<p>Maybe you should encourage your daughter to register and post on this forum. There are some great minds here who can give her a good talking to. You’re a great dad to be willing to pay $30k/year for her. Don’t let her make you feel otherwise. </p>
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That’s irksome. Unless your financial situation is very complicated, there is no “just in case” – the FAFSA EFC is almost always going to be the minimum you will pay, with CSS/Profile adding on more. You said that the EFC is around $64K – if that’s what came back on FAFSA, then there is no way that you would get anything more than token aid at any college. </p>
<p>It might be different if you had a quirky financial situation – but it sounds to me like you have a good but not absolutely certain income, coupled with enough in savings to run up the EFC significantly - but no one is obligated to exhaust their savings to send their kid to college. </p>
<p>I really wish the college counselors would spend more time focusing on learning the ins and outs of financial aid and give their students meaningful advice and support in that respect. </p>
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<p>I can feel that you waver in these discussions – and your D can feel it, too. She probably figures (possibly based on past experience) that you will cave if she is stubborn enough. I think your best offer is on the table. If you have appealed all the FA decisions and none have come back within your budget, then that is that. Seems like her choices are the 5 affordable colleges (still with loans), or take a gap year and apply again with exactly the same set of financial restrictions the next time around. </p>
<p>Believe it or not, if your D heads to Rhodes or Goucher, in a couple of years she will probably be fine with that choice; one of my kids ended up at a school that is about the equivalent of one of those even though she was accepted to a few higher ranked schools. She did incredibly well and wouldn’t trade her experience.</p>
<p>Your D just has a few days to make up her mind. I think you need to stop calling and make it clear she has to decide among those schools, or she won’t be going to college at all in the fall.</p>
<p>Lots of great comments in this thread. Building on a couple of them. I would guess intparent is correct that your daughter is being persistent for a reason … she can sense your waivering or her persistence has worked in the past. I think offering her an option other than the $30k options she has now is reasonable. We have $30k … if you do not like the options you have at that price we could do this … you can take a gap year and we’ll pay for another round of applications of schools you pick that you can attend on $30k. This years lists was not a good one (too expensive or she doesn’t like them) … give her an opening to find a better solution.</p>
<p>“And during that year you can work and save all your money to increase that $30,000 by $3,000 or $4,000.” Since your EFC is so high already, her savings from a year of work should not have much impact on the packages. If you think it will, you can charge her rent and bank the money in your name earmarked for her.</p>
<p>PS - a suggestion on some self-reflection on how frugal you are being. When I hear comments about “retirement first” I often cringe when I see the descriptions on CC of how this is being implemented (and yes we have far less than all the details). I agree with the sentiment … but for me it means will I have enough to retire WHEN I want to retire … that does not mean do I have enough to retire now or before I help pay for my kids school. We’re full pay which looks pretty nutty but we only went that route when I realized the kids college years were BY FAR our tighest financial time … we could suspend our contributions to retirement funds during the tightest of those years (when we have 2 on school) … and we’d still be OK on our retirement schedule. Actually, assuming social security does not go belly up we’re going be just fine in retirement. For me it would have been terrible to limit my kids colleges and the 10 years after they were done to realize I had confused a cash flow squeeze with a true net worth (non) issue.</p>
<p>It sounds like your daughter and her guidance counselor know you are well-off. Perhaps this 64k isn’t a quirk of the system (we don’t know, let’s imagine you make more than 180-200k.) Therefore, they must have assumed you would pay for the “better” colleges since your daughter worked hard for them, got into them, and you “can” afford them. Your daughter may be posting here “my parents can afford the colleges I got into but won’t pay”. This is often very bruising for kids, if their parents have the money but don’t seem to value their education to the cost of the private, expensive college they got into. In the threads, it often comes out as “my parents are selfish, they value their Lexus and vacations more than my education and my future”. I guess that’s where your daughter is coming from - would that reflect her points or am I off-base?
