<p>My ambitious daughter applied to a bunch of high priced schools. Our EFC is around $64,000, so we are in the category of the least wealthy families that are asked to pay full price. I'm self employed and my income has been trending downward. I don't feel like I've saved enough for retirement, and most of what I have saved is not in retirement accounts, so it boosted our EFC. My gut feeling is that our family can afford up to $30,000 per year for college. D is very interested in an LAC in NYC. She wants to pursue international studies and foreign service. Barnard is her first choice. I think University of Wyoming is the best value. She says she'd rather go anywhere but there. Here are the schools she got into and the net price for us. I'd like to hear what the CC community thinks about our choices:</p>
<p>Barnard $62,000
Brandeis $61,000
American $58,000
Bard $55,000
GW $52,000
Oberlin $50,000
Eugene Lang $48,000
Clark $45,000
Rhodes $34,000
Goucher $34,000
Western Washington $34,000
Portland State $27,000
University of Wyoming $13,000</p>
<p>Rhodes is a far superior school to the University of Wyoming in the humanities and social sciences. If Barnard would be too much of a financial stretch but your daughter still wants a great LAC, I’d give Rhodes serious consideration. However, if you can’t afford more than $30,000/ year, and your daughter will not take out loans, UWyo may be the better option.</p>
<p>Not sure why you let her apply to a bunch of schools you could not afford without checking net price calculators and setting expectations for her beforehand. But you are where you are. Give her the choice of taking out loans to cover the cost above $30K, which make the bottom 5 colleges on her list reasonably affordable. Of that shorter list, Rhodes and Goucher are going to be her best choices given her career goals.</p>
<p>I second (third?) the votes for Rhodes. It is a liberal arts college in an urban location, similar to Barnard, and has great opportunities for internships in Memphis. Could be financed with $30k parental contribution + small student loan per year. If your daughter prefers to avoid debt, the extra $4k/year could potentially be made up with some combination of a work-study, summer job, outside scholarships, cost-cutting measures (ie living in a triple instead of a double), etc.</p>
<p>I don’t believe Barnard is worth over $100,000 more than Rhodes.</p>
<p>Although your daughter may not be interested in Univ. of Wyoming, would she be open if she could spend a year (or two, if the university allows) overseas as part of her study abroad? </p>
<p>Understand that your D has only 12 days to make up her mind. Rhodes would be a good choice, assuming she has visited the campus and is enthusiastic about matriculating. </p>
<p>While it may be a last minute attempt, there may be a few good affordable universities in Europe where the admissions is still open. Not sure if your daughter would consider a 3 year undergraduate program at Sciences Po in France. It has a high reputation in international relations. As a matter of fact, students have to spend their 3rd year at any one of their 400 partner universities abroad (including a few ivies & Barnard!) in order to complete their studies. The deadline for undergraduate admissions is May 2 for international students. Depending on the location of regional campus, the annual expenditure at Sciences Po is around $27K- $30K. The medium of instruction is English at Reims and Le Havre campus. Note that students are expected to take French language as part of their curriculum. </p>
<p>Based on her major and career choices, UWyoming isn’t a good choice.
If 30K is what you can contribute, she can take on $5,500 in loans and work (probably $4,000 for summer + both semesters, total) for a total contribution of 39.5K. That means Rhodes and Goucher (without loans, even, or only the subsidized portion of loans). Goucher has an edge wrt location and Rhodes wrt to academic quality. Of course, GW, American, and Barnard are powerhouses in the field she’s interested in, but even the cheapest of the three, GW, would require you to spend 12.5K more than the 39.5k mentioned above: do you have them or would they have to come from a loan?
You could lower your EFC for the upcoming years if you shifted a lot of your savings into your retirement funds. That may help.</p>
<p>I agree about Goucher and Rhodes being her best options. Goucher <em>requires</em> study abroad–nice mesh with your D’s interests. The best boosterism I’ve seen for Rhodes here on CC was from a poster named curmudgeon, whose D was admitted to Yale just before their generous financial aid policies took effect. The D took a near-full ride to Rhodes, did VERY well (garnering a highly prestigious research award), and is now in (or just finished) med school…at Yale. </p>
<p>I would also vote for the Goucher/Rhodes option. Those are the two (with Goucher being a slight bit ahead) schools that meet her academic and financial needs best. Both will have all of the support she needs, with better DC internship options and mandatory study abroad.
