Are you a full pay parent or student? Where do you or your child attend college? Would you make a diffrent decision if you get a do over?
I don’t mean to shut others out but trying to limit this thread to real experiences, not drown in our opinions.
Full pay parent here:
One son at a California State University and one son at a University of California. Definitely would do it again since we do not qualify for any FA. We had a 529 plan which funded the majority of costs.
Both son’s are getting an excellent education with in-state prices, will graduate with no debt and are happy with their choices.
Full pay mother of 3:
Used the following:
529
the bank of Mom and Dad (Savings)
Student’s work earnings each summer. Student merit aid. Student Nat’l Merit winner.
Student savings/loans.
Thrifty spending, using coupons, old cars, self fix-its, no expensive vacations nor time off from work.
Absolutely would do it again in a heartbeat.
Very proud of my successful kids!
Just because someone is deemed ‘full pay’ by the financial aid office doesn’t mean the family has to pay it all. Many who would be full pay at one school receive merit aid at another or choose a school that has co-ops to help pay for the next term’s tuition, or just choose a less expensive full pay option.
Would have been full pay, so kid went to the cheap state school that was what we could afford rather than what the formulas said we could. She adored it. No regrets at all.
It seems there aren’t many full pay parents or students on CC.
@twoinanddone I’m looking for for first hand experiences of full payment parents and students but thank you for your suggestions.
@happymomof1 I’m looking for ones who are paying or have paid full tab but thank you for your input.
Full pay for two kids at top LACs. Totally would do it again.
What exactly are you trying to find out with your questions?
There are full pay families that pay $20k for a Florida public school, and there are full pay families that pay $70k+ for NYU.
@doschicos What percentage is full pay and what are their reflections on that decision.
@twoinanddone It doesn’t matter, just want to see if there are people who ca afford and see a value in full payment for colleges their kids can get accepted to and like to attend. It would be informative to know how much they paid or which colleges get most full pay students. If we go by this thread, there aren’t many. There is data out there for everything related to colleges so why not this?
There is plenty of data out there on this. In each college’s common data set there is a section about how many students were determined to not have need. At many colleges it is almost half. Those are the full pay families.
Now if you want to know data on if they regret it- no there is no data.
We have paid top dollar and we do not regret it.
I have full paid for two children, two to CU Boulder, and one just accepted to UChicago. I told them I would pay for any in state school, or if they could get into an elite school then I would pay for that (and I count only 10 schools as elite in my book, others may have different definitions of elite). I keep my word and as you can see one of them decided to put in the extra effort to get into an elite school. The other two are doing great as well, so in my opinion they all went to their first choice school which I was happy to finance, just the way I feel that its my obligation as a parent if they show the motivation to do well.
P.S. I would have stopped paying in a second if their GPA (for even one semester) ever went below a C average which was never the case.
CC is not a balanced pool to find full pay families. I came here to find ways to NOT be full pay, to find ways to get merit money or state grants or an outside scholarship. Even the tax credit helps.
There is a current 10+ page thread about full pay and how people do it. Most are either high income or have been saving for 20 years, or both. Many have merit money.
Moderators Note
There is already a thread on the parents forum:
To Parents of full pay private college students
this thread is redundant