Why would any student with an EFC of $107k pay $65k at Harvard? That’s not full price. If your kids get into schools like that, you will be comparing only full price to full price.
The number of the “best students” applying to the “top colleges” is huge. A dime a dozen. The top colleges don’t need to offer discounts to applicants who come from families that can swing the full price (like yours), because there are a hundred applicants in line behind your kids who are just as qualified and won’t ask for a discount off of full price. That’s the reality. If your kids are fortunate enough to be offered admission to one of these top colleges and you ask for a discount, you will be offered two options: pay full price, or turn around and walk out the door.
Your kids are ORMS and wealthy, the reality is that you may not have to worry about the super reachy schools anyway. What you will want to think about is paying full sticker for say GT vs your tuition free Rutgers. Make sure you are being realistic about the actual options beyond this discussion about paying for the unicorn. Instead of wasting time arguing, finesse the list.
Which actual schools were these?
We are full pay for three in college. First attended 2014-2018, second 2016-2020, third 2018-2022.
Bay Area resident. One income. Close to retirement. EFC 100k+.
All attend(ed) in-state.
During acceptances, high merit schools did offer more money as May 1 approached in the form of departmental awards.
However, never heard of “discounts” as OP describes.
I’ve worked at a couple of selective colleges, and I think you’re mistaken. I spoke to a parent a couple months ago who seemed to be in a situation similar to yours – an income far above the median US income, home equity, some assets – and they were extremely upset that the financial aid office refused to budge on their net cost.
But why should they? Colleges aren’t in the business of giving people money to support their parents, which is what they’d be doing if they gave you a discount for it. And if they intended to take cost of living into account it would be built into their formula. When people talk about colleges competing for top kids they don’t mean the 4.0/1600/36 students. There are more high stats kids than there are seats at elite colleges.
I don’t understand why you want to believe the NPCs don’t apply to you. If you walk into a college’s financial aid office they’re more than likely going to ask you if you ran it. Then they’ll ask if you made a mistake. Perhaps your income was only $150k and the $250k was a typo. Maybe you really had $200,000 in investments and not $2 million. Once they find out that your paperwork was filed correctly they’ll ask about extenuating circumstances. Are there large, uncovered medical bills for you, your spouse, or your children (not parents or other extended family)? Has there been a recent job loss? If not, I don’t believe you’ll get very far.
If you really think colleges negotiate with 50-75% of the incoming freshman families I think you’re in for a rude awakening. Colleges don’t negotiate. They may take serious extenuating circumstances into consideration, but not wanting to pay isn’t an extenuating circumstance.
If you have a limit to what you’ll pay it’s unkind not to share that number with your children. If selective colleges come in under that number, great. But if they don’t your children can at least be prepared.
^^ This
While GT may sound more elite than Rutgers, the idea of paying full OOS rates for a BioMedE degree from GT over the same/similar degree from Rutgers seems like a waste of money.
Rutgers has BioMedE, but if the issue is that the belief that Rutgers isn’t as impressive as GT, then you’re simply paying more for a name. It won’t translate into a better paying job.
Ok…I was full pay for 3 out of 4 years (my kids overlapped in undergrad by one year) at schools that meet full need such as Cornell, Vanderbilt etc…FULL PAY. NO DISCOUNT for 3 out of the 4 years at these competitive private schools.
We DID NOT have 2 million dollars in NON-RETIREMENT assets that we were able to use for college
Our income was considered high…but yours is higher right now. Giving money to your parents in another country won’t matter…that is a choice
Guess what??? We were full pay!!! And guess what? You will be too!!
Use the NPCs…that will be your cost. If you are not happy with that number there are plenty of schools that will give your kids merit. And make sure to have safeties…your kids might not make MIT or Harvard
Please stop this magical thinking…it won’t work. And…we also live in a very high cost of living area. Our taxes make the list of highest in the country. Many in my town pay $25,000 a year or more for taxes. Colleges don’t care.
You are setting your kids up for a horribly disappointing Spring unless they love Rutgers.
Rethink your list if you don’t want to be full pay. There are plenty of schools that do offer merit awards. Typically they are less selective.
You are getting spot on advice from long term, savvy posters. Listen!
In regards to your negotiating a car price analogy. Do you think that dealer would give you a discount if there were thousands of people standing there saying “Please sell me this car”?
Some schools give great incoming merit to attract high stats kids but the elite schools don’t need to. They already have to turn away tons of amazing students.
I work for a very well known international company. We receive tons of resumes for any position we hire for. We actually hire less then 1% of applicants. Our “acceptance rate” is lower then any college. And most candidates we make an offer to do negotiate the compensation package despite the fact we have to “turn away tons of amazing candidates”.
@Al73 can you explain why you are pushing back? Do you think you are correct and we are all wrong? Like you have some big secret that most people don’t know?
I recently was part of a car purchase. I won’t go into all the details, but the couple that bought that car paid MORE for it than the dealer had “negotiated” with me. Not less…MORE. The dealer had two interested parties, and I hadn’t given them a deposit. So…the dealer sold the car at sticker price to the other family. They had offered me several thousand less. And yes, I did speak to the owner of the dealership.
Your current EFC per FAFSA is 150 times the cost of attendance at many of these elite schools that don’t give merit aid. You won’t be able to negotiate a dime of need based aid from them. You might be able to waive their health insurance cost which is maybe $3000 or so. But that’s not actually included in the cost of attendance published by most colleges anyway.
As you noted, some of these elite schools will reconsider your need based financial aid at a peer school, and they will increase to match.
