<p>DadII… You are not alone in feeling the crunch even if you received substantial financial aid it is not easy educating our kids. Just remember it comes to an end and you will feel wonderful when it does. I have never regretted one aspect of paying the big tuition bills because what my kids had was a dream…they are grateful and doing well. Count your blessings for all of your good fortune.</p>
<p>If a kid goes to a need-based school, the family pays only what they can afford and live comfortably. Am I right? For example, if one’s family income is 160K and the kid gets into HYPS, they only pay 16K a year. Is that the hardship DadII’s taking about?</p>
<p>Yes. If you have 2 kid’s, that’s how much you pay too, not 32k.</p>
<p>So all of DadII’s agony comes from the burden of paying roughly 10% of the price for two kids ($10k out of $100k yearly)? Is this really true?</p>
<p>Wow, that sounds like a position that one could only dream about.</p>
<p>thumper, another parent here whose entire income goes to EFC. Went back to work against medical advice to help pay for college. I figure it’s that much less we have to borrow.</p>
<p>When we’re done with this, there is a LOT of deferred maintenance that needs to take place on our house.</p>
<p>OMG 2boysima!! Good thing I didnt have food in my mouth when I read yoru first line or 2 !! LOL!</p>
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<p>DadII, so nice of you to add a little humility to CC. I know money is tight, as it is for everyone, but you have still managed to get incredibly generous FA. You complain about the tuition and yet you also talk about test driving Audi convertibles (which car did you buy?) and planning nice vacations as a birthday celebration. For us, we have saved for tuition expenses for the last 25 years, we drive 15 year old cars, and when we “go on vacation”, we take a day off and ride a bike.</p>
<p>Our trick was raising interesting, exciting kids that colleges couldn’t resist, and then having them bid for their services. (I don’t think of it as “financial aid” at all - they are simply discounting the price that they set to begin with, so how could it be “aid”?)</p>
<p>Worked for us. We didn’t save a dime for either kids’ college. Didn’t take out any loans. Lived well (with the $1,000-dollar car, which I still have - no, you can’t have my 95 Saturn - I’m not selling! nor my wife’s ‘97). Mortgage isn’t much more than our health club membership. During the kids’ college years, we all went to Italy, I’ve been to India five times, and to Africa once. D1 lived in Italy for a year and traveled through Europe. D2 worked in India and Jordan, and went to Mexico and Bermuda. Both now in graduate school, with D2 already guaranteed a job at $60k plus, and D2 on a 5-6 year fellowship.</p>
<p>We are blessed, and count our lucky charms. Advice? Don’t Worry; Be Happy! After all, you could be dead (I was, once; not all it’s cracked up to be), or living in Somalia.</p>
<p>some people live big and owe big. </p>
<p>PS - I would much rather not qualify for any financial aid and pay out the wazoo.</p>
<p>IIRC, he went back to his DS’s school and asked for a reconsideration of their FA package, and got more aid. Expect it will happen again when DD graduates.</p>
<p>I agree smile12157. I feel better about NOT qualifying for FA. For some people (Mini?) it may feel FA is like an entitlement program, but I think of food stamps, welfare, Medicaid, and unemployment checks that way too.
mini, you’d also call FA an entitlement program, right? (And I’m a teacher for kids who live in “the projects” and get free breakfasts/lunch/snacks. I don’t think they’re particularly happy in their circumstances, but that’s their reality. Those are the kids who should get FA.)</p>
<p>For us, finding the right match, which includes what we saved minus how much it costs vs expecting college/government to financially support us is just a matter of choice. I could say “I’m going to live within my means and plan for the future” or I could say “live large now and someone can take care of college expenses when the time comes.” </p>
<p>BTW, we all feel we have raised interesting, exciting kids that colleges couldn’t resist, but personally, we didn’t want to depend on the college/government to pay for something we wanted. </p>
<p>Full disclosure, aside from my circumstances, I should add that my DH got into several ivy leagues when he, the first in the family who went to college, was applying 35 years ago. He got in them all, and at the time was offered generous FA, but since the family couldn’t afford a single dime, he had to a attend a college that gave him a full ride. Back then, a ‘generous’ scholarship wasn’t what it is today. He didn’t want that same experience for his own kids, and so we have always saved. For us, that meant we didn’t pay for exotic vacations or health clubs, but that was our choice.</p>
<p>We tried to raise interesting, exciting kids that colleges couldn’t resist, and then having them bid for their services. Unfortunately, our kids are just ordinary, and we don’t qualify for financial aid. I guess I’ll just have to put off my trips to Italy, India, Africa, Jordan, Mexico and Bermuda until my next life, when I plan my children better. But hey, I could be dead, right?</p>
<p>“mini, you’d also call FA an entitlement program, right? (And I’m a teacher for kids who live in “the projects” and get free breakfasts/lunch/snacks. I don’t think they’re particularly happy in their circumstances, but that’s their reality. Those are the kids who should get FA.)”</p>
<p>Nope. I’d call it tuition discounting. Prestige colleges think it is worthwhile for the so-called full-pay kids (their target audience) to get “exposure” to how others live and think. Not too many of them of course, just enough to spice up the place. Some of them are lucky enough to get the opportunity. Most, not, but they do just fine anyway, at state honors colleges and really fine LACs, and such. Mine just happened to get the opportunity to take advantage of it. I’m grateful, but I’m sure the schools’ got their money’s worth. It was a good exchange - sort of renting out my kids. (And they would have done just fine elsewhere as well.)</p>
<p>Yikes mini. You actually say that getting FA is aka as “renting out your kids”? I call that thinking acting like a pimp.</p>
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<p>If I had a dollar for every friend, acquaintance and family member who tried this plan and found it didn’t work for them, I could retire early. Seriously, maybe it worked for you but it’s very, very risky. Much smarter to go ahead and save the money and then if your child is ‘exciting and interesting’ enough to get bids from colleges, then you have extra money to play with. That’s what worked for us and DS will probably be getting his ‘college fund’ to use to buy his first house (unless we end up using it for grad school or medical school). We weren’t willing to play fast and loose with his future and we certainly weren’t willing to saddle either him or us with loans.</p>
<p>Wonder if DadII feels better now.</p>
<p>Mini, you poor soul, all those years working in the cafeteria back at Williams must have been torturous. The idea that all students come in with a tuition discount is a myth propagated by schools to get people to donate. The fact is that these schools run a surplus every year. if they are not able to, then we will see whether they in fact give everyone a discount by running a deficit and drawing down their endowment first.</p>
<p>And where did you learn your manners, sir?</p>
<p>DadII: You make sacrifices. Sometimes, you are not popular with those decisions, but you deal with that. Store-brand sodas or you just drink water. PB & J sandwiches for lunch. Buying in bulk for grocery items. Driving 10-year-old cars. </p>
<p>How about making Christmas/birthday/wedding gifts? I do a lot of cross stitch in the evenings, and people appreciate my handmade gifts more than anything I could purchase.</p>
<p>I have known parents who have taken deferred compensation (deferred stock options, raises or bonuses) at their jobs but realized that they needed to tap into that for college costs at some point.</p>