<p>Mom2and, check the scholarship estimator again. My D is NMF, at ASU, and has the scholarship. It is tuition/fees. Rm/bd is not included. This has not changed. I just checked the estimator to be sure. </p>
<p>I don’t have any thoughts about whether the kid is under pressure or game has been changed, and have not commented on that. The OP did not say that directly, certainly. Others inferred that from tone of some comments OP made. It was not me. </p>
<p>I don’t have a firm opinion of where the son should attend whatever the actual facts are. I just wanted to share what I knew of a school that is familiar to me, without saying “you should do such-and-such.” Just adding info to help OP with decision.</p>
<p>Celeste: OK I defer to you, the way the scholarship estimator reports made it seems as if it were a full ride. Given that is the case, the differential is again a bit smaller: $120,00 K over four years between Lawrence and ASU. Still a significant sum, but does make you wonder about how the OP is presenting this to his son. Glad your kid is happy at ASU. </p>
<p>The scholarship estimator is a bit misleading. Not about the amount of scholarship, but about the residual cost. It claims rm/bd is $9300. But as soon as you enter NMF into the estimator, that means you are almost certainly talking Barrett, for which the cheapest freshman option this past year was $12,800. The unlimited meal plan is almost $1000 more. I know this is all nickel/dime stuff, but it’s good to know how much you are paying before the bill comes due. For some people $3500 is a lot of money. </p>
<p>I admit I am overly cautious, but I feel like most people need a financial safety. You don’t know how the situation might change over the course of the year. I guess the situation might change just as easilyonce the die is cast and kid in college. Not much you can do about that, short of transferring. But if something happens during application year, you are covered if you have safeties. I imagined scenarios like both of us dying in car crash and money tied up in probate when time to enroll. What actually happened that year was less severe, but also something I hadn’t even considered. H and all his colleagues got a 10% permanent pay cut. How often does that happen to tenured profs at top 50 schools? Kind of cut into the cash flow, all the money off the top. Not so bad that D had to take a full ride at Idaho, but bad enough that it made the thought of paying for expensive privates rather more painful than it was already. (And he is not at a school that has any kind of tuition benefit for employees kids, transferrable or not.)</p>
<p>Of course, if the parents set the financial limits on college spending to have a buffer against unexpected financial problems (or the possibility of a 9th semester if the student is not an A/A+ student), then that can reduce the risk of the student being forced to drop out or transfer due to running out of money. Stretching the family budget to the extreme limit means that even the smallest financial setback can force the student to drop out.</p>
<p>Isttt wrote: Not disadvantaged. But believe it or not, there are entire swaths of the (well-educated) United States which have never heard of/barely heard of Wesleyan and they don’t know they’re supposed to be dazzled by its graduates.</p>
<p>I grew up and went to college in one of those swaths of the US where no one has ever heard of Wesleyan. My cousins, who still live there, tend to send their children to the state university we all attended. They would be full pay at a private school. Their children are almost always high stat enough to get full tuition scholarships at the state school. They want their kids to stay in-state. The school provides a lot of future networking connections for state residents. If one of these kids told the parents they wanted to apply to Wesleyan, they would be told that made no sense. And it doesn’t for them. And yes, they save a lot of money that way. However, it has nothing (or very little) to do with saving money in their case. The parents see the state school as the best option. Wesleyan vs Harvard would make no difference to them. The state school is just best for them.</p>
<p>Like Hunt I see Wesleyan and Harvard as more alike than different. One is a research university. That matters to some students. </p>
<p>ETA: celesteroberts gives great advice on stacking merit scholarships. My cousins have sometimes done this. In extreme cases, students end up getting paid to go to college.</p>
This is fine, if that’s what the kids want as well. When they don’t we get some of the other threads we see this time of year: “How do I convince my parents that…?”</p>
Don’t you also believe it? If you don’t, how do you explain the discrepancy? Even you must recognize that the OP’s posting record in this thread is, at best, odd.</p>
