<p>I agree with Blossom’s post. If it were me I’d ask to <em>discuss</em> finances with my son and husband … outline to your son how much you as parents will pay … and then <em>ask</em> your son his plan for coming up with his bucks. Personally I have no problem as a parent leaving gap that can be filled with 1) a summer job, 2) a 8-10 hour/wk campus job, and 3) the annual federal Stafford loan. If he has no plans for work he has to describe some other way to come up with the money (and I’d love to hear his money gennie idea). The big catch in this conversation is tougher if Mom and Dad are not aligned on what they are willing to pay.</p>
<p>D1 was given a full tuition (presidential scholarship) at a top 40 LAC, but she would have been a big fish in a small pond and it wasn’t the experience she wanted. She applied there last minute out of sheer panic. We didn’t even know she had applied until much later. Our family slept on the offer for few days because it was a lot of money to pass up.</p>
<p>D1 showed us how much money we were paying for her private secondary school already, how much she could contribute through summer jobs and loans (from us). She said she would prefer to go to her #1 choice by contributing 10K a year instead of taking the scholarship from her safety school. She is now 2 years out of school with her dream job. I don’t think she would have had the same opportunity if she had gone to the LAC.</p>
<p>I do agree with Blossom’s post. It is much better when there is a discussion and the student is allowed to give his/her point of view. I have also learned that language is very important when it comes to negotiating.</p>
<p>I am not a parent - rather a senior at high school preparing to go to college. I did not browse through the 220ish responses to see if another teenager had posted, but nonetheless felt like it would be good to include a different opinion.</p>
<p>Let me say that a child is an investment - not only monetary but also emotional, but you prlly alrdy knew that. My grandfather did everything he could to help my father do as well as he could in life. He took on loans (as much as he could), got my dad tutored and everything, paid the tuition for the best engineering school in his home country (india), and paid to have my dad exported to the states to study there. He invested his money and emotion in my father and I daresay it paid off. Ever since my dad got married, he’s taken care of my grandfather in every way. He’s paid for all of his expenses, invited my grandfather to Live with us in America for as long as he wants to, and spent considerable amounts of time with him. He has such an unbreakable bond with his dad which is lacking in so many other families. Recently, my grandfather suffered some internal brain hemorrhaging which caused him to lose all of his memory. the doctors proclaimed he would pass within a month, and even if he managed to stay around past that point, he would be nothing but a vegetable. Yet my dad fought for him and paid to have him sent to the best possible clinics and get the best treatment. And now, 4 years after my grandfather was almost assigned to hospice service, he is still alive and kicking. Although he still suffers from retrograde amnesia, and his brain is not functional enough to speak comprehensible sentences, my whole family still treats him with immense respect and love and care. Most families would probably either have left him at hospice or given him to an old home. But my father didn’t because my grandfather had given him every opportunity to make the most out of his intelligence and so my father was obliged to give him everyopportunity to live.</p>
<p>Long story short. If your kiddo seems like the intelligent type and would benefit from going to one college over another, try to give him the better option. If he doesn’t deserve it (i.e. Didn’t try at all in school) then maybe you should reconsider. But for example if my (future) son got into johns Hopkins and Suny stony brook, i would do everything i could to send him to jhu. It’s the better education/job opportunity.</p>
<p>That is all…
Sent from my XT897 using CC</p>
<p>Well, like I said, our kids are the ‘norm’ around here. Yes, our community is very supportive–the guidance office has 6 pages of an excel spreadsheet in 8 font of local scholarships ranging from $250 to full rides. Some are available to only kids from our high school others are statewide. We had an Evans Scholar last year, which is a national scholarship. We’ve had kids in the past several classes get awards from Kohl’s, Walmart, various national banks, etc.–all national scholarships, some of them for $20,000+. One scholarship DD is up for is only open to kids in our area, however, it’s a national organization and each chapter of this organization has it’s own scholarship. You just need to belong to the organization to apply. It’s sport related but the scholarship isn’t awarded based on your ability (or it would make you ineligible to participate in college)–it’s awarded on GPA and test scores. Just checked Hawaii since HImom is from there–the award there is for $5000…</p>
<p>As for being challenged, I have no doubt they will be sufficiently challenged. Our DD wants to go to medical school so acceptance rates were very important in her search. For the past several years, every student that has applied to med school from her chosen college has been accepted, and accepted to top medical schools like U of Chicago, Harvard, etc. It’s a smaller school so last year there were only 15 kids that applied but so what…they ALL got in. I guess I don’t see an issue with their school at all thanks.</p>
