What region? My higher stats kids are applying to safeties, but not necessarily very high admit ones. OOS public and privates end up being the same cost across the board. Dd21 did apply to some colleges outside the NE so I’m curious if merit will be higher.
@Billb7581 my younger daughter’s SAT was lower than that, she homeschools, and she has learning differences. She did apply to a TO school and they gave her great merit (as did some other schools where she submitted scores). There has to be a way to get your costs down lower than $35k ish a year.
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I am in NJ, he applied to Stockton and Montlair.
All the privates he applied to are recruiting him for football but it is all D3 and no money for that. He has gotten merit but not the full FA package. So far if you back out the fed loans he is at 20-30 out of pocket. I had no clue your EFC meant nothing really. The other problem is we have been struggling to get by our entire marriage, and my wife found a much higher paying job this past year, so his aid freshman year will be an outlier and his out of pocket will probably soar next year.
Is there a suitable in-state public university within reasonable commuting range, so that he can continue to live at home and commute at lower cost than living on or near campus?
Or can he start by commuting to a community college for two years to save money and then transfer to a four year school?
This is us x 5. We saved enough for our kids to commute to a local college if they got some merit. The first 2 went to Rutgers and TCNJ, no merit, and are now employed and paying back loans. We aren’t eligible for FA. My daughter pays $1000 a month, my son $750 (he also has rent). My daughter applied to montclair and got some merit, could’ve commuted for $4000 a year.
There is literally 1. Rutgers Camden, possibly Rowan but that would be a tough commute at rush hour. I feel like he won’t thrive at a commuter school, he needs more structure then that and he would like to play Football. I realize life is not fair and all that.
My daughter experience was so easy I had no clue that these schools didn’t really close the gap for an above average kid proportionally to one with top line stats.
I thought I could get to like 20K out of pocket with a sub 10K EFC and he borrows 10 I scrounge up 10 but that doesn’t appear to happen unless he gets one of these stackable scholarships he is applying for.
They are starting a football team this year for kids in CC around here so they can play and try to get higer level looks so that may be a fallback option if he can improve his ability.
I’ve been hearing Stockton was the best deal for NJ residents, ds21 applied but only got $7000, I think it will be his least expensive option but I think he’s leaning towards Rutgers.
yep.
moving off campus and the AOTC helps a bit.
@bjscheel ; I’ve seen your midwest posts before; and of all things my kid has on a sweatshirt today from your school. no idea where it came from . . . friend of a friend of a friend? its warm though!
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My daughter got 18k from Stockton 4 years ago. If you went off campus with 4 people it was practically free with nicer accomodations
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My daughter shares an apartment with 5 other girls, one of the cheaper complexes, and she pays $10,000 a year for housing (room and board is $14,000 so a little cheaper). That’s at UD.
Her share of the townhouse in Galloway is like 380 a month on a 9 month lease utilities are 50-75 roughly half the cost of a housing 1 apartment at Stockton with 5 people crammed into a 2 BR apartment.
That’s amazing, landlords in Newark DE know that half of the students live off campus and have built really properties but they aren’t cheap (but cheaper than where we live). My son shares an apartment with 2 guys in Ewing, not very nice, not in a safe location and pays $700. That’s great that they offer 9 month leases, most of the Delaware leases are for a year. That reminds me to have my kids research off campus housing prices.
Her townhouse is nicer than my house LOL 1BR, 2BR and 3BR Floor Plans | Sunrise Bay Apartments and Townhomes
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2 things that I would suggest are left underdefined in the discussion to this point, and need to not be if any advice given is going to be at all coherent:
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What counts as “middle class” in the context of this discussion? This has been brought up repeatedly, but never answered. Considering that anyone from the 20th to the 95th (and possibly higher) income percentile tends to label themselves as “middle class” in this country, not defining the term clearly in a discussion about college affordability is problematic at best, because different income levels are going to result in wildly different need-based packages. (And that’s just income, even before getting to overall wealth measures!)
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What counts as a college for all y’all? It’s kind of a silly question, but a meaningful one. My D19 is studying engineering right now for a good bit less than the amount of money any of you are talking about here, and doing so based entirely on merit aid, not need-based, resulting from good but not world-beating HS stats. Of course, she’s at a Big Public State University in the South, which seems to be unthinkable for many on CC, but it’s proof that affordable prices are out there. (And heck, she could’ve gotten a full ride if she’d gone to, say, Prairie View A&M in Texas.) So if you want the cost to come down below $20–30k/year, maybe think beyond the colleges most adored on this site.
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Well to give you an idea my EFC is 9200 and I am a mechanic. I have a house, older cars, and no real savings or assets to speak of in one of the highest cost of living states in the union
My affordable in state public big merits they used to give out have dried up with COVID. Everyone else seems to be gapping me 25-30K with loans.
I guess I misunderstood the EFC really didnt mean anything. I thought that the gap wouldn’t be so large. …ie you pay 9200 plus the 5500 fed loans and maybe a few more thousand for odds and ends.
How much cheaper is it in the south? Travel?
it actually depends but you’re right
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To be fair, the PVAMU full ride requires a 26 ACT or 1260 SAT in addition to a 3.50 HS GPA, while the OP’s kid has a 1160 SAT and has not been able to get another test date.
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The EFC from FAFSA is only for determining Pell grant eligibility. Colleges may calculate their own EFC differently, and may not even come close to meeting it anyway.
Unfortunately, NJ does not seem to be that good with college affordability, based on high student loan debt levels.
This is because public universities here are pricey (Rutgers is $32,000 for in state with r/b) and most don’t give a lot of merit. Because of the high COL, salaries are higher, making it harder to get FA. NJ doesn’t have any reciprocal agreements with any other states, and the only tuition merit program is free community college (I think the top 10%?).
Yea he doesnt qualify for NJ stars… 3.75 puts him in the 25th percentile. Or something like that. Stockton used to have a better merit program than the other in state publics, but Covid wiped that program out. My daughter fortunately was grandfathered in.