Look for private universities that meet 100% need or any university that would give you decent merit for your stats.
To give you an idea, with your 50K salary (which is high income for someone right out of college), or 3,000 a month:
- 300 for health insurance, - 1,200/1,800 rent/utilities depending on where you live (if you want a furnished or unfurnished one-bedroom in a non sketchy neighborhood, with many East Coast and CA cities on the high end, and cities in the Midwest and South being on the low end), -200 in food, -450 for car insurance, -100 phone/wifi, and all you have left is $200-500. You can’t live more frugally than $200 on food and everything else is more or less constrained by cost of living, with the cities with the best jobs being also the most expensive. Hopefully your car doesn’t break down, you don’t plan on buying too many new clothes or shoes, etc, if you hope to pay back your loans…
What’s your EFC? Is it the same as your parents’ budget? What are your stats?
“Hope” or wishful thinking had nothing to do with it. Hard work, saving and planning for years, and a little luck had everything to do with paying for college.
One parent, my siblings, my spouse and I, and my kids only applied to one school - the state flagship. No dreams about a pricey school.
Scholarships, state grants, institutional grants, federal Pell grant, current income, past savings in a 529, a parent’s second part-time job, kids working up to full time or more in summer since age 15, work study, kids saving every dollar from pet sitting, babysitting and birthday/Christmas gifts, living below our means, driving 15 year old cars with 200k miles, doing most of our own car repair, biking to work, no vacations ever, and the federal education tax credit made it work financially with no undergrad debt.
It’s not 100% full ride or 50K in debt!
It’s all about applying to the right schools - colleges where you know you’ll get good financial aid, whether it’s a full ride, full tuition, or affordable with federal loans.
Once you get into a territory above federal loans (ie., 27K for 4 years, which turn into 31K with interest) you get into dangerous territory and every $1,000 has to be thought through carefully.
I read through some of my previous posts and they sound rude, so I’m sorry about that. I just wanted to make something clear that I don’t think I worded right. I did some net calculators and the highest was 50k which was the only one that did not meet 10% need. The others were 100% need met and were petty much were at what my parents could pay. I’m not applying to a dozen schools and hoping that a miracle happens and they offer way more aid than expected. I have one academic safety(automatic full tuition) and the rest are potentially affordable if the net price calculators were accurate. Congrats on paying though undergrad @Madison85, that’s what I hope to be able to say in a few years.
If the family finances are ordinary (i.e. mainly wage/salary income, ordinary levels of assets, no self-employment / small business / real estate income, no living divorced or separated parents), then the net price calculators are likely to give fairly good estimates.
For schools that use the CSS Profile (in addition to the FAFSA):
- If parents are divorced and living, include the income and assets of *both* parents and any new spouses they have in the net price calculators, unless the school explicitly states that the non-custodial parent is not considered.
- If there is self employment / small business / real estate income, run the net price calculators a second time using revenue instead of income, since many schools add back business deductions.