totally understand not everyone can save for OOS/privates but then be happy with what you can afford. This family is clearly dedicated to their children which I applaud, but if the kids have to support them in retirement they didn’t do the kids any favors.

The EFC is problematic though. Renaming, caveating, whatever, would be helpful. Hard for me to imagine being a parent and not tracking college costs though.

35

I am in this process now with 2 children. My experience matches yours almost to the dollar.

36

Us too. But then we couldn’t figure out which twin to get rid off.

j/k but another example of how life frequently doesn’t work out the way one plans. And I don’t regret it for one second.

37

Much like some parents come to college confidential shocked, dismayed and angry that their child (usually clearly great student) was denied ‘their spot’ at [insert reach school name], so do parents complain about being expected to pay for their child’s higher education costs.

I think these two issues spring from the same place which is that this is often (for some parents) the first time they’ve had to deal with a ‘no’ that doesn’t have the work-arounds they have come to expect.

College can be really expensive and while I think the term “rationing” is a bit biased in the article, I cannot disagree that rationing (or budgeting as I would call it) is part of the college experience for most parents, even ones who are cheerfully full pay. I know we built our budget from the earliest days of our marriage/children to plan out retirement savings, college savings, capital expenditures (planned and unplanned)…and often we watched friends and family have more and do more while wondering how they could afford their choices, as we always seemed to have less money available than most of our peers. Budgeting can be a major bummer, especially doing it for long term projects and plans which, in the moment, seem so far away that surely there must be plenty of time to deal with those things later (Nope, and don’t call me Shirley!).

We took all the schools that were ‘meets full need’ off our list as we are “full pay family without full pay willingness”. We took OOS publics off the list, as most won’t give enough money to OOS students. We took schools off the list that offered merit but our child wasn’t in the top 25% of applicants as we knew that meant she wasn’t going to be competitive for big enough merit awards. We then looked specifically for schools that met our child’s list of criteria that also met our budget. The ‘dream’ school wasn’t applied to, as getting in and not having the money to afford it was deemed ‘too painful’ for our child (smart choice as far as we were concerned).

Guess what? That still meant that there were plenty of schools that fit our daughter’s criteria, that we could afford, that are excellent schools providing terrific educations. Now, she isn’t going to a school that is well-known for terrific weather, or conveniently close to a major city (usually majorly expensive COL) or one with nearly universal name recognition. But she is going to a school we can afford, that really wants her, that she is excited to attend and where she is going to get an incredible education.

Personally, I think there needs to be a bit less “my kid’s dream is [insert art school, or NYU, or whatever luxury priced school experience is being rationalized] and we will do what it takes to make it happen” and a bit more “We need to figure out what we can afford and make choices based on our budget, not hopes and dreams”. Blaming FAFSA or pretending the acronym EFC was “the piece that led your family astray” is ret-conning to a major degree.

38

Lol! I hear ya! We went through IVF multiple times and how many to put back, concerns of splitting, etc were definite considerations… and then our path led us to adoption so for us no surprise twins, lol!

39

I have some empathy here because the root of the article is that misinformation is rampant. That much is true. MOST parents/families have no idea how to navigate college admissions, much less financial aid. That is all true. We should remember that we are like the top 1% of savvy over here.

But. MassArt is an interesting choice for a money-pressed family… just saying. There’s further misinformation that makes many families feel that they NEED prestige, though, so again–I think that’s the root issue here. Not just (plain) greed.

40

It’s not very nice, honest or meaningful to tell other people that they should have saved more. Of course, if you live in a state where houses cost $200-300K in a nice area, and make a decent pay, you will be able to save. IF you live in an expensive area, most of your income is going to be spent on housing. It doesn’t take Einstein, or a financial planner to say that with equal income-things are going to be different in various parts of the country.