<p>I don’t think anybody is disagreeing with the idea that state flagships are perfectly good choices for people who want to go there, and even for some who might prefer something else, but can’t afford it. I do think, though, that some of us who have shelled out a lot of dough as full-pays at private schools get tired of hearing how it isn’t “worth it” to do that. I have no complaint when somebody adds “for us” after “not worth it.”</p>
<p>The initial post in this thread was more than rather odd. OP should have been agonizing about whether it would be ethically acceptable to break the Wesleyan ED agreement when he has the money to pay. That was entirely absent from OP’s musings. In fact, OP should have been already done agonizing about it and reached some decision long before starting this thread. Either bowing to the need to pay and accepting the ED decision and withdrawing son’s other apps, or then notifying Wesleyan that finances don’t permit and withdrawing son’s app from there. Don’t even need to look at other threads where OP posted to see oddness. I’m not attuned to the college’s RD release dates so it took a couple of days for me to notice it.</p>
<p>Good of you to take up the OP’s cause. You are pretty involved emotionally. You identify with OP?</p>
<p>Celeste, you may be right as well. I think some of these threads like this are posted by people who are imagining what they would do in this situation. So I would doubt, for example, if there is really somebody who is contemplating breaking an ED agreement.</p>
<p>Tough choice cbkeeler. best of luck to you and your son. We have a similar dilemma. Almost full pay at Wash U or 30k/yr. and Honors Program at Northeastern. S is worried about the expense, but we had the discussion last night that he has earned the right to go where he wants and we will make it work</p>
<p>intparent. You need to lighten up or take a break from this forum. This stuff ain’t easy. We are here to support each other.</p>
<p>lstttt, if you think that there isn’t a HUGE amount of support for people who prefer state flagships–especially with merit money–on CC, you haven’t been reading CC for very long, or you have selective memory.</p>
<p>But I notice you said (again?) that you are leaving, so I assume this is falling on deaf ears.</p>
<p>coachc13, intparent feels strongly about the apparent dishonesty of the OP. He’s been lying to someone: us, colleges, or possibly even his kid. Maybe intparent cares too much for her own good, but I have less and less sympathy for the OP, who could have gotten excellent advice and support by just being honest. Is that too much to ask?</p>
See, now here’s where I will take the other side of the argument. I get nervous when I see the words “we will make it work.” If that means burgers instead of filet mignon for a while, great. If it means really big debts, that’s something else. I’d give the same general takeaway: you should know at the time the list is being composed how the finances are going to work. It’s OK to include schools that won’t work unless there is merit (or need-based) aid, as long as the kid understands that limitation. What happens sometimes is sort of the flipside of getting the big merit scholarship and then having remorse: it’s getting into the “dream” reach school but without enough aid to make it financially prudent. This creates a temptation to make it work, even if it requires big risks or dire sacrifices (i.e., of retirement security). Now, coachc13, I’m not saying you did any of this–again, I say what I say because I’ve seen the phrase “we will make it work” too many times in contexts where too much debt was being assumed.</p>
You can designate beneficiaries for your life insurance, IRA and most of your financial accounts so they would not be part of the probate.
There are people who have 250K+ set aside for each of their kid’s education. Some people even pre-pay all four year’s tuitions and in exchange not to have to pay for any tuition increases.
If your definition of financial safety is having absolutely no risk when it comes to paying for college is to have to pay $0.</p>
<p>coachc you didn’t ask for advice, but I agree with Hunt on this. Northeastern is a great school and that is a lot of money to leave on the table if Wash U requires substantial loans, second mortgage or depletion of retirement savings. Hopefully, none of the above. All the best to you and your son. </p>
<p>oldfort, you are right. That was a bad example. A better one would have been total job loss, or disabled in car crash and between medical bills and lowered disability income unable to provide as much as planned for college. Of course I have beneficiaries, though I have never been a beneficiary myself, so I don’t have a good idea of how long these things take to get paid. I wish we could count ourselves among those who have $250K in college accounts for each kid and prudently moved the money to low risk investments as kids approached college age. Alas, it was not possible for us. But yes, I agree those folks surely don’t need financial safeties.</p>