<p>My D is considering two colleges that seem equal on paper. She seems happy with both. One cost $6k/year tuition and the other $30k/year. Our family is just beyond the income threshold which would give any need-based aid (although the cost of the more expensive school will be about 1/3 of our after tax income). I want her to make the choice that's best for her. However, if she isn't strongly leaning toward the $30k school I would like to have her consider cost as an issue in making her decision. Should I offer her an incentive to go to the less expensive school? Make her pay for some of the more expensive school? Just let whatever happens happen? Any ideas?</p>
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I want her to make the choice that's best for her. However, if she isn't strongly leaning toward the $30k school I would like to have her consider cost as an issue in making her decision
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<p>I don't think there would be any shame in telling her this.</p>
<p>We are going through exactly the same thing in our household. We have said aloud to my D, "boy, wouldn't it be nice to not have to pay a huge tuition bill" and "Gee, if you go to the public university, you could bring your car!" Hoping that she is listening.</p>
<p>You need to discuss value with her. If the schools are equally good, then it does not make sense to spend $30K when you can get a great education for $6K. If she is mature enough to go off to college she is mature enough to consider value, and the impact of her college expenses on the overall family finances.
We all wish we could give our kids carte blanche for college but it's not always possible.</p>
<p>You mention that the two schools seem the same "on paper".Does that mean you haven't visited?
Perhaps the value of each school would be revealed more to you on an in person visit?
we are actually having a similar debate..S's choices range from nearly free (as a NMF) to almost 35,000/yr (a U who so far has awarded him no merit aid).We will be visitng the schools we havent seen yet in Feb-March to compare the quality ..especially of the specific program he is interested in.</p>
<p>I really don't know what would be best for our child (since, although we will feel the pinch, we can afford the 42K cost). Ultimately we feel that she has to make this decision herself. I sat down and made a list of pros and cons of each school for my D...and there are many differences. My D is deciding between a Boston private and a suburban Florida public...opposites! Believe it or not, the public is rated higher by US News than the private expensive school. We just visited the public and will revisit the private if she needs to at the beginning of April (after she gets an acceptance letter).</p>
<p>If she's leaning toward the more expensive one, I think it would be appropriate to ask her to articulate some reasons. If, for instance, it has a program she's interested in, or she really feels there are definite differences in the general feel of the student body or campus climate which would make it a better fit, then I'd take those reason into consideration, and pay for it if I could. OTOH, if it's a vague, "I dunno, I just like it", I'd have a lot more discussion about value. </p>
<p>We ended up paying for the more expensive schools for our kids, but we believe they had good reasons for choosing them.</p>
<p>We told our kids we can pay $25,000 (more or less) a year total. And we told them that from the get-go, so they could plan accordingly. Son #1 had to look at all his offers of merit aid and choose a school within the ones he could afford. (He liked all the schools he applied to.) Son #2 may be in a different position, he's only a HS junior, he will probably look at out-of-state schools, but not private, schools.</p>
<p>It really comes down to -- Can you actually make those tuition payments??? They get harder as the years go by - not easier. You really need to think hard about that. You can get caught up in the mindset of, Well everyone else figures out how to pay that $40,000/yr tuition/room/board bill. But that just isn't true. I think the majority of kids are going to colleges within their budgets or taking out loans, or both.</p>
<p>I'm a little confused - have you talked to her about costs at all? Does she give you reason to think she is clueless about cost? Have you at some point said "decide where you want to go, and we'll worry about cost later?".</p>
<p>First of all, take a very hard look at your finances and your attitude about money and education. This area is the first big financial decision most kids will make, a financial decision that may well impact the rest of their lives. They are also looking at the place where they may well meet their future spouse, and all that implies for their future financial and emotional well-being. I think therefore, it is very important for the kids to participate in this decision, as partner with their parent, but not the leader (particularly on the financial side) - that means it is very important that you know how much you are willing to spend, and under what circumstances - before you talk with her.</p>
