<p>We were considering ED to Duke as it is my son's top choice and he fits the academic requirements. Then I did the financial aid calculator and reality set in. It said we can afford up to 75K per year. The final report took into account $5k in loans my son could get and $5k in earnings he could make to lower the "sticker price" to ~$45k per year.</p>
<p>So I guess ED is out as we are by no means rich (although those making $40k per year would beg to differ) and could not afford $45k per year without going into serious debt. Our family net income is around $160k a year which may seem a lot but our house, cars and other living expenses quickly eat that up leaving little extra. I figured we could pay around $20k per year ($80k total), by taking on a some extra debt but $200K will destroy any decent retirement dreams.</p>
<p>So I guess it is regular decision and hope for the best. </p>
<p>Any mid to upper middle class families out there ever get a decent aid package or are we on our own? It seems like privates schools are for the very rich that can easily afford it or very poor that will get a sweet aid package. State U here we come.</p>
<p>Our family realized when our kids were in elementary school that we were in that awful gray area that you describe. We decided to cut back our lifestyle at that point, which produced two benefits: (1) we saved a good deal and (2) our spending is already lower. The numbers still look terrible, but at least they are manageable. It is discouraging to think that I am sending enough money for a nice new car to college each year while I continue to drive my 2001 Chevy with 170k miles.</p>
<p>If your family is not even in the ball park after reviewing the NPC, the situation will unfortunately not improve dramatically by applying RD. You can try ROTC scholarships or cross your fingers for an AB Duke but there aren’t too many other alternatives.</p>
<p>I would encourage you to look at the Financial Aid discussion board. If your son is competitive for admission to Duke then he is likely also competitive for merit scholarships at a large number of schools (perhaps Tulane, Northeastern or Furman might appeal). There are more options between Duke and State U.</p>
<p>Its all about financial planning to be honest. Just to give you a little background, I graduated from Duke a couple of years back and my sister currently attends Cornell; my parents were able to afford to send me and my sister to these two schools despite the fact that their dual incomes combined would probably be around ~150K a year.</p>
<p>Duke gave us about 15-20K per year in grant money and I paid off 2-3K by doing Work Study which left me with about 15K in undergraduate loans after my parents contributed somewhere between 20-25K per year during my 4 years at Duke.</p>
<p>The loans seemed daunting but through careful financial planning, I am about 8K away from financial freedom when I am only 18 months out of college. I am hoping to aggressively pay off these loans and be debt free by Spring of 2013.</p>
<p>I chose Duke even though I could have attended the University of Michigan (a top 5 public university) for about $20K cheaper over 4 years since I was IS. I thought the quality of education and the access to brilliant peers was worth every penny.</p>
<p>I would apply RD and hope for the best. The FA department at Duke here is extremely approachable and helpful. Now you just have to worry about getting in. :)</p>
<p><a href=“perhaps%20Tulane,%20Northeastern%20or%20Furman%20might%20appeal”>quote</a>. There are more options between Duke and State U.
