<p>Honestly we were lucky and came into an inheritance that should cover two kids. However my original plan worked pretty well which was to spend money as though we only had dh's salary and increase my business so that I was earning the cost of college by the time my kids were of age. It's pretty much worked that way. :)</p>
<p>We have always used Tuition Management Systems to pay as we go, so that is usually 10 months out of the year, much the same way people pay for heating oil here on the East Coast. It is much easier to spread the payments out, rather than making two huge lump sum payments in July/August or December/January.</p>
<p>We just got the (painfully high) EFC today. Ouch, but not entirely unexpected because of income. </p>
<p>Hence: anyone have any good tips on private loan sources? </p>
<p>I'm a little scared to (potentially) have whole tuition riding on my projected salary (haven't worked full-time in 7 yrs; have younger child).</p>
<p>The private U our kids attend also have a payment plan whereby you divide the total cost of the year by 10 monthly payments & pay on the 1st of every month. You have to pay $40/semester to participate and can either charge it to your credit card (which we do to earn points) or pay via electronic withdrawal from your checking.</p>
<p>We used the method in the first two years while S was living on campus. This year, since he's living off campus & has a significant merit award towards tuition, we just paid a lump sum for tuition each semester and gave him money in his checking account for room and board. We signed up to pay his sister's account in monthly payments, which are more convenient. </p>
<p>I know this sounds strange, but it turns out sometimes not to be as scary as it seems when you think about it too hard. Honestly, we thought it would be unsurmountable to have ONE kid go to an expensive private but now one is 3 years through with his graduation in 2 or 3 semesters (including this one). His sister has only 3 or so years to go as well, so we are happy that we haven't been confined to peanut butter and water at this point.</p>
<p>My parents in retrospect can't figure out how they managed to pay for all 7 of us to get our undergrad degrees (including one from Stanford & one at OOS public) + 6 graduate school degrees, all out-of-state. Two of these were from privates & the rest OOS publics! Three of us got some merit/need awards for grad school but the parents paid full-freight for the others. I know times were different then, but my dad was the only one with a full-time job & mom's job really didn't pay much as a part-time substitute teacher.</p>
<p>
[quote]
did a quick count, out of 22 posters who gave some details, my interpretation is that 11 use loan and 11 do not. </p>
<p>In other words, attending an expensive private does not always mean loans.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>That is true..doesn't always mean loans. As noted by the posters...many of the posters are from two income families and/or had college savings. In fact some noted that a spouse actually went to work to help with college expenses. We have small loans, but BOTH parents in this family are working FULL TIME...FULL TIME. If that weren't the case, we would have taken out loans. Our kids DO have the Stafford loans.</p>
<p>$47,800 COA, less substantial merit scholarship/grant, balance split between mother and father (long time divorced--dad paid for 9 years private primary and secondary school, 50/50 for college) </p>
<p>All paid from savings (fully employed mom) and income (fully employed dad).</p>
<p>Soph S provides his own money for extras from his work. No loans or other form of debt. </p>
<p>Total actual cost (way) less than flagship in-state university.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Most of the cost are covered by need based grant money and work study (next year).
