<p>I think the posters here are very unusual in that most have some money saved for college. I think that’s outside the norm, and for people with 3 and 4 kids, I think it’s practically unheard of. While my husband and I have “only” 4 kids, our extended family is HUGE. Several of our siblings have 4 or more children (including one family with 9 kids). Academically, we’re a family who does pretty well. Lots of Ivy, top tier (Duke, JHU), and Catholic “Ivy” (Georgetown, Notre Dame) admissions. And up til now, the kids in our family have been going to these schools. Their parents, while paying Catholic high school tuitions, were able to set aside no money, but with household incomes in the six figures, their kids never received much aid. The kids have been going to these high prestige colleges only by incurring massive debt, much of which was co-signed by their parents.</p>
<p>Right now, among the kids in our extended family, there are 4 high school juniors. 3 of them are of the caliber that only a few years ago would have had them seeking out Notre Dame, BC, or Hopkins. Now they’re looking at military academies, Penn State, Catholic U, St. Joe’s, Drexel, and Scranton. The fourth one is likely going to take a gap year or two. All this was unimaginable even a few years ago. But these kids have watched their cousins and siblings drown in student loan debt. And of the ones who’ve graduated in the last five years, one transitioned her Teach for America job into full time employment, but most of them (4 of the 7) got their jobs through family connections rather than through their great undergrad degrees (which very often was received Magna or Summa cum Laude). </p>
<p>I believe that times are changing as people are slowly coming to realize that just because you’re smart and disciplined enough to get into some great colleges, that doesn’t mean you should go there. What may be a bitter pill for child number one to swallow, will be accepted very easily by kid number four. </p>
<p>We have 8 kids spread out over 21 yrs. We have had students in college non-stop since our oldest graduated from high school in 2007. </p>
<p>Our kids don’t have the option of going to dream schools unless they win enough scholarship $$ to make it very reasonable. They apply to schools that have low costs but will also provide them with the education they need to succeed. Our oldest is a chemical engineer that went to an unknown lower ranked engineering technical university that was incredibly affordable. He graduated from college 2 yrs ago. He works for a Fortune 500 company and just received a promotion and raise and is making $85,000 in an inexpensive to live in location. While the school has zero name recognition and would probably be sneered by folks posting on CC, it is very well respected in industry. Since industry employs—that is the reputation that matters. :)</p>
<p>I think the CC idea that only elite schools provide good educations leading to good employment is a fallacy. Students simply need to make the most of the opportunities they have while there. Co-op, research, high GPA, etc matter when it comes to employment. Know whether or not grads are recruited by industry. The same company that recruited my ds, also recruits from GA Tech, VT, etc. His education cost a fraction of attending one of those schools. His salary and promotability have zero impact of where he earned his degree. It is based strictly of on job performance.</p>
<p>Our current sr will be attending school in the fall almost completely on scholarship.</p>
<p>I have three with overlaps. And yes, budgeting is a huge issue that needs to be dealt with long before #1 heads off to college. We are in that middle class doughnut hole where “splitting the EFC” in half is relatively meaningless. We have assets that are not “tapable” in a tangible sort of way so double whammy. During the overlap years we spend as little out of pocket on ourselves as possible. Before the kids started college we got our mortgage paid off which was a long standing financial goal, we starting driving cars that were paid off so we got ourself squared away with the cars when #1 was a junior in high school and we went in knowing thatt hose cars needed to last ten years, we pretty much stopped taking vacations that cost money. We did everything possible to free up cash flow so we didn’t have to draw down retirement funds. We don’t carry much debt so that helps too. Basically you hitch up your pants and deal with it and you sacrifice for a decade. The kids knew there was a budget and we were firm about how much we’d pay for college. They knew they needed to get their business done in four years and they knew it was a sacrifice for us to put them through college. </p>
<p>So bottom line: We planned for it in advance. This is the single most important factor for any family. We set a budget for the kids.This is the second most important factor. We compromised our personal lifestyle to accommodate. This is the third most important factor. Our kids understand because because we’ve never given them the impression that money is an endless commodity. And they know that you sometimes have to give up to get. We only have 3 more years before the money flows again. It goes fast</p>
<p>I have 2 that do not overlap in college hopefully (4 years apart). We have talked to the older child since middle school years that we will try our best to pay for her college education, but she would need to help her younger sister to go to college financially as we will spend our saving on her first. Although no one can guarantee a job after college these days, it seems to be a viable plan as of now as we do not foresee a large debt after college for the first child. ;)</p>
<p>Being the younger sister, I wouldn’t like that idea at ALL! I wouldn’t even like it if I were the older sister. </p>
<p>For the older, there are many restrictions on what she can do after college. No grad school, no travel, no taking a job that is a great experience but pays nothing. Even if she gets a job, she’s obligated to give you $200/mo, not building her credit or even getting the satisfaction of paying down the balance because there is no balance.</p>