<p>Then I would just talk to her about it - both of you should make a list of pros and cons of the 2 schools, as well as an outline of the financial implications of both choices (this will be more on your part, than hers, but include the impact of loans on her). I doubt very seriously that these 2 schools are truly comparable, if one costs $6K and the other $30K - but that does not mean that she can't like them equally or be equally happy and accomplished at either school - the differences are probably intangibles, and each family has to put their own price on those. </p>
<p>Chances are that you two can come to a satisfactory resolution, going through the pencil and paper exercise - if she is truly happy at either school. It is not at all unreasonable to budget how much you truly can afford for school - and guarantee her that money, then she can decide how to spend it. This is roughly what we did with our child, who turned down a negative cost situation to attend a dream school - our situation was different, though, in that it was all about the money, the schools were starkly different, and though she would have gotten a satisfactory education at either, the quality of her education, peers and overall experience were not at all the same. We, the parents, knew that the one school was much better than the other for her, it was a matter of us coming to terms with the notion that we were going to spend our money that way, on this kid.</p>
<p>Our family faced a similar situation and used it to do a little bit of education on life's choices. The amount we could afford for DD was halfway between the higher and lower cost schools. We told DD the choice was hers. The higher priced school would require student loans and lots of summer work, or she could choose the the lower priced school and use the extra money for a car or travel or whatever. Message received. [Postscript: One of our neighbors stopped at "It's your choice son" and ended up taking out $130K in loans when the young man chose the more expensive school!]</p>
<p>Looking at the schools make sure that you all at everything because sometimes when you calculate everything back in sometimes the need based, meet 100% demonstrated need school can sometimes be less expensive than the lesser priced school where you are paying full price out of pocket (I know this was the case in our house).</p>
<p>Also you can not alway equate value in terms of $ and Cents. Is your daughter tied to a particular program?
If yes, is one school "better" than the other interms of research opportunities, internships, professors in the field, placement, support services, quality of life, etc.</p>
<p>while the $6000 school may look less expensive on paper, how much are you spending for. Consider some of the following:</p>
<p>Is tuition a flat full time fee or do you pay additional monies for more than 12 credits?</p>
<p>Room and board vs. the cost to commute (wear and tear on the car, gas, maintenance, parking etc). </p>
<p>If she choses the $6000 school will the opportunity to live on campus even be an option ?</p>
<p>Incidential charges, phone network services, other fees</p>
<p>Average class size</p>
<p>Ease of getting into courses</p>
<p>do you have to spend additional monies for courses that have lab/ studio time</p>
<p>what is the 4 year graduation rate (it most students graduate in 6 years, calculate that cost of room and board into your potential total bill)</p>
<p>Are there cost saving that you can capture in the future (If D becomes an RA will she get a free room?)</p>
<p>At the 30,000 school</p>
<p>Does 30,000 cover the full Cost of Attendance (tuition, room, board, fees, books, misc).</p>
<p>with the need based FA does it meet 100% of your demonstrated need
is your need based on using info from the FAFSA only or FAFSA + Profile (or school's institutional aid forms)</p>
<p>Average amount of grant aid (free money)</p>
<p>Avg amount of debt a student graduates with.</p>
<p>Is your D interested in a study abroad program? Is it a school sponsored program where D's FA can be transferred to the Study abroad</p>
<p>what is the 4 year/ 6 year graduation rate</p>
<p>average class size</p>
<p>Ease of getting into courses, completing pre-req reqirements</p>
<p>Are can she get any AP credits to reduce course load?</p>
<p>Are there possible cost savings that she can recoup (becoming a RA for free room?)</p>
<p>$100k difference is a pretty big downpayment on a house!</p>
