<p>When my D got her fin aid package. It had a grant for the one year. Other offers from other schools have multiple-year scholarships. I called Smith’s fin aid office and asked them pointedly, “Is this a bait-and-switch scheme,” meaning are they giving her a grant for the first year only to drop it in subsequent years. The told me they do not do that. That if our financial picture stays about the same, the aid will stay about the same. It’s mainly dependent on family income.</p>
<p>Graduating with only $19k in loans is very good!</p>
<p>Okay, here’s an argument for your mother: the contacts you make at a top college like Smith will serve you throughout your career and will may lead to your making MORE money. </p>
<p>A list of famous women who attended Smith can be found here:</p>
<p>[Smith</a> College: Notable Alumnae](<a href=“http://www.smith.edu/notable_list.php]Smith”>http://www.smith.edu/notable_list.php)</p>
<p>Tell her that former first ladies Barbara Bush and Nancy Reagan went to Smith, as did Julie Nixon Eisenhower, the daughter of one president and the granddaughter-in-law of another. Well-known authors, journalists, politicians, activists, and business women went to Smith. Tell her that famous and influential women went to Smith, and that the network you join will help you with your career as well.</p>
<p>Yes to what upstatemom said – Smith will continue to meet your full financial need for all 4 years. So if your financial picture is the same, you should get the same amount of aid. They re-evaluate each year to make sure that the picture hasn’t changed, and if your mom is switching from full to part time work then you should get more aid next year, not less. </p>
<p>I also think it’s a good idea to talk about Smith’s noteable alumnae. If your mom thinks you’re going to college to make more money than a high school graduate, remind her that going to a prestigious college is even more helpful for that. The Smith College name can open doors and smooth pathways, I know this from experience. You might tell her that they have an amazing Career Development Office, which is a lifetime service (meaning even if you are 50 and you want to change careers, you can go back to Smith’s CDO for help). You can talk to her about Praxis, where you’ll get a guaranteed $2000 to do an internship so for one summer at minimum you’ll be set. Major investment banks and other large firms recruit at top schools like Smith for their internships which are the key to getting a post-graduation job in those fields. </p>
<p>Maybe that will help? It definitely sounds like they want you to be close to home, and considering they are immigrants your mom is just probably grappling with the concept of the American residential college. In most of the world, the way we do university is just not the way they do university. Yes, you don’t want to go overboard with the loans or you will be paying them off forever, but with a sensible loan cap you can neatly take care of your debt.</p>
<p>I know $19K is significantly below the average college graduate’s amount of debt, but my mom thinks that one’s quality as a parent depends on whether or not her children can graduate without any loans. I guess this means that almost everyone is a terrible parent.</p>
<p>I have told my mom all about the excellent career services, the successful and well-known alumni, the fact that I’ll probably fit in better at Smith, the opportunities available at Smith that don’t exist at Schools A and B. Unfortunately, she thinks all colleges are exactly the same – identical services, identical small dorms with identical repulsive roommates and identical unhealthy and disgusting food, identical student bodies, equally long lists of notable former students. For her, it’s all about how much she pays, and she would really prefer to pay nothing at all, even though our income and assets make that impossible.</p>
<p>My D has been paying on about $20K of loans with a $40K/year job and has not found it difficult. The “no loans” idea is like the “working your way through college” idea: it was viable several decades ago when today’s parents were young, is not tenable today.</p>
<p>As for the idea that all colleges are the same, your Mom really needs some education. TheMom has worked at UCLA for 30 years and we recognize just how exceptional the value of what you get at Smith is. UCLA itself ain’t chopped liver but Smith had a lot more opportunities for our D.</p>
<p>“I know $19K is significantly below the average college graduate’s amount of debt, but my mom thinks that one’s quality as a parent depends on whether or not her children can graduate without any loans.”</p>
<p>I thought you would have more loan debt if you attended schools A or B . . .</p>
<p>^^ I don’t think we’re getting the whole story.</p>
<p>The thing is that she thinks my family can afford to send me to Schools A or B without having to take out any loans. Neither college offers particularly outstanding aid – School A gave me nothing but loans and School B offered a $15K merit scholarship and about $5.5K in loans.</p>
<p>Talk to your parents about how you can Skype with them and you are reachable with your cell phone. Our son is a fair distance away and it’s not really possible to see him except for the usual school vacations. When we Skype, it really feels like a mini-visit with our son and we know we can always call both our children. Children going away for college is the first step of carving out a separate life from parents and that can be terrifying for some parents. It sounds like your mom is grasping at straws; she is so scared she just wants to keep you frozen in time in high school. One of our daughter’s friends during first-year at Smith, because of some special family circumstances, was literally on the phone with her dad and brother several times a day for perhaps the first semester; they all needed that transition for a while. Your parents need to be assured that you love them very much and that you will not walk out of their lives if you go to Smith. There is a great book, “Letting Go: A Parents’ Guide to Understanding the College Years” by Karen Levin Coburn and Madge Lawrence Treeger; see if you can get it from your local library. It might be helpful right now, especially the beginning chapters.</p>