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The good news is that State U. is world class - University of Michigan - so that is where he will most likely go. Most would say it would be foolish to go to Duke when he could go to UM at a fraction of the cost. I tend to agree but my wish for him is to get out of the state of Michigan for a lot of different reasons.</p>
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<p>It definitely helps with FA to have two siblings back to back. Ours are 8 years apart. I also made the mistake of doubling down on house payments so it would be paid off in about 14 months. Another strike against getting FA. My thought was the 25K saved on the house would more than pay for a college. Live and learn.</p>
<p>Chisel, the top private schools are full of wealthy and poor students. State honors programs are full of upper middle class students who don’t qualify for need but can’t foot the full COA.</p>
<p>Well, I’ll add my two cents into the conversation although not sure what it’s worth. We are in the same situation- would not qualify for any financial aid but certainly not wealthy enough to write a $60,000 check every year. We made it a priority to save a cushion of money and pay off all debt (including the house, cars) and live below our means. My S applied to schools that he could get scholarships and in fact earned an almost free ride (tuition + housing) at one school. But the real “fit” for him was at his reach school. So this is what we are doing- my job pays for the tuition (we paid off all debt, remember?) through Tuition Management Systems monthly payment. The rest out of the college savings for him. His major is Design so important to have a good fit. No graduate school on his mind as he is very determined to start a career. But with our D, things might be different as a liberal arts degree and graduate school likely. So if she got a school scholarship, we would definitely take them up on it. If your state school is of high quality like Michigan then going there makes a lot of financial sense.</p>
<p>Just for some perspective, the median household income in the U.S. is about $52k. That would give you a FULL RIDE to Duke (unless you have an inordinate number of assets). All students coming from families with income <$60k get a full ride (although a few thousand in loans if income is more than $40k). From a purely statistical standpoint, I don’t see how the median income could be considered “poor.” $160k puts a family in the TOP 5% of household income. I would say a more reasonable statement is that the lower-class to middle-upper class can afford it, and the super wealthy can also afford elite privates. It’s the “standard” upper class (top 15% or so) that don’t receive much help. I’m not saying that to be snarky - just to provide some perspective. </p>
<p>I certainly realize that expenses can add up quickly and college costs are out of control. Financial aid is also a bit odd in that it penalizes saving and sacrifices made in the past for those in the gray area of income. Duke was generous in aid to me, and I will forever be grateful for that. You just never know what the package will be, so I’d recommend applying RD, seeing where your child gets in, and then comparing packages and making the decision. UMich is a great school and there’s nothing wrong with going there - it will provide ample opportunity and a great experience. Good luck with everything! And just hope for the best!</p>
<p>OP – We were in a similar boat 2 years ago. Our income is about $160-180K/year and we have 2 kids 8 years apart. Our son did not apply to a state flagship, because a big party school is just not his thing (we are not in Michigan). We were prepared to pay a full price, though. We saved some money for college, paid off our house and our 401K funds were funded nicely, so we could afford to put less money there for few years. Nevertheless, we avoided binding decision like plague. Your son has been already accepted to UofM and it’s a great option, now look for some private schools that offer merit scholarships and apply there RD. Duke has several (insanely competitive) merit scholarships as well, so don’t count it out. You might qualify for some fin aid at HYPS, if your son gets admitted, but it wouldn’t be a lot. </p>
<p>Our son got accepted to 9 colleges and we got either fin aid or merit from all of them. The worst one was the fin aid that offered $5.5K/year loan. The best one was a full ride. The others were between $10K and $25K a year.</p>
<p>I’ve written posts on the FIn Aid forum about how people do it. However, I also want to add, and I’ve done it before, that if you squeeze it down to the penny on paper, you had better add a good 10% of need. Things happen. Your kid could get hurt necessitating an unpllanned trip home or there, loved ones die and get married and unless you are putting your whole life on hold for college, you may want to go to some special occaisions. Houses start to fall apart and applances and cars need repairs. We need a new car soon as this one is beginning to get very close to a car payment in terms of what it needs in maintenace and repairs. Things get broken and need to be replaced and stinting on some things makes no sense. Stuff happen so when you have yourself in a financial corner, the impact of those things can be much more.</p>
<p>You are wise in that you checked out what the story is going to be for you already. This gives you time to try to pull it together fiancially and see what you can afford, what you can cut in your budget. Yeah, it 's senior year and the expenses there are high but believe me, next year with graduation and then going off to college, they aren’t going to be any less, but more and we are coping with a second year kid in college for whom a pricey summer school course made a big difference in what he plans to do do, and an increase in housing due the costs of upper classmen dorm choices, who wants to now to be more active and join a club sport ($s but I really think he should) and his little brother should get braces this next year when our HSA will be limited to $2500 for Obama Care provisions. I"ve been planning all sort of medical,dental etc related things and this is going to be a major price increase for us for any of those procedures. </p>
