<p>Question: I am a sophomore in high school and a very competitive student. When I graduate, I plan to attend a very competitive school for pre-med. However my parents have just told me that they are not willing to pay for my college education. The problem is that they make plenty of money, and I [...]</p>
<p>I recently got accepted to Johns Hopkins. My parents are now telling me that they will not pay 60k a year for me attend (we have a high EFC). They said that they will pay at most 30k a year, leaving me 96k in the hole at the end of graduation (24k from my own savings). Too bad, I’ll be attending UCSB instead :/</p>
<p>I’ve given my oldest a price tag of $20k yearly out of my pocket. We’ll probably not get any need-based aid so anything extra will have to come from merit. She will have to work within those guidelines. I’ve got another kid right behind her too.</p>
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<p>I always urge parents to have this discussion at the START of the college search and application process. Even parents who have always felt that talking money with their kids is taboo really need to be frank at the get-go when it comes to their college-costs bottom line. It saves a lot of time and, especially, heartache when a student goes into this process with his or her eyes open.</p>
<p>I’m in a similar situation. My dad says he will only pay for public schools or schools with around 25k tuition. My high school is also extremely competitive, so my rank and GPA aren’t that high, and it will be hard for me to get scholarships. :(</p>
<p>It’s tough for parents, who have to deal with worrying about retirement, living expenses, even when they are small mortgages and no vacations, and other children needing college someday. What I fear, is that only the very wealthy or the very poor will end up being able to attend the more prestigious schools, and the middle class will stay stuck exactly where they tend to be, plodding along right in the middle- without a prestigious school on their resume to help them move up, and never quite feeling as on top of things as wealthier neighbors down the road!</p>
<p>I consider the FAFSA a huge moral hazard. My EFC would have been reduced by 4k if I hadn’t worked last year. It encourages the wrong behavior by encouraging students NOT to work to pay for their own education. Yeah, I made a minimal amount of money but little of it went toward school because I support myself without my parents. However, I’m still required to list them on my FAFSA even though they can’t help. I know plenty of students who get full aid from the government and use the extra money (because there always is) to buy televisions and trinkets for themselves. Needless to say, this is incredibly frustrating when I’m working my butt off to go to school and make enough money to pay for living expenses AND I’ll still have debt when I graduate, and they don’t work and won’t have any debt when they graduate.</p>
<p>There’s a difference between parents capping the amount they will pay out-of-pocket (which is pretty reasonable IMO) and refusing to pay at all. My parents refused to pay, even though they were the ones pressuring me to go to college in the first place.</p>
<p>OP, I wonder your parents would do if you decided not to go to college at all (or at least until you were 24). I mean that is basically the decision they are forcing on you-- take out massive amounts of debt or don’t go. You can’t really know at this point if you will get enough scholarships/merit aid, and probably won’t know until the end of your senior year.</p>
<p>I ended up taking off several years between high school and college, got married, and now enjoy my independent student status.</p>
<p>It’s a tough go for kids when that happens. It’s especially bad when the news is given after all the applications are in and the acceptances have been received. My friends ex waited till the deposit needed to be paid and he refused. Said he couldn’t afford it. He’ll pay for her to commute to the local state school, and that’s it. </p>
<p>And that is what she did. If you are lucky enough to have a local state school, that’s what you do. You can peruse the list of schools that still have openings and give them a try; call about merit money, explain the situation. Some might cough up enough for you to go. Otherwise, take a gap year, and get a job. The next year redo your apps including some good financial safeties where you don’t need parental support as much. Check out Momfromtexas’s thread on full ride schools. </p>
<p>I sound more flippant than I feel. It still angers me that this occurred to my friend’s D and to any kids caught that way. It bothers me that college say that money is never an obstacle to attending without making it clear that this is only the case if your parents don’t have the money. If they just won’t pay, the kid is out of luck. </p>
<p>What this causes is a niche where kids who are super talented and from well to do circumstances are at disadvantage because of their parents’ priorities , over kids whose families are considered economically unable to pay. I see why it’s done, but it does cause an unfair situation and those colleges who swear they want the cream of the crop are missing out on those kids. </p>
<p>The way I see it is that age 18 is really too young to be declared an adult, and age 24 too old to be considered the break point. Let age 21 serve that purpose. Kids can drink, sign contracts, are no longer minors and can get fin aid on their own if independent for a year. If they want to be independent sooner, they can join the armed forces, marry, have a child, file for independence and have it granted upon being financially independent for a year.</p>
<p>Would kill the colleges on financial aid.</p>
<p>There are plenty of excellent state universities that parents are already partly paying for with their tax money. $10-25k per year should be plenty. I don’t know what to tell the kid whose parents are contributing nothing. That is sad.
