How do middle class families in California, or in general really, afford private education costs?

To the OP: have you run the net price calculator on Barnard and other colleges?

https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/barnard

@wisteria100 It’s not. But I was bringing up NYU’s net price calculator as an example of how rough financial aid can be.

I do not think a private school education is automatically better than a public school one. I don’t think anyone, ANYONE, should borrow more than $50k, and even that is too much for some (me, my kids). I have one who just graduated with $15k in loans, and I think her payments will be about $150/mo. That’s fine for her but she also has rent (very expensive in the area she wanted to live in), car, insurance, taxes and the evil FICA. She really is starting out with nothing so has to buy some furniture, kitchen things, wants to save for a house and retirement. She has a really nice job. If she had $100k in loans, she would have had to make other choices for housing, car, number of roommates.

There was a thread recently by a guy from SMU who borrowed $120k Even with a good job, that’s a whopping big payment to make every month.

@ucbalumnus Yes, as I mentioned in the discussion’s description, I have.

NYU has (a) poor financial aid, and (b) a low quality net price calculator. So it may not be representative of what you find at other schools.

Schools don’t expect people to pay the entire tuition out of current income. There is some expectation that there is savings if it is a family of certain means. And just like you may take a loan for a home, car or home improvements, that is a valid option for tuition as well.

@ucbalumnus thank you. But yes we ran the numbers through many different schools and the outcome was the same.
Zero. Only DePaul a school with a 72% acceptance rate could potentially offer me a up to $30k scholarship because of my GPA and SAT score.

@katerpillarca

You might want to just take NYU off your list. NYU does not guarantee to meet full need for all students. Their merit aid is reserved for students who they really really want to have attend their school. Nothing there is guaranteed in terms of aid. You can apply and see if you are one of the lucky ones who gets enough aid to attend. But if not…be prepared to just forget about the school.

As noted…if your income IS $99,000, with not much in assets, you likely will receive aid from Columbia, Barnard, NU.

But only you and your parents can decide if the schools are affordable. With a $100,000 income…your family still is going to be expected to pay between $25,000 and $30,000 per year…at least.

There are some smaller private schools where you might get enough merit aid to attend. Look at Denison in Ohio, for example.

If you give folks some of your college criteria and what your parents can and will pay, I’m positive you will get some suggestions of schools.

“Would you say that having to pay off a loan of $100k after graduation is worth the private education?”

No. $100k in debt is way too much for undergrad. If you are going to major in computer science or engineering then you don’t need to go to a private university, the UC system is superb for a California resident. For pretty nearly anything else (short of an MD degree) you should try to avoid any debt if you can, and the UC system is still superb.

Most students in the US need to take cost into account when choosing where to attend. This very often means that even having a “dream” school is a bad idea. You need to consider the academic quality of schools, but there are a huge number of very good universities. You should also consider the fit. However, cost needs to be very high on your list of criteria.

We were fortunate to be able to find very good schools that were academically strong, a good fit for our kids, and affordable. What constitutes a “good fit” will vary from student to student, and the cost of each school in many cases also varies from student to student. You are fortunate to live in state with great public options.

Also…another thought. You say your family is not dual income. Does this mean your mom doesn’t work?

In the Thumper family, both parents worked, and that second income was what was used to pay college costs at private schools for two kids.

Could your second parent get a job to pay college costs?

If you like Barnard, take a look at Mt Holyoke. They award merit and your 1410 SAT may be good enough for it. Bryn Mawr does as well, but a bit harder to get it there

You might want to look at Vassar as well. They also give merit.

Our family is not in the category of not qualifying for any aid, but we do fall into the category of not being able to come anywhere close to paying our expected familial contribution. We refuse to take out loans or cosign for loans, so our kids face the limited options of the schools we can afford. The more competitive they are for large dollar scholarships, the more options they have. The less competitive they are, the fewer options they have. (And no way would we even let our kids consider $100,000 in loans for UG. That is an outrageous amt and definitely will control all aspects of post-college graduation decisions for yrs to come.)

Fwiw, wanting a private education is a fine desire, but for many kids it just isn’t a realistic option. Even when our kids have been given large scholarships at private schools (like full-tuition at Fordham), they have ended up with much, much less expensive options and we cannot just dismiss the huge cost differential.

