Say what now?
@tuckethannock, D is an IB program graduate with excellent GPA, average test scores (2080/31) and ECs. If your D can save $30K, that’s 7500 plus her summer earnings = $10K? Add in a student loan of $5500 and Dad’s contribution at $7500 and you’ve got $23K…with your help, her efforts in high school to keep the high GPA and test scores and an eye towards merit awards, she should be able to get into a decent SLAC, maybe not her first or second choice, but they are out there!
You can’t control your ex husband, you can only control your own job and finances. I think it is strange that you consider your ex making too much money a bad thing. Would you rather he made less? If the child support order does not reflect his current salary, petition for a change. It really doesn’t do any good to be angry about it or blame not getting need based aid 5 yearsin the future on it.
if you identify a school you think is right for her, get a job at that school. Many schools give staff members a tuition benefit, or tuition exchange at other schools. Some of the enchange programs require the staff to work there at least 2 years before it kicks in, others have a priority list, so do it now. Or get a second job and put all that money into a 529. I got a much better job just when my kids were starting high school. We continued to live like we were paupers, and I banked it all, half in retirement, half in college savings.
My daughter had good grades, okay but not top scores. She was limited in her college choices, but we made it work for her #1 choice, which wasnt MIT or Cornell for engineering. She found a school that is fafsa only (although she doesn’t have a NCP, also doesn’t have a second parent paying anything toward support or college), got a merit scholarship, has two state grants because she stayed instate (although a private school), has an athletic scholarship, (which she works her fanny off for), applies for other scholarships, has need based financial aid now (didn’t at first). She chose her school without worrying about the ranking number but focused on what the school offered. We also considered the benefits of staying instate because of the extra grants, considered what other schools offered, what I could contribute (she has a sister in school too).
You aren’t wealthy so her choices will be limited. How is that different than any other choices you’ve had to make in your life, from where you live, where she goes to high school, the kind of car you drive, the clothes you wear, where you vacation? We all make choices based on our budgets, and that doesn’t change when you start college.
Beloit is FAFSA only (but that won’t get her out of the Midwest!). Is there a list of FAFSA only LACs anywhere?
https://profileonline.collegeboard.org/prf/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet/PXRemotePartInstitutionServlet.srv lists schools and scholarships that use CSS Profile, including whether they use the non-custodial parent Profile.
However, schools not on the list may have their own supplemental forms in addition to FAFSA, and some of these may ask for non-custodial parent financial information.
Since your DD is only in the 8th grade, and her bio dad is suddenly making a LOT more money, why not go back to court and ask for MORE child support…and bank that extra money for college?
I don’t know if you can also get the $7k issue readdressed also at that time. $7k shouldn’t be set in stone since college costs go up.
And, as a back up…she needs top grades and strong test scores …then she can get large merit at FAFSA only schools.
At some point, you may need to find a way to make more money.
^I don’t know about OP but like her, my D’s bio Dad had regular increases in his income, easily 5% each year and I could have taken him back to court but at some point it became more important to me to co-parent in a civil manner and knew that court intervention of any sort would lead to animosity and create negativity. It wasn’t worth it to me (or more importantly, my D). I wish parents could keep these things separate from their children, but its just not the way it works in real life in my experience.
sylvan8798/twoinanddone: yes, unfortunately, for college-planning purposes, starting to make lots in the run-up to application while not being willing to pay beyond the state boilerplate (1/3 in-state costs) is a nice thing for him, but bad for the kiddo, and probably for me, too. It means much less in fin aid for her with little or no parental help to compensate. Making more is not always a good thing. Sometimes it turns out to have costs, and if you’re unwilling to recognize those costs – especially if someone else has to pay them – then it’s not so wonderful.
twoinanddone/mom2collegekids, as for support, yes, it’s possible to get child support raised in about a year from now, but it’ll be a long and potentially expensive and fraught struggle to do it, and the additional amount, accumulated over five years, won’t come anywhere near the bump-up in EFC given his change in income. Drop in the bucket.
twoinanddone, I am well aware that I can control only my finances, which is why I started this thread in the first place. This thread is about higher-end options for kids whose NCPs are high-income but will not pay. In the meantime, please do not come down on parents who are working their hardest to get their kids into and through appropriate schools while their selfish exes take actions that put more obstacles in the kids’ ways, or tell us how to feel. We’re allowed to be pissed about this and indeed I think it’s appropriate for some time. (I also resent the implication that somehow I’m intent on living beyond my budget; if you can raise children to do this well on the kind of money I’ve been able to make while also doing the parenting and without debt, you’ve got all my applause. This is about the effect of her dad’s actions on her ability to get fin aid.) As for a second job…you know, I’m a single working mom. I sleep five hours a night as it is and my car is 17 years old. I am already working all the hours there are for working, and obviously I work the best jobs I can find. Someone also has to be here to do the parenting sometimes. If there were extra money available to put into savings – well, actually, it’d go first into retirement savings. But then it’d go into the Coverdell.