<p>Steve, nobody is taking away anything from your kids achievements whatsoever. I think the point a couple of posters are trying to make is- YMMV. It’s all working out for your family- which is great- but the financial opportunities and academic needs and geography and all the rest don’t always line up so sweetly.</p>
<p>If your D wanted to become a curator in a museum with a very strong passion for painting, I think if you had the choice of Williams with some loans or U New Haven with their full tuition scholarship would be a very difficult one. Yes, both of them are kinda sorta midway between New York and Boston- both with phenomenal opportunities for internships, museum visits, etc, but despite Williams more remote location… it is quite simply the Art Mafia out in the real world with its own museum, its own archives, world class faculty despite the small size overall, engaged alums who make every effort possible to provide introductions and internships to undergrads, etc. </p>
<p>No, curators don’t make the kind of money that investment bankers or surgeons make (but I’d argue that certainly Williams is the better bet for a kid who will end up in banking!) but for a moderate sized loan with a highly motivated kid who understands that he or she will be roughing it for a while after graduation- many families would rationally take the loan-- moderate-- to bridge the gap between whatever generous need based aid might be forthcoming and what is needed to pay the family EFC.</p>
<p>So nobody is sniping at your results… just the somewhat blunt way you seem to be framing the argument. YMMV.</p>
<p>blossom–I’ll disagree with the choice of 2 schools to be a museum curator=I have a good friend that happens to be one and she graduated from a state directional and has been gainfully employed for 25+ years. No, it’s not the Metropolitan Museum of Art but she loves her job. There is just a common thread here on the CC that you can ONLY go to certain colleges and that simply is NOT true. Heck, most of the colleges people boast about, no one here has ever heard of before. </p>
<p>You call it blunt, I call it stating facts. Take it how you want but when a poster comes here asking for advice of how not to take out massive parental loans for college, I’m trying to address the issue, not making it worse. There are VERY few people in our area that would consider paying $50,000 for ANY school, including Yale, Harvard, etc. They know it’s just NOT worth the cost when they can get an equally good education at any number of institutions with ample job opportunities by going to many of the local schools. We had 2 kids turn down Ivy’s last year because they got MUCH better offers elsewhere. We just live in a more practical area I guess. </p>
<p>Our kids were fully prepared to take STUDENT loans if need be, they won’t have to. We tried to find a school for DD where she would not have to take loans because of going to med school. We found several. DS said he would be willing to take up to $50,000 in loans to attend his dream school. That’s up to him. If we didn’t think his job would support paying those loans back easily, we would counsel otherwise. WE, however will not take on debt for our children’s education.</p>
<p>Looking at your two examples, Blossom, there is an average of $7000 difference in the upper income levels for those 2 schools–that really isn’t that significant. Neither school would have made the list however because they don’t have any of the extras our kids wanted…Williams isn’t a good fit for DD’s sport, New Haven doesn’t even have her sport, nor is it a residential college. Williams location would have been a plus, New Haven would probably have come off the list because of It’s location. The average GPA and test scores at New Haven are well below the averages at the school DD is attending and Williams is above but they cross over about 1/2 way…</p>
<p>That is a very nice story cneogy. I would like to think though that we do the best for our parents no matter what they were able to provide for us financially when we were younger. My husband was the first member of his family to go to college and he paid every cent-his parents were in no position to help him financially but he couldn’t have been a better son-all the way up to his mother’s passing last year.</p>
<p>I really don’t care what people do about college funding-driving old cars, not taking vacations, taking out loans-that is their business. It becomes my business if and when I get stuck paying the bill-which every taxpayer in this country has done when people went out and took on way more debt whether though home mortgages or credit card debt than they could afford. The next ticking time bomb is student loans-I really don’t want to have to fund more financial stupidity. I know someone who was baffled they got no need based FA at their son’s “dream school” but in the end decided he had worked so hard he “deserved” it-and these people should know better-but no several excellent schools every bit as good as dream school and far more affordable due to MA were scratched in favor of lots of loans. OK fine they can do what they want but I don’t want to hear them whining if it doesn’t work out-and I sure don’t want to pay the bill for it.</p>
<p>This is a subject that gets most of us riled up to some extent because there is this feeling that if you are not willing to sacrifice to some martyr like extent to provide the “best” education you are somehow not doing your best for your children-I find that highly offensive. I find it equally offensive if people chose to send their child to the best school they can afford-even if getting there had been hard-for them to be criticized as stupid. They aren’t stupid-they have chosen that path and value what they are paying for-good for them. </p>