<p>I was at B&N with my mom about a week ago and I showed her that Letting Go book, but she told me that her problem is money, not letting go. I’ve showed her all of my calculations that prove that Smith is my least expensive option, to which she responds with “What if it’s not that cheap the other three years?” Shortly after I received my aid award, my mom phoned the SFS (I’m at school at all the times the SFS phone lines are open, so I can’t call myself) and was told that the grant award isn’t guaranteed to stay the same all four years. I tried to explain to my mom why that is, but she thinks I’ve been brainwashed by the “college admissions game”.</p>
<p>I’ve tried to win her over with all kinds of promises – call three times a day, take a drug test each time I come back home – but she won’t budge.</p>
<p>No, the grant isn’t guaranteed for four years: if your Mom wins the lottery, your grant will go away.</p>
<p>However, the relative amount of grant money stays more or less the same for four years. If there were the bait-and-switch your Mom is postulating, this board would be full of angry parents. It’s not, so therefore the postulate is wrong.</p>
<p>Well, it sounds like the best thing you can do is stand your ground and keep repeating your arguments to your mom. Maybe you can enlist your dad to help you out with it. Keep repeating that Smith is a 100% need school, so your aid won’t change if your financial situation doesn’t change. Maybe you can email SFS about it? It may help if your mom can see that in writing. Also, you can tell her that if it becomes too expensive you can always transfer to a school closer to home. I know you’re already doing a lot of this, so just hang in there and hold your ground.</p>
<p>I think we can’t discount the fact that at Smith, although the difference between COA and EFC is met each year, the percentage of the financial aid package that is loans DOES go up from first to senior year. It was true when I was there, and there was a lot of complaining about it. And, the poster in this thread <a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/smith-college/1110833-smith-mount-holyoke-totally-confused-2.html#post12397426[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/smith-college/1110833-smith-mount-holyoke-totally-confused-2.html#post12397426</a> describes how her loans would be 3000/4000/5650/6200 in the four years. So the poster’s mom is kind of right that Smith will charge more in loans each year.</p>
<p>BUT the rest of the argument makes little sense. Dividing up the car money over 4 years could cut back a lot on the need for loans. Having a small amount of student loan debt (I’d say under $20k) is hardly crippling, especially with Income-Based Repayment, deferrals, public service loan forgiveness, etc. And Smith seems to be no more expensive than the other schools. </p>
<p>This may be a good point to talk things over (calmly, without whining. With documentation) with a guidance counselor, clergy person, relative, etc. who can discuss things with your parents. It would be one thing if the school you preferred was much costlier but from what you’re saying, it wouldn’t be.</p>
<p>Not sure about the poster cited above, but for my D (graduating in May !!) and a number of her classmates, the loans were capped at the federal max (3500, 4500, 4500, 5500). Not only was the increase VERY modest, but it was fully expected (I thinkit was spelled out in the first loan app) - - and thus, hardly the bait-and-switch that tenfingers’ Mom fears.</p>
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<p>As a parent, I’m not sure how a child “sticks to her guns” with respect to financial matters. A some point, Mom is going to decide whether she is comfortable with Smith (cost and distance) or not. If Mom is unwilling, for whatever reason, to pay for Smith, tenfingers will have to attend one of the other school (and be thankful her family can pay for tuition, not to mention the car) - -not the best outcome, but by no means the end of the world.</p>
<p>Yes, the loans add up to the vicinity of $20K or so expected. They are not uniform. So what? It’s the total indebtedness that matters.</p>
<p>I discussed this again with my parents yesterday. Apparently they think that Smith will change its must-meet-100%-of-need policy while I’m a student there and that I’ll die before I pay back all of my loans. I am now out of ideas as to how to successfully convince them that Smith is my most affordable option (and my most desired option). I have made this fact beyond obvious to them but they have not changed their minds.</p>
<p>Also, my mom believes that most of the girls at Smith are stubborn rich kids with whom I can’t possibly form friendships. She dismisses my claims that School A seems to be filled with people who are the complete opposite of me and love to party, and that the students at School B remind me of the people that have classes with me day after day, year after year, and speak to everyone but me. (My dad agrees with me on the social aspects of both schools, but whenever my mom enters the conversation, he automatically agrees with her instead, especially about money.)</p>
<p>Oh please. 25 percent of Smith students are first-generation-to-college. 25 percent (considerable overlap) are receiving Pell Grants (low income families). </p>
<p>Btw, if Smith changed its 100 percent of need formula, the answer is simple: you transfer.</p>
<p>Your mother is engaging in what we in the biz call “shifting objections.” Which indicates she’s not being honest about what her real objection is, she’s looking for anything that might stick.</p>
<p>Btw, your loan repayment schedule is such that you should have your loans repaid within 10 years of graduation. The payment amount is much less than, say, a car payment.</p>
<p>TheDad, is there a page on the Smith website or some other “official” page that shows that information so I can show it to my parents? I think they would trust something like that more than they would trust me or an internet forum.</p>
<p>I can assure you the girls at Smith are not “rich kids.” My family for example would be classified as “middle” middle-class. My daughter has worked the last two years(two jobs at times) and will be on work-study at Smith. I am certain this is true of the majority of the girls at Smith.</p>