Has your daughter visited?</p>
<p>Calibrate the spending against how much money she could earn with a liberal arts degree, stratifying by different opportunities available to grads of the different schools as appropriate.</p>
<p>Just wondering, is there a reason she picked Wyoming as presumably her super-safety if she doesn’t want to go there at all? She doesn’t seem interested in Wyoming, so why not some different state schools?</p>
<p>@oniongrass, has anyone on this thread assumed the OP should just pay the $60K for the very top schools on the list? No… but the fact is that the lowest priced options are unlikely to give the student a decent chance at achieving her career goals. The recommendations have almost all been for the middle road that is only slightly more than the OP has said they can pay. A student could be expected to make up $4K/year with summer and part time work during the school year. And/or take out small subsidized federal loans, not a large amount.</p>
<p>U of Wyoming was a curious choice, considering her interests, especially if she never wanted to go there for other reasons (e.g. skiing, wilderness, etc.). I’m a Barnard alumna, and I can’t justify the price-tag. We are in a similar situation, but my son was fortunate enough to have one very attractive offer for under $30k (New College of FL), and so he very cheerfully agreed to pass on the $60k+ offers from Tulane and Pitzer.</p>
<p>Thanks everyone for the feedback! Here are some replies to your questions:</p>
<p>intparent: “Not sure why you let her apply to a bunch of schools you could not afford without checking net price calculators and setting expectations for her beforehand.” - I did the calculators beforehand, and made sure she was aware, but her school counselor encouraged her to apply to expensive schools anyway just incase they surprised us with generous aid. </p>
<p>Trinity7: “Although your daughter may not be interested in Univ. of Wyoming, would she be open if she could spend a year (or two, if the university allows) overseas as part of her study abroad?” - It’s unclear whether she would accept that option. There is also a concern about credits transferring properly. - I will look into Po.</p>
<p>MYOS1634: “If 30K is what you can contribute, she can take on $5,500 in loans and work (probably $4,000 for summer + both semesters, total) for a total contribution of 39.5K.” - The 30K budget includes the $5,500 loan and D working some to contribute. I’m willing to stretch to 34K to increase our options, but I also have to account for the fact that inflation will probably increase these prices by another 2K each year.</p>
<p>“You could lower your EFC for the upcoming years if you shifted a lot of your savings into your retirement funds.” - I anticipate that I could lower my EFC by about 10K next year and another 2K in each of the following years by shifting funds around. My income is trending down, as well, but that’s hard to predict. It’s difficult for me to begin a 4 year commitment not knowing the price tag, and my best guess is that if my income drops enough to put me at an EFC below $34,000 I will need to reassess my college budget anyway.</p>
<p>hop: “Has your daughter visited?” - D has visited both Goucher and Rhodes. Seemed to find positives at both schools. Didn’t like Memphis. I know she is trying not to tip her hand too soon in the process while she is still pushing hard for Barnard, GW or Lang.</p>
<p>oniongrass: “She doesn’t seem interested in Wyoming, so why not some different state schools?” - Wyoming is our state school, so tuition is low and generous scholarships are available. All kids are encouraged to apply as a safety. Once you are accepted you never have to reapply. Other state schools are dramatically more expensive for us.</p>
<p>Sounds like your D prefers LACs? There are many state schools out there which are generous with merit money which I suspect your D would have qualified for if she got into schools like Barnard and Oberlin.</p>
<p>She shouldn’t be pushing for Lang, at least. It won’t take her where she wants to go. it’s just not comparable to Barnard or GW.
Barnard or GW are very strong but based on what you said, they are unaffordable.
If 30K isn’t your contribution, but rather her loans + her work + your contribution, then Rhodes and Goucher are the only possible choices for her major and career.
There’s a HUGE discrepancy between your EFC (64k) and what you can afford (20-24k): could there be a mistake somewhere? Or is 20-24k what you’ve set as a budget? Could you ask for a re-evaluation of your EFC after switching some of your savings?</p>
<p>This feels very familiar since it is somewhat similar to my D’s situation. I might put a separate thread on that since I need a little parental guilt assuaged for encouraging a truly realistic look at our finances and her long term goals and debts. One thing that helped her see this was making a table with annual cost (after grants and scholarships), how the remainder was paid (parental income, 529, student income and loans), total estimated 4 year cost, total estimated loan debt and finally, monthly loan payment and percent of her income. (I also told my D that money not used or contributed to undergraduate education from our “maximum” was potentially available for graduate school.) Good luck – we are in the home stretch of this decision process!</p>
<p>texaspg: “Sounds like your D prefers LACs?” - She prefers LACs, but that can be trumped by being in the heart of NYC or DC.</p>
<p>MYOS1634: “Could you ask for a re-evaluation of your EFC after switching some of your savings?” - I’ve already done one round of appeals at most of the schools. Some of them boosted their award a bit. The difference between the official EFC and my “internal EFC” is around 30K. It seems to be a combination of my frugality, the methodology not working very well for my financial situation, and frankly, a case of sticker shock on my part. I’m not sure how rich I would need to be before I could comfortably fork over 40K to 60K while there is a legitimate 13K option available.</p>
<p>It sounds like the lower pricetag for Rhodes/Goucher imply more merit money.</p>
<p>It is your money to spend. It is quite hard on your D to have applied, got in and not being able to attend but such is life. It comes down to whether you have prepared her for it. I knew someone a couple of years ago who got into several top 20 schools but knew ahead of time her parents would not pay for it. It was to prove she could get in.</p>
<p>The problem is that UWyoming isn’t a legitimate option for your daughter’s career (or would be <em>very</em> limiting) so that 13k is a “false hope”. For some majors where one goes to school doesn’t matter much or at all. For others, factors such as location, prestige, selectivity, will matter and affect career prospects and salary prospects.
For example, her prospects are likely much higher for a job in foreign service from GW than from Goucher, but better from Goucher than from Eugene Lang, and better from Lang than from Portland State (this assuming a similar performance on her part at all schools).
BTW, mastery of a critical language and/or another language would certainly help her so she should look into the foreign language offerings and how intensive the programs are.
Good to hear that you were able to get a revision of the FA awards, even if the totals still aren’t too good for Barnard and GW. GW would be the most “bang for the buck” but falls outside your budget by far.
Rhodes and Goucher are thus the most likely colleges for her career choice.
Overall, a family would have to make at least 180-200K to comfortably pay sticker price at the high price schools and even that probably wouldn’t be super comfortable (as in, requiring adjusting some lifestyle choices – but wouldn’t entail dipping into retirement or selling half one’s possessions) and would depend on other factors. At 100k-150k income with unsellable assets, it’d become a nightmare.
However, if you can imagine a way to do the 34K, it sounds like it wouldn’t jeopardize your finances and it wouldn’t jeopardize her career prospects either.</p>