<p>This pie in the sky delusional thinking that finances are only going to get better, people’s incomes will always go up, and that these loans can be repaid easily is crazy but part of the culture in this society where we get what we want now and it will somehow all be paid for in the future-eventually the bill is coming due.</p>
<p>I will tell you that people who live within their means and in reality and not in some dream world are pretty sick and tired of subsidizing those who refuse to make tough choices including saying no-I would love to say yes to everything my children ask as they have worked as hard as anyone else I know but it isn’t possible. </p>
<p>If you have the money or the ability to borrow and repay and you think this is worth is-that the difference in two schools is worth the extra money-than by all means go for it! Debt is very useful but only if you have the ability to repay it.</p>
<p>I too would disengage from making this so contentious. The best thing in my experience is to be extremely clear well in advance what you will do-then they can decide what they can do. </p>
<p>Steve I think it is wonderful your children have all these great opportunities but I think this is not the norm.</p>
<p>I don’t understand the criticism of SteveMA’s posts, and I am not picking up on any “tone” or judgmental attitudes. He is simply stating his personal experience, as are most of us.</p>
<p>My experience with my son was definitely closer to Steve’s than to that of some of the others here. ONLY counting merit money from the institutions themselves, he had at least six schools whose COA came in well under that of the state flagship (which we used as the “number to beat”). He was at the higher end of the stats range but he would have been at higher-ranked colleges too. His experience at his small, “second-tier” LAC so far has been outstanding. He considers most of the kids he knows his intellectual peers. There a few he would say might not be as smart as he is and more who he says are much smarter and more accomplished. And you know what? This was exactly my experience at a top 15 university 30 years ago.</p>
<p>I think Steve is doing great-I just don’t think their experience with MA is the norm with all of these local scholarships but I have no issue at all with their point of view.</p>
<p>steve, my point was not to bash state directionals, but to point out that the choices are not always as obvious as “Go to med school with no undergrad loans vs go to med school loaded down with undergrad loans”. Many of us have situations that are more nuanced than that… and some posters get weary of hearing that it’s so easy for your kids to go to college for free, you’re just not working hard enough at it.</p>
<p>But I think it’s great that your kids have terrific options!!!</p>
<p>I believe Steve has a lot of good information to offer families trying to figure out how to finance their kids’ educations. My dispute was simply with her comment that “honestly I don’t think it is hard at all to get the scholarships needed, along with summer job money to pay for all of your tuition.”</p>
<p>For those of us who have kids who aren’t recruited athletes with twins attending high schools that give out multiple 4-year non need based full ride scholarships the FA road might be a little bumpier.</p>
<p>Steve and her family have been smart, but in my estimation they’ve also been lucky. Not every family is so fortunate. To my mind it’s a little like the double legacy child of big donors saying “everyone can get into Princeton with a 3.6 and decent ECs.”</p>
<p>2016BarnardMom - My S is interviewing for a full tuition private donor scholarship next week to the University of Michigan. He is 1 of 5 being considered. Scholarships to U of M are hard to find, but not impossible.</p>
<p>I think SteveMA has some good info, BUT it does not seem particularly relevant to the OP and this thread. I also think the OP has other reasons for not wanting her son to attend his school of choice (she had another thread about the distance and not wanting him to go away). Having the rational conversation that blossom and 3togo are promoting would give him an avenue to actually attend the school of his choice. I am not sure that is what the OP wants.</p>
<p>SteveMa, I am impressed with all the opportunities you’ve found. I’m going to hire you to seek them for me with my kids. I am quite sure there are options for D, but I just have not stumbled into good places to look (my fault, I’m quite sure). She has a clear #1 school in state which we can afford (529 plans are lovely…) as well as another in-state where she may get some money and one out of state which could perhaps give some bigger merit scholarships, if she can get them. I made her take the SAT one last time hoping she’d pick up the 20 points she needed to qualify, which she did, but that’s about all the effort we have put into it. My very bad, and I’m sure I’m going to be kicking myself. Congratulations to you though. That’s great!</p>
<p>To OP, cause I’m not reading all the responses. Here’s my experience as a student whose family went through the dilemma yours is going through. My parents were split on the loan issue for my sibling but because they did not fully understand the whole process. One believed PLUS loan was like co-signing but after I came to CC they finally knew it was really just a loan for them. The other parent did not want to take any loans out. Now they have a written agreement with the sibling that they will be paying back the PLUS loan. Since my mother will be an accountant she will be looking at the finances for the sibling since sibling wants to attend graduate school immediately after undergrad unless they are given a job after the internships.</p>