<p>Our income is up there so there is a lot of wiggle room for which I am ever grateful and humble when I think of many including my own parents who juggled this “life happens” with far less leeway. I will tell you that when we looked at any and all of our kids college options, they all got choices that would have cost practically nothing up to a middle income family salary. Those were the choices. </p>
<p>When you actually fill out the FAFSA and the PROFILE and Duke looks it over, it may come out a little bit better…or worse. So don’t rule it out paced on the NPC… CLearly it is not a good ED choice. But I’ve seen a lot of variances when actual numbers are used for aid, sometimes the shocker is that the need is way less, but sometimes the way the school looks at the figure and where the numbers fall that are actually used are more favorable than the calculators show. But a kid with Dulke’s acceptance profile, will have a good chance at some good merit money at a number of schools with name recognition and near full rides if he gives up that aspect.</p>
<p>@keylimepie Thanks, great positive information. It’s good to know that there are various aid options out out there. </p>
<p>Over the years I have read lots of information about financial planning when it comes to college. They almost all say all but the extreme rich parents should not pay or save for their kids college because the students have many years to pay of loans while parents in their 50s will sacrifice their retirement. Put every nickel possible in retirement savings now college funds… Also, paying off house, not good when it comes to college time (I forgot that one) </p>
<p>That being said, we are still willing to pay up to $20k a year for a high end school. So with student loans and merit and maybe a spot of financial aid perhaps we could hit that number at one of the private schools he is applying for. </p>
<p>But it sure would be hard to turn down a no aid offer at one of his reach schools - Duke, MIT, Columbia.</p>
<p>My son has not been accepted at Michigan (just sent out common app) but I am positive he will get in. He is far above their minimum requirements. He is also applying at Michigan State Honors program, Texas, Georgia Tech, and North Carolina U. as OOS safeties.</p>
<p>Things sure have changed since my youth. My parents encouraged college but refused to pay. Somehow by working 15-20 hours a week during 10th - 12th grade after school, summer work, loans, and side jobs I paid my way. My mom slipped me some mad money but that’s about it.</p>
<p>Now we encourage our son not to work regular so he can put his 4 - 5 hours of studying each night. My fear is once he is all done he won’t know what this work thing is.</p>
<p>4 or 5 hours of studying was more than the total amount of studying I did during high school and I somehow was in top 25% of my class. Lots of duds in my high school with the big dream of getting a job on the line at one of the big 3. But I digress…</p>
<p>The problem with asking for financial aid at ED time is that you get a number and you have to take it or leave it without being able to compare offers from other schools; you don’t know if a school you like just as much would give you more aid. But then ED is meant for your number one top choice, your dream school, where your only question might be “Can we afford it?” With some possible exceptions, ED is widely believed to confer at least some amount of admission advantage; many schools love applicants who love them.</p>
<p>So if you have that one dream school and don’t care about comparing FA offers, ED may be the way to go. But if the FA calculators strongly suggest that it’s not going to work, it doesn’t matter if you apply ED or RD; the result is the same.</p>
<p>Yes we definitely decided on RD for Duke. It will be a sad day IF he gets in and then has to say no because we are not willing to pay close to sticker. You never know, you hear about people getting surprised by aid levels all the time. If I had to guess, he’ll be going to UM like about 1/4 of his high school ends up doing. If out of state, I would guess Georgia Tech as their OOS tuition is somewhat reasonable compared to many states.</p>
<p>Duke, UM, GT all have top 10 Biomedical engineering so he can’t lose.</p>
<p>One more thing about ED is that you get any bad FA news earlier and have more time to think about alternatives for the RD round. On the other hand there is the risk that the turned-down ED FA offer turns out to be better than any of the RD schools’ FA offers.</p>
You sign forms committing you will go to Duke if you apply ED as long as they meet your financial need which is based on their calculator - not what one thinks they can afford. There is no bargaining after that. It would be a real mess if one backs out of ED admission and it could cost admission into other schools. ED is for the rich who can pay full price and the low middle class who get significant financial aid. Those in the middle need to wait and do RD and see what they can get so they can make an informed decision.</p>
<p>“You sign forms committing you will go to Duke if you apply ED as long as they meet your financial need which is based on their calculator - not what one thinks they can afford.”</p>
<p>No, that’s not how it works. What they offer is based on their calculator; what you can afford is solely the family’s decision. </p>