How do you not choose the least expensive option?

Parents Forum
101

@MYOS1634


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Or you say "I'll pay 35K but if a school that's as good a fit and will make your goals possible is available for cheaper, that's where you're going." <<

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well … yes, I would. you are literally saying the schools are equally good but one costs half as much – and you would still pay for the one that’s twice as expensive. that makes no sense. if they are the same according to all objective criteria, what are you paying the extra $18K for? better sports teams? warmer weather? a campus with more trees or Starbucks?

it doesn’t even fit with your car story and the “Cheaper isn’t always better” post, because in this example you gave, the “cheaper” is exactly the same quality and fit as the more expensive one.

of course i would phrase it more like, “school A maxes out our budget, but school B is exactly the same and costs half as much, which leaves plenty left over for grad school if you choose that route. I strongly recommend school B because it is clearly the better value.”

102

To me, telling your child you can pay up to x amount for college if she finds colleges that cost that much or less, is the same as making a deal, or a promise - and not the equivalent of making the kid choose the cheapest option. Whatever I said at first is whatever I hold myself to, unless circumstances change and force my hand.
For instance, if I say “we have a budget of 25K per year and we can’t afford more, you must find colleges you like that fit within our buget”… that’s what I mean. If my child gets into a college that costs 25k, a college that costs 15K, and a college that costs 13K, it’s up to her to decide which “works” better. If there are colleges that cost 30K or 35K, they’re off the table, but everything within budget stays on. I said “up to 25K”, she found colleges for that amount, now she gets to choose, I don’t get to say “Oh, actually, I meant 15K”. If she chooses the 15K college, good. If she chooses the 25K college, fine. However she doesn’t get to choose the 35K college.
In fine, to me, setting up a budget is a promise I made. It’s not a written contract. I consider what I said to be “my word”.
I guess not everybody sees things that way.

I TOTALLY AGREE on this:

That’s the goal.
BUT if the car for half the price I can afford isn’t what I need, it’s not a great deal. A better deal is the car that fits my needs for the budget I’d set aside to buy a car. Or, as Hanna said upthread, do you buy the cheapest house you can find, or the house you can afford?

In OP’s situation, there’s one college the daughter sees herself at, and two she’s okay with. And all three have costs within the parameters set by the parents.

this is my way of acknowledging my child as a future adult who can make decisions. She’s free to do as she wishes within the constraints I set up. My assumption is that she has a choice and she will choose her college, not me. As a parent, I set up parameters, but I do not choose her college for her.

103

i think a big issue is college beyond the four years. it seems that nowadays, a Masters is the new Bachelors. in your scenario, is your budget just for a Bachelor’s and after it’s gone, there is no more? if so, it makes more sense to me to save the money on a similar quality, lower-cost school, and set the savings aside for grad school if she goes that route.

OP Mom needs to discuss with D about grad school, and if it’s a possibility, push for option 3 so there will be some $ left over.

104

@MYOS1634


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we're talking a family where everyone has a top-end car, plus a yacht, plus a winter chalet and a summer house, etc.<<

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i suspect we move in very different social circles.

105

^ Many entrey-level jobs do not require more than a Bachelor’s. Although it’s sometimes said, I haven’t found it true that “a Masters is the new Bachelors”.
But you’re right, some jobs do require it (social work, teaching, architecture, pa). Then it’s up to the child to make the calculations, with parents’ help of course. Once the money’s gone, then she has to take on loans for her one-year professional Master’s. Or that money can be spread over 5 years.
For social work or teaching, I may count that cost but still let her decide how to handle it - and have her investigate colleges where that 5th year is either bundled with the Bachelor’s, or cheaper than a typical Master’s (like graduating from one college, then do an instate public school’s 1-year master). I would seriously hesitate factoring in anything related to architecture, hoping that this, too, shall pass :wink: considering M.Arch’s job prospects. PA wouldn’t be a problem because they clear very high salaries and are in high-demand.
In most cases though, college students will not go straight to grad school; they’ll work some time after college. They’ll be independent and paying their own way when they decide to continue with grad school.
Also, it depends what type of grad school.
Any PHD worth doing will be funded. If there are odds the student will indeed follow that route, then the best investment is to find the college where s/he will maximize the odds of a fellowship or a fully-funded PHD.
Med School is terribly expensive so if the child is serious about med school, s/he’ll likely choose the cheapest option - but probably 2/3 kids who think of being doctors change their minds. So again if the odds are high the student will follow that route, a strategy must be adapted to the goal, but not if the kid is likely to be among the many who will change their minds. (A clue is how much health-related activities the child has done outside of school. Taking AP Bio does not count as a clue. :p)
Some companies (either at entry-level or a few years down the road) will pay for an MBA. In any case if I give money for an MBA it’ll be a loan 'from the bank of us" considering the salary my child will then make ;).
Law School isn’t worth attending outside the top 14-20.
So, unless the probabilities are very high that the student will indeed end up applying to med school or a top 14-20 law school, I wouldn’t use it as a key factor in the decision.
And the ultimate choice would still be made by my child (as long as s/he’s within the budget we set up for her.)