PNWedwonk, thanks – I was actually looking at Beloit before I took off for work today. I’ve got smart friends who went there and they really loved it. I think they do want the NCP info, but I didn’t get all the way through their forms.
NEPatsGirl, thanks for that – I know there was talk about IB here, but so far they’re just pretty AP-heavy. I know a lot about how the AP sausage is made from the curriculum end, but in the end whether or not it’s worthwhile depends on the teacher, so we’ll see how that goes. And yeah, the savings goal is $7500/yr, because that’d be about her share of in-state costs if she went here. I’d rather she not do like lots of the kids here do, and try to work 20+ hours a week – it gets in the way of their educations, and they wind up doing the minimum to get the grades in classes instead of following their interests and learning.
This leaves me speechless. Wow. Just wow.
I am empathetic to the OP’s situation. It has to be extremely frustrating for a lowish income custodial parent to know that her child won’t qualify for needed-aid because the NCP’s income is too high…AND won’t help pay for college beyond the court-ordered 1/3 of instate.
Naturally, in THAT situation, the CP is going to find the income-increases on “the other side” frustrating, even though one normally wouldn’t feel that way.
OP…are you also ordered to pay 1/3 (about $7k per year)? Do you have any other children?
What state are you in?
<<<
This is the “custodial mom struggles by, noncustodial dad makes beaucoup bucks, likely won’t pay” story. I hadn’t worried too much about this in the past, because we live near a midwestern state flagship that till recently has been quite good
<<<
I had missed the point that the nearby school is the state’s flagship. I don’t know of any Midwest flagships that have suddenly become too inadequate to educate for most/all career goals. Which one could it be??? Mizzou? No. Nebraska? no. OSU? No. Iowa/Iowa St? No. UIUC? No. IU? No. Minnesota? No. Kansas? No. What state is this?
Frankly, the only flagship that is rather questionable is in Nevada, but I don’t think Nevada is Midwest.
I would be very careful and NOT communicate those feelings (the flagship is no longer good enough) to your DD in case that turns out to be her only affordable option. I would also discourage dreams about schools that require NCP info. It’s very possible that your exH will refuse to provide that info…many ex’s do out of fear that somehow you’ll learn his details.
You’re right to be coming here and looking ahead. That same foresight is needed with guiding your DD. She needs to know that certain schools will not be affordable so the time needs to be spent on finding ones that wil work.
The PSAT is your friend! Especially if you have worked on the SAT. Prep her heavily for NMS and she will have a bunch of options! Hopefully you are in a low cutoff state.
Lol…move to a low cut-off state!
[QUOTE=""]
How heavily did APs and extracurriculars figure into your merit run? Also, how well did the merit award stick after freshman year?
[/QUOTE]
APs and extracurriculars usually have NO bearing on merit scholarships.
This is how merit scholarships usually work at the schools that give them…
There is a HUGE pool of kids with high GPAs, so this alone means little/nothing
There is a smaller pool of kids with high test scores (within upper quartile of the school.)
There is an even smaller pool of kids with high tests scores AND high GPA. <<== these are usually the ones who get merit scholarships at the schools that give them.
ECs and APs don’t “help” the undergrad’s profile. Undergrads give merit for high scores to help their profile.
mom2collegekids - thanks for understanding.
Yes, we’re each required to pay 1/3 in-state, which is fine with me and strikes me as a very fair boilerplate arrangement, particularly since the courts will adjust that if the parent clearly can’t pay (say the parent’s disabled or has some other sort of problem that makes it unrealistic). She’s my only (which is good, I don’t have the energy to do this for more), and I’ve planned for college for her since she was born. Again, at the time the local state school was just fine. It’s considerably more expensive now than then, but even so – if it were the school it was back then, I’d recognize that America has problems with this whole college-costs business but compared with other choices this was pretty good.
