Yes. College confidential should be required reading for the brand new parent. No sleep. Don’t worry here’s some more bad news.
Seriously. Do the best you can Enjoy your time on this earth and avoid missing out on today borrowing worry from tomorrow. Enjoy your children while they are still kids
Plan of course. And help your kids as grandparents with guidance.
Telling someone to start early is super helpful to a person with a kid applying school. Not.
Go to the best school you get into and can afford. The kids will be ok. You make 200k a year. Congrats on your hard work and I bet neither of you went to Georgetown.
You know, I asked a version of this question of my financial planner. Her response was one word: inheritance. Quite a few people who can swing these sorts of tuition bills are getting significant help from the grand-parents’ and even great-grand parents’ generation. If they aren’t directly getting tuition help, then the parents got help with a down payment for the house, or were gifted cars regularly, which frees up more money to put toward college expenses. This is especially true if you’re a third-generation Californian, where grandma’s little house is now fully paid off and worth $1million when she dies. $1million split between four grandkids is a pretty nice chunk of change, and that’s pretty typical of what I’m seeing among friends–not to mention the lucky ones who inherit a house outright because there are no other grandkids.
OP, we also looked into Georgetown when my oldest was looking for schools, and we just ended up scratching it from the list for the same reason - cost. I told my kids what the budget was, and if the NCP came within 10K of what I could afford, then they applied knowing that if the FA didn’t come within budget they would have to decline an acceptance. Have you looked at Notre Dame? I have no idea if your kiddo is interested but their FA has been very generous to us.
Funny you should say that. My Uncle had an investment that was supposed to pay off big time and they were going to cover tuition for a bunch of the nieces and nephews. The payoff was a lot smaller than expected, so no help.
I never counted on it anyway, but it would have been nice.
Example: My next-door neighbors—who are upper-middle-class prosperous, but there’s no extreme wealth— send their one and only kid to NYU full pay. Grandma died and left her paid-off house to her only child, father of the only grandchild. House sold for $400k. There you go. Full pay with funds left over.
@suzy100 thanks. We are also crossing GT off the list. I did mention ND to her. I think she will apply to both ND and Duke as both offer merit aid, and also UVA. But I’ve made it clear that applying to any school that costs $70k with no merit aid is a waste of time. We can’t count on inheritance, and I’m not going to quit saving for my own retirement.
The chances close to nil. Similar for Duke. For example, at ND, only 3% of admitted students get any kind of merit aid. If she needs merit, have her seek out schools that have guaranteed merit.
While some people with decent income think they could not afford an expensive college for their child(ren), the other people with decent income would think they could not afford to have more than one child. It depends on how people think far ahead. Many of us have one child were not choose to have just one but we knew it was going to be more and more expense when the child grew up.
On the other hand people have more than one children can utilize their multiple offspring to finance their education. If the children are not super close in age, one can try to full fund the first child (or borrow modestly). Once the first child graduate, ask the now grown up child to contribute a portion of his/her income (1/4 to 1/5 for 4 or 5 years) toward finance the second children’s education (while the parents are still footing 1/2 of the tuition). If there is a third child, then the first two need to contribute some of their income toward their brother’s/sister’s education. Many of the newly immigrant families use this strategy to finance all their children post graduate education. Why do parents have to burden all the finance responsibility for their “adult” children’ education anyway? Shouldn’t the children need to bear some of the hardship if they want to enjoy a prestigious/expense education?
In this case, if the OP’s daughter wants to attend GT, basically the parents just help 1/2 way (cost similar to a state flagship college without merit) and the other 1/2 tuition cost is just personal loan from the parents that would need to be pay back after graduation to fund the siblings’ education. This just another option for the OP/OP’s daughter to consider.
Personally, we told our child that we only gonna to fund her 2-3 years of 4 year college, and if we borrow money to fund the remaining years, she has to payback to us after she graduate and finds her job. And if we do not end up using her payback, we would eventually use it as the down payment toward her first condo/townhome (but won’t let her know this to prevent her from becoming lazy).
@chb088, just want to emphasize that merit at Duke or ND is really really hard to get. I think it’s about more than just stats. The only kid I know who received merit at ND is truly a superstar, and was admitted to HYP, among other highly selective schools.
@Brantly is correct. At ND, only 2-3% of accepted students are offered merit aid. I think it was less than 100 kids (@60-70?) out of 3700 the year my D was accepted. And if you look at their scholarship requirements, very few of them are purely merit based and/or open to all students. At least 5 cite financial need as a requirement (which I personally don’t understand if it’s a “merit” scholarship). Then a bunch of them are limited to a certain country or state or city. Others are limited to certain majors. One is limited to people who were employed as a golf caddy in high school. There are very few and they are very limited. @chb088 if you personally know several people at both schools who received merit aid, that is truly amazing. I don’t believe that’s the norm, so just want you to be aware so you can manage your child’s expectations. At least for ND, I don’t know about Duke.
@waitingmomla well in the theme of “you miss 100% of the shots you don’t take”, it can’t hurt to apply. At least they have Something, as opposed to Nothing. And she has good in state options if that doesn’t work out. I’ve never led her to believe she was a shoo-in for anything. She’s seen the process.
@chb088 I agree 100%. That’s actually my daughter’s motto, although she credits Michael Scott instead of Wayne Gretzky Just wanted to make you aware of the information. Good luck to your daughter!
I don’t understand how anyone can sit behind their computer and say a family making X can pay or it’s that paying for an expensive college is not a priority. You don’t know their circumstances or have lived their life. Shameful, judgmental attitude.
@exlibris97 I am assuming the 5% number you are using is not household income but individual income, because the last numbers I have seen on household income show about a quarter of all households have reached $100,000 dollar incomes in the US.
@itsgettingreal17 Totally agree. Whether some borrow hundreds of thousands of dollars for their kids, save hundreds of thousands of dollars for their kids, or say that are not funding anything for their kids, I stay away from judging what others decide because I have a say with my own children’s decision and the circumstances in my household may not match anyone else’s. I have seen some on track to saving everything needed and something unexpected (illness, death, etc.) changes everything. For others it may a belief (No school is worth $75,000 dollars a year) and for others, it is simply unattainable based on the current costs to fund their households. Is it possible to save enough to fund such an education? Yes. Is it easy? Definitely not. Is it the norm? I don’t think so but I could be wrong.
@ChangeTheGame Median household income in 2017 was reported by the Census Bureau as $59,039 but the IRS added that that only reflects those who file tax returns. By definition this excludes lower-income families whose incomes are low enough they do not have to file tax returns.
For what it’s worth, at admitted parents day at Harvard, they said that 15% of families with household incomes above $180K qualified for grant aid. So financial aid is available.
How do “middle class” families pay for Georgetown? Play the long game. Bought less house 20 years ago. Saved our aces off. And cutback. Still, it’s a stretch.
Just wanted to make you aware of the information. Good luck to your daughter!