<p>Are your parents worried about the cost much? </p>
<p>3/4 of my schools are private schools and my mom decided to ruin my dinner tonight by telling me to look at some other Virginia in-state schools because my other ones are 'unrealistic'. I'm really mad about this. </p>
<p>I have no interest in these VA schools (besides JMU) for a lot of reasons and also because I'm not from this state (we're military so we move around a lot). I don't have an allegiance to these states schools like a lot of the kids here have "UVA all the way!" "Hokies for life!" I'm not like that. </p>
<p>It's been really hard picking out schools in general. The four I'm applying to are ND (obviously), Boston College, Syracuse and JMU.</p>
<p>Anyone else experiencing the same thing or have anything to say on the topic?</p>
<p>I can't say I am experiencing it because I am a current student with plenty of debt but I still think ND is worth it. What I will say is that ND is very generous with need-based financial aid so I wouldn't worry about it too much until you know how much it will really cost, because it may be less than you think.</p>
<p>Depending on your stats, Syracuse does offer merit aid so that could help. Other than ND, BC, & Georgetown, most of all the other Catholic schools offer merit aid (Villanova, Providence, Fordham, etc.). The VA state schools have a good reputation (UVa & W&M), and so would be a good deal in-state. BU has some merit aid. Northeastern is big on co-op (earn pay). The Ohio schools give a lot of merit aid (esp. Case Western and Denison).</p>
<p>im gonna worry about getting in b4 i worry about cost! ha... cost is an issue but with a school like ND... w/e my parents wont/cant pay i would have to take out in a loan-- you cant pass up an oppurtunity like this! i figure ill make the $ back really quickly neways graduating from mendoza school of business rather than paying much less and graduating from say u of i's business school (for a lot less money tho) it's a tough call, but when i visited ND i knew nothing would stop me from going (except those damn admissions ppl lol)</p>
<p>As a parent I can tell you that many of us are plenty worried about cost. And I have to warn you - come April you're apt to find out that your choices are severely limited by cost. The reality of $45,000/year may not hit your parents until then.</p>
<p>Have your parents filled out the financial aid calculator? That might give you a better idea of whether or not you will qualify for need based aid.</p>
<p>ND does not give out good merit money. Neither does BC, Villanova or Providence. Be very careful going into this thinking you can just borrow the money. That requires a lot of planning and reality checking. Here is a web site that help you estimate loan repayment amounts. <a href="http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.finaid.org/calculators/loanpayments.phtml</a>
Look at that and think about what kind of salary you'd need, how much money you'd need for rent, a car, clothes, health insurance, etc. for various amounts you might borrow.</p>
<p>Univ Virginia and W&M are every bit as good a school as ND.</p>
<p>Do not worry about getting in over cost. It does you no good to just get in and then not be able to afford to go. Lots of kids load up their lists with wonderful schools they can't afford and then tack on one state school to pacify their parents. Guess where many of them end up? Find several financial safety schools that you like. Now.</p>
<p>There's no way on earth we can afford ND for our daughter without significant aid. Absolutely no way. We're fortunate our oldest is in Navy ROTC, which is paying his ND tuition. Quite frankly, with him, I was outright pushing the state schools, because I knew they start with a lower base price and give out oodles of merit money. At one point, he asked us if there was no chance we could afford it, because if that was the case, he wasn't going to set himself up for the disappointment of getting in to ND, only for us to say we couldn't do it. We told him to go ahead and apply, and we'd cross the bridge when we get to it. The ROTC thing came up shortly thereafter.</p>
<p>Our daughter will not go the military route (fine with us!). Given her great desire to go to ND, and the tremendous experience our son has had there so far (as well as my own many years ago), we are committed to finding a way. You only live once! If we sensed it didn't matter that much to her, or that the university was no better fit for her than a number of others, it might be a different story. She wants it, though, and it will be a great fit.</p>
<p>Our hope is that one day, when we are old and living in refrigerator boxes because we spent all our retirement money on tuition, at least one of our kids will be prosperous enough to take us in... :)</p>
<p>Without sounding tacky, can anyone tell me how transportation costs and football tickets figure into financial aid? Books, tuition, room and board mAYBE, but I was just curious??? See a post from yesterday^</p>
<p>ddjones, i can relate to the ROTC thing. Both of my parents are/were military and my dad, especially, is pushing me to apply for a AFROTC scholarship. Today, however, I met up with some kids at JMU and started seriously imagining myself there. While it'd be nice to go to ND or Boston College, I'm starting to think more and more about JMU, which will be a load off of my parents' minds.</p>
<p>Ahh, college, not even in it and am freaking out already.</p>
<p>Weenie, you can't really go by the finaid site calculator, because I believe that only takes into account the fafsa. ND also asks for the CSS profile, which can help a lot. I know it greatly increased financial aid in our case.</p>
<p>I have a friend in VA who thought her daughter would have to go to JMU instead of a private school in Pennsylvania. Turns out it was cheaper to go to the private school which uses the profile than to go to JMU instate because of their award. You just can't judge this until you have all the information. </p>
<p>I don't think you can decide until you have gotten your financial aid letter and amounts back from ND. There's just no way to guess what they'll do. They do examine each case individually.</p>
<p>Let me also add, as the parent of an ND senior, and also as a parent who only has two, count 'em, TWO Notre Dame payments left to go (yee ha!), I will tell you that after my son was accepted I laid awake night after night worrying about this. I prayed that we find a way to do it, and God help us, somehow we did. Looking back on how quickly these four years have passed, my past worries now seem not only ungrounded but also fruitless. </p>
<p>So my advice is to wait for the financial aid information and pray for some guidance on what to do. And keep several options open at this point.</p>
<p>$50,000 per year makes this a whole different ballgame than it has been before. A $220-230K price tag (with inflation built in) makes attendance at schools like ND into life changing events that can bust the retirement plans of even highly successful professional parents(who no longer receive defined benefit pensions and retirement health care) and/or create debt that will diminish a graduate's standard living to age 40.</p>
<p>Even schools like ND which borders on the "priceless" level are going to have to start bringing what they charge into line with the means of the bottom 99% of the population.</p>
<p>And the reality is that the financial aid meter only runs for about 50% of the class at a typical private college. The system is designed to squeeze every last penny out of every family right up to the 50%+ who pay the full freight.</p>