Your issue is…you won’t have a need based aid package from any school…and schools that don’t give merit aid won’t even look at a merit aid package from another school.
The acceptance rate at MIT for example is in the low single digits. If you don’t like the cost, you can decline their acceptance and there will be tons of well qualified applicants who will be thrilled to get off the waitlist and pay the price.
I’m not sure why you are so resistant to running the net price calculators.
@thumper1 I believe he says he has run them but doesn’t believe them. He “knows people” who got packages that match their NPC and then they called and got a discount.
The net price calculators can be a little off, but they don’t indicate 150 times the cost “off”. These colleges cost $70,000 or so a year…each. So he is looking for these colleges to reduce his costs by over $30,000 to get ANY need based aid. The schools he has mentioned (beside Rutgers) don’t give merit aid.
His best bet, if he doesn’t want to pay full price, is to have his twins apply to colleges where they will garner significant merit aid. That won’t consider his income and assets (except for merit awards that DO consider financial need).
@Al73 I think you are on the frugal side to use kind words. People who have assets are expected to USE them. People who have no assets have other options ( less attractive, I might add). Many in the US make very big sacrifices to send their kids to expensive colleges. The colleges have zero interest in giving money to people who just don’t want to spend their own $$.
As a former full scholarship kid who has large assets( US born) , I would not even think to dismiss the EFC. We know it cost about 750-1 million to send two kids to top colleges.
We also pay for private high school so don’t complain about expenses ( which are high where we live also). We value education and recognize that next to our house it is the most expensive thing we will ever buy. That’s fine with us. It’s a crazy system but most countries have some crazy element of living ( can be absurd taxes, inability to start a company, etc).
When I give to my colleges, there is no way I want that money going to someone who has assets over 1 million. I want the $ to go to kids whose parents make 20k or 50K or even 70K. It just doesn’t make sense to give $ because someone is unwilling to part with their funds.
In terms of comparing your retirement funds to those of a teachers pension; While it’s true pensions have a large value the pension " owner" cannot sell it. Therefore it is not counted as an asset. Also most teachers don’t make that much. Some do. But nothing like the private market so that asset is another form of payment ( similar to someone getting stock options from their company over the years).
So, you have to make tough decisions. Use the money you have or send your kids to lower cost schools.
It is possible that a student gets some merit money that is set up as a “discount” that some colleges offer to high income families to get certain students they really want.
My kids have gotten some benefits out of that. One kid got additional merit money from a very good LAC after letting them know that a NY land grant college at Cornell was the direct competition and that we, the parents were balling at the additional cost of the LAC.
So, it happens. But not at schools that do not give merit anyways as they have no such fund to dip into, and financial aid is a whole other situation.
Unless, OP goes in personally and has a totally unusual situation that needs to be clarified, the colleges are not going to change financial aid awards from : not qualified for anything other entitlement loans, to an award.
However, anyone and everyone is welcome to try. I would not berate anyone wanting to give this a go. Yes, people have gotten increased aid and merit packages. Colleges hate the word “negotiate”, but sorry, some of them do. They can call it what they want, but I personally have gotten and know people who have gotten more money after negotiating , which the colleges do not call negotiating.
However, none of this is guaranteed, and frankly, the amounts do not usually amount to a large amount. In my case, about $5k a year. Sometimes, just access to loans are offered. Anyone who is expecting to get huge discounts is likely to get disappointed, and counting on any discounts is not a good idea
Some companies, yes will, give more money if an accepted future employee asks or comes up with a counter offer from another employer. Some will just shake your hand and tell you to go with the other company . My kids have run into both situations. You cannot count upon your request to be accepted. Doesnt hurt to ask.
Unless OP is ready and willing to pay full sticker price at schools if negotiations fail, I strongly suggest discussing this situation with the students. Also have some affordable schools that will definitely take the students. Everyone should have a safety school anyways.
If Twins gets into top cost colleges and they don’t budge in the price which is what I expect to be will be the case, as most of us here also expect, OP has the money to pay full price and it merely comes down to making the decision to do so or not. If there are less expensive options in the table, that is also a choice. But OP is in enviable position of being able to make the choice of paying or not. Many families do not. If there is insufficient award money, kid can’t go. Simple as that. Not the case here
And adding to the above post…this OP family could have put some of the $1.9 million in non-retirement assets into qualified retirement accounts, right. Well…that’s IF he hasn’t already exceeded the amount he can contribute annually.
Also take note, some Profile schools ask about your balances in retirement accounts. No real evidence this is used in the calculations, but it is a question.
I just assumed that, with $1.9 in non-retirements funds, the OP has already maxed out retirement savings.
First of all, I am very thankful to all who posted and commented. I do value all opinions. I personally got a ton of information from this forum that saved me and my kids a lot of headache. I am pretty sure this is not my last post.
I started this thread to confirm that EFC I got is per child or per family. While it appeared higher than I expected it does not change fundamentally anything for me. neither NPC that I know formally would spit the sticker price that I can get easily without running it.
We decided to put off discussing the cost until we know where my twins will be accepted and what cost for us will be.
We also decided Rutgers as one safety school is fine, both twins are OK with going there. They do not have a clear dream school, they are OK with any school they are applying to (each is applying to 10 or 11 schools).
Once we know where they are accepted and what the cost for each school for us will be, we will discuss comparably what is worth what. GT is not the same as Rutgers for BME, it is #3 in rating while Rutgers is not even in the 5th dozen. But it is another question if paying quarter million dollar premium for GT over Rutgers is worth it…