<p>I still want to know how that much was spent even though they had “great merit scholarships”</p>
<p>If your parent’s make “a little too much” for financial aid, consider that your parent’s EFC will be split when you have another sibling in college. It’s usually a 60/40 split.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>I think it’s a 60/60 split for CSS Profile schools that promise to meet need (as they define need).</p>
<p>Sorry mom2collegekids. You are correct 60/60. Both my kids go to schools that promise to meet need and we have benefited from both being in school and well endowed schools.</p>
<p>Not to worry your emerald kitty head about my retirement plan—you’ll be happy to know it remains untouched and no one will be paying for my retirement but me. </p>
<p>And just to clear up everyone’s interest in my daughter–she is a senior in high school about to go to OSU in the fall to study biology and then has plans for med school. So 8 years at the current rate of 4 years of regular tuition and then 4 years of med school tuition is over $320,000. The numbers are on their website if you’re interested. To get the total number of over $500K, my son’s education is roughly $54K a year for 4 years. You can do the math. Never said I was PAYING all of that…said that is the cost of their education. </p>
<p>To help someone else in understanding our finances–I never said we qualify for ZERO financial aid. I said we don’t qualify for FULL financial aid. Big difference. Don’t read between the lines --read the words. </p>
<p>@ Romanigypsie–you’re absolutely right–many fields DO NOT require a highly selective education. I think I covered that in my post. But there are those where it WILL make a difference. I also DO NOT believe that highly selective schools are meant for EVERYONE. If my son did not have the honest, god given aptitude for it, I would have urged him to look into other schools and he wouldn’t have been accepted to ND anyway. </p>
<p>And to Polarscribe…didn’t want to pick on any particular school as the lesser of the schools in the example, so I chose the for-profit institutions. If you set even the best state schools up against the highly selective schools—I can tell you which one wins in a head to head match-every-single-time. I know everyone hates the truth and I hate to admit it myself that my $5,000 a year state school education is not worth what a Harvard degree is–but it JUST ISN’T. That’s why I am trying desperately to do more for my kids. </p>
<p>I won’t tell any of you how to educate your kids or what’s best for them. I would really appreciate it if the rest of you would not gang up on people and try and tell them what is best for theirs. I merely wanted to answer Ctate94’s question about how to pay for high tuition schools. Don’t go around knocking everyone down who don’t do things your way. </p>
<p>Hope that helps put a rest to all of your concerns.</p>
<p>I don’t post often but it does really bother me that high school kids will come here and read this type of stuff. Where there is a will, there is a way to get an education, sure…but not a pricey private school education. </p>
<p>The vast, vast majority of families of 4 grossing 45k cannot afford to pay 550k for college educations no matter how badly they would like to. In fact they probably haven’t even netted 550k in the past 18 years! They should’nt even be buying houses that pricey let alone spending it on college educations. I would also be willing to bet that most families grossing 45k don’t go on frequent vacations, drive pricey cars, or eat out often.</p>
<p>There is a LONG ways between having a child who has’nt even graduated from high school yet and saying you’ve paid for her med school. A long ways.</p>
<p>Another thing to remember is that while your parents may not qualify for FA right now, if you are still be in college when your younger sibling(s) are, you may qualify then. (Did not see above posts.)</p>
<p>Once again–difficulties in comprehension. Never did I say we’ve paid off med school. Please show me that post if I am incorrect. Also–my income is NOT $45K–never said that was mine–that was simply an example of someone I know of who applied for aid and did not get full aid. I do not feel the need to divulge my income level to appease anyone’s interest.</p>
<p>I think OP’s question has been answered by other posters</p>
<p>How do you pay for an expensive college with a net cost of $100,000 or more and where parental income or assets are not high enough. Here are you choices, some can be combined while others are mutually exclusive
[ol]
[<em>]Do not go to that college, find a less expensive college where the perceived quality/value is comparative or possibly even lower but the compromise is well worth it.