106

It is not a legal contract for a parent to say ‘I can pay up to $25k’ and then the parent can’t or won’t pay that. No consideration on the part of the child to make it a contract, and the child is underage anyway. It is a promise on the part oF the parent, but how often has a parent made a promise that is changed or can’t be fulfilled? 'I’ll get tickets to the concert" but then cant, or ‘we’ll go to Disneyland’ and then cant. I think the choice of college is an ongoing process that changes as the journey goes on. I took my kids on a few tours to colleges and that just didn’t work out, either because I couldn’t afford them, or because we didn’t like them. If a daughter liked it, well, too bad, it wont work. I did set as a maximum the amount of the instate college but that was a goal, not a contact to pay. I also made it a requirement that they each apply to one instate school. Well, neither applied to a state school, so is the ‘contract’ void and I don’t have to pay any more?

It works the other way too. My daughter started as theater major and had a scholarship. She wanted to change majors, but then I’d have to pay the extra. Should I hold her to the ’ contract’ and insist she stay a theater major? That was the agreement, right?

They are my kids, and they know I’m always trying to come in under budget, use a coupon, get the best deal. I think OP was referring to picking among several schools that are about equal in her eyes, but one or more may be more high ly ranked on some list or another and THEN is it worth $40k more? If her daughter doesn’t have a strong preference, then I think cost can be the deciding factor.

I don’t think many families operate on a contract basis. Parents might agree to something, like going to Harvard, and later find out the fine details don’t really work for the family. It’s not that the parents are lying or breaking a promise, it is just that the plan no longer works, the facts are different, circumstances have changed.

Now that I’m paying for two in college, I do wonder how my parents could contribute anything to my college and am ashamed that I just thought they would, could, and should pay. They should have told me that they didn’t have any money, but I shouldn’t have assumed that would pay. I did try to keep costs low, and I worked and paid for everything I could, but I was still wrong to assume I could spend their money. I was a lot more clear with my kids what I could pay and what they might have to borrow.

107

Let’s say I “move” at both ends of the spectrum. :slight_smile:

108

@twoinanddone


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I think the choice of college is an ongoing process that changes as the journey goes on.<<

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thank you for saying in a sentence what i was trying to in several paragraphs. i really like being heavily involved in the process and i find the journey is constantly shifting and changing. for me the whole idea of “I can afford $25K, now go find a college you like” is just strange to me. it’s really a family project.

if my child wanted to go to a college that’s much more expensive than an equal yet cheaper school, i need sensible, thoughtful reasons to justify the higher cost – not “the guys/girls are cuter and it’s a better party school.” i don’t see why anyone would shell out tens of thousands of extra dollars for an equal-quality school if their child cannot give concrete, objective, sound reasons why they want the costlier school

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@MYOS1634

ha! i hear you!

110

I didn’t read all the posts and I just discovered this thread. We did it and the reason is because we determined that the difference in cost was worth it.

The more expensive school that DS attends was actually the least expensive of the more expensive schools (his only less expensive one was Ginormous State U, the others were smaller privates), the most academically rigorous (which is what he wanted), and the best fit.

111

^I agree there needs to be actual reasons for choosing a school, and of course it’s a family discussion. :slight_smile:
I guess I must be strange for not “backing out”, to me what I say really is giving my word; if I’m not sure, I say “we’ll see/let me think about it”. Outside circumstances may force a change, but if I said “yes” I consider myself committed to the “yes”. So if I say “we’ll go to the movies on Friday”, I don’t say, come Friday “Nah, I don’t feel like it, too bad - we cancel the evening out” - I make sure everything’s set up so that we go to the movies on Friday, unless one of us is sick, or the car breaks down, or a snowstorms comes in- all things outside of my control; everything else is a collective endeavor to ensure we won’t just be stopped because of something dumb: we plan together, the film has been discussed over dinner during the week, the time slot has been cleared up so that no one has any obligation at that time, dinner is arranged ahead of time so that a cooking catastrophe doesn’t delay us, I know the film they want to see and the time it starts, I make sure I have the discount coupons… And if we’re all tired, we don’t go :slight_smile: but it’s a choice we made. It wouldn’t occur to me to say one thing and just cancel or do something else unless there was a reason.

