<p>“I just hope the parents won’t have to use their 401k. There’s never enough in there, even when you think there is. :s”</p>
<p>^^This! Exactly. </p>
<p>You may plan to work until age 70 and find you can’t (either due to health concerns or due to the job going away). One “rule of thumb” is that you should multiply the amount you want to withdraw each year by 25 to see how much you should have saved. If you want to be able to spend $40K per year, you need to have $750,000 saved. Taking $100,000 out of the 401K means you will have to live on about 10% less each year in retirement. If you will get a nice pension or have far more saved than you think you need, not a big deal. </p>
<p>Exactly. Financial aid calculations do not seem to take expectations of a pension (or substantial inheritance) into account, unless I have missed something. </p>
<p>Looking at the D’s stats again, I’m surprised that she didn’t apply to Bryn Mawr and/or Haverford, not to mention Penn State and St Mary’s College of Delaware and others. I guess it was the Catholic thing. But I don’t get that at all, since most colleges have plenty of practicing Catholics and services/clergy available. It certainly isn’t necessary to go to a Catholic college to be a serious practicing Catholic.</p>
<p>I think she’s been sold a bill of goods on Catholic colleges in general and Villanova in particular. It is very unfortunate that she left herself no middle ground. I’m wondering why Catholic U is not the second choice. It has the advantage of being in DC, which would at least be interesting.</p>
<p>Regarding the 401K, if the OP has a couple million in it, taking out 60K-100K wouldn’t set them back. I’d rather do that than incur 6-8 percent interest on loans.</p>
<p>There is also the option of taking out a very low interest HELOC, with the understanding that the D will be responsible for the payments. Has the advantage of being tax deductible for the parents, and only drawn upon if needed.</p>
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<p>Daddy has set up a situation where he can play the hero to his little girl. Just paying for it upfront without the drama and the talk would not do it. I’m very cynical this morning.</p>
<p>We don’t know if dad is a financial handwringer or mom is rolling her (virtual) eyes or dad is practical and mom is indulgent. What is plain is they, like many families, didn’t really work this through ahead of time and they have been caught by surprise. </p>
<p>“Afford”, “worth it” are both phrases that mean very different things to different people.</p>
<p>I think Villanova’s a great school. FIrst choice for my one son–didn’t get in. And will be on this next one’s list too. Some kids don’t like the LACs–I did have have a number of them on my kids’ lists,and Haverford was cut by two of them, and for the last one V was a stretch as it was, but he was accepted to Dickinson and Gettysburg. But if the family financials are such that the students do not qualify for fin aid, as is the case with my kids, but the $60K year a tab is not something that can be paid without some true change in life styles and hitting the 401Ks, borrowing, other things that may threaten future security, plans and quality of life for other family members, if the school does not give merit money, it’s an issue. Nothing wrong with giving it a go. V does give some merit money. Haverford, I don’t think does, so the chances of getting anything from there is a big fat zip. Brynn Mawr does, but the all female schools have lost a lot of luster with young women , and many just won’t apply to them or consider them. </p>
<p>OP’s DD has some nice choices in Philly that are willing to discount the sticker price to what is comfortaable to the family. LeSalle and St Joe’s are two schools mentioned. I don’t know if adding Catholic U would have been any more of solace, as I don’t think they’d be as generous as the two Philly Catholic schools that did ante up some merit money. </p>
<p>I’ve lived the same scenario, but my kids just dropped the schools that were outside the price range we set. They gave them a go, just in case some merit did come their way, and they did get some nice surprises at school where it was a long shot given their stats,but some schools accepted them and did not offer a dime. Nothing wrong giving it a try. As I said earlier, it’s not like the OP’s DD applied to schools where the chances were zero in getting anything. I do know kids here who did get some scholarship money from Villanova. Not as much as they would get from schools like LeSalle or St Joe’s, but something to bring the cost down a bit so that with the Direct student loans, working summers and some hours during the school year, and tightening the belt, maybe parents borrowing to match those Direct Loans through their venues, they can make it work. </p>
<p>The comments above regarding final financial aid award letters bear consideration. I went back and looked at my son’s award letter from Villanova in the spring of 2010: the award letter is dated April 22 and he was admitted EA in late December of 2009. Unless the timing of EA financial aid has changed, it’s possible that the OP has not yet received their final need-based aid award. It’s true that merit scholarships are extremely limted at VU, but for our family the need-based aid matched our FAFSA EFC pretty closely. For my son’s freshman year, while my older son was also in college, we were awarded significant need-based aid; this award was reduced after we only had the one in college, but were surprised that aid was increased this year when an outside scholarship was not renewed. The OP knows best whether they will qualify for financial aid, but I would encourage him to wait on the final award letter. In our case, I recall holding off on a housing deposit (which resulted in a forced triple) because we would not deposit until seeing the final award $$.</p>
<p>No, of course not. What IS poor planning is not having an “out” from the dream school if the financial package offered is lacking. That and the fact that MANY colleges do not cost $60K a year–i.e., all the publics.</p>
<p>Unless the “dream school” is an affordable safety.</p>
<p>There was a thread a while back from a parent whose kid decided that his first choice was a state university that was an affordable safety with an excellent department in his intended major. Yet the parent was somehow concerned about that. Pretty sure that most parents would like to have this “problem”.</p>
<p>I don’t like this story because it’s an outlier and is unlikely to be replicated. Tha tmuch debt is likely to take 10 to 15 years to repay, 10-15 years of frugal living.</p>
<p>Actually, I liked the story! She says that herself:</p>
<p>“I do want to say, the last thing I want is for this to sound like a bootstraps story: “We were able to pay off a boat load of debt, so anyone could!” Nope. We had a hell of a lot of luck and privilege.” </p>
<p>An interesting quote from that story that relates back to the OP of this thread:</p>
<p>" I don’t think that my teenaged self would really understand what a burden $48K in debt would be; it seems like such an impossible number. All I knew was that I wanted to go to college, and I’d sign whatever paper they gave me that would let me keep studying."</p>