@bhs1978 I think for most folks that question is really hard to answer. It’s so dependent on the choices made and the OP asked a wide open question.
I pay $0 for one kid and I’ll pay $8k/year for the other. They both go (or will go) out of state.
That doesn’t really give the OP much data. Our income puts our EFC way above any annual college cost in the United States. We don’t qualify for financial aid. We were willing to pay about $28k/kid/year (so $58k/year total) which is roughly the cost of our instate flagships.
Both kids are high stat kids. One kid got a full ride and one kid got a tuition/fees scholarship. They’re both going for engineering.
The OP would have to dig down much deeper to even make any of that useful data. I think that’s why folks are kinda not answering with actual figures. @CourtneyThurston had it just right.
@missbwith2boys I feel that your response is reasonable and may be of benefit to the OP. @CourtneyThurston may have been right but her response (and some others) were written in such a way that comes off snarky and rude. It’s not so much the actual answers that are a problem it’s how they are presented. Let the OP use the data he collects in whatever fashion he feels beneficial. If people feel that the question is not worthy of an answer, then don’t answer!!
There’s snark because OP is trying to compare apples to oranges to “see how well I did” and it’s a little annoying honestly. I like for the “What Are My Chances?” I-want-to-compare-myself-to-everyone-else style kids to stay in that forum.
D lives at home and goes to local CC, we pay close to $0 since her Pell, other grants, and local scholarships pretty much cover everything.
S has not made final choice but either Duke or NC State would be about $3K for first year. it should increase years 2-4 but not sure how much. NPCs indicate doable numbers.
I think what’s making other posters balk is that it does not matter how much you pay per semester, as opposed to how much you can afford and how much debt you accrue. a family can full-pay $70K per year but if they have the assets, the student will graduate with zero debt. conversely someone could pay only $10K per year, but if they can only afford $5K then they will accrue $20K in debt by the time they graduate, assuming it takes 4 years.
I’ll be paying right around our EFC (between $10k-$12k depending on non-billed expenses/travel) for the year at either Columbia or Georgetown. Georgetown price is AFTER loans so technically it is more expensive for us out-of-pocket since my daughter will have to take Direct loans and pay those back.
People are trying to coax the OP into asking a more insightful question. This one is completely open-ended, and gives LESS helpful information than simply running the Net Price Calculator for a school OP is actually interested in.
^^We can’t answer the question if we don’t know what the school COA is, don’t know if the student has a lot of merit or need based aid. She asked ‘how much do you plan on paying per semester?’ How can there be one answer to that?
Like @missbwith2boys, I have two kids, one with a COA of $58k ($29/sem), one at $25k (~$12.5/sem). For the $58k, I pay nothing. She has merit and other awards, and does take the subsidized loan of about $2500/sem. for the $25, I pay about $4000 per semester after she takes the full Stafford loan. Other parents at these same school pay nothing or pay up to $29k. It just depends on whether their students have scholarships, financial aid, live on campus, live at home, instate or OOS tuition, etc.
It’s like airplane tickets. The person sitting next to you may have paid $600 while you paid $59.
"I know this depends on the college, but I’m just wondering how I compare to others in terms of how much people are going to have to pay; please state the college you’re going to and if you’ve received any grants/loans/scholarships and how much you’ll pay AFTER all that is subtracted.
Thanks!"
Wow, people. No need to go after the OP. If you don’t like his question, don’t answer.
Depending on the kid, our out of pocket costs were between about $4,000 per semester and $11,000 per semester. This includes scholarships. We did not have any loans.
“No need to go after the OP. If you don’t like his question, don’t answer.”
I agree. I think that it is a reasonable question. If you don’t want to answer, then don’t.
For our kids, in terms of the offers that we got from various universities the total cost of attendance of course varied between schools, although not as much as I expected.
For universities in the USA, based on the offers that we got, the least expensive would have been our in-state university, which would have been just under $20,000 per year (with some merit scholarship). The most expensive would have been a relatively strong university in Boston where we got no financial aid at all – total cost would have been between $65,000 and $70,000 per year (we didn’t take that offer). Pretty much all of the other universities gave merit based scholarships that would have brought the total cost to about $40,000 per year (from starting prices that ranged from $55,000 to $70,000 – the merit scholarships seemed to perfectly offset the differences in costs between schools).
For universities outside of the US, mostly the total cost of attendance was lower than this (for the ones that we applied to, and including flights where needed). Without dual citizenship the cost would have only slightly more than our in-state school (most just over US$20,000, one more like $30,000). With dual citizenship the total cost would be slightly less than our in-state costs in the US.
We don’t have a great athlete in the family. Some friends who are great athletes got full rides (total cost of $0).
Dramatic difference here based on our kids goals, our oldest is costing us about $3000 tuition/semester and is living at home, so no real room and board. Our middle will cost between $14 - $18,000 per semester depending on where he goes when he finally makes his decision. It feels good knowing each child found his own perfect match and is/will work hard in their chosen interests.
Our S got merit awards at all the Us he seriously considered ranging from 1/2 tuition to full ride. He accepted 1/2 tuition plus. Our D cost basically books for her 3 semesters st CC then was full pay the following terms at private U.
OP,@uofmfan, several have asked you how much you are payyng, to answer your own Q.