<p>For the younger, there is no guarantee that the older will provide the money. </p>
<p>I think you’d be better splitting the savings and having each borrow half. If you are able to pay off the loans for the older, that’s great. If older wants grad school, there is a payment plan or deferment for the official loans that wouldn’t be available for the family payback.</p>
<p>My parents borrowed heavily for my older sister’s first year, but then couldn’t afford for any of us to borrow more for school. It wasn’t a good situation for my sister or me (or my brothers). My parents paid the loan and the rest of us, including my sister, had to work all through school because there was no more money.</p>
<p>We have three, and will have only one year of overlap. The key is to plan, and to live within your means. Our income is probably similar to most of our neighbors, but we choose not to spend $200 a month for cable tv, or other luxuries. Instead we paid extra toward our mortgage, and paid it off a year before tuition came due. We then made the same monthly payments to our money market account, and can now pay “cash” when tuition comes due. We don’t miss the luxuries we didn’t have to give up, because we never got used to them.</p>
<p>I guess if you are going to 100% need based school then it shouldn’t make any difference whether 1 or 3 is going in college. Your household will pay EFC which is actually not a bad deal at all. </p>
<p>Three kids in high school right now. D '14 tests amazingly well, high grades, lots of EC, so she’s in at Cornell with $0 EFC . </p>
<p>S '15 has higher grades still, but doesn’t have quite as high SATs. He’s also shooting for Cornell where (if he can get in) we wouldn’t have much if any EFC, but the backups are the local state school as a commuter, and scholarships. He has started now hunting for schools with aid for National Merit Commended students (his 212 PSAT won’t give him NMSF in NY for sure) and for other aid, but he will only go to a school that allows him to go with low loans. That may well mean not a “top tier” school but we’re fine with that. He’s working very hard on the scholarships because he doesn’t want to go to the local school and he knows that’s the fallback .</p>
<p>S '17 is an artist more than a scholar right now, so the Cornell option is probably not an option. There are some colleges in reach. For instance, Alfred U. right now is guaranteeing full tuition + for GPA above 94; who knows if that will still be there in 3 years, though. Commuting to our state school is a possibility, but there’s no guarantee that he’d get in there with his current GPA. If needs be, he’ll commute to our CC and transfer later.</p>
<p>So the summary is that we’ve told our kids since middle school that we can afford to send them to two years of CC followed by two years of state school, and that this is a fine option. If they want something more than that, though, they will need earn it themselves by scholarships or getting into the colleges that meet COA. They’ve taken that to heart and run with it, and we’re very happy with how the college hunt is turning out.</p>
<p>@twoinanddone
The sad reality is, if we split the saving into two half, then none of them can go to college or we need to get a lot of loans for both. The younger one may be able to get more need based aids after we spent the money for the first child at a in state flagship. At the end, the total cost for both is still the same. If the first child need to go to graduate school, we would not have money to support her anyway and we will need loans for both. The reality is harsh, not that you can pick the way you like. Of course, the best case would be getting sufficient scholarships. The older child do have the option to pick a full ride school at a much lower ranking. But it would not be fair to ask her not to go to the school she wants trying to save money for the second one while she earn the scholarships to pay for a significant part of her CoA already. Finally, FAFSA calculates the need for a family as whole. They do not plan in a way that you can split the saving among the kids when they are not going to college at the same time.</p>
<p>I’m the younger sister by five years. The last thing I’d ever want is my sister helping with college. It’s not her responsibly… she didn’t bring me into this world.</p>
<p>FAFSA only assesses parental savings at 5.64% and only above the asset allowance. The formula doesn’t expect you to spend it all on one kid. For 4 years they’re expecting about 23% per kid, again above the asset allowance.</p>
<p>Romanigypsyeyes. my older sons all want to help pay for the youngest’s college. They really want him to get to go whereever he wants without any thought of cost. That the cost for him could be over a quarter million dollars is daunting to us as we are getting older. With the first one, so many years ago when the max cost was under $200K, taking out some loans, taking some chances, hoping for some up tics were all real possibiiities. Not so much anymore. </p>
<p>I’m not saying anything and we are taking all price ranges into account but this is what his brothers want for him.</p>
<p>I can tell you that neither I, nor my brothers could bear the thought of our parents struggling to pay college costs. We all came up with our own ways to pay. But a lot of those doors are closed mainly because the amounts of awards in relationship to costs has now sharply widened. I would absolutely not wanted my dad working an extra job, compromising his small savings, my mother working a job, no. Not an option for me.</p>
<p>Billscho, it’s not that you’d be able to provide for the older to go to grad school, it’s that she wouldn’t be able to go if she needed to pay you $200/mo for younger sister to go to school, thus requiring a job. Say you spend $20,000 on her school that could have been saved for her sister, but saved her from borrowing that $20k. If she had borrowed it, she could defer that loan through grad school and you’d have the $20,000 for the sister in your bank account.</p>