Our kids have all attended publics. Not elite, high ranked publics. Just your avg state U. They have had wonderful college experiences and nothing about their college “ranking” has impacted their future pursuits. Our ds who just graduated from a school ranked right around 100 will be attending a tippy top grad program this fall. All is good. (And he attended UG for free on full merit scholarship.)

@thumper1
You make an excellent point. Generally, having just one parent work is a lifestyle choice. In our family, my husband works and I stay home. But that may change once our daughter is in college—going back to work is something I’m prepared to do.

@Mom2aphysicsgeek that’s really great to hear! I agree $100k in loans is outrageous but I still wanted to ask if there is anyone who could justify it. Because it’s been happening more and more recently. Ppl are leaving college with that kind of loan on their shoulders. I will be aiming for the UCs and still will apply to a few privates that I really like and who give merit-based scholarships and will hope for the best. Thank you for all your responses!

The goal should be to graduate from college without any family debt and this takes years of planning (investing very early in a kids life), getting great merit from schools which might not be your first choice college or having more people working (student or 2nd parent).

Based on your stats and location, I would pursue a UC or quality CSU education. Most students cannot go to the private college of their choice.

I’m a Bay Area mom of three and I get it. Our oldest knew from starting to look that the financial piece looked like ‘either UC or Cal Poly, or else a private school that gives enough merit aid to get it somewhat close to the UC price’. That meant not even looking at tippy top privates, although we made one misstep (first kid and had too much else going on to pin this info down) and she applied to Pomona which doesn’t give merit aid. Didn’t get in anyway so didn’t have to turn it down, but could have saved a little time and the application fee.
Anyway, good luck! There are actually a lot of private schools that give merit aid, so if you want something different than a UC you should have some options. And the UCs are great schools so not a bad choice if you end up at one either.

I hardly post on this forum anymore, but thought I could help someone out by posting here.

If you have a student that has the stats/etc to be accepted to the Ivies/Stanford, it is worth applying to them and also applying for financial aid. Although we owned a home in an expensive area of the country — San Francisco — these schools do not take home ownership into account when calculating financial aid. These schools also do not take into account your retirement savings. So, since at that point in our lives, the majority of our accumulated wealth was in our home/retirement accounts, we received financial aid that paid for over 3/4 of the cost of the education/housing. UCLA was my kid’s in-state choice, but it turned out to be cheaper to go to an Ivy, which was kiddo’s preference. Also, Ivies will match other Ivies financial aid packages, so in our case, Brown upped their financial aid to meet the higher FA that was offered to our kid from Columbia.

Best of luck to you.

Also, don’t knock DePaul much. This here graduate has done pretty well for himself. Their Business especially Stroebel Accounting and Computer Science schools might not show up at the top of the US News charts, but very very well known in the Chicago and greater Midwest area for jobs and reputation.

And if you look at most bigger private schools not often mentioned on CC, 70% acceptance rates are pretty common. Marquette, Creighton, Marquette, Butler, Loyola Chicago, Detroit Mercy, Gonzaga, St Johns, Seton Hall, USF, St. Louis, etc. CC caters to the tippy top, the LAC and the bargain schools but the reality is is that there are a ton of mid-level schools that never get mentioned where a lot of students wind up going to.

@thumper1 are you sure about Vassar and merit? Their financial aid Q&A says:

Q: Does Vassar offer athletic or merit scholarships?
A: No. Financial aid at Vassar is determined solely on the basis of financial need.

@katerpillarca , it’s true - the “sticker price” of elite private colleges and universities is shocking and getting more shocking every year. It’s astonishing to me how many families actually manage to pay full price. (And the galling part is that the price inflation is going to high-paid administrators, NOT faculty.)

But the good news if that if you let go of the small slice of higher ed that would cost you $75K/year out of pocket, there really are still a lot of great options. CA public U’s, public U’s in other western states through the WUE program, private colleges and universities that do offer generous merit, well-priced OOS public options with or without merit… there are many good choices to be found. If you like women’s colleges, you might be a merit candidate at MoHo and definitely at Agnes Scott (great leadership-oriented women’s college in Atlanta - has cross-registration with Emory). If you love NYC, you might get merit at Fordham. If “urban LAC” is what you’re seeking, try Macalester and Rhodes. Also consider smaller urban universities like U of Denver - this leadership/honors program might appeal https://www.du.edu/leadership/

What are you hoping to study?