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Dad II...are you saying that your daughter has already received her financial aid award for NEXT year? How would you know about work study for next year at this point?</p>
<p>Single parent, son never met father, never received a nickle of support, ever.</p>
<p>I lost my job 2 weeks after he was born and it took until he was 8 to get back to that salary level (32K). No saving for college took place up till that point. Now up to 70K income.</p>
<p>I saved 60K in the ten years before he graduated HS.</p>
<p>200,000 total (probably will be more)
120,000 scholarship
9,600 perkins (hopefully he will get this years 3 and 4)
19,000 subsidized stafford (3500, 4500, 5500, 5500)
51,400 My EFC X 4 plus a little more (savings/income)</p>
<p>Yes, he will have almost 29,000 in loans. I could end up helping with those depending on job situation. Here's hoping he gets one. Anything beyond undergrad is on HIM. My skin will be out of that game!</p>
<p>much like originaloog but DS took the we pay engineering school route. DS won small external scholarship, average school grant to intice him to attend, small equity loan, and big student loans to moderate loss in investment capital. Mostly saved, invested, prayed and prayed again. He's done with grad school (unless he can't find a job) and his net worth is $0, and slightly positive cash flow. This good. Worked out as planned 24 years ago.</p>
<p>Instead of a Home Equity Loan, we opted for a Home Equity Line of Credit. We had heard that some schools may consider the HE Loans as income, whereas the HELOC is not. We got the smallest one we could get from our Credit Union ($100 K) but so far we've only written checks for the outstanding balance each term. During the semester, I am paying off what we owe (divide the amount by how many months and come up with the payment). The payments come out of checking.</p>
<p>One benefit of doing it this way is that while things are going good for us we are trying to pay what we owe as quickly as possible. My husband has been on the verge of losing his job (company may close) for almost 2 years now, so it helps to know that if that happens the Credit Union's minimum payment each month is really only $50 per month. It's gives us peace of mind to know that if push comes to shove with our finances, we won't have a huge monthly payment due for that. The term on the HELOC is 10 years, so we could survive that if need be.</p>
<p>Both my husband and I were pretty ignorant about how to plan for our children's college. Instead, we paid off our house in 12 years, even though the loan was for 30 years. We "saved" over $125,000 in interest that we ended up not having to pay - by paying the house off so quickly. So, we have no rent or mortgage to pay.</p>
<p>I guess you could say we took a really indirect route to plan for college - we are the only people we know (other than people our parent's age - and even not then sometimes) who have a home paid for already.</p>
<p>But to lay it out, our situation is this:</p>
<p>1/2 tuition is a merit scholarship
School loan (kids) for $1500
Stafford loan (kids) for $1500
Work/study (for pocket expenses, books/supplies)
We pay the rest (right now)</p>
<p>I can say that I was NOT pleased with the EFC and have had many people tell me that it is an antiquated calculation that doesn't seem to be related to "reality" - no comfort there when you really can't do a thing about it.</p>
<p>Hubby almost choked when he saw what they considered disposable income. To be honest, the calculation was pretty accurate when you only look at food/clothing/shelter expenses. Perhaps that's why I still pick up pennies when I see them (and aluminum cans too at $1.55 a pound!). We live quite modestly but we have everything we "need".</p>
<p>FannyPack</p>
<p>OP:Our EFC exceed $50K and so D was not suppose to apply for FA. We had a deal with her that she won't have to take any loans if she gets into the top schools i.e. SMCHYP. Since she got early acceptances from MIT/Caltech, so she won't be taking any loans.
Here is what I've worked out with her for MIT as between the two she is tilting towards MIT.</p>
<p>Tutition - Matching to 110% of her high school tuition of $34000 i.e. upto $37500
Dorm - Single room + Dorm kitchen fee i.e $7000
MIT TechCash - $2000 per semester 'Will be provided from her Education IRA'</p>
<p>So our contribution should not exceed $45000, which is 30% increase on our current obligation towards her high school. We've also agreed to providing 2 one way tickets per semester to and from home.</p>
<p>She has agreed to do summer internship to earn $4000 per year so that she can spend upto $400 per month as she wants.
She has already saved up $4000 for the first year with 2009 summer to go.</p>
<p>Grad school is <em>totally</em> on them. D1 worked for a year before grad school, she's now old enough that our finances aren't an issue. Fortunately her field has enough funding that PhD candidates usually get 5 years of expenses.</p>
<p>Merit aid covers about 1/3 of cost, generous grandparents the rest. I hope to be in a position to do the same for my grandchildren someday. My kids are well aware of how lucky they are; I had to pay my own way through college. They are expected to work to earn their spending money.</p>
<p>We live below our means -- finished paying off DH's student loans only ten years ago. Both kids attended excellent public schools. We expected to pay for college out of current earnings, savings, HELOC, and loans/work on the kids' part. They've known this since early middle school and have been on board all along. No inheritances of any sort or grandparents who can help, now or in the future. </p>
