<p>
</p>
<p>Perhaps your counselors are used to students whose families are able and willing to pay $60,000 per year?</p>
<p>In any case, colleges now have net price calculators on their web sites, so you can get financial aid estimates to see if their net prices after need-based financial aid are realistic for you.</p>
<p>Re: #23</p>
<p>Note also that the students appear to have made pre-professional plans from the beginning, as opposed to taking the idea that “college is not for training for a job” that seems common among the upper class (or shall we say “middle class but won’t get any financial aid”) posters around here. Going to college without any consideration of post-graduation plans is a luxury available mainly to those from the wealthiest families (who can support the unemployed graduate for a while, or use connections to get him/her a job somewhere).</p>
<p>My playing around with calculators seems to tell a similar story- savings don’t hurt as much as adverised. Home equity (borrowing power) can. And, schools have different values for “asset protection”- for example, first 50,000 doesn’t count. However, these calculators are not detailed. The estimate calculators I tried treat 529 plans like parent assets where the value of the 529 is counted in EFC at 5-6%. However, some schools obtain the amounts in 529s and divide that by 5 (20%), complete liquidation.
Here’s the EFCs from three top schools my D applied to: 20,000 (this was a basic calculator, I expect it to probably be more like 25K), 28,000 and 42,000!. Same income. Same expenses. Same family members. Difference: how they expect you to disburse 529 plans and how they treat home equity.<br>
Man this has been an eye opener.</p>
<p>Well, I don’t know. I just did an EFC calculator and put 0 for cash savings and 0 for investments (529s) and put in only our income and it was about $2200 different. (22K vs 24.2K)</p>
<p>It is all very confusing.</p>
<p>Agree with the thought that someone making 60K is going to feel that 3K more than someone making 260K. Well, we make in between those 2 figures (but a lot closer to the 60K than the 260K!) and I would still rather come up with 25K/yr and have savings for college, than have to come up with 22K/year and have no savings for college.</p>
<p>Yes, as many are noting here, savings.investments,529,etc. aren’t nearly as important on EFC numbers as INCOME. That’s why many of the asset-shifting schemes you hear about really don’t wind up making that big a difference. In the rare case of low income but very large savings accounts then maybe you’d start to see the balance shift … but how many lower income families have huge assets? The occasional exception is real estate investments which may have a high value but lower current income.</p>
<p>Anyways, running the NPC on colleges you’re interested in and then varying the savings numbers (based on any asset-shifting ideas you have) will help show if it’s even worth exploring further.</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>We’re talking middle-income folks here and there are those that make a ton of money in the stock market bubbles that we have every bunch of years. The trick is to keep it after the bubble pops. Yes, large savings have a big impact on EFC.</p>
<p>FAFSA does discourage savings qua savings. If you are applying to FAFSA only schools (most schools are FAFSA only), the equity in your home, the value of your retirement plans, cash value of life insurance policies, and the value of your cars are not used to compute your EFC. Savings are used to compute your EFC (at a 5% level). Therefore the lesson learned is to “save” your money by paying off your mortgage, funding your retirement, puting any excess cash into cash value life insurance and paying cash for your car. Then, to the extent needed, you can borrow against the house, the life insurance or the retirement to fund your kids education. Of course, all this goes out the window if your kid applies to a school which uses CSS/Profile or their own institutional methodology.</p>
<p>As a middle class in California, i won’t be counting on receiving a dime.<br>
with my S’s stats, i expect him to get in to UCB/UCLA and a few other schools on the east coast (Duke/Cornell, etc). Since these schools on the east coast don’t offer any merit aid, they will cost appx 2X more than an UC education. As of now, UCB is his #1 choice for this reason.</p>
<p>One of the best strategies for merit aid is to have your student apply to schools where their stats put them in the top 20% of the applicant pool. Not only are they likely to be admitted, they are also more likely to get good merit aid. If you pursue this idea, make sure to visit the school and forge a connection with the admissions rep who covers your area so that they understand you are seriouly interested and not just using them as a safety school. You will often get better need-based FA as well. If you are focused on prestige and the best college your child can get into, than this won’t work, but if you are willing to set your sights a little lower, your student becomes sought after. Of course, you want the college to have enough offerings to provide a good education for your student, but if you can put aside preconceived notions on prestige, a slightly “lesser” college can be a great deal financially.</p>
