I guess we can’t…
Also you don’t know how long this income will last either. We had income like that back in predotcom bust and it went to zero income in no time. Unemployed for 2 years. Been there done that. Luckily we had savings.So don’t count on it to last forever especially if the parents are in the 50s.
^^
@drgoogle makes a good point.
The high earner is the CPA dad. Perhaps he fears that with new software, his services will be less needed. Who knows. He may worry that in 5-10 years, his business may be 25%-50% of what it is now.
Since his oldest child is 17, the man could be in his late 30s or early 40s. He’d be right to be concerned about the future.
Thankfully, the student has a good head on her shoulders. If she doesn’t want to limit herself to Indiana schools, then include some schools that will give large merit for stats.
OP. here’s another suggestion to consider. You mention IR-- what about International Business (which perhaps would appeal to you AND your dad). U of South Carolina has a very highly ranked undergrad IB program and a top public Honors College. Their scholarships are not guaranteed (neither is Honors College admission) but your stats make it likely that you would get in-state tuition plus an add’l $2,000 (possibly a bit more). For 2015-16, that would come out to about $22,000 for tuition, R&B, fees, etc. Columbia is not a big city but it is the State capital and has some very attractive features. The Honors College requires a separate application with an early due date (maybe mid-November?) Just an idea. . .
She said her parents are in their 50’s, not 30 or 40. Retirement is close. He’s made his calculations and decisions and I just don’t think he’s being unreasonable.
I do think that if OP finds a college that is $25k rather than $20k the parents might reconsider the budget. I set a budget and then found I was being a little unrealistic for the current tuition and other costs, so adjusted it a little, considered the student loans available (when I’d been dead set against any loans), looked at all options. Things change even from the junior year of high school to actually starting school two years later, and bumping the budget a little might be required.
I missed the part about the parents ages. Even so, if they’re in their early 50s, and the dad suspects that his business may fall at some point due to software, then he’s right to be cautious. He may also be thinking…“hmmmm…3 daughters, 3 weddings”.
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You mention IR-- what about International Business (which perhaps would appeal to you AND your dad
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I agree.
Is there anything an IR major can do that an Int’l Business major can’t? I would think that Int’l B would be more marketable.
OP, I think you are a gem and will do well wherever you go.
Post no. 8 alluded to what I was thinking … maybe the dad set the dollar amount because it’s his way to keep her in state. Perhaps he thinks that $20K will only go so far and that that threshold means she stays close. OP, have you clarified with your parents that money isn’t the only parameter on your search, that if you found an OOS option that ends up at $20K that they will support that? I would clarify that before we start throwing out lots of other options.
Except for South Carolina (and Dickinson where the management major is de faction “international” since it includes a hefty dose of language&culture + study abroad/internship abroad), “international business” is too general. Students end up knowing tiny snippets about many countries but nothing cohesive, very little that goes deep and thus very little that is of actual use in a professional setting. Beware in particular of International Business major that don’t require upper intermediate to advance proficiency in a language and/or don’t require study or volunteer abroad.
A student would be better off with IR + a management minor, including (if they wish) an International Business and/or Intercultural Communication class or, better yet for IR, an ag minor (because many IR majors want to go into the foreign service, which prefers both critical languages and “stuff you can help with”, to straight IR. IR with a geographical area specialty is just the beginning.)
Gigglebot, can you check whether it’s 20K + college savings, or total?
“And I do think parents may be shocked by the current COAs! And kids may be shocked to understand that $65k a year is way more than most people can come up with. I’m not sure most affluent kids understand even how much $ that really is!! In NY, you would have to earn $130k just to pay the college bill! Everything we pay for costs double from income due to taxes (except certain deductible items, college not being one at that income level.)”
What kind of person making $325k isn’t socking away savings? Unless they started making $325k for the first time that year, wouldn’t they have been putting away some chunks of money so that they’d have savings? And really, absent a special circumstance like unusual, extreme medical expenses, there’s no way someone making $325k can’t find $20k of cuttable expenses (or $20k they won’t put into savings). It would be irresponsible to make $325k and live fully into it.
Yes but they have to put money in retirement savings too. My husband and I put in almost $60k per year on 401k and we put in some more after tax because we are getting ready to retire.
