According to the FinAid calculator, I´d be spending about as much as I would in a generous private school as I would in a state school (with room and board). Once I get my early application done, I’ll start applying to scholarships, and I’ll apply to scholarships throughout college, too. I have the grades for merit scholarship (4.0 GPA at a top 100 school, 2100+ SAT, 700+ for two SAT IIs, passed 6 APs, taking 5 this year), though I’m a little wary about those because I have heard of alums from my high school who had to transfer to Rutgers because they lost their merit aid status at their original school. Keeping up their GPA was a lot harder than they thought.
I’ll have to ask my parents what exactly they’re doing with the savings. My dad is 61, close, but not that close apparently. He told me he was at retiring age, but I just found out 65 is considered retiring age so…
I don’t think he’ll retire so soon, but my dad is wary because anything is happen and he’s not exactly the healthiest 61 year old, so I’m wary too.
I’m not qualified for reduced lunch. My family’s at the borderline 60-70K in 2014. We’re making some less than that because my dad stopped doing overtime.
Perhaps our situation isn’t so bad, I don’t know. My parents aren’t the calmest of people and I’ve been basing what I think on what they’ve told me. I just wanted to know about age as a factor so I can help them reason out a plan. I thought schools would give more consideration about age, but apparently not as much as I thought they would.
At that income you might get financial aid. He can get Social security at 62 and if his kids are younger than 18 or 19 (do check for the exact age) he can get money for them.
I believe Cornell gives free ride if income is less than $60k. But please do check for accuracy. I just go by memory of what I’ve read on CC for years.
Applying for social security at 62 if he has a stable job and can work a few more years is not a good financial strategy- even if it means a few more dollars in need based aid. People live into their 90’s, and maximizing their cash flow during a very lengthy retirement is a much better plan than focusing on a few extra bucks for four years. Especially when a talented HS kid has many more options than someone in their 70’s or 80’s who can’t live on their social security plus retirement savings.
At age 61, while your father may be thinking about retiring, he should not be thinking about drawing social security, and he won’t be required to take distributions from retirement accounts. Money in qualified retirement accounts won’t count as an asset (although contributions to it will count as income) and 60-70k isn’t considered a huge income, especially by endowment-rich institutions. I can speak from experience as a parent – it’s really easy to panic and worry about money while wanting what’s best for your child, but it’s probably not as bad as you think.
I have run a lot of NPCs, and the ones at private colleges have always had a spot for “age of oldest parent.” It’s there for a reason. If you really want to know the impact age has, run the NPC, and then try it with your father as ages 41 and 81.
A note – if they do have money in “regular” savings accounts, it’s not too late to move a bunch into retirement accounts for the 2015 FAFSA. Even if they do have it in retirement accounts, they can contribute more as a catch-up, reducing their touchable assets. Of COURSE have them get real advice from a licensed person (not some random person on a college website lol) but it’s something to think about.
I’m not suggesting to take SS at 62 and still working. OP states his dad is not exactly the healthiest 61. So he could be retiring at 62 and taking SS. Most people my sister knew died just shy of 62 without ever getting SS. So good luck waiting until 70 to maximize it.
Its common SSA advice to wait for 70, to maximize the pay out. We don’t know why your sister knew folks who died young, but OP’s father is still working at 61 and OP needs clear advice.
Yes if you have the health then wait until 70 but it’s not always the best advice. SS is actuary neutral.
OP mentioned he is wary about his dad’s health. So what’s not clear about my advice. Is your advice clearer? Sheesh!
All these factors have to be balanced. One doesn’t make a decision in a vacuum.
@DrGoogle, I’m so sorry about your sister’s friends. Bad luck? A quick google tells me the average life expectancy in the US is about 78.
I’d never suggest working yourself to death, or even delaying retirement if you’re ready or it’s physically necessary, but if you can delay taking SS, you’re basically giving yourself a permanent raise. I say this from the perspective of someone whose parents retired at 70 and who has a 98-year-old grandmother – I’m very conservative about saving for the future.
You know, the average life span doesn’t tell you anything. So your life span is what you should plan on. Take a guy who dies at 50 and a guy who dies at 100, the average life span for these two guys alone is 75. How do you know you are the one who dies at 50 or 100. Nobody knows.