<p>For me though there was no chance that they would be taking out any loans. Not, only because they had fallen on hard times at this point, my father was only working part time, but honestly they felt it should be my investment. Both of my parents paid for their own education even my mother did now when she returned to school. I applied to two OOS schools one private, and one public both offered me scholarships but I still had to find 20 k to afford it. I became paranoid about loans after my first semester because I had taken out nearly 9 k to pay for tuition, room, and board. This def was a factor in my decision to return home besides the major change.</p>
<p>It did hurt my feelings that my parents would not take out a loan for me despite taking loans for sibling. I can honestly say I’m much more responsible and will be graduating on time. I paid for my braces with about 25% (the up front cost) from parents. I think had the financial situation been different my parents would have just because they know I can handle my finances and not waste my money.</p>
<p>Another experience that I know a little about it: Relatives parents (divorced) did not agree about this issue. Not sure on specifics but in the end mother co-signed private loans for student to attend an OOS worth 56 k a year. Trade off was that student could not do study aboard and student had to graduate within 3 yrs of entering. I think the father pays for some of the expenses but not a lot because he was extremely against going to any OOS school. Student entered as a science major and as now changed to a humanity major taking almost 20 credits a trimester just to be able to graduate within time frame. Mother checks all essays before they are submitted. Student is trying to attend a law school afterwards. My guess this is student is over 100 k in debt already.</p>
<p>“Take it how you want but when a poster comes here asking for advice of how not to take out massive parental loans for college, I’m trying to address the issue, not making it worse.” </p>
<p>Didn’t sound to me like the OP is talking about taking out massive debt
but I am curious as to how much money the OP is talking about? I know my son, who has had a part time job since high school and has kept it since going to college (he works summers and breaks) maybe earns $2000 a year. He also was offered work study ($800 iirc.) With that he pays for his books, gas, entertainment, etc.) Not much left to contribute to COA. </p>
<p>My son also got wonderful merit aid at most of the schools he applied too - topping out at $30K a year - but that still left a gap of $25K+. He is at a need only LAC (which shockingly came in giving him more money that the top merit award) but we still have to cover $19K. We consider ourselves very fortunate. </p>
<p>Also, imo, high school and getting into college is already so stressful for these kids that I can’t imagine putting the added burden on them of having to come up with outside scholarships - especially if their parents have the means to pay (or pay back the loans.) It’s another thing if the parents don’t.</p>
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<p>Forgive me - What is YMMV?</p>
<p>“YMMV” means “your mileage may vary,” i.e., results will be different for every person.</p>
<p>I actually did come around to getting excited about him attending school there. Sure, it is not ideal to have a child with autism spectrum disorder so far away, but I have spoken with the disability accommodations person, as well as some old friends and I think we have a support system in place. We have also spoken with housing. So everything is actually coming together there. </p>
<p>We do not need to take out any parent loans to meet the EFC. IF we did, then as long as it were within the EFC, I would possibly be willing to take the loans out. I feel like the EFC is our responsibility. However, our son routinely refuses to get a job, participate in ec’s, do any of the volunteer work he has been asked to do, etc. He does have an autism counselor I have consulted with. Her feeling is that he is capable of working, his disability is not preventing it. The state disability office tried to set him up with a job counselor and help him get a job, and he said no. </p>
<p>If we were to jump in and say “its ok pumpkin, we will give you extra money” then not only would we go against personal convictions of teaching our children to take some sort of personal responsibility, but, we would be setting a presidence for our younger children that they do not have to do anything, and when we say “get a job or you won’t have the money for the things you want” that we don’t really mean it and we will jump in and rescue them.</p>
<p>Honestly, it really pains me to have to tell him he cannot go if he cannot come up with the money. I actually researched scholarships, sent him the links, gave him a new computer even, and showed him the links and told him to apply. He then spent time on the computer “applying.” Later, it turned out, he never applied. He flat out lied about that.</p>
<p>I think it is pretty bad parenting to step in and cover our children’s rear ends all the time. I think that is why we hear so much about the generation Y.</p>
<p>My guilt comes from his disability. I feel like he started life 5 steps behind. Sometimes, I feel like I need to step in and give extra help. But in reality, that probably hurts him more than helps.</p>