You’re right on about the possibility that her dad won’t even fill out the NCP form. We’ve already had that struggle with a scholarship program, and I now recommend to divorcing friends that they make provision for this sort of thing in their decrees. D and I have had that talk, and her view’s that she’d rather take the chance and shoot high, yell at him if she must, and – if it’s clear that he won’t help her get where she’s trying to go by doing something as simple as filling out the form – cut him off. That’s pretty big talk, and sad talk, too, but she’s also clear-eyed about her own future, and I’ll respect the desire to aim high. I used to live in a city with schools that regularly squashed poor kids’ dreams so they wouldn’t be disappointed, and I can’t say that the result was an improvement on disappointment. She also knows that it may come down to going local, and that frankly that’s not the worst worst case in the world. But she’ll fight against letting that happen, which I think is fine, also probably necessary if she really wants to get out of here. Which would not be a bad idea. She’s ahead of where many of the local university students are, academically, even in 8th grade.
I’m not going to get specific about which school because I work there. But again, these problems are going on in many of the state-school systems, and unfortunately they’re hard to see from outside. Quite a lot of energy and money gets put into making it hard to see, too, but I’d be wary at this point of barrages of trumpeted statistics and banners hung everywhere proclaiming greatness. It’s partly a function of the dropoff in state and, in some ways, federal support, partly a concerted effort at bringing the beancounters into the top offices, same way they were brought into medicine in the 90s, in order to make what had been a largely nonprofit activity profitable. Some of it has to do with the amount of debt the universities have taken on as they’ve gone on building sprees, too – in the end, that money has to be paid back, and the forecasts for how that was going to happen not infrequently turn out to be fantasies. I can’t remember whether it was Conn. or NC that got itself in statewide trouble that way recently, and was looking to take out large interest-only loans to get by. (Cooper Union, of course, nearly went under entirely thanks to the real estate deals. The private non-research institutions are a lot more vulnerable if they haven’t got major endowments.) I don’t expect improvement, mainly because all the states are in a pension bind, and that bill will also come due not too long from now. Higher ed funding will take the hit long before K12 will. You mention Illinois, btw, and Illinois’ university system is falling apart – the state is broke. Massive faculty/staff cuts, across the board cuts to salary.
In the meantime, though, a little while ago some academic friends in other states and I were talking about how we should put together a list of metrics you really want to look at in a state school, and that have to do with whether or not it’s a mess, whether the hoty advertised academic programs are anything real or just rearranged furniture, whether tenured/t-t faculty and lecturers actually have time to get to know your kid (and whether they’ve been beaten down to the point where they’re putting in minimal effort), whether offices on campus are able to communicate with each other, whether the get-a-job offices are jokes or not, etc. It’s pretty easy to designate a space, put some chairs in it and hire someone part time and call it an Office of Student Whatever, but that doesn’t mean it’s a useful thing. You can also have an honors program or disability-services program that looks nice on paper but misses the point.
Four stats I’d look at, at large state schools, are percentage of assistant profs promoted to associate in the last five years; percent of professorial tenured (associate/full) leaving in the last five years; average age of staff; and average semester student load of lecturers. Essentially, if the university prefers disposable employees, it’s not going to be a great place for students, either. So leading young PhDs on with tenure that’ll never materialize, frightened or demoralized tenured profs jumping ship, lots of churn in staff that leaves the majority of the people behind the desks without instutional knowledge or expectation of being around next semester, and workhouse conditions for lecturers – this is not an environment where the ordinary thing is to take a serious interest in individual students and their educations, I don’t care how many smiling Center for Student Whatever women shake your hand during the tour.
I would also take a look at how the school’s debt has tracked over the last decade. If they’re suddenly racking up billions, look out, because they have to get that money from you and the kids one way or another. And I would take both the SAT/ACT and TOEFL scores seriously, because the courses have to be geared to the average scorer. Don’t underestimate how heavily state universities now rely on tuition paid by international students, many of whom really don’t have English adequate to taking their classes in English. These are customers nobody wants to drive away.