We live in NYS on an income of ~$60k/year, so these kind of figures just boggle my mind. We’re paying $5k/year for our son’s school out of current income and we’re taking another $3k/year out of savings, which fully covers the tuition for him to commute to a state school. Is it really that hard for a family earning $325k/year to come up with $20k? Even if they were paying for 5 kids at once, they still have ~3.5 times our current income left over. I understand that taxes eat up a lot, but even $225k is a lot of money.
“Yes but they have to put money in retirement savings too. My husband and I put in almost $60k per year on 401k and we put in some more after tax because we are getting ready to retire.”
(Just using your post as a jumping off point)
Do you think putting in $60k for retirement savings on an income of $325k is a lot? I don’t. Presumably you’re maxing out your 401Ks - that’s ~ $40k right there.
That’s maxing out retirement is about $60k for a couple. And then there is property tax and lots of other stuff. It sound like a lot but it’s not a lot. I know a coworker whose wife is a doctor, he is an engineer , I assume the income is about $300k but he was unable to qualify for refinance on his house because he has loans for his graduate school. So his income must not be high enough. I believe he has a small house, maybe less than $1 million but not NYC pricing. I know people in the Midwest think it’s a lot of money but it’s not a lot around here.
^just to remind posters that OP never said 325K wasn’t a lot or discussing retirement. OP’s trying to figure out how to find merit money.
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Is it really that hard for a family earning $325k/year to come up with $20k?
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I don’t think anyone is saying that this family would have any trouble coming up with $20k per year. The DD has already implied that there is a college account for her and siblings (don’t know if it’s fully funded or if all payments will come from that.)
We are only hearing the child’s side…altho she seems level-headed! 
We don’t know how long the parents have been earning this income. We don’t know if they suffered some sort of investment loss and are trying to recover. We don’t know the parents’ health status. We don’t know if there is a child or grandparent that they expect that they will be supporting for many, many years.
And, we don’t know if the CPA dad fears that his income will suddenly drop due to new software advances or a possible loss of a huge client.
(Heck, we don’t even know if the parents are planning to divorce in the near future and are setting these cost parameters because of what is to come …hope that isn’t the case, but as outsiders, we just don’t know.)
These parents sound like they’re very pragmatic. They may look at an IR undergrad degree and think, “Ok, that’s worth $80k at IU or elsewhere with merit, but not more. She’ll need a grad degree and we’ll help with that.”
I know that many parents here on CC focus all their college money on undergrad. But, we live in a world now where a grad degree is often needed, and many students will still need parent support during those years…even if only for car insurance, car repairs, cell phones, health insurance and misc help.
We hear many say, “we’ll pay for undergrad, but nothing for grad school”. Many parents are finding that they’re eating those words.
Car insurance for 4 cars, not luxurious cars, in California is about $5000-6000 per year. And it depends on your tax rate, you might have to earn double that to pay for the insurance.
Thank you!!! We are in the same boat. People think, oh you earn 300k why cant you let your kids go where they want? Well that would be a great idea, if we had been earning six figures in our twenties, but that was not the case, and we also had student loans that we had to pay off many years into our marriage. So when you dont start making a sizable income until your forties, and you had kids starting in your twenties, you dont huge 529s funded, etc.
@gigglebot3 , I highly recommed Miami!!! Its a great college town, and an excellent value for the money.
Isn’t there an annual limit per person on the amount you can contribute to a 401K?
They could be doing $18.5k plus the extra $6k over age 50 (all 401k), and then $6.5k into an IRA (total is $31k per person).
Yes, but one can save in any old account they like for retirement savings - it needn’t be a 401K. Maybe I should word it differently - let’s take a dual income household earning $325K (who have been steadily “growing” to that point, not just jumped from $100K to $325K in the past year or so) … saving $60K a year via putting away ~ $40K in the 401K’s and throwing another $20K into the pot for general saving doesn’t seem at all draconian to me.
To me, putting $ in 401K’s is “invisible” - I never see it, so I never think that I had it to spend in the first place. So if that’s the case, on a $325K income, another $20K in the pot in savings … honestly, that feels like very little to save on that kind of income. But I’m pretty conservative in my planning and savings, and I never “live up” to our household income.