112

But if you found out the same movie was playing on Saturday and it was half price, wouldn’t you think it was worth changing your mind, even if the non-working,non-paying for it kids still said they wanted to go on Friday? You didn’t know about the Saturday movie when you made the ‘contract’ on Monday, but it’s the same movie, the same experience, just cheaper. It makes no economic sense to not pick the cheaper theater. There might be other reasons to pick the more expensive Friday night theater (convenience, location, you are an alum of that theater, it has a better group of ushers or ticket sellers, the food is better, it’s a smaller theater with great discussions about the movie after you see it), but don’t discard the cheaper option just because you promised the Friday movie and you have the money saved. Your kids may actually prefer the cheaper theater, maybe their friends go there, or the seats are a better color, or there is one professor, I mean projectionist, who is known as the best in the area.

There are some families who know a lot about the cost of college, where they want their kids to go, where they are alums and have been dragging the kids to Homecomings for years. There are many many many more of us who had no idea when our kids were freshmen in high school what the cost of college was or where they could possibly get in. There are even fewer kids who know the difference between a $25k per year school and a $40k per year school, how much effort it takes to pay that extra $15 grand, and how much it costs for the twins in middle school to get braces which they have to have even if they RE at the perfect college. I know adults who think “Well, it’s just $15k more, why not go to the school with the cute mascot and the really nice dorms that is ranked 10 spots higher on the charts. It’s only $15k and I’ll just not worry about retirement for these 4 years. I made a promise and even though I didn’t know the facts when I made it, I’m going to let my child pick what she wants.” My kids didn’t have a parent who thought that way, and they knew it because that was always the way at our house. iIf I made a mistake in promising something it turned out we really couldn’t afford, I corrected that mistake by saying "Oops, I made a mistake. I thought I could afford the prom dress but I didn’t realize how much it cost until I got to check out, and I saw one that was just as nice at TJMaxx. My family would have stayed home from the movies on the Friday night if I was tired from earning the money to pay for the movie, especially if it was cheaper.

I don’t think the parent’s job ends when the promise to pay is made, either with a lot of forethought or without a thought as to how much money it is and what the alternatives are. The parent still has to guide the 17 year old toward a good decision. It may be that the more expensive school is the right one, but it may be that the cheaper school is better all factors considered.

113

I expect my kids to be flexible. Circumstances change. Mom works 60 hours a week. If the movie night is cancelled, so be it. Roll with the punches. Good life skill.

I’m just alarmed that if you say I can afford up to $40k, that is the extent of your input. You are paying. Out of family $. It is a family decision. Your D may be an adult and can make her own decision, but she is an adult with no $!

It just seems like you can’t win here. If you are upfront in your max, your kid can spend it all without discussion, but if you put off the subject and say we’ll see, you are making it impossible for them to plan!

S knows which schools I will pay $60 for. Short of that, we are weighing pros and cons! And any “extra savings” from $60 just means I get to retire a bit earlier. i don’t feel obligated to give it to them!

114

Well if we decided to make a family night out for Friday, which requires some planning, it’s unlikely we can switch to Saturday even half price. So, in our case, it’s either full price film or nothing after a lot of planning that goes to waste. But if someone finds out about the half price Saturday and figures out how to make it work… it’s on the table… but for reasons I can’t get into, “making it work” on a Saturday isn’t going to be easy. But this is off topic. :slight_smile:

I guess I wasn’t clear and I apologize if it sounded like the only input we had was “this is how much you have” - college is a big discussion (with A LOT of input… if you look at how many kids I’ve answered here, you may guess why college admissions are just, well, part of life at home.) Weighing pros and cons (separately then comparing lists) is an essential part of the process. The funny thing is, I’m a good bargain hunter, but I’ve dicovered there are some things, where you get what you pay for. They may “seem” as good, but they aren’t, it’s not just aesthetics, and it causes problems down the road. I don’t have credit cards, I don’t find shopping entertaining nor relaxing, I make few purchases, but I have expectation for what I purchase, and when we reach a certain price sometimes a small amount can make a huge difference (think a triple or more vs. a double room).
Ultimately, parents provide a lot of input but as long as we’re within budget, the child chooses the college because it’s their studies, their “fit”. Sometimes, there’s no choice. But when 3 colleges are within budget and one is the favorite, you approved applying to it, you said you could afford it? How do you justify “changing your mind”? Again, as long as circumstances haven’t changed - kids understand when circumstances change (illness, unemployment, miscalculations, problems, etc.) And I realize some parents make a certain choice for their kid as a way to exert control, for reasons that sometimes make a lot of sense.

I must note that most parents’ posts on this thread indicate their kid made the choice, that they paid a bit more than “cheapest” (but still within budget), and that it was worth it.

Kids need to have an amount, as early as possible junior year, so that they don’t get attached to impossible schools; this way, they start researching the schools within budget so as to show interest, write down scholarship conditions and deadlines, get educated about NPCs, perhaps plan visits if they can afford to (or plan flyins). The hardest part for them is to relinquish the “unaffordable dreams”. If the parent, later on or during senior year, changes the amount they’d decided on without any circumstance chaning, all of this researching, thinking, communicating… is impossible. It’s very hard to project from.

