How Much Debt for Dream School?

Parents Forum
1

<p>Just heard from a friend about a kid who turned down BIG scholarship package at Brown to go to MIT with NO money & parents are struggling mightily to come up with money & taking on debt. <sigh> Kid NOW realizes at the end of freshman year some of the sacrifices her parents are making (parents let her choose).</sigh></p>

2

<p>reality didn't hit me till i got my first financial package and i realized that if i attend, i have to take out 27,000 in loans</p>

3

<p>Is that per year or over 4 years? What about additional years, summer, term/year away? It sure can add up fast!</p>

4

<p>unfortunately per year. i don't know whether american made a mistake or if they are serious.</p>

5

<p>You'd better contact their FAid office & clarify to decide what your options are, the sooner the better so you can line up financial safeties if you haven't already. I have read of others who are expected to get loans of that amount or similar at various schools. College is a very expensive investment for everyone.</p>

6

<p>The situation HImom describes is a good impetus to discuss finances with your student. They need to know the opportunity cost of choosing the dream school and how much debt will be incurred. They should know if mom and dad are raiding their retirement fund and might need help from the kids later on. Full information is good.</p>

<p>My son decided that his dream school wasn't worth it. It would have cost us about $39K for freshman year, of which we could only scrape about $20K cash together. That would leave 'somebody' with nearly $20k debt per year for four years. Debt like this would severely limit graduate school or job options, as well as demanding much sacrifice from the rest of the family. </p>

<p>But, to each his own. Some may be comfortable with that, which is okay as long as everybody knows what they are getting into.</p>

7

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<p>Let's hope she shows her appreciation by doing well in school and then making enough money after college to help the parents pay off those loans!</p>

8

<p>
[quote]
How Much Debt for Dream School?

[/quote]
this is a great question ... we are answering it in a slightly different way ... we will not be taking on debt when our kids go to college but we have slowed down our retirement savings to pay for college (and for us each $2500 saved means we can retire a month sooner) ... so each $2500 we pay for school beyond what we have currently saved/invested means we work an additional month ... our discussions with our kids are voiced in terms of months of work for us.</p>

<p>
[quote]
Just heard from a friend about a kid who turned down BIG scholarship package at Brown to go to MIT with NO money

[/quote]
I am not doubting this story but it appears unusual since Brown can not give any form of merit aid ... which seems to imply that either MIT gave much-much less financial aid (odd) or the Brown money was some form of a private scholarship that only could be used at Brown.</p>

9

<p>It's true that Brown does not give merit aid. But maybe they meant that the financial aid package from Brown included a large scholarship/grant in it. My D is at Brown and this year with two in college, the scholarship portion of her financial aid package is quite significant. It is not based on merit, however.</p>

10

<p>I, too, thought it was odd that a person who would qualify for a lot of FA from Brown would not get FA from MIT. The amounts may not have been equal but there shouldn't have been such a huge discrepancy ($$$ vs 0 ) since the expected family contribution would have been the same (or near the same), right?</p>

11

<p>Well, if the student is serious about engineering (other than computer graphics, where Brown excels), MIT is a better choice in terms of starting salary and lifetime earnings for engineers. (And before I get flamed, yes, I realize these are 2005 reports for MIT and 2003 reports for Brown, they were the most recent I could find.)</p>

<p>MIT: <a href="http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation05.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://web.mit.edu/career/www/infostats/graduation05.pdf&lt;/a>
Brown: <a href="http://careerdevelopment.brown.edu/about/reports.php%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://careerdevelopment.brown.edu/about/reports.php&lt;/a>
Ivy League: <a href="http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/archive/05mar/related_05mar_teacher_ivy.htm%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.wsjclassroomedition.com/archive/05mar/related_05mar_teacher_ivy.htm&lt;/a>
Colleges comparison: <a href="http://www.studentsreview.com/ivy_league_compare.html%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.studentsreview.com/ivy_league_compare.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

12

<p>Schools can choose to award loans or grants & it's still considered FAid. I don't have the details, but believe that was the situation for this kid. FAid packages can vary a great deal--this kid was given FAid to attend our private HS that costs a small fraction of college tuition, so there is a lot of need.</p>

13

<p>
[quote]
The situation HImom describes is a good impetus to discuss finances with your student.

[/quote]

To discuss NOW for college juniors. I know that I harp on this point, but kids should know long before acceptances come in what the financial limitations are. They should know what can be afforded and can't be afforded - and the talk about financing education should be every bit as important, and ongoing, as the "where to go."</p>

<p>JMHO.</p>

14

<p>
[quote]
BIG scholarship package at Brown to go to MIT with NO money & parents are struggling mightily to come up with money & taking on debt. <sigh> Kid NOW realizes at the end of freshman year some of the sacrifices her parents are making (parents let her choose).

[/quote]
</sigh></p>

<p>Something here does not quite ring true (or some serious details are missing) as both school meet 100% of a students demonstrated need (no merit or athletic scholarships) and between the 2, brown would be the one to most likely give more self help aid (work study/loans) and you cannot use outside scholarships to reduce all of your self help aid. </p>

<p>I am not understanding how student got a large need based package at one school (if this is the case student's family most likely does not have a lot of income) and not get a comprable need based package at MIT.</p>

<p>According to the college board (who uses the same numbers as the common data sets) the grant to loan ratio at MIT is 81% grants/ 19% self aid (workstudy/loans)</p>

<p><a href="http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=4075&profileId=2%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://apps.collegeboard.com/search/CollegeDetail.jsp?collegeId=4075&profileId=2&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p>

<p>Brown does not report their numbers</p>

15

<p>I was thinking the same thing, Sybbie. MIT does not have a rep for being stingy with grants or overloading with loans, and Brown doesn't give merit. They are comparable level schools which would follow similar FA guidelines. There definitely shouldn't be such a discrepancy, unless there's an error somewhere.</p>

16

<p>All I know is what I was told by the boss of this kid's mom (they're pretty close). The aid packages were VERY differrent at these schools for whatever reason. The principle holds in any case & is always something families & students have to consider. Schools are not obligated to match aid packages offered by other schools & they hold the power.</p>

17

<p>Then she probably needs to request a financial review from MIT to get a better understanding as to how her aid was calculated (she can include the brown offer) as maybe MIT is missing some information.</p>

18

<p>Regardless of the unknown details regarding this situation, the overriding principle holds, why should the choice be the student's alone when that choice has consequences for the entire family?</p>

<p>We live in a time when families are called on to fund more and more of their retirements, when health care costs are going thru the roof, and it will be increasingly difficult for our kids to achieve a standard of living compared to people of our generation practicing in the same profession. And of course there has been a lot of discussion about the onerous burden student loans place on our students once they graduate.</p>

<p>And we are not talking about a choice between MIT and community college. It can be a choice between something like Cornell vs Case or Amherst vs Grinnell if the student carefully does her research.</p>

<p>And of course it is far to late to have a discussion about dream college vs economic reality after the acceptances are in and the choice is at hand. This discussion has to occur before the college search has begun.</p>

19

<p>We encouraged application to colleges without regard to cost; BUT we always let it be known that we required more financial aid from the high cost privates, and that it would be prudent to have a few colleges on the list that we could afford without FA. And don't you know, that is just about what happened.</p>

20

<p>We also allowed our son to apply broadly, with the understanding that we would not qualify for need-based aid & hoped he would get good merit aid at the school he attends. So far, he's gotten one good merit scholarship from a school who wants him--we're waiting on the others.</p>