<p>You need to talk to someone in financial aid at Cornell and find out exactly how this will work aid wise for you with two in college. Don’t just try to grab someone on the pnone. Find out who the directors are and make a phone appointment to go over some specific numbers. Schools allocate financial aid just about any way they please, and you need to know how Cornell will do this for you.</p>
<p>The way it “typically” worked at schools like Cornell (which in NO WAY means Cornell actually works this way), is that parental Cornell expected contribution is multiplied by 60% if there are two kids in college. It USED to be that it didn’t matter what the cost of the that other’s kid’s college was, as long as it was a qualified 4 year school. Community college and vocational schools were not so treated, and sometimes not even given consideration. A number of schools are changing this way of doing things and want to know what the actual costs are at another school. That’s why you have to talk to someone currently in the know at COrnell Fin aid. Your Cornell Student expected contribution remains the same, and as others mention, there is usually a figure these schools have that they expect the student to get on his own. </p>
<p>Also as a transfer student, would you be able to defer your entry until 2015 when you have this benefit, or are you planning on doing the first year with you and parents taking out more than $50K in loans? If you can delay a year, work to save some money–make sure you give the money to a parents in a designated joint account with the parents’ name and SSN first so that it is not counted as Student Assets which get NO protection allowance and are hit at least 20% when parents get a protection allowance and are hit as little as 5.6% on assets. The first $6K or so of your income earned will not be assessed towards EFC and anything in excess of that gets hit at 50%, I believe. </p>
<p>Cornell does package loans in financial aid, and even has its own loan fund. So you might be laden with more loans than at like schools especially since your parents income is up there. You should play around with Cornell’s NPC and change numbers around to get a feel of how it works with two students in college. You should know that calculator cold by the time you talk to the fin aid director.</p>
<p>So with a Cornell expected parental contribution of $70K on their calculatiors, with two in college, parents would be expected to come up with $42K. On top of that is the student expected contribution which is about $4K (my guess only. So with a COA of $62K, you are talking about $16K in aid from Cornell if you are going to college with a sibling also in school. Cornell most likely will package loans and work study in there so that your own borrowing capacity could be zilch. That means your parents still have to come up with $42K somehow. If they can muster up $10K that’s still $32K they have to cough up. Remember they will likely be having to pay something towards your brother’s costs too. Can they even borrow that much a year? $30K a year? Remember, that’s in ADDITION to what Cornell will have you borrowing? A lot of high income parents who can’t come up with much college money have some financial issues that may preclude them from borrowing ANY amounts of money. If they are more than 90 late on bills, for example, have foreclosures, liens, bankruptcy on their credit reports, they can’t get PLUS loans which are probably the best they can do on an unsecured basis, but the interest rate is no bargain at 7% which starts cranking right away, goes on their credit report and is non dischargeable except for death and other limited reasons. This is Uncle Sam we are talking about here and they are tight about discharging this baby. </p>
<p>Without more info on your parents’ financial situation, it’s difficult to say. I’ve known families who make the money but don’t have any saved for a number of good reasons (but such families are RARE, it’s usually not good reasons) who will take out PLUS for their kid and just start repaying it immediately understanding that they are stretching each year’s college payment out for 10 years meaning 14 years of payment with 7 years of that time with 4X the amount of that first year’s payment amount. We did this with open eyes and after much thought and pondering the numbers. It was still very, very rough when we were paying all 4 years amounts. We were rare birds in doing it this way, by the way. Most people just schloff off the payments, let the interest accumulate with no thought of repayment until absolutely demanded after the kid is out of school which by then could mean a doubling of that first year’s borrowed amount. The effect of interest compounding is frightening–a first finance type lesson for you. Do the numbers.</p>
<p>So a lot depends upon your family’s actual financial situation and how good they are at managing it Agreeing with a kid about everything and pushing all though of repayments to the future is not a good thing though it may make you feel good right now. Most of the time people who have not been able to save, cannot come up with payments now, are even less likely to pay in the future. I wish PLUS and other such loans did REQUIRE immediate repayment as they offer as their main option because it then makes the borrower painfully aware of what they are getting them selves into each step of the way. We just paid off my oldest’s such loans, and it was a miserable painful trek. But better than taking the 25 year sentence.</p>
<p>You might find it tough enough to pay off your own loans to Cornell. it’s really tough going even working on Wall Street. My sons have a lot of such friends with student loans, and some whose parents NEED them to pay of the parental loans taken too, and it’s a grim situation even among the economically more successful ones. Yes, if you are a Zuckerberg, piece of cake. But take a good hard look at what “hopeful” means. It’s not that easy to make a lot of money on Wall Street even with an Ivy league degree, and other needs start coming to the forefront long after your schooling days are but a distant memory other than the danged bill payments you have to make until you are well middleaged,maybe with your own kids tuitions to think about. Scary thought, isn’t it. It happens. My own kids have hit some rough times, but at least they did not have school loans in the picture. We paid for UG. My one son iis very successful in terms of a well paying job, but if he had a $100K+ loan monkey on his back, it would be a tough go for even him. That’s a house in many places and without the house. It’s big blotch on the credit report for your parents if they took out the loan and for you, and many of the top companies do a credit check on prospective employees (my son’s did) and they don’t want to hire those with huge debt to income ratios, so if you are cosigner on the loans, it is likely to hurt you in getting an apartment even much less a job dealing with finances or buying a place or taking out any further loans. </p>