OP, I’m sorry that I and others derail your thread. All I’m saying take into account of these things when you plan for college financing.
That’s all well and good but don’t count on much. Those scholarships tend to be good for one year and small $. Continuing scholarships in college tend to be done through your dept (your major) and also tend to be in the $5K range. Not insignificant but don’t count on a big number to make ends meet.
I believe that requesting the age of the older parent is for the asset protection allowance. After all the dust settled, my printout of the allowance as of the federal notice of 8/3/15 is
Age 61
married 26,400 - single 12,900
Age 62
married 27,200 - single 13,200
so any assets over these amounts not in protected retirement or primary home will be subject to 5.6% toward Federal method EFC.
but I just found out 65 is considered retiring age so...>>>
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That is a rather out-dated concept. Many people do not (and cannot) retire at 65…and that’s been true for awhile. My own father (who would be 96 if he were still alive) didn’t retire until he was 71. He died at 90.
Since life expectancy is quite high, particularly if you don’t smoke or drink excessively, many people can’t retire at the old “age 65” idea because they’d would outlive their savings or inflation would make their pensions unlivable.
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Once I get my early application done, I'll start applying to scholarships, and I'll apply to scholarships throughout college, too
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Sorry, but that will largely be a waste of time, particularly if you need fund to PAY for college. Outside awards are HARD to win, are usually for SMALL amounts, and are usually ONLY for freshman year. Both of my kids were tippy-top students and they each only won ONE small award while in college…one time awards. They each only won one outside award as incoming frosh (one was $2500 and the other son’s was $2000)
You can’t pay for college that way.
If you need money, then you need to apply to the SCHOOLS that will give them for your stats.
You cannot depend on schools to give you the money that you need since the assets are too high.
You can try and apply to the full need schools, but you need BACK UPS…otherwise there is a good chance that you will end up with acceptances but NO AFFORDABLE schools. Do you realize that?
You need to apply to 2-3 financial safeties. These are schools that you know FOR SURE that will give you HUGE, HUGE merit (at least free tuition), if not more.
WHICH schools are your financial safeties???
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According to the FinAid calculator, I´d be spending about as much as I would in a generous private school as I would in a state school (with room and board).
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Not if you apply to schools that will give you huge merit for your stats. You could end up having to pay very little …like $5k-15k per year. That is far less than those other “full need” schools.
I want to reiterate the encouragement to apply to schools which offer guaranteed scholarships. You need to know that you have schools that you are willing to attend and that you can afford. I can empathize with your parents’ position. We do not have the financial ability to pay for much for college. Merit $$ has been an absolute necessity for our children. The best scholarships are offered to students directly from the universities themselves.
There are great schools out there that are very generous with merit money for strong students. There is a link at the top of this page with a list of some of the schools (but it is not exhaustive.) Some, like Alabama, Ole Miss, etc allow stacking of scholarships. Stacking means that not only can you receive an admission scholarship, but if a dept, honors program, or specialty program offers you additional scholarship $$, that $$ can stack on top of the admission’s scholarship.
You should have no problem finding schools where you can receive full-tuition scholarships. Then you can investigate what other scholarships that school offers that you might be competitive for.
Fwiw, you need to be aware of how outside scholarships work. They might be allowed to reduce the student contribution, but typically the school’s institutional grant $$ is reduced and the parental contribution remains unchanged.
I think SS income that is taxable does count on income. Even if it didn’t count on FAFSA, it probably would on CSS, since CSS Profile considers everything.
I talked to my dad about putting money into a retirement account. Some of his previous comments made me believe that he knew about that option so I didn’t bring it up, but it became not only apparent that he didn’t know about that option, but that he hasn’t done much research on how college financial aid works at all. A financial expert is supposed to be coming to our school, so we’ll be attending the meeting (we’ll see how that works out). My dad told me if we can make sure that a good amount of our savings don’t count, some of the schools will become much more affordable.
I knew my parents (who are immigrants) weren’t that knowledgeable about colleges, but it stresses me out that they were recently planning this and that about the money when they understood so little about… well… everything that was discussed here lol.