On the other hand, you have your budget. There are a few options that work (Rhodes and Goucher) both for the budget and her goals.</p>
<p>So the solutions are simple
1° she attends one of the schools that are within budget
2° she takes a gap year
3° you reconsider your budget</p>
<p>If 3° is impossible and your daughter won’t do 1°, then the only remaining solution is 2°.</p>
<p>Only you know whether that’s a firm budget (ie., anything else would force you to dip into a retirement fund, look into HELOC, deprive younger children of a college education, alter debilitating illness care…) or whether it’s a target (hopefully you wouldn’t spend more than that, you don’t want to spend more/you don’t feel college is worth more, but if push came to shove, you really could spend more.) Is it a matter of “can’t” or a matter of “won’t” and does it matter here? If your budget really is target, then it’s a family discussion about what that would entail and mean to your family in terms of sacrificing and what your daughter would have to do to “respect” those sacrifices (and what those sacrifices would entail for her, too). Often, when kids go to a higher-priced school (which remains within the family’s price range), that means working all summer (either at home or on campus) and no study abroad unless it’s the same cost as attending their college. Is that something you can imagine?
If not and your daughter won’t consider Rhodes or Goucher, only solution 2° remains.
I would send in a deposit at one of the two, see if she can get excited about it, but if she keeps thinking it’s a bad choice, then it becomes a risk that she’ll sabotage herself… Hopefully she can get excited about her college choices: has she joined the FB page for admitted students? Checked out the admitted student pages on the websites?</p>
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<p>I agree with Intparent. There’s nothing wrong with setting a reasonable budget and sticking to it. When my children were young and they wanted x, but we could only afford y or z, we didn’t entertain discussions about x because x just wasn’t possible. We acknowledged x was nice, it would have been nice to be able to afford x, but the product features we had to consider were those of y and z. </p>
<p>Colleges are no different. If you can only afford y and z, take x off the table. I would sit down with her and the list of colleges you (and your spouse) agree ahead of time that you can afford and tell her you will help her choose one of them or, if she prefers, help her draw up a new list of schools she can apply to while she takes a gap year. If she mentions x, I would gently but firmly guide her back to y and z because you don’t have time to be sidetracked by something you can’t comfortably afford. </p>
<p>I think if parents are firm that their child’s choices are school a, b, or c, OR a gap year, most kids are going to find what they liked enough about a, b, or c enough to apply in the first place and pick one rather than stay home. I don’t believe it hurts them in the long run. If they’re certain it will, then maybe a gap year is in order. There’s nothing like trying to earn the gap money yourself to make a person appreciate the work that goes into getting it.</p>
<p>I’m partly sympathetic to your D’s frustration. But she’s not alone. There are many, many, many students who are learning that they can’t afford to go to the places where they’ve been admitted. The vast majority of them are bucking up, saying to their friends “I wish money wasn’t a consideration…”. And then they’re moving on. At least, that’s what D2 is reporting that she’s hearing from her friends. They’re 17, 18, and they’re mature enough to realize that there are limitations.</p>
<p>So, time for your D to grow up. Like the Stones sang, you can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometime you just might find you get what you need. </p>
<p>Budget is based on self-employment income which is trending downward. Inadequate retirement funds which are mostly in real estate, so they are not sheltered from FAFSA. I have another child who is 13, so I need to offer him the same opportunity, and if I suspend adding to my retirement savings until everybody’s done with college I will be 61 at that point. Both our cars are over 10 years old. Our budget and attitude about loans have been communicated to D since well before admissions process started, but since the path forward isn’t clear I have been continuing to research and receive input from D and from this very helpful discussion thread. $30K budget is right on the cusp of feeling like too much money for a degree that is not leading to a tech job, banking, med school or law school. Especially compared to state university at 13K. Daughter would thrive in LAC setting, but are Goucher or Rhodes really worth 34K? I wonder if GW Elliot School might be worth it at $40K (currently net price is $52K). I’m not exactly wavering, but I am hearing out her arguments, and the final net price of some