<p>I see lots of posts on this board about private schools being as affordable as state flagships, but I'm not seeing those results for our family.</p>
<p>State flagship runs around $17-18 K including room and board and books. DD1 is attending a state flagship (in state) with no financial aid. She didn't qualify for merit aid and we've avoided loans. She has a year and a half left, so we'll have at least one year of overlap when we have 2 in college.</p>
<p>DD2 will get some scholarship for state flagship, which will reduce it to $13-15 (at the most -- there's still potential for more merit aid).</p>
<p>DD2 got merit scholarship offer from very good (Not HYP) private school. It's for $18 per year, but with tuition, fees, books, room and board, the private school will run about $50K. How are people calculating that privates are really more economically feasible that publics.</p>
<p>I'm not being argumentative. I want to understand. We have savings for college, mortgaged house, and income of around $115K per year (PRETAX), so we're not "poor" but we're sure not wealthy.</p>
<p>It really is an individual thing depending on your state’s costs and the family income. The lower your income the more true the situation is likely to be. Your state college sound like one of the least expensive, ours was much more, around $30k but it generally meets need. We received the same cost between the privates and the state but the private she ended up at had no loans included in the package.</p>
<p>So I think people are mostly talking about need based aid, or full ride situations. You seem surprised with your package so I’m wondering if the Net Price Calculator was a lot different than actual package?</p>
<p>Thank you, Brown Parent.</p>
<p>I’ve just seen so many posts that seemed to cavalierly state, “Privates can be less than publics.” I guess that can be true depending on your situation. Even with the $18K scholarship, we’d be looking at $32K for the private, and as little as $15K for the state flagship. That’s a huge difference. With one parent in late sixties and one parent in mid fifties, the issue of debt is a big concern.</p>
<p>I don’t mean to start an argument, but it seems like on these boards, some people are violently in favor of privates, at any costs, and others are violently opposed to privates. Those in favor of privates seem to paint a rosier picture than may be available to some of us in the middle crush. For needs aid, it almost seems like it counts against you if you have been frugal and put away money for education.</p>
<p>I’m not violently for or against privates. This particular private offers a program that I think would be very beneficial for what DD2 wants to do (assuming she doesn’t change her mind), so I’d like to consider it. Just trying to figure out how people make it work.</p>
<p>With your income, savings for college, and fully paid for home (with equity…some Profile schools do consider primary home equity), your family contribution likely exceeds the cost of attending your instate public university. If you don’t have need, you don’t get need based aid.</p>
<p>That same family contribution would only be a portion of the $60,000 or so a year price tag at many private universities. You MIGHT have need those colleges. If the colleges are ones that guarantee to meet full need for ALL accepted students, and with higher incomes too, you could find that you qualify for need based aid that would bring your net cost down to the same family contribution as expected by your public universities.</p>
<p>A $115,000 income will generate somewhere between $30k and $40k family contribution. Without knowing where your college savings is…it is possible that this also generates an additional amount to add to your family contribution. In addition, any reportable assets above the asset protection allowance will be assessed at 5.6% for FAFSA schools.</p>
<p>Just your income alone would likely create a family contribution greater than the cost of attending your public universities.</p>
<p>ETA…while you have two siblings in college at the same time, that family contribution would be divided between them. But really…this does you no guaranteed good unless the colleges meet full need for all accepted students.</p>
<p>We’ve got some home equity, but the home is not fully paid for. Far from it.</p>
<p>I’m still confused.</p>
<p>Why do people keep saying it can cost less to go to a private?</p>
<p>The $60K number is probably more realistic with travel and some spending allowance. </p>
<p>So we can pay $60K less $18K, which gets us to $42K a year. How are privates a bargain? I want it to be. I guess good students with parents who work hard, try to save money for college just don’t get these benefits.</p>
<p>I am whining, but it almost seems like I’d have been better off having the luxury car and better clothes.</p>
<p>How some end up better off at privates is if there is EFC is lower than the cost of the private.</p>
<p>For example if your EFC is $20k (just picked a random number) then your state flagship at $18k would offer you no need based aid because your expected contribution is more than the cost.</p>
<p>However, at a private school with a $60k price tag if you student got an $18k merit money that still leaves $42k. Well your expected contribution is $20k leaving you with $22k in NEED. Some schools will offer lower interest rate loans or give additional scholarships to meet the “need.” However, many don’t. So if this school offers need based aid you might end up with a price tag of $20k (your expected contribution). Many private schools offer to gap the needs with more loans though so watch for that.</p>
<p>Yes, kids like ours in the middle whose parents just did enough to save and make just enough are often squeezed out of any kind of help. Sad, but true.</p>
<p>I am in the same boat. it sounds like you are like me. You look at the EFC and say "Yeah if I stop paying my mortgage and utilities for four years I can do that. For DS1 we found a private that gave TWO merit scholarships. For DS2 who has better grades I am looking at the schools that give full tuition. For both of them Public was and is a real possibility.</p>
<p>I think those who say that are ones whose kids get into top privates. For those families, if they have an EFC of - say $10k - they they only pay $10k at the private…rather than full freight at their public. </p>
<p>And, some have publics that are a lot more expensive that your public. There are some states where TUITION alone at the publics is $14k or more. Add in R&B and books, and you’re close to $30k per year. For those folks, if their EFC is $10k, then it usually is cheaper for them to attend a top private.</p>