It’s a different world – a much more starkly different world than it used to be – from the world of large-endowment private universities. I’m reminded of that each time I travel. In a sense it’s just a reflection of how polarized money has become in this country, but when alumni have the means to drop seven- and eight-figure gifts on a regular basis, your campus feels it. Your students are very well taken care of, and their opportunities are plentiful, even overwhelming. The facilities are beautiful, and they’re paid for. There’s a different energy, too, because the faculty aren’t focused on survival, and planning can be more ambitious. And I’ll give you one very small undergraduate-student-level example of how this manifests. If you go to certain top schools, and you want to spend your summer working for a nonprofit that won’t pay you, the school will actually give you a stipend to cover your summer expenses. So that you can have this experience and wade into a world where you might want to make your career. Note that I’m not saying “if you have rich parents” – it’s “if you go to this rich university”. On the other hand, I don’t think I’ve had a summer where I haven’t sat down with a poor kid who’s been pushed at a minimum-wage or nonprofit internship in New York or San Francisco, and done some math with that kid, and helped the kid see that short of a miracle or the sudden appearance of a kindly wealthy uncle, this internship was not for him.
I wish all this were not the case, and I think it’s wrong that we’ve arranged things this way. I think it does damage to childhood and to the nation. But it does seem to be how things are and will be for the foreseeable future.
If you mean to use this as a way to show a FA officer that your daughter should get more FA because her father refuses to pay, it is not a strategy that works. If the school uses NCP’s income, they really don’t care that a parent won’t pay. There are thousands of college students with NCPs who won’t pay more, who won’t pay at all once no longer required to do so by court order. Some have made it even worse for the student by getting married again as some schools look at the stepparent’s income too. What do these students do? They go to other schools. And the world doesn’t end because those other schools are good too.
Everyone has to live within the budget, whether you make $50k or $100k or $200k. Not every kid whose parents make $50k total receive 100% need met scholarships. Most have loans, work study, and a big gap. There have been many kids posting here that they received big scholarships to High Ranked U, $45k, $55k, and yet that’s not enough, they still need another $20k after Pell and loans and grants, so they have to go to a cheaper option.
As to your title question, is your daughter screwed by her father making money? No, she’s lucky she has a NCP who is a parent to her. She can get a big merit scholarships. She can mix and match scholarships like my daughter does with merit, athletic, state grants. Your daughter may qualify for a Pell grant or state grant at a FAFSA only school. based on your income.
All you can do now is save, look for scholarships and have her start building a resume. If a local DAR scholarship requires an essay on Betsy Ross, have her write one and save it in a binder. If the Elks requires 100 hours of community service, get them done and certified. If your state has scholarships that requires foreign language and tap dancing, take lessons.
Please do not presume to tell me how I ought to regard my ex, his actions, and his circumstances. When he’s been your ex for a while, you can comment. Your comments are also unrealistic when it comes to what the average single custodial parent can do in terms of helping with extracurriculars and arranging for participation in community service. I think you’re commenting far beyond your scope of experience in these matters.
I really didn’t come here to be lectured on how to view my ex; I came with specific questions but the thread seems to have spiraled off into something else.
<<<
starting to make lots in the run-up to application while not being willing to pay beyond the state boilerplate (1/3 in-state costs) is a nice thing for him, but bad for the kiddo, and probably for me, too. It means much less in fin aid for her with little or no parental help to compensate. Making more is not always a good thing. Sometimes it turns out to have costs, and if you’re unwilling to recognize those costs – especially if someone else has to pay them – then it’s not so wonderful.
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
OP…please clarify because I think some are misunderstanding what you wrote…
The way I read the above, you’re saying that it’s bad for exH to keep getting income increases because he won’t PAY more for college, and your DD will get less/no aid, and that hurts your DD and also probably will hurt you, too, as you’ll have to struggle to pay more than the 1/3 to “make up” for the amount that your exH won’t pay. (This is a common struggle for CPs…they’re not only raising the kids, but often having to absorb a larger amount of college costs…even if it’s just providing a place for the student to live while commuting)
I don’t believe that you’re saying that it would be bad if YOU got a big raise. I think you’re saying that your ExH’s raises are going to cause “someone else” (you) to pay the extra costs because of lost FA.
<<<
D and I have had that talk, and her view’s that she’d rather take the chance and shoot high, yell at him if she must, and – if it’s clear that he won’t help her get where she’s trying to go by doing something as simple as filling out the form – cut him off. That’s pretty big talk
[QUOTE=""]
[/QUOTE]
I certainly can understand why some kids would feel like “cutting off” their NCP if he won’t even fill out the NCP forms, but really I’m not sure how that is any worse than him filling out the forms, then your DD gets an acceptance in March/April only to receive little/no aid and dad won’t pay. Why would that be better? I would think that at least if he didn’t fill out the forms, your DD would know in Dec/Jan/Feb that those schools will not work. Either way, I would think a kid would feel like cutting off their NCP.
Hi @tuckethannock, just throwing some support your way. Tough situation.