of these schools hasn’t totally solidified. She is pitching for us to co-sign on large loans. I think that’s a terrible idea. D does have a history of getting her way, usually by fundraising for her portion (private school, study abroad, Ivy League Model UN), but this is big time money we are talking about now. I admire my daughter’s ambition and passion about school, and my style is to keep the debate open until the last minute, but I realize that is unwise. She needs time to adjust to reality and sort things out, and she can’t do that if she is fighting tooth and nail until midnight on 5/1. I have set a deadline of this Sunday at noon. At that point debate will be closed, and wife and I will review all the info and present D with the final decree of specific schools that we are willing to pay for. Then she will have 5 days to choose.</p>
<p>One thing that always makes me uneasy in these discussions is that people tend to have very different defintions of “afford.” We know that the EFC can be wrong, but it’s not arbitrary. But we don’t know if a parent’s estimation of what he can afford is arbitrary or not. I think there’s a big difference between “we can’t afford more than 30K because the following negative financial impacts would occur…” and “I don’t think any fancy college is worth more than 30K a year.” If you want agreement from your kid, you need to explain the details of the financial impacts, if it’s the first reason. If it’s the second reason, it will be difficult to get agreement from your kid if you didn’t make this clear from the beginning.</p>
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<p>I disagree. I live amidst too many former IBMers who thought exactly that and who’ve had to scramble after rounds and rounds and rounds of lay offs. We have retirement accounts. My husband will qualify for a pension when he retires. But, we’re basing our college plans on what would happen if he lost his job tomorrow, not on money we haven’t earned yet.</p>
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You need to read this thread about banks calling due on student loans when the cosigner dies. <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1643094-private-student-loan-borrowers-face-automatic-default-because-of-co-signer-provisions.html”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/parents-forum/1643094-private-student-loan-borrowers-face-automatic-default-because-of-co-signer-provisions.html</a> </p>
<p>The way the tax code is set up, it makes no sense not to contribute to retirement 401ks or IRAs every year. You can’t stop for some years and then make it up. I know this. I was unemployed or unemployed for years, and started my retirement sayings very late. I’m way behind, and now shoving every dollar allowed into accounts, but I’m limited. I can’t get back those years</p>
<p>Your daughter has no right to even ask if you’ll take out parent plus loans. She has a good alternative to stay will within your budget, to go to school without taking any loans. Whether you offered her $30k or $50k or $100k, that is your choice. Her choice is to take it or not go to school at all. YOU need to get rid of your guilt. You’ve made a generous offer, you’ve provided for your family and her education, and now she needs to get over her teen princess thinking and live like a member of your family, which sadly for her isn’t the Buffett family or the Trump family. I was once a teenage girl. I know how self-centered a teen princess can be. Like your daughter, I used to work to make things happen the way I wanted them to and sometimes had the illusion I was in charge of everything. I wasn’t. She isn’t. </p>
<p>Lose the guilt. She has the option of Wyoming or, if she can come up with an extra $4000 and wants to live like a pauper, Rhodes or Goucher. That’s it. Those are her choices.</p>
<p>I was one who years ago followed curmudgeon and his mudgette on her path to Rhodes. From all appearances it looks like the choice was an excellent one and I think it could work for your daughter as well. The Rhodes website is currently down but have you researched study away opportunities at Rhodes? There might be an opportunity to spend a semester at GW or American, giving her the chance to make connections that could lead to a summer job in DC. Does she have any AP credits that would let her graduate early? You might be able to save a semester of tuition.</p>
<p>Rhodes and Goucher are absolutely a bargain at 34K. Not in the same class as UWyoming or Portland State - not because they’re “fancy” colleges but because the breadth and depth of education, the drive of her peers, the residential experience, the new opportunities, and the general new perspectives it’ll give her, aren’t comparable.
Now, GWU is another (big) step up from Goucher and Rhodes – pretty much the best there is for international relations in the entire country. For her currently chosen career, it’s the equivalent of Harvard. Actually better than Barnard, regardless of ranking and whatnot.