<p>EFC is about $6k under full pay. I have been out on medical leave for the past five years but have recently gone back part time. So far, so good, but FT is definitely not in the picture. My ongoing medical expenses are large enough that our PROFILE EFC was lower than FAFSA. Refinanced the house six years ago to a 5.125% 15 year fixed -- so three years after S2 graduates, our mortgage is paid. No other debt -- but please pray for the continued health of our eight year old vehicles, one w/125k miles and the other w/156k. When S2 graduates we'll decide whether to refinance the HELOC or pay off the primary and HELOC separately, depending on interest rates.</p>
<p>This year: S1's share --
$10k merit (renews all four years)
$10,800 outside merit
$3500 unsub Stafford
$4000 employment (summer and during school year)
$27,800 total
Our share:
$25,500</p>
<p>Next year: S1's share --
$10k merit
$4500 unsub Stafford
$4000 employment
Our share: $33,800</p>
<p>Then it gets interesting. S2 heads off to school and we should get some FA at that point. Merit money for S2 is not as likely, but it depends on the school. Since I've gone back to work, we think we can avoid borrowing from the HELOC except for the two years until we have both guys in college. (College savings, such as they are, were not in the market. Whew!) Nevertheless, we don't have 120% of EFC under our mattress for those two years.</p>
<p>If S1 had taken the flagship offer, he'd have no loans and we'd have S2 paid for already. We have chosen to give them options and are grateful we can do so. We are also thankful that our kids appreciate the sacrifices this means and that they are willing and eager to contribute to the cause. They know grad school is on their dime. S1 wants a PhD and will likely TA/get funding for that; my hunch is that S2 will want to get a job, get on with his life, and then head back to school/let his employer foot the bill.</p>
<p>May it be so. They (and we) have a long way to go.</p>
<p>We are some of the non-saver, nonloan takers, but we are fairly frugal types. We didn't have money to save back then, because we didn't make much - but we started out the first in college with 2 fully paid off vehicles, and one reasonable house payment. We don't spend much on clothes or eating out or haircuts and my cosmetics budget is zero. Somehow we were able to pay the first, DD through 4 years of private University out of income, and she had a nice loan-free package and worked for her own spending money. We had one great year of schooling overlap with the kids, so that just cost us the same as having one in college. We now have only 2 more years of college payments, and Ds will graduate with loans of about eight thousand, and unless a vehicle dies, we hope to pay out of pocket for his last two years also. Our EFC has always matched the FAFSA even though this is a Profile school, and, although I would love to pay less, it has been doable. We are very grateful, and still (after 5 years) surprised that it HAS been affordable, because we faced the whole college expense issue with great trepidation and no idea how we were going to be able to afford it.
Grad school will be on their own dime, however. When we were in grad school, we already had babies and jobs and we definitely paid our own way! :eek:</p>
<p>cash (not literally of course)</p>
<p>A public school (OOS), but...</p>
<p>$24,000/year COA</p>
<p>Year 1
~80% of costs covered by merit aid</p>
<p>Parents paid: ~$5,000</p>
<p>Year 2
~$70% of costs covered by merit aid</p>
<p>Parents paid: $7200 (Greek dues added in)</p>
<p>Year 3
~$67% of the costs covered by merit aid</p>
<p>Parents paid: $7,900 (tuition increase :( )</p>
<p>Year 4
(?)</p>
<p>Hopefully, my merit aid will be intact--additionally, I should make ~$6,000 via my part-time position junior and senior years, with an extra $2,200 awarded for future education expenses. Thus, I'm hoping my parents will only have to pay ~$2,000 for that year. (Oh, and thank you very much to my parents! :) )</p>
<p>Grad school?
Hoping, probably in vain, for funding. If not, I guess we'll see...</p>
<p>Son is at an OOS public. Our costs, after his scholarship is factored in, are about $25K (this year - I'm sure it will increase next year). We currently have $50K saved in a 529 plan for him. The value of that fund dropped quite a lot this year, so I plan to leave it alone until his Junior year. Until then, we're paying his first and second year's tuition out of current income.</p>
<p>D also has a 529. Hopefully she will get a merit scholarship and the costs will be similar to S's. If we have to pay more for her, we can do so from our personal savings (not retirement). We will not be taking any loans.</p>
<p>Footing the bill for grad school is on them.</p>
<p>Similar here. We were very luck in that the school which had the best program for him was also generous in merit aid. The COA (public, OOS) is about $28K per year. He has $13K-$14K per year in merit scholarships, $10K per year from us, and the rest he earns in various ways (or gets special project grants from his school). Total debt: none.</p>
<p>When he started, we had about $15K in a 529 plan, and the money we paid per year to him was pushed through the 529 plan to get the tax advantages.</p>
<p>Biggest problem was that just befoe he started as a freshman, I lost my job and was unemployed for a year. Severance paid for almost half of the year, but it got tight after that until I was rehired.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>Biggest problem was that just befoe he started as a freshman, I lost my job<<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Whoa, digmedia, every senior parent's nightmare! Glad that things worked out for you.</p>