Flagship state university expensive for you? Calling middle class caught in middle

<p>Quote: Right now we've decided the decrease in grants the oldest is receiving isn't worth my going back to work at this point with all the children we still have at home. I've run the numbers and we'd gain 40 net cents on the dollar for every dollar I'd earn after taxes and increase in EFC. Then there would be increased costs due to work clothes, gas, and not as much time to bargain shop and fix cheaper home cooked meals.</p>

<p>With all due respect, if you are unwilling to contribute financially then perhaps loans are the best option for your family. Other taxpayers should not have to subsidize able bodied adults who choose not to contribute financially to their children's education. </p>

<p>It's too bad that FAFSA doesn't impute income to non-working parents of college aged children. My husband and I both work full time, manage to cook nutritious homemade meals, and manage to bargain shop. It just isn't that hard to do.</p>

<p>Mombot -
I think your response to Momoffive is rather harsh. She has 4 kids at home - and sounds quite responsible about saving money, figuring out costs and not spending recklessly. As someone who has worked full time since her youngest was 4, trust me, those bills for work clothes, gas, etc, do add up to that 40 net cents on the dollar, and I have wondered if it was worth it. It sure did get me a higher EFC. The middle class gets punished.</p>

<p>Not to mention the fact that there is something to be said for being home in person, if you can. Who can calculate the EFC of that?</p>

<p>I am contributing approximately $23,000 whether my oldest goes to state or private university. I hardly call that not paying my fair share. I vote for all public school tax increases (even tho my children attend parochial grade schools-thus saving taxpayer dollars-for religious reasons) because I believe in good schools for all kids. I pay lots in state and property taxes and have for years. There is nothing wrong in structuring my family's finances to maximize aid and pay the lowest taxes overall. We all do it and as long as it's legal, it's fair. </p>

<p>I can send my kids to second or third tier state schools and probably get grants and reduce my costs. I am aware that if <em>I</em> choose to send my children to the top state university it will cost me the full ride.</p>

<p>I am simply making a comment that this is a new discovery for me because this in my first experience in sending a child to college. If, in fact, the public university gives no grants to taxpayers in our income level (and we are not rich by any means), then by the time I have 3 kids in college, I would not be able to afford Flagship State U for all 3 without huge loans. It wouldn't matter if I worked or not if Flagship State U was going to run me $25,000 (or more) per kid. My husband attended the flagship university back in the dark ages when wages from his summer days at the glass factory paid most of the cost. Those days are long gone and we were surprised to find out how much things had changed, that's all. </p>

<p>I worked up until my last child was born and have been home for 7 years. I may work again. I've been there and done that as far as juggling work and kids and yes it can be done and no, it's not fun with as many children as we have. We made the choice to have those many children. If we choose for me to stay home and cut out vacations, etc for the next several years, that's our choice. We'll manage college for them all, but I'm just surprised to find out the Flagship State U probably won't be part of the plan (as we always thought it would be).</p>

<p>momoffive</p>

<p>momoffive, I don't think that you anyone an explanation. Fact is that instate tuition is not affordable for many families. I suppose I could rationalize that my tax money should not go to pay for the single parent who decided to have children (and now cannot pay for college with one salary), for a married couple with more than the # of children that they could afford to send to college, for the student that has a 2.7 high school average, for a student that did not both work and save the last 2 years of high school, for the family that made over six figures and spent their money on designer clothes and expensive cars, and the list goes on. Perhaps my middle class income should not be stretched to pay taxes to carry part of the tuition of poor students, while I pay full freight. In the end, we are not punishing anyone but ourselves. The students need a college or vocational education to be productive members of society.</p>

<p>
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It just isn't that hard to do.

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<p>Yea...right. It amazes me sometimes here how many folks think just because somethings works for one, it should work for others. Life doesn't work that way. Each family has different financial needs with so many variables that to just say, go to work.....well that's....silly. </p>

<p>I'm wondering just how many of the state U's use the "profile." I can't speak except for UIUC, but it doesn't. And if you take two very same families (i.e. 2 working parents, 2 kids, 1 dog, 1 mortgage, etc.) with the same exact income...for this example...let's say 50,000. One family lives upstate (Chicago) and one downstate (say Marion). They can have extremely different financial situations and obligations. You might think, and most probably so, that the Chicago family would have a harder time meeting their EFC. This may or may not be the case. Which one of these families has more right to have their child educated in-state? The answer is both of them. They are both IL residents & they have paid in their state taxes. Probably though, UIUC will not give incentive to either to stay in-state, thus loosing two very good prospective students to OOS schools or privates which made it financially viable for each.</p>

