I’m still picking myself up off the floor after reading these “facts.”
Anyone who believes them needs to do as others suggested, quit their job, and live off the generous government. Chances are your kids won’t go to college. If they do, it’s most likely to the local community college for an 18 month or 2 year program and they may still have loans to pay back. If they’re really, really good - top couple percent in their class good - then they can get good awards, but it will be tough for them in those colleges when everyone else has spending money and they’re working as many hours as they can to pay for trips to/from home or living essentials (like deodorant).
As others have said, your daughter’s friend will most definitely not go wherever she wants for free.
And your daughter may end up getting some financial aid - most schools have “special circumstances” forms where you can explain situations like your year-to-year income variations, etc. For instance, we used 2016 tax info for D18’s FAFSA. She was accepted to her #1 school with a bit of aid. In 2017, our income went down and we had very large medical expenses. We filed a “special circumstances” form as soon as we had the taxes filed in early April (before May 1 decision day). The school threw her a bit of extra $$.
One piece of advice - when dealing with FA offices ALWAYS be gracious and appreciative. They don’t have to give you squat. Coming off as bitter or huffy will do you no favors.
Peruse these boards and read some of the posts from kids, kids who went through the college app process themselves and now can’t pay for it. Note it’s the KIDS posting, not their parents like you and I are.
Little or no money to pay for college. Those rivers of aid and merit no where in sight.
In the specific case of living in LA, you have access to the best public colleges in the country. If you live in CA, you should count yourself fortunate with your excellent in state public options.
I wish this false narrative of low-income kids getting this boatload full of money for college would stop. Fafsa only qualifies you for $6,195 and about $5,000 in loans. Give me an able to go to any school in that nation is not possible on that budget isn’t possible. if you have a fun to the small amount of schools that meet need cuz you need to know that only a handful of low-income kids even go to those types of schools. if you took a thousand low-income kids only five of them will even have the grades to apply to a school like that and only two will actually get in. So the question you should be asking is where the other 998 end up with their $6,195 to spend.
Please stop spreading this myth of low-income kids getting a boat full of money to go to college. Because a lot of them tend to believe this because a lot of them are first-generation. They end up applying to schools that they can’t afford and are shocked when this boat load of money myth is show not to be true
We have a 0 EFC and my kid is definitely NOT going to be able to go to school anywhere for free. Not by a long shot! There’s no way we could ever pay for an out of state public school. The two we looked into were going to be 30-35K/year AFTER the need based age was applied. This is with a 0 EFC. ZERO. Our school choice is going to be very much based on finances and not with this “we have a free ride wherever we choose to go” attitude, because that is just not true.
@MusakParent I like to call this the birth lottery. When you look at parents and put them in quintiles in terms of income a child will generally stay in that quintile or move up or down one quintile. Moving more than that is not common. Basically if you are born into a rich family you will stay rich and if you are born into a poor family you will stay poor.
As a practical matter, many divorced parents still bear grudges against each other and will not cooperate on anything. So kids of such uncooperative divorced parents will not be able to get any FA from colleges that require both parents’ financials (this includes most of the good-FA private colleges – probably about half of potential students needing the FA will not get it due to parental divorce).
Also, divorced parents are likely to be poorer combined than if they were married, because it costs more for them to have two households rather than one shared one. So even if they are cooperative, they are likely to have less money than if they had stayed married. (And if not, they may be even poorer due to funding their lawyers’ kids’ college funds.)
SES quartile math score AA/AS BA/BS
highest above median 5% 70%
highest below median 11% 35%
lowest above median 10% 30%
lowest below median 8% 8%
Of course, the kids of high SES families have advantages in getting to higher levels of achievement in the first place (better schools, parental money that can buy added services like tutoring or assistance getting disability accommodations, etc.).
Those who envy the poor families “whose kids can go to whatever college they want on financial aid” may want to consider what actual reality is.