[</em>]Save or be lucky to have parents who have saved
[<em>]Work and save money or join the military for the educational opportunities or find an employer who will pay for the education etc etc.
[</em>]Borrow and possibly be paying of the debt in the decades to come.
[/ol]</p>
<p>In other words, many students make the tough and possibly the right choice, and go the school that they can afford rather than the school that is hyped up. It happens more often than you think. Is that right or should college only be for the rich etc. etc. are irrelevant questions now. The question should be “What are the colleges that I can realistically afford?”</p>
<p>To the OP from one of those with experience - I think you have to work with your parents to see if there is a way. If they make enough so that they don’t get much if any need based aid, they may be able to help you get through, but they may not. It may just be too much.</p>
<p>For our first daughter, we had saved a little, enough to cover the first year. She had some scholarships (the same as you have). She took out a student loan, which was small. She did some work study that helped a bit. And we took out some short term loans that we were able to keep paid down because I got lucky and had some good bonuses at work. So we got through. But it was a close run thing, as they say. And her overall cost to attend was less than yours.</p>
<p>I will say if you had an interest in engineering, a student can go the co-op route and earn a good bit towards school for themselves. That’s what I did as an undergrad, and it helped a good bit.</p>
<p>PS to the OP - I will say that getting a $40k scholarship and saving up that much money as a teenager is to be commended. I hope you and your parents can come up with a way to make it happen. But if not, I bet you end up with a great education somewhere you end up loving.</p>
<p>I think bradison’s post #16 is pretty much right on. You don’t HAVE to attend or pay for the highly-selective school, but if you feel that the cost difference between that and a flagship state school–either in-state or OOS–has value & is worth the extra investment, go for it. Even more if you can close the gap with merit & need-based aid.</p>
<p>For my two daughters, I did not think it was. Of course, this was a decision partially borne by the fact that I could not afford $50K/yr times 4 times 2, no way, no how. Add to that the fact that as a middle-classer income-wise, top privates were not going to shoot near enough money my way to close that gap much. So plan B was the flagship OOS’s, and it has & is in the process of working well. Still have to take out loans to do it, and hoping that these schools–both in the USN&WR Top 60–will have enough panache to merit a second look by resume-screeners. More importantly, both D’s were & are with smart colleagues on campus that have good habits & strong goals. That’s all you can ask.</p>
<p>bradison,</p>
<p>What was confusing to the rest of us, was that you did not clearly distinguish in your posts between the total projected sticker-price of your children’s educations, and what your family is actually paying. If they both have landed significant scholarships, those two things (at least through the undergraduate level) are very distinct. The OP has a merit scholarship offer in hand and is asking how his/her family can come up with the difference. Other than essentially stating “we all have a bunch of jobs, and we make it work”, you have not given any particularly detailed guidance.</p>
<p>What would be more useful for the OP (and other students who find this thread in the future) would be if you could give a clearer breakdown. For example:</p>
<p>ND COA = $X
Merit/Need/Whatever Aid = $Z
$X - $Z met by the combination of:
Parent Savings $A
Parent Current Income $B
Parent Second Job Income at Fill-in-type-of-job-here $C
Parent Third/Fourth/Whatever Job Income at Still-another-type(s)-of-job-here $D
Parent Loans $E
Student Saving $F
etc.</p>
<p>This is the kind of information that our readers need in order to figure out whether or not they can do “whatever needs to be done” in order to achieve a goal that they are trying to determine the value of.</p>
<p>ctate–you have done really well to save that kind of money, and a $10K/yr merit x 4 on a $40K/yr COA is pretty good too. But reality is where either your folks will step & take on PLUS loans (beyond your own Stafford loans you’ll get) or you must reevaluate your dream school. That’s it in a nutshell. This isn’t about the value of anything because unless someone makes up that $100K (minus the Staffords, making it probably about $80K) over 4 years, it ain’t gonna happen anyway. And in your parents’ defense, I’m certain an argument could be made both ways–I know, I was there.</p>