<p>I have a friend who is planning to do it your way, and I don’t agree with her plan either. Her older daughter adores the younger one and NOW, when she’s 18, it seems like a good plan but I’m just not sure at 22-23 the older one won’t resent having to give her sister some of her new wages (plus pay a student loan payments). </p>
<p>I have 3 younger brothers, and I can’t imagine the pressure of graduating and having to get a job to pay for them. When I graduated, I actually did live at home for 2 years, one planned and one because I happened to get a good job (experience wise-not pay wise!) so put off law school another year. I was barely making my car payment and there is no way I could have paid my parents money. I needed them to buy my food! If I’d had a student loan, I would have had to make other choices, and I probably would have gone back to school sooner to put the loans into deferral status. If I had owed my parents money and failure to pay would have meant my brother couldn’t go to college, I would have had to get a higher paying (but less valuable experience to me) job and I would have resented it.</p>
<p>Look at it this way, the first child got college done almost debt free because of family support. The second child needs to rely on loan as a result of that. It is totally fair to ask the first child to help just to consider the support she received as a family loan.</p>
<p>I wouldn’t count on the siblings paying or expect it or encourage it. If it happens, great. But I sure would not have my younger kids make a decision on such a promise unless there is hard evidence there that it is highly likely to be done. Even seasoned parents, adults make finanical promises in this regard that they cannot keep. But the thought and offer heartens me.</p>
<p>Sorta kinda, collegebound. In reality both or all kids would have to be going to a 100% meets need guaranteed college that only uses FAFSA. Anecdotally it’s never really “take the EFC and split it.” There are no two-fers for parents in college land. </p>
<p>@Billscho… you know your family better than anyone else. That said, your approach is old-fashioned (not a critcism), and reminds me of the days when families were able to afford to send only the smartest kid in the family to college, and the rest of the kids just went straight to work, either on the family farm or in the factory. But the idea of college has changed since those days, and my guess is that your other kids don’t have a family farm to work and don’t have plans to go work in a factory. So they all need some kind of training and education beyond high school, right?</p>
<p>So, as others have recommended, it seems to make more sense to consider what assets you have to spend on college, and how much debt you are willing to sign up for on behalf of your kids, and divide that up equally among your kids. Your oldest should know what she has available in support from you, and if she has managed to earn significant scholarships to her dream school, and can can afford to attend that school with those scholarships plus your support (a combination of cash and loans), then, great, she gets to go. If those funds don’t cover the cost, then she cannot and she will have to find another option. Her first object lesson for adulthood will be that we don’t always get what we want, but that does not mean that we don’t have other choices. </p>
<p>Again, you know your family, but your kids are going to live together on this earth far beyond your passing, and they need to be close, and each other’s best friends through this life, and I would be concerned about setting up rivalries and resentments between them. If you want to take on school loan debt on their behalf, that is your choice, but to expect your kids to become indebted to each other financially for college seems to me to be sowing the seeds of family strife for years to come. Is that worth it just so one of your kids can go to her favorite school? Wouldn’t it be better to help all your kids go to the best school they are both capable of getting in and can afford (with equal support from you)?</p>
<p>@chesterton I wish I can determine the amount of loan and set aside part of the saving for the second kid. The reality is I have to use my saving for my first child or I need to get a loan under my name. I could not just hide money from my account so my older child can get more loan herself if that is what you are suggesting. The nice thing is, it is not only the smarter kid get education, it is the smarter kid gets more options if he/she receive merit aids. You never know how much the second kid will need before you see the FA package. It is not smart to keep $30K in the bank while taking out a $30K loan for the first child. You will spent the $30K first and then borrow that $30k later when the second child really needs it. That is the exact situation. Most importantly, we are not spending our money to send my first child to an expensive school so that we cannot afford sending the second child to a good school. Indeed, our first child is going to an in state flagship with scholarships and it is likely the second child will cost more unless she can get a better scholarship. However, we still need to spend most of our saving to cover our first child’s 4 year college expenses. When the second kid goes to college, we will need to get some loan with or without help from the first child. That is the reality.</p>
<p>I guess I would have the older child take the max in direct loans. I think it comes to around 23,000. Then she can pay off her own loans which will be less than $300/month for 10 years. That gives you $23,000 more to pay for the 2nd D but 1st D is responsible for some of her schooling but not the siblings. </p>
<p>I am just happy that my oldest was self supporting after college. Saved me a ton as I didn’t pay for anything. Once all the kids went to college I saw quite a savings in my day to day expenses. </p>
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