<p>But, just suppose for a second, you told her she could use the $120k tuition money any way she chose, and asked her to come up with a plan to actually spend it. The less expensive school would then allow for huge amounts of foreign travel, unpaid internships and summer programs, a post-graduate year (painting in Florence?), two years of medical school, a masters degree in engineering, the list goes on.</p>
<p>What I am saying is that once you've decided that amount is set aside for education in any case, that extra $100k can purchase an awful lot in the way of learning opportunities, perhaps offsetting any possible advantage to be found in the higher priced school.</p>
<p>I've been thinking along the lines of mini's note. I view college as an investment. However, it does seem to me that a large percentage of LAC students are primarily prepared for graduate or professional education. If I pay for the more expensive school (which is $40K including room and board), I'm not sure if I'll be able to help in graduate school. It seems to me that large college debts are a huge burden to young people and may not, on a pure financial basis, make sense.</p>
<p>On the other hand, my father died early in my college freshman year and I was forced to transfer to the least expensive college I could find. I've often regretted that even though I was eventually able to put myself through graduate school in engineering and now find myself (from the college financial aid point of view) without documented need. I don't want my daughter to feel that I held her back but I want to make a reasonable investment in her future. </p>
<p>If it were my choice, I'd pick the $6k tuition school ($12K with room and board). [Note: The inexpensive school is Mary Washington in Virginia.] But it's not my choice and somehow it's not her choice either. This is a key decision in her life and I'm trying to approach this as peer-to-peer decision rather than one between an adult and a child.</p>
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Man, that's eerie. I believe I have spoken those exact words in that exact order. LOL. I added "and I'm giving you fair warning. You better be prepared for this specific question, 'what do you get for our $X thousand dollars?'". I have gone on to say that within a $5-6-7,000 range between comparable programs it will be her decision only and I will trust her gut instincts without question. Above that there will be lots of questions.</p>
<p>Weenie, do recall that some of those out-of-state private schools, depending on your exact situation, may be able to offer a lower net cost with financial aid than a public can offer. (If your EFC is impossibly high, never mind.) </p>
<p>Garland, we bought into the good reasons too. "Bought into" seems to exactly the right phrase. Only have regrets when I write the checks...then it passes.</p>
<p>Nvdad, you can not talk to your daughter like a peer because she isn't a peer.</p>
<p>You're 56. She is a teenager. You have life experiences and understandings that she doesn't have yet.</p>
<p>100,000 after tax dollars... that's a lot of money.</p>
<p>Fortunately we had the ability to pay the private school tuitions at the places (they and we thought) best suited our children.
It is our gift to them, if they succeed.<br>
We require them to 1. take the unsubsidized stafford loans, so they will own their education
AND 2. to repay all of our investments if they should stop before graduation.
These were the upfront rules. They will be in place as well when our HS junior starts the process.</p>
<p>You can take our approach and make her responsible for some of the additional costs by taking out loans, merit scholarships, summer jobs and a reasonable amout of work(no more than 15 hrs/wk) during the school year.</p>
<p>We were able to agree as a family that our son would be responsible for tuition, fees books and spending money because he had a $76,000 trust fund. Through merit scholarships and summer job he was able to reduce his annual $30,000 tuition bill down to $5,000. </p>
<p>Obviously your daughter is in a totally different situation and you, as a parent, do not want her saddled with massive debt at graduation. But making here responsible for perhaps $6000 should help her to consider the costs of the private college.</p>
<p>However if the private colleges becomes a clear first choice, the issue of money becomes a more difficult issue to navigate and impossible for a third party to validly comment upon.</p>
<p>Mominva,</p>
<p>Those are good rules. I think if I could come up with more rules like that I could create a framework in which I could make expense a factor in my D's decsion. I honestly think it would be to her long term advantage to choose the less expensive college and have me help with graduate education. However, it's a decision that effects everyone in the family and I'd like whatever choice is made to be the result of reason rather than fiat.</p>
<p>Originaloog,</p>
<p>It seems difficult for me to draw the line between what I could do and what I should do.</p>