Please please know how fortunate you are in may respects. If you are “12 years from retirement” that indicates to me that you are in a position to retire, fairly secure in knowing you will retire, and it seems that you may not need to work in retirement. That alone is huge unknown and absolutely not guaranteed for most Americans. Secondly, your child is an amazing position academically to get very good merit or have excellent options at most schools.
Please consider how “scary” it is for families that do not have these things going for them. Perspective.
Portercat it is scary as none of it is a given. We have no pensions and cannot spare a lot for education if we have any hope of an income in our old age.
We are grateful that our oldest is very accomplished. There are two more just behind him who will not have the same advantages.
If a student can’t qualify for large merit scholarships and you want to keep total costs per child to under $80K per, here are a few options (though majors may be limited):
- University of London distance degrees (very cheap, but that's because it's mostly self-study, then you take tests at the end of the year that determine your entire grade).
- Commute from home to an in-state public.
- CC & transfer to a live-away college for 2 years.
- Commute from home to or CC & transfer to finish up in an adult education division (Harvard Extension School, which has a lot of online classes or Northwestern SPS if you live close enough). Maybe work as well.
Have you explored Olin College of engineering or Cooper Union ?
Both 25k yr tuition
@j7thletter, UIUC Engineering tuition of about $17K/year is already too much for this family.
And living in NYC is expensive. Olin’s R&B isn’t cheap either.
University of Toledo has bioengineering http://www.utoledo.edu/Programs/undergrad/Bioengineering
which has a mandatory co-op program:
“BIOENGINEERING BACHELOR’S DEGREE HIGHLIGHTS
Unparalleled co-op program. UToledo is one of just eight programs in the U.S. to require a co-op experience for all engineering students. Bioengineering students complete three semesters of paid work:
-In the biomedical device industry (developing biomedical devices and innovative health-care solutions)
-At major medical centers, such as Mayo Clinic, Cleveland Clinic and the University of Pittsburgh (conducting cutting-edge biomedical research)”
Auto merit aid is very generous for OOS http://www.utoledo.edu/admission/freshman/scholarships/2018/out-of-state.html
CoA calculator https://www.utoledo.edu/financialaid/calculator/costofattendance.aspx
PurpleTitan - He’s pretty much set at this point. We have schools that he now has automatic scholarships and we can afford them. We were looking at the best options for him to do a 4 year engineering degree within the price range. We got a TON of wonderful ideas in this thread.
We’ll cross the bridge with the other two kids when they get to high school! Too early to worry about that just yet for them.
@PurpleTitan - Not sure if you were referring to me with the $17K per year - but I think I already said I was ok with $18-20Kper kid per year, up to $23-25K if they do the Stafford loans. We have some money for the kids, but it seems college costs grew faster than savings ever could!
Good to hear.
Well, $17K tuition a year means $35-$40K all-in a year if the student lives away.
I’m aware of that - the oldest looks like he’ll get most of his actual tuition paid - we’ll be on the hook for room and board. Hopefully I’ll win the lottery before the other two get close!
Not sure I’ve seen this posted, but check out Colorado State University. They have Biomed., give decent OOS scholarships, and they’ve just started a scholarship in the School of Engineering that covers full tuition (it makes up the difference between the $10K highest OOS scholarship and the tuition balance). I think 20 students get this scholly.