<p>Just remember, this scenario is being played and replayed many times over about right now between kids & parents. Get some acceptances from schools that cost 50-75% of what you’re looking at now, and do some comparison shopping.</p>
<p>ctate, something to keep in mind is that you need to figure out how much tuition+living expenses will change from year to year over four years. One good resource for projecting this is [College</a> Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/collegenavigator/]College”>College Navigator - National Center for Education Statistics). Look at the total cost of attending over the past few years, and calculate the rate at which your out of pocket costs will go up each year. Some schools guarantee locking in tuition at the freshman year rate, but room and board etc etc aren’t fixed. </p>
<p>FWIW, my vote is for you going to your in-state schools. Any young person who can save big bucks is going to be the kind of student who can take advantage of the opportunities available at either of your state U’s. </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>bradison, increased fees and inflation will bump this total up significantly.</p>
<p>One way to think about this is to go to the faculty bios at some of the elite universities. You will see that many did go to elite colleges themselves, but many didn’t, and some went to second and third tier undergraduate schools.</p>
<p>The OP has not returned to clarify what exactly he or she is interested to hear, unless what he or she really wants is a bunch of stories about how others have managed. The answer, of course, is “it depends.” How I’m going to manage is different from how someone else with lesser or greater income, with lesser or greater savings, with more or less inclination/ability to fork over the EFC, etc., will manage. The OP has said his or her parents make “a little too much for need-based aid,” which would suggest that their EFC is a nontrivial amount. Does the OP want stories to take back to his or her Ps to convince them that other people just like them are managing this? The data are in: Many people are. Some may not wish to make the investment even if they can theoretically afford it (according to a given school’s formulas). I hope the OP’s parents are willing to help, because they should be mighty proud of a kid who has already demonstrated, by saving $15K, a strong commitment to his or her education.</p>
<p>My suggestion is that, simply put, you don’t. I’d suggest you think very, very carefully before going to a school that is going to cost that much money, unless you’ll be coming out with an engineering degree which would more than likely help to pay off any loans you may take. There are plenty of great schools that don’t cost as much for a quality education. You don’t want to come out of college with a sob story featured on Good Morning America about how you spent $100,000 on a degree in English or Drama and can’t find a job. I attend UNC which has an excellent reputation, but is also very affordable. If this truly is your dream school, and you will be earning a <em>valuable</em> degree, I’d say go for it, but be prepared for the loan payments afterwards.</p>
<p>… </p>
<p>Bradison quote: "To help someone else in understanding our finances–I never said we qualify for ZERO financial aid. I said we don’t qualify for FULL financial aid. Big difference. Don’t read between the lines --read the words. "</p>
<p>Uh…yes, you did…</p>
<p>“Make too much to qualify for aide but not nearly enough to pay tuition with ease but I refuse to not allow them to become everything they can become.*”</p>
<p>Saying that you “make too much to qualify for aid” is saying that you didn’t get need-based aid. read your own words. </p>
<p>======</p>
<p>Bradison quote:</p>
<p>“And just to clear up everyone’s interest in my daughter–she is a senior in high school about to go to OSU in the fall to study biology and then has plans for med school”</p>
<p>well, that does clear one thing up…in an earlier post you said that she was heading to OSU to become a doctor. You don’t become a doctor while pursuing an undergrad degree. Your D is a high school senior…who the heck knows if she’ll ever become a doctor. 75% of pre-med students never end up applying to med school. And of the remaining 25% that do apply, about half aren’t accepted. </p>
<p>And I agree with the poster who has concerns about how a young person might read your posts. The “where there’s a will, there’s a way” attitude is not what many kids need to hear in regards to families funding college. It suggests to them that if their parents can’t fund the schools of their dream that they either did something wrong, or the parents don’t want them to be “all that they can be.” </p>
<p>There’s a whole host of reasons why parents may not or cannot fund the full cost of “going away to college” for all of their kids.</p>