Super rich people can pay sticker price. Super poor people get the most generous need based grants. The rest of us pay a lot more than the degree is worth through parental loans. A lot of private schools love to boast about their generous financial aid packages, but I’m finding that such is the exception instead of the rule as I’ve been going through college applications. In my opinion, unless the degree says M.D. next to it, it’s not worth 120k, especially for a bachelors degree.
Many not-super-rich people start saving from the moment a child is born. Every raise, every year-end-bonus, every tax refund, goes into the college fund. They do not expect to pay it out of current income.
Rich parents are a big factor for a lot of kids also. I had a friend who went to USD and told me that some kids drove supercars and daily leave the cars in no parking zones and they just took the ticket because the money was not an issue for them
Most low income students aren’t attending residential college. Very few schools meet full need, and the seats at those that do are limited so it’s difficult to get admitted.
Yes, all of that “it’s great to be really poor” stuff is only for the tippy tippy top students. Otherwise they are more or less out of luck. I tutored a kid who was a solid B student, with mediocre standardized testing, from a very poor family, and community college is it. Now that NY has more public school help for those under 100k or so maybe he’d have a few more options, I don’t know.
@donnaleighg Yes thank goodness there is more public FA for poor students in NY state. Also CUNYs are a fabulous bargain. If your student lives in the City it’s even cheaper because s/he could save on room and board. Also consider SUNY FIT for him/her. That school has more departments than fashion–marketing etc. Wall Street recruits at Baruch. Many fine options there.
I also want to point out that Vassar has a unique community college - to - Vassar program that your student may qualify for. Vassar is also known for pulling up talented students and providing excellent FA. It set the standard that other institutions are following (Amherst followed Vassar in this for example).
https://eter.vassar.edu/
Cast a wide net and apply to schools that would consider you a “catch” to have at their campus. There are so many great schools out there and if you are a decent student apply to a selective mid range school and there will be more merit available. My son has gotten anywhere from 16k-24k in merit from good solid schools and often nothing from the more “selective” schools. Work during your school years - even if you are just checking in kids into your dorm it pays and helps pay your expenses and often you can work on homework while doing something like that.
Read “Where you go is not who you will be” and it will help bring into perspective the importance of being engaged at a school where you would be comfortable and able to excel and it is usually not the most expensive Ivy league - its a good solid school where you have just as many opportunities and the ability to graduate with a smaller debt load.
Good luck.
We were middle class when my kids were applying to college, and then my job ended so they receive need based aid. I did a lot of work to get them into schools and keep them there. I could read and understand the financial aspects. I could figure out the stacking of scholarships, AOTC, find some state funds, etc. I could look at a schedule and get rid of the filler classes (psychology seemed to be recommended by all advisers) and cut down on ‘wasted’ credits Could I have done a better job? Oh yes. If I had known then what I know now… If I hadn’t stayed on top of it ALL THE TIME, it would have cost more and probably taken more than 8 semesters to graduate.
For my kids, all their scholarships end after 8 semesters, so finishing on time was crucial.
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@roseyelephant It’s a lot more than $30K a year for most private colleges. More like $70K after room and board (and $50K+ just for tuition). Many of these schools give substantial financial aid though. Some are “need blind” and will calculate what your family should be able to pay and make up all the difference. The top private schools are a heavy mix of kids whose families can pay full price and those they are giving substantial aid too – the former pay for the latter.
Every family situation is different. I started college savings accounts for my kids when they were born. The oldest two were born before I was doing that well financially, but I still socked money away in those accounts and my 401K at the expense of eating out (I did and still bring a home made sack lunch to the office every day), nicer or more frequent vacations, nicer cars (typically hold on to them at least 10 years), etc. Now the oldest two will have their first 3+ years fully funded and the last will likely be totally funded the whole 4 years.
Making up all the difference is not a result of being “need-blind;” the term for that policy is “meets full need.” “Need blind” is an admissions policy (not a financial aid policy) that has to do with whether or not a student’s financial situation plays a factor in making an offer of admission.
@BelknapPoint Yep. Thus the “and.” My point is some schools are both – both need blind and covering full demonstrated need.
And most schools are “need blind” and will NOT calculate what your family should be able to pay and NOT make up all the difference. Most public schools are in this category.
OP, we started saving the day our kids were born. We also paid some money out of current income, had our kids cover their own spending money & books, and the one who picked a school where she did not get merit aid took out some of her federal loans. To us it was a very high priority as a family. We drove used cars, lived in a smaller house than a lot of our friends, rarely took expensive vacations, etc. so we could save more for college. Not everyone can or does think of it that way, though.
@Intparent I’d love to know how much you are able to contribute after your savings for college. We also have lived a very frugal life and have saved for college, but on a combined annual income of $125,000 and 2 kids it’s ridiculous for our EFC to be $70,000. I’d love to know how people afford this?
There are a lot of private schools that aren’t $70k. Many are $30-50k, and also give merit scholarships.
If your combined income is $125,000, your FAFSA EFC would not be $70,000 unless you have significant assets, a rental property or something like that.
Or are you self employed?
Is that $125,000 parent total income before or after taxes?
We started when our kids were born. One thing we did was take advantage of the pretax daycare account available from one of our employers. When we got those reimbursement checks from those accounts, we socked 'em all into 529 accounts and a bit in the stock market. The stock investment did very well. We continued to save at that rate (~5K/kid/year) even after finishing the day care years.
We had about $130K per kid by the time they started college from that process. D1 picked a college that gave her good merit, so we were able to add even more to her younger sister’s account during those years because it wasn’t as expensive out of pocket. Kids are 5 years apart, so only one hitting my income at a time for college.
i suppose i’m reiterating what many people have already said on this thread, but private colleges tend to give extremely good financial aid. believe it or not, my first choice school, grinnell, is cheaper for me than my in-state flagship school. kids who get into macho schools such as harvard, princeton, yale, etc. tend to either be full pay or pay only a fraction of their actual tuition. darthmouth, i believe, has a policy where if your family makes less than $100K a year, you don’t pay tuition. many schools have similar policies. (i know at stanford, if your family makes less than $125K you don’t pay tuition.)
many, many private schools also promise to meet full need and/or are need-blind. some schools, such as grinnell, case western reserve, and the university of rochester, give merit scholarships along with meeting the full need of an applicant. pretty rockin’.
Most colleges are need blind to U.S.Citizens and permanent residents.
Out of the almost 4000 colleges in the country only a really small handful less than 5% meet 100% of demonstrated need. You can check the project on student debt.
Even a smaller number (you can count them have low-middle income initiatives , where if you make belie a certain amount you gave no family contribution, schools with no loan initiatives and schools where if you make below a certainty n amount you get free tuition). That is the easy part of the equation.
The hard part will be getting admitted. Must of the ivies have single digit admissions (Cornell has the benefit of 3 land grant colleges and a HEOP program for NYS residents). HYP have some of the best financial aid policies in the country which includes families that make $200,00 and normal assets who would be full pay at almost every other school in the country. Harvard gets 29,000 applications with a boy a 5% admit rate.
Many schools that used to give automatic merit scholarships ( remember how many years we recommended Temple, Howard, etc) are now only giving competitive merit scholarships.
We do have a rental property, but only because it’s been for sale since April w/o a single offer. Also, the realtor tells us we will likely get $50,000 less than what we paid for the house. The FAFSA and the CSS make us look like we are doing fine with assets, but not on a combined income before taxes of $125,000 and a dead weight property that wont sell, there is no way we have $70,000 a year as the EFC indicated we should be able to pay. Any advice or options would be much appreciated. @thumper1