<p>In our case, attending a private would be MORE expensive since we don’t qualify for any aid. Merit would have to be massive (more than free tuition) to be less than what we paid at our flagship with large merit.</p>
<p>am whining, but it almost seems like I’d have been better off having the luxury car and better clothes.</p>
<p>EFC is largely driven by INCOME. Unless you have a LOT of assets, buying “stuff” would still result in a high EFC.</p>
<p>Money…some private universities have VERY generous need based aid. At a school like Princeton or Stanford or Harvard, your student would possibly pay LESS than their FAFSA EFC because those schools offer extremely generous need based aid to families with incomes even up to $150,000. MOST private schools, even most others that meet full need, do not do this.</p>
<p>Case in point…if your income was $100,000 or less and your kiddo got accepted to Stanford…your cost would be 10% of your income. And they have a no loan policy too. At least this was the case a couple of years ago.</p>
<p>But really…MOST schools just don’t have pockets that deep.</p>
<p>You would need to look for those very well endowed colleges that offer generous need based aid to higher income families…then hope your kid actually gets accepted because most of those uber generous schools accept about 5% of applicants.</p>
<p>In addition, of you are a competitive admit for these highly competitive schools (HYPSM, etc), you could also be a contender for a significant merit award at some school that offers those. If that were the case, you could find yourself with a huge merit award that would bring the cost of attending a school well below the family EFC. Check the merit award stickie thread above for more info. Some folks bring the cost of private schools DOWN by applying where they know they will get significant merit aid.</p>
<p>DD2 is quite a good student but hasn’t applied to top competitive schools (HYPSM). I don’t think she’s quite in that league. 33 ACT, 4.25 weighted GPA, good EC, but not 35 ACT etc.</p>
<p>Money…have you read the stickie above re: merit awards? Hope so.</p>
<p>Thank you for the help. Sorry to take your time by venting.</p>
<p>We looked at several private schools that provided merit aid. These weren’t the ‘biggies’ but much smaller schools in the south. They offered usually about 1/2 tuition in merit aid, which would bring the tuition to about $15000 but the small privates also may have other scholarships for you. The problem is it is a lot of work to find these smaller scholarships and you might not have the numbers before you need to make the decision. My head was spinning trying to keep it all straight, plus some schools for us included athletic aid and others didn’t.</p>
<p>I told my kids I would pay about $15000/yr, as that is about the amount it would cost for our in-state schools (tuition/R&B). One is going to Wyoming, a very inexpensive OOS with guaranteed scholarship money for most students between $3-6k, and then some scholarships available by department. She is a very average student so would not have received merit money at most small colleges, and would not have gotten in to UF or FSU.</p>
<p>The other is going to Florida Tech. Tuition/R&B is about $48,000. She’s getting $21k in merit, $15k in athletic, $4.8k in state grants, leaving us with $7.2k, less than in-state. None of this is need based.</p>
<p>At many of the other schools we looked at, the NPC were coming in around $15,000 EFC. Some private schools do not have $60k COA. Flagler College, one we considered, is only $16k, plus you can use Bright futures (a florida merit award), plus you get a $2500 state grant, so tuition could be only $10.5k, and that’s before any Flagler awards. It’s not lower than UF or FSU, but close.</p>
<p>Moneymom, when my first child was in hs I went to a college informational meeting where they educated us about FAFSA etc., and we were told that privates can be cheaper than public schools also. This is true for some, but unfortunately not for us. I learned this after I let my oldest apply to every school he wanted (private and public, although I had safeties) and saw their financial packages. At one instate private my son got a wonderful merit scholarship, won another in an engineering competition they held, had a state merit scholarship for being a val., and had a small NMF scholarship and it DID bring it down to our state flagship COA of about $23,000. Now this gave him a choice, although he did end up choosing another state’s flagship as with his NMF status cost was $13,000 per year there. For my next 2 knowing what I knew, they did not apply to many schools and only those that I thought we would have a realistic chance of affording.</p>
<p>Now some schools like Harvard do have deeper pockets. My nephew, who comes from a family in your financial ballpark, ended up paying less than $20,000 per year when he was there. So it never hurts to apply as all it costs is the application fee.</p>
<p>The net price calculators are relatively new. If you do NOT own your own business, have real estate other than your own primary residence, or parents are divorced, these NPC give a decent estimate of your potential aid. Of course nothing is absolute until you get a package, but it’s less of a shot in the dark than when my kids were applying in 2003 and 2006.</p>
<p>Money…no need to apologize!</p>
<p>Sorry to take your time by venting.</p>
<p>Your vent is valid. Others wonder as well.</p>
<p>I’ve also noticed that many say a private costs the same as a public. That can be a good thing for those who qualify for aid…AND their goal is to get costs down to the full COA of their flagship. </p>
<p>However, for some, even THAT isn’t affordable. UIUC’s COA for an instate student is around $31k per year. That’s too much for many people. So, if they can find a free tuition scholarship out there, then they can cut costs down to about $15k per year for room, board, books, fees, transportation, and misc.</p>
<p>Can someone explain the sticky thing to me. Sorry. I want to go look at it but don’t know how to navigate the website that well.</p>
<p>Go to the top of the financial aid forum. If you are using an iPad, you will see a tab "stickie. Click on that and the threads we are talking about will be there. If you are using a regular computer or browser, go to the top of the financial aid forum…and you will see some threads with little yellow stick pins near the title. Those are the stickie threads.</p>
<p>And if all else fails, I’m sure SOMEONE here will post links to those threads on THIS thread!</p>
<p>ETA: som folks here are posting info about tuition costs ONLY. Unless a student is living at home, it is much more helpful to use the FULL cost of attendance, which includes tuition, room, board, fees, books, transportation,many personal expenses.</p>