<p>i wish i had found this forum earlier. we didn’t know about this strategy shared by rockvillemom and it is already too late for my son. other than those top tier schools on the east coast, he only applied for Tulane (he has been offered half off in tuition and competing for full ride) and Vanderbilt. I am so upset that he didn’t apply for USC. As a graduate of UCLA, i have been brain washing him from day 1 about not becoming a Trojan. </p>
<p>If i am not mistaken, academically speaking, Vandy has an edge over Tulane. </p>
<p>Does anyone know if Vanderbilt offers any Merit scholarship to top students? No essay. He is so sick of them already.</p>
<p>The other thing to keep in mind is that many of those 60K schools either meet need or pretty dang close it it. If your EFC is $10,000, it’s $10,000 at a state school or $10,000 at a 60K school, but that state school might not give you any aid and your real cost is $20,000 (full price) vs a 60K school that meets need or is very well endowed and your net cost is $10,000.</p>
<p>One thing that is not mentioned is that even if your 1st child gets GREAT merit award for all 4 years of college, it is hard to deny 2nd child ability to attend same U, even if it would be full freight. Yes, you can have the conversation with both kids, but we and another friend have opted to let our 2nd child go the same U as 1st child, even though 2nd child has NO merit.</p>
<p>Yes, Us can cost over $60K/year, especially when you factor in room and board, and especially if you include travel to & from school.</p>
<p>For us, we used a combo of strategies to be able to help fund our kid’s college–savings from when they were born (bought bonds issued by our state that would mature when they reached college age), made Coverdell accounts, just saved like crazy (keeping cars until they totally died, not dining out, etc.) We also had a few relatives who helped from time to time with gifts of $.</p>
<p>Most folks who can’t come up with the money find a cheaper alternative–in-state Us or out-of-state Us with an agreement with our state to charge lower tuition. Sometimes if the student is highly desired, you can get some great merit awards from private Us.</p>
<p>Savings gives more flexibility to the student and family, even though it means you don’t qualify for as much FAid as those who didn’t save at all. It is not a perfect system but it is the system that exists.</p>
<p>The latest figures from SallieMae reveal that 51% of college students live at home, 29% of college students attend community college, 45% of college students attend public universities and colleges, and 23% of college students attend private universities and colleges.</p>
<p>Private’s average cost is $34,532 per year, public’s average cost is $20,518, and community college’s average cost is only $10,053.</p>
<p>Only 29% of all college students received grants and scholarships. Some of them received scholarships from two or more sources. Here is the breakdown:</p>
<p>73% of students received school scholarships
26% of students received state scholarships
27% of students received local scholarships</p>
<p>
Even with stellar stats, getting into any school with acceptance rates in the teens is no easy matter.</p>
<p>SteveMA, there are only about 30 schools that guarantee to meet full need for ALL accepted students. There are MANY more private universities with hefty price tags exceeding $55,000 a year total cost of attendance…that do NOT meet full need for all accepted students. In addition, those 30 or so schools that meet full need are amongst the most competitive for admissions. Their generous financial aid does you no good unless you are accepted.</p>
<p>Our C. Costs only about $1k per semester per student plus books. Our state U is higher but well below national averages. Private Us can vary merit awards GREATLY to attract students the feel will be good for their U.</p>
<p>thumper1–a lot of that is semantics though. Looking at the CDS for the more expensive schools, many of them meet in the 95-98% of need for most students. That allows them an out if need be and there are still some students that attend those schools that are full pay with no merit, no aid, very small percent but that is most likely where that 2-5% comes from. You see a lot more state schools and smaller private, less expensive schools in the meets need at the 50% or so range.</p>
<p>Of course, what the school’s definition of “need” may vary considerably from what your family feels it can pay! </p>
<p>Our kids had FA awards that were ~$10k different from each other in the same year. Both schools said they met full need.</p>
<p>Remember Financial aid in most of these cases includes loans in the packages which in reality are nothing more than deferred tuition.</p>
<p>Our real life example - DS is accepted to school that costs $62,000 and our estimated FA letter said he would receive a $46,000 institutional grant. The NPC was very accurate and gave us some confidence in allowing him to apply and not be heart-broken.</p>