To give a analogy: if your daughter wanted to learn how to be a pilot, UWyoming would be like learning hanggliding, Goucher/Rhodes would be learning in an actual small plane, and GWU Elliot would be the jet.
If you can (or your daughter can) bring GWU’s price to 40K, all power to you! I don’t think it’ll be successful though but you still have 2 days to try.
If none of the options appeal to your daughter, she’ll have to take a gap year with a clear plan of action: perhaps retest for high ACT/SAT scores, perhaps do a high school year-abroad through YFU or AFS - both to enhance her application and increase the odds of automatic/competitive merit aid - then go for merit at American + see into which top honors colleges she can get and into which critical language flagships.
“Fundraising to pay for programs she got into” would not equal with “getting her way” though. She sounds like she is resourceful, smart, and driven. Perhaps the gap year will work in that context. </p>
<p>I have a lot of empathy for the OP. When our kids were little many of us probably believed a bachelor’s degree would be the “golden ticket” to a secure future for them. When our son was little (and an only child) we used to joke that we’d just pay off our 15-year mortgage by the time he turned 17, sell the house, and use a portion of the proceeds to finance his “college education.” </p>
<p>Fast forward 15 years and a LOT has changed, both in terms of the health of our nation’s economy and our own financial situation. Job losses, catastrophic health issues, a brutal marketplace where a bachelor’s degree (except in a few very select STEM fields) is worth no more than a high school diploma a generation ago, and we’re facing a VERY sobering situation. Maybe because of all that upheaval neither of my kids has an entitlement mentality. This is one of the silver linings that comes from suffering a little adversity. </p>
<p>It sounds like OP’s daughter is very fortunate to have grown up in a stable and loving home, where she’s lived a life of relative affluence. It’s VERY hard for kids to imagine what it would be like NOT to have all that security, but part of being a parent is helping them understand that, while it’s important to face life with optimism, it’s vital to prepare for inevitable setbacks. Ergo, hope for the best, but prepare for the worst. </p>
<p>If she really wants a life in foreign service, she needs to understand that the vast majority of the world’s population does not have the security net she does and a security net should never be taken for granted or abused. You’re offering her two pricey options in Rhodes and Goucher at no small price to you and the rest of your family. Would she still want you to pay for the pricier options if that meant that’s all she would EVER receive from you and your wife? Help her understand what the price difference between Rhodes/Goucher and Barnard/GW would be in practical terms. $120,000 would make a lovely down-payment on a home one day or help pay private school tuition for her own kids.</p>
<p>Your daughter needs to realize that money spent on x won’t be there to spend on y and that she’s part of a family of four individuals and not entitled to a disproportionate portion of your wealth as you face retirement. </p>
<p>Perhaps she and you will come to the conclusion that the GW “jet” education MYOS describes is worth the cost, but then she needs to fully understand that she’s on her own from that point forward, and you need to put it all in writing. Call her bluff and see what she says.</p>
<p>Good point. It’s mixture of both. If the only way to assure my daughter’s future was to pay $62K per year. I would do it in a heart beat - no matter what the sacrifice. But there are other paths to success than a highly selective private college, so if there are other important uses for that money (emergencies, retirement, kid #2) then it becomes a matter of balancing competing demands for limited resources, and the value added by going to an expensive college has to be closely examined. That’s why I was wondering earlier how rich does one have to be to feel like $62K per year is worth it. By the way, GWU just turned down our appeal.</p>
<p>The above was a reply to Hunt’s comment: "One thing that always makes me uneasy in these discussions is that people tend to have very different defintions of “afford.” </p>
<p>You should not feel guilty. D2 and her friends know parents who can afford multiple times over the private expenses cost but decide to pick a state school. Kids need to know and taught the value of money even if the family can afford it. They will be successful in the long run anyway.</p>
<p>Another thing I like to add there are a lot of information on the net, those questions that were trained/prepped at Princeton and Harvard might be available online anyway, those maybe the advantages before the internet was available is now dissipate into almost negligible.</p>