How do people pay for college?

Pre-College Issues High School Life
1

I live in New Jersey in a very wealthy area, and here no one is worried about affording college. However, my family makes about 100k a year (still a lot ik). Many of the colleges I’m looking at have EFCs of like $50,000. How do colleges expect my family to put half of our yearly income towards college? It kind of blows my mind. My mom said they would be comfortable paying like 30k, but I know that would still be a tremendous financial burden, and the only schools that would be 30k for me are HYPS and Vandy, which as much as I would love to go to Vandy, it’s obviously very difficult to get in.

I guess I’m just confused how everyone manages to pay to go to all these nice schools. I mean my in state schools are like Rutgers, which is wayyy too big for me, and Montclair State which just isn’t the type of school I’m looking for. I was looking more at Washington University, Northeastern, Bucknell, University of Rochester and other ones like those. I guess I’m just being unreasonable but how do people afford these kind of schools?

Also, where are some good schools I can like count on getting merit from?
My stats are:
4.59 weighted GPA (no idea what unweighted is, but I got 2 A- and 3 As freshmen year, a B+, 2 A-, and 3 As sophomore year, and a B+, 2 A-, and 3 As junior year)
34 ACT (35 superscored)
AP Classes: Physics 1 (3), Chemistry, APUSH
Just took subject tests, waiting for scores on Chem, History, and Math II
Volleyball 4 years (captain), Softball 4 years
Ton of various volunteer work, driven at working with kids

I also want to major in Biology or possibly Computer Science, on a pre-med track.

So basically how do people pay for college without crazy loans because I want to go to med school eventually, and does anyone have advice for merit scholarships?

2

A few ways:

  1. Many people do get sufficient financial aid - usually those that don't are the middle-class families, since they don't get enough FA and don't make enough to pay for 30-60K a year.
  2. Merit scholarships go a long way - many schools offer full tuition, half tuition, and so on. There's a good deal of full ride options for high stats students.
  3. Many go with federal loans, and a subset of those also do Parent Plus loans, which have the parent as a cosigner.
  4. If you don't want loans and can't get merit, in-state is probably the only option left.
  5. I probably forgot some more creative methods, so others please add in as needed.

For pre-med, you’re going to want to keep costs as low as possible. With your stats, checking out some full ride schools, biting your teeth and applying to Rutgers, and then sending out a fair number of apps to reach schools that have good FA will probably be your best bet. Something should work out, just make sure to have some true safeties (financially and academically) that you’re attending.

3

Lots of families have saved quite a bit. Some of this students won’t end up at those expensive schools in the end. You should run the net price calculator for schools that meet need (Google it) to see how those schools look. You can look at schools where you could get significant merit – U Alabama, for example.

4

Merit scholarships from the college make a big difference especially if you get a full tuition award.

5

I go to Case Western Reserve University, which is known for pre-med and has good merit aid. (My ACT score was 35 and I got a $30,000/year University Scholarship when I applied in 2013. Based on [this thread](CaseWestern Reserve University Class of 2020 EA Results Thread! - Case Western Reserve University - College Confidential Forums), many students have gotten large merit awards this year as well.)

More generally, I would recommend looking for schools that are known for good merit aid. There are lots of old threads that list some of them.

6

@KE3299

If your parents don’t have a lot of investments or savings, you may get fin aid from some of the top private colleges. As said above, your parents should take the time this summer to enter their financial data into the Net Price Calculator (NPC) on college websites to see how much they might have to pay for the colleges. Each one will be slightly different.

Outside scholarships are hard to get sometimes, but you and your parents could research those opportunities too, in addition to finding colleges that offer merit. Also, school guidance counselors often get information on local scholarships being offered. Awards exist for art, music, community service, STEM, ROTC, church, etc. H&R Block hosts a “Budget Challenge” game each winter for high school students, and they awarded 66 $20,000 scholarships this year. My son participated, and a friend won one of those - just for playing an educational game over a 3-month period. They also won $2,500 for their school. The kids learned a lot about managing their personal finances in the process. Great game, even if you don’t win. They did it with their AP Econ class. Maybe one of your teachers or counselors would be interested in organizing it at your school during senior year.

Some outside scholarship applications require as much work as complete college applications, but both of my children funded part of their educations with them. One was full-tuition ROTC for a private college. The other won $28K in scholarships from professional organizations - one related to STEM and two related to his dad’s work. We only wish now that he had time to apply for more! A few kids I know won scholarships ($3,000 range) from local adult service organizations. Others we know won money for creating computer apps or winning programming competitions. See what scholarships your parents and their friends’ companies/volunteer affiliations offer. Since my kids did not qualify for fin aid, we were pleasantly surprised to find some outside scholarships that were not totally need-based.

Most of my children’s “safer/lower match” colleges did offer significant merit scholarships and some honors programs. The largest college merit scholarship they received was half-tuition. They are basic white boys interested in engineering with stats similar to yours. As you heard, some colleges, like Alabama, automatically offer full-tuition just for having a certain test score and GPA. The Univ of South Carolina and Miami of Ohio are also both generous to top students like you. Northeastern, Bucknell, RPI, Univ of San Diego, and Univ of Miami were all good to my kids with merit $, as well as our in-state universities. Even USC in CA gave each kid a token amount. But, two girls we know got full and half tuition scholarships from USC (for Engineering), both with similar stats to yours. Apply to USC by Dec 1 if you are interested. In fact, apply Early Action at any colleges that offer it, if you can.

Research more than just on College Confidential. Make sure your parents get really involved, as their investment in research time now can save a lot of money later.

Best Wishes!