What you get out of college has more to do with what you put into it than where you go. Don’t think for a minute that you will be consigned to “plodding along” for the rest of your life just because you go to State U.</p>
<p>My friend’s dgt wants to go to a State school but according to the EFC they will still owe $17000 per year. Due to some financial problems they had in the past the parents will not qualify for a loan. The student is limited to 5500 in loans. They simply can not come up with the balance. The student received a small scholarship but that is not going to cover it. Any suggestions on what she can do? She is probably going to end up at a community college but seems so unfair. GPA was around a 3.4, ACT’s 28</p>
<p>I’m lucky I applied to a very generous school without really knowing it (Carleton!) otherwise I’d be going to my state school as well. A 5k ish “aid” package of loans and ws really doesn’t do jack.</p>
<p>The average college student is in his/her mid 20’s, goes to school part time, works full time and does not live in school facilities, but usually with family. </p>
<p>My son who is heading off to college this fall had 3 options on his list that he could have funded himself, and could have had a lot more. Living where we do gives him a lot of options to which he could commute and if he worked, he could meet all of his expenses easily. He got a full tuition award from one local private school, and probably could have gotten more the same.</p>
<p>There are kids who are stuck in areas where such options are not nearby and shame on the state school systems that have scanty coverage. Also shame on state who charge too much tuition for their 4 year schools. Just looking at Pittsburgh and Philly from conversations on another thread and to get a 4 year degree if you live there is about $15 a year in tuition alone. Stafford and work won’t cover that if parents don’t help, for most kids, anyways. It means going part time.</p>
<p>I was in a similar situation 30 years ago. It’s a good thing you are only a sophmore, and have time to do some research. What I did then was investigate what would be the best and most inexpensive college. I ended up at New College in Sarasota, Florida, an honors college, which offered me an out of state tuition waiver (I was from a different corner of the country). No one I knew had ever heard of the place, but I managed to find it myself, sans internet and our modern technologies. These days, I know, colleges are way more expensive than ever. The costs are almost insurmountable–but do your research, find a niche to make yourself stand way out from the crowd, get the best grades you possibly can, and you can find a school who desperately wants you and is willing to give you a great deal. It’s a really difficult situation you find yourself in. I’m sorry, and it’s going to take a lot of work, but you will be so proud of yourself in the end. </p>
<p>There are an awful lot of other kids who plan to do pre-med at a competitive school. You must differentiate yourself. If you are a dime-a-dozen kid, no school is going to take the bait.</p>
<p>My daughter was told in her HS junior year what our maximum contribution would be. As offers from colleges came in, pressure to increase the cap was palpable, but we decided to stay firm. It was not really my daughter pressing, by the way. One side was the private college counselor who went so far as to ask me how much my daughter was worth, and the other side was internal over worry that we might be sacrificing quality to save money.</p>
<p>Daughter applied only to LACs where she thought she had a reasonable chance of gaining enough merit aid to meet the family cap, since she was unwilling to take on her own loans. From my perspective, she had skin in the game and it helped her make rational choices. Her debt aversion may be a little too strict in my opinion, but certainly within the range of reasonable behavior. She is constantly reminded how difficult it is to navigate this college choice fair: her boyfriend is amassing $30k debt a year to attend UW as an out of stater and talks often of alternative colleges to save money, while a HS friend is withering at mediocre UO, chosen for its low COA.</p>
<p>I think the only bits of advice I can hand out with some confidence to students and parents who want or have to consider the price tag are these: 1, Ignore prestige. 2, skip the part of the tour that hilites fancy facilities, and go visit the library and departments instead. 3, grades and SAT/ACT really do pay handsomely. </p>
<p>So far, so good. My daughter kept up high grades in school, studied for the P/SAT a reasonable fraction of the two summers before the qualifying tests, and parlayed those standardized numbers in addition to debate and music into a COA of about $16k/year to attend a private LAC in the 50-100th national rankings where she is now happy.</p>
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<p>lammb66–Does your friend’s daughter have some other credit-worthy adult in her life (grandparent? aunt? uncle? etc.) who could co-sign for a PLUS loan?</p>
<p>IIRC, if the student’s parents apply and get turned down for a PLUS loan, the student can borrow additional Stafford funds. Yes, it’s loans, but it’s not private loan $$. Will look for a link.</p>
<p>ETA: Found the link – see the chart. She would fall under the middle column on the table.
<a href=“http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/studentloans.jsp[/url]”>http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/studentloans.jsp</a></p>
<p>llammb66 posted this in <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1142795-any-suggestions-student.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1142795-any-suggestions-student.html</a>.</p>
<p>This is a whole other issue. When parents are in financial trouble and cannot afford a school for their kid, the whole idea of borrowing that kind of money is outrageous, in my opinion. This borrowing what is unaffordable is a huge problem. </p>
<p>Asking someone to co sign throws that on their credit. If the student cannot repay the money which is going to be increasing at rates that are not favorable from the day the loan money is given, the co signer is stuck with it. If something happens to the student, the co signer is going to be stuck. That’s an awfully big favor to ask of someone in the family. That’s an awful lot of money to lend to an 18 year old who has no financial prospects than 3 more years of loans if s/he get through this one.</p>
<p>Quoting form post #6
“What I fear, is that only the very wealthy or the very poor will end up being able to attend the more prestigious schools”</p>
<p>We are already there.
However- if by “prestigious” you mean private, or the social clubs of the rich, then this has always been the case. If you mean stellar academically, do look at the actual academic content and caliber of the best in-state public universities. </p>
<p>For the genuinely intellectual kids there are fantastic opportunities still.</p>
<p>Sally, can someone co-sign a PLUS? My understanding is that it is for parents only and if they do not qualify, the child gets $4000 Stafford monies. There are also loans that the student can take, private ones that need a credit worthy adult to co sign and those have higher interest rates and less favorable terms usually from what I have seen.</p>
<p>As for the really poor going to the most expensive, most select schools, that is a myth. Look at the numbers of PELL eligible kids going to those schools. About half the kids at most of these top schools do not qualify for financial aid. Of the half that do, look at the average grants given and also the number of PELL kids. </p>
<p>Also when we say “middle income” here on CC , we do not mean it in economic terms for what the middle class is in this country. Middle income refers to the averages of those families seeking such schools for their kids in our world rather than a true average income range. Mini has discussed this at some length.</p>