<p>UIUC is <em>exactly</em> the school I am talking about!</p>

<p>momoffive</p>

<p>It is difficult! We are not anticipating any financial aid except loans if rising HS senior son applies to our flag-ship U - and costs have risen considerably. The only way to make it more affordable is to have him live at home - and that isn't something that we want for him. He needs to be able to experience the whole college experience; bad roommate and all! It is amazing how different instate costs are between states. We drool over the Georgia (hope scholarships) and Florida (Bright tomorrow? scholarships) which reduce or eliminate completely the cost of attending college, and wish Texas would start the same thing here. Texas has no incentives to attract higher-achieving students to the instate flag-ship school; they are trying to decrease enrollment, not increase it.</p>

<p>At UIUC I believe the instate cost of attendance is still 2,000 less than our flagship, Rutgers-New Bruswick. I guess you can consider the difference a windfall for your family.</p>

<p>I was faced with the same situation almost 3 years ago. Single mom, 5 kiddos all a year apart. Oldest was a sophomore in college at state U in CA. I could not envision having all 5 there, so we picked up and moved over 3000 miles away.</p>

<p>We researched the states that had great state uni's comparable to CA's but at much less the cost. Also compared cost of living, college/grad school programs (oldest was pre-vet, now vet) job availablity before and after college, housing and quality of life.</p>

<p>After much, much research we ended up in NC. The Triangle area. UNC-Chapel Hill and NC State would be our in-state uni's. Tuition for oldest DD senior year was $4200, this year. She lives on the vet school campus with free room/board in exchange for her internship with the vet school. We could not believe how many opportunities became available once we made our move.</p>

<p>Granted it looked like something out of "the Grapes of Wrath" but we did it ourselves. The lifestyle change was big but has been interesting and challenging. Kiddos went from a huge city high school to a medium-sized rural one, something akin to big fishes in a much smaller pond.</p>

<p>It has worked out for the kiddos so far. Well, at least according to most recent son's college journey!!!!</p>

<p>Granted this would be extreme for most families, but since we coupon and bargain shop, I figured we needed to bargain shop on such high ticket items as 5 undergraduate and 5 graduate educations.</p>

<p>Kat</p>

<p>Oh wow, I never thought of that!</p>

<p>Dh retires in 4 years.................I guess we could pick up and move. :-O</p>

<p>momoffive</p>

<p>katwkittens, You are very smart. I love the state school options in NC and Virginia. I wish we could move too, but for us this is not a workable option.</p>

<p>Flagship U becomes a very best option for many kids at our local suburban So Cal high school. Parents figure to get no to little aid because of income (which doesn't go as far as one would like in So Cal) and assets (like the hyper-inflated house). So paying $22K for a college rather than $44K is a real savings.</p>

<p>Much of the responsibility for high tuition at state schools lies with the state governments. Stan Ikenberry, who was president of UiUC towards the end of my time there, said in a speech at Penn State a couple years ago he "did a 'crude, back of the envelope calculation' that revealed that if states funded higher education at the same rate they had 20 years ago, there would be enough money to build 100 new Penn States". I have no idea what numbers he was using, but I do know that after years of budget cuts Penn State now receives less than ten percent of its budget from the state (and their in-state tuition is nearly $3000 more that UIUC's).</p>

<p>ellemenope, I wonder how many people are paying the sticker price of 44,000! I do know of very few, but very few families who can do that. I know of one desperate parent who has a D with a learning disability that gained admission to a small, very good private school. She is paying full fair for her D. 100% of her annual salary is going to the tuition. They are living exclusively on her husband's salary.</p>

<p>At Harvard only half receive need-based Harvard Scholarship aid, according to their Financial Aid office.</p>

<p>"ellemenope, I wonder how many people are paying the sticker price of 44,000!"</p>

<p>At the prestige schools, a clear majority of those attending. (But they come from the top 5% of the U.S. population in income, far, far from the middle whatever. In my community, which is the state capital, there isn't a single Secretary in state gov't, or anyone other than the Governor who earns enough to be paying full freight. But very few get in, in any case, so it doesn't prove to be a problem.)</p>

<p>I was thinking in terms of second tier, not Ivy, when I asked how many were paying full sticker price. I only know of 2 non-wealthy students (middle class) who attend an Ivy. The other students that I know have parents that can easily pay the Ivy sticker price.</p>

<p>The so-called second tier plays more of those discounting games through "merit aid" - they have to, to stretch the financial aid dollar. Four students receiving $9k scholarships (and hence paying $35k each) is a heck of a lot better for them than getting one student who only has to be pay $8k (and hence receives $36k in scholarships.) And it costs the school exactly the same. So, just as the prestige colleges are heavily tilted toward the upper whatevers, the second tiers tend to be tilted toward the upper-middle whatevers.</p>

<p>mini, I agree. Even so, with all of the discounting that I saw in my son's packages, there were only 3 privates out of 7 that placed themselves in the ballpark of doable for our family. Only, one asked us to pay the sticker price, less thousands in loans! Needless to say, he is not attending that school. It was a safety school too!</p>

<p>Hey, so you got three to chose from. Congratulations!!! This sounds like a great success story to me. It was a sellers' market. (If you're lucky, you can even get them to bid against each for your son's services.)</p>