115

This is a great discussion for those people that have an idea what their budget is going into the process and actually do start junior year or before. However, the majority of people that I know who have kids applying for college or are going to be applying for college in the near future do not seem to be doing this, and I suspect that they are not alone.

An acquaintance of mine was telling me the list of schools that his daughter is applying to outside of her state schools. She is a solid high A student with just above average test scores and wants that giant state school experience. I asked him if he was aware of how much the out of state tuition was for a few of the schools on the list, and he said he was not (we’re talking October of his daughter’s senior year). He looked them up and was in shock, then ran the NPCs (which he had never heard of until I told him about them) and found that their family income, his daughter MIGHT be offered a very small merit scholarship and loans, which makes these out of state schools way more than he can afford. His daughter does not quite have the stats test score wise for most of the schools on the automatic full tuition list from this website, but does have some merit scholarship potential at some of the smaller state school campuses in her home state. She has revamped her list and is now scrambling to apply to a bunch of these schools before their priority deadlines in December. This would not be a great approach to the college search based on the standards set forth on this website, but she wants to go to school next year, and because of poor planning, they can’t be too worried about fit at this point. (We all live overseas so visiting isn’t a practical option).

People naively tell their kids, “study hard and you can get into a good college and get a scholarship,” which basically is true to some extent, but not as simple a formula as the statement suggests. There is to some extent a fair amount of planning and strategy involved in making college affordable, in addition to considering school fit.

The whole process can be rather humbling. It can be hard to learn that your nearly straight A student who has worked so hard, who you as a parent thinks is so smart and awesome, isn’t of a certain caliber to get into certain schools. It is also humbling to work hard, make a decent living, and not be able to offer your own child an educational opportunity because of the limits of your pocketbook. That’s life. One of the big pills to swallow in life, but it is hard nonetheless.

116

After taking a look at college cost vs college savings when D1 was approaching the end of high school, we told our kids we could afford for them to live at home and commute to the perfectly good local state university, and anything more than that they had to make happen with scholarships. D1 had already set herself up very well to give herself some options via grades and then test scores, and we did all we could to help her find colleges where she could qualify for merit and meet her academic goals. She is attending a private U in another state that fits her very well and costs us about the same as what we would have paid for her to stay local, after all the merit aid was accounted for, We are in the process of doing the same for D2. Kid three has plenty of time to plan for his future as well.

117

My kids weren’t that interested a juniors. I think the time line is a lot shorter for most non-CCer’s, which I was at the time.

We were much more like NorthernMom61’s friends. We kinda knew how much instate schools cost, had no idea about most OOS or privates, scrambled to find info about financing and somehow it worked out. One goes to a private school, one to an OOS public. My kids rely on me to make the financial parts work. If I’d needed them to pick less expensive schools, they would have. My kids are pretty chill and can make any situation work.

118

^In the examples above, the parents who planned ahead: the kids found colleges to “make that happen” and the parents didn’t change the rules after they got into colleges. For those who didn’t plan, the parents and the child scrambled to find colleges that were possible, agreed on what that meant, and found colleges; they’ll neither get into debt nor choose for their child. All in all, that’s all I’m saying. Don’t change the rules after the kid got into colleges.
@northernmom61: wow your acquaintance must be very happy they discussed colleges with you.

119

@Parentof2014grad


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After taking a look at college cost vs college savings when D1 was approaching the end of high school, we told our kids we could afford for them to live at home and commute to the perfectly good local state university, and anything more than that they had to make happen with scholarships. <<

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This is exactly our situation as well. Our D wanted to be a nurse and did not score high on the SAT. The acceptance rate for nursing at the local state U was about 35%. But she got accepted directly into the nursing program at the local CC and will do her 4th year at local year for her BSN. She is living at home, doing well, and very happy that she does not have to wait on pins and needles for the next 2 years wondering if she will get accepted into the local State U nursing program her junior year.

Oh, and we pretty much explored the options and told her she should go this route. She was fine with that and probably relieved about all the research we saved her.

S is HS Jr and can go to local State U through their Honors College for free. That’s our safety, but he wants to aim higher – so he’s going to have to earn it with grades, SATs, and ECs. He’s about to earn automatic free tuition from Alabama and OleMiss based on GPA + improved SAT. As test scores improve, we can add good private schools to the list, and aim for premium scholarships at other State U’s. But he doesn’t have time to research all this stuff. The research is another contribution we are happy to make in this process that does not necessarily have a price tag, but is still valuable.

120

He is glad @MYOS1634, but also overwhelmed. I offered to help his daughter work out a timeline to get things done. It will work out.