One thing that I’ve learned over the time I’ve spent on CC is to consider how much you can afford for college before you think about what college your child can attend. Thinking seriously now about debt and net price calculators, in-state vs OOS schools, that will help a lot moving forward.
Things that I’ve learned here include:
- Many state schools consider scores as more important than do many private schools.
- OOS public schools are not worth it unless you're willing to pay for the OOS tuition.They don't tend to offer a lot of aid to OOS students, unless your child qualifies for one of the schools with automatic tuition benefits, like University of Alabama.
- For merit aid, I seem to think from reading posts, aim toward schools where your child will be in the top 1/3 of their applicant pool.
- Be sure to count into your figures costs of things like transportation to and from the school, fees that might be less visible, like some schools' quoted tuition is for not quite a full load of classes. If you want to take more classes, the tuition price goes up. Or, the graduation rate might be low at a school because of overcrowding of required classes. You would need to figure in an extra year or two of tuition for your child. Or you may be able to land a position in an Honors program that gives priority registration.
There are probably other FA and cost pointers and there is a great FA section on CC.