The verdict is split on divorce. FAFSA Does not take it into consideration, PROFILE does. Private schools can take whatever the heck they want into consideration to give financial aid. Any definition of need that they please.
I have a friend whose husband, and then ex, was a top earning surgeon. It was ironic that her kids got PELL, state aid, subsidized loans. But then he refused to pay for college which prevents them from being able to go to private colleges. He flat out refused to fill out FAFSA which is an issue with some parents v
Cousin is already balking at filling out any Fin aid forms. He might refuse which would prevent son from getting aid. Nothing a kid can do to force release of info
I’m sorry you have such a skewed view of reality. Maybe you should spend some time on the threads of the kids who are so afraid of passing up a name brand education that they’re willing to ask their parents to cosign loans that will total much more than what you earn in a year. How do you imagine that’s going to work out for a $0 EFC family, especially one that has several children?
I don’t think people on CC mean to be unwelcoming. Posting about your dissatisfaction with the process and how aid is distributed isn’t going to get a strong negative reaction. Combining it with resentment aimed at low income kids because of how good you imagine they have it will likely draw some negative commentary.
I’m not generally worried about the kids who have to “settle” for a 4-year residential experience at a state university paid for by mom and dad, the federal student loans, and maybe 10 hours/week of student work to cover spending money. There are kids with zero affordable options. There are kids who commute to a local cc but work 40 hours/week to make it happen. Some of those kids are doing it with no support (emotional or financial) from parents. And some are expected to care for younger siblings to boot. That doesn’t even count the foster kids, the teens who are kicked out of their home as soon as they graduate, or the students who are cut off as soon as their parents figure out they aren’t straight. Your kid can go to college, and it sounds like she can have the full residential experience. I don’t really understand why you’re so resentful of kids from low income families.
The number of low income kids who hit the lottery and get that full ride financial aid to the top colleges are very rare. They get the spotlight. And resentment. A lot of families who do not qualify for much aid can’t afford sending their kids to those schools. Not the kid’s fault but they can’t go. Or parents who just wont pay. Puts these kids in a position where they may get No aid, have no options except merit or going part time and paying as they go.
Some Profile schools use the non-custodial parent form. Some don’t. Check the college websites. In addition, colleges treat non-custodial parent financial information in various ways.
In addition…for the FAFSA, the non-custodial parent isn’t listed but any spousal or child support IS included on the form.
I agree with @ucbalumnus as I am living the divorced parent nightmare. My standard of living plummeted immediately when my ex moved out and the court only makes him pay a tiny fraction of the girls schooling and believe me he pays not a nickel more. I also ended up having to give him all my retirement money in lieu of paying significant alimony. I did this on purpose as my girls were getting to college age and I needed to keep my income to pay for their expenses (for college and otherwise). 12 years of alimony would have hurt more in the short term. We shall see if that was a bad idea or not in 10 more years.
OH and THEN I got penalized for having the nerve to remarry – my husband came from a similar situation in that his ex was also an at home parent and she doesn’t contribute anything to his children’s expenses including college and he ended up having to give HER most of his assets as well for the same reasons. His children have always lived with him.
So our kids (5 of them) all go to/went to schools that many would say are academically below them so they would get significant merit aid, they each took GSLs, we do not feel comfortable co-signing loans for 5 kids so we did it for none of them (we are both in our mid 50s and frantically trying to finish them up in school and re-save for our retirements). Maybe there is a situation where divorce is helpful but I cannot see where splitting our 2 families into 4 was helpful at all.
Oh and my best friend from high school has an ex that seems to feel he isn’t responsible for anything – and he is an attorney so not broke. He actually sent her a cease and desist order saying if she or the kids use his name ever again on a financial aid form he will take legal action against them. Yeah he is father of the year.
Divorced isn’t great either. Child support will be included as untaxed income on my son’s FAFSA, the first 3 years he’s in college, but it actually ends 2 months before he even starts college, so it won’t be available to help pay for school and I doubt his dad is going to help any with college expenses.