I have a 3a “Don’t automatically assume your in-state flagship is an affordable safety.” Thanks to NPCs (and kudos to whoever came up with that idea), we have discovered that our flagship is one of the most expensive for us. Ours gives very little “automatic” awards, merit or need-based. We are definitely pursuing other, more affordable, options now.
I’d like to add another point, which I think is also very important: understand the finances and discuss them with your kid BEFORE the list of colleges is created. Don’t let him think you’ll “make it work” if you really won’t. Don’t let him think you’ll take on debt if you won’t.
In that same vein, if you kid has the kind of stats to be a serious contender for highly selective schools, you need to be aware that he or she WILL receive extremely attractive financial offers from decent schools. What will you do when that happens? Make sure that you–and your kid–know in advance how you will react. That will prevent the kid from having unreasonable expectations (if you will insist that the kid take the financial deal), or will prevent you from being seduced by the offer (if you’re telling your kid now that you’re willing to pay for the selective school). Every year on CC there are posts from parents (usually dads) saying, “Yeah, I told my kid I’d pay for Princeton, but isn’t it a no-brainer to take this full ride offer from State U?” Don’t be in that situation.
I think this is VERY important. For my daughter’s major, the COA for our state flagship (UIUC) is almost $36,000. The state is not in great financial shape, so there’s not a lot of aid available, either. This is not a financial safety for many, many families, and frankly, it’s not an admissions safety for many kids, either. I’m hearing of a growing number of state flagships that are getting out of reach for many middle class families.
“Don’t automatically assume your in-state flagship is an affordable safety.”
A very good point. For us, the in-state flagship was an affordable safety, but there were out-of-the-country safeties that were less expensive, academically stronger, and a better fit.
Since this is the “Parents Forum” I would add…parents determine what you are willing to contribute be it savings, current earnings or loans (will you borrow nothing or just how much are you comfortable with) BEFORE your child begins the application process. No blank checks. That way they understand when applying what needs to happen (scholarships, grants, students loans, work etc.) before they can attend a specific school. There are two parts to attending a college. Getting accepted and paying for it. If both can’t happen then it’s not going to happen.
Before the real hunt for schools fires up, maybe in the summer before junior year, assemble a rough set of family finance numbers, sit down with your kid and run through the NPC for a few schools to show the range of answers that can be produced. You don’t need to expose all the details of your life, but by rounding to the nearest $10-15k for income and assets and 529 savings you can let your cherub eliminate their own schools as part of the hunt. And don’t be shy about demanding room for younger siblings: this is a long process. A while back I made a timeline showing how the high school and college tuitions of our four kids would stack over the next fifteen years and it was quite sobering for them. They know we’re in the dark years as far as discretionary spending goes (going up to three schools for the next three years) and they’ve been good keeping it real so far.
“They know we’re in the dark years as far as discretionary spending goes”
Made me laugh! Our kids know we’re in the dark years too.
St Paul- beautiful post. It amazes me that some parents think that after 18 years of their financial lives being a big black box as far as their kids are concerned, the kids will wake up senior year and understand how loans work, what an origination fee is, why borrowing 100K means you end up paying back MORE than 100K, etc.
You are the best teacher for your kids. If you’ve raised them to understand that on day 2 of vacation they can pick between mini golf or boating but not both since you are saving some funds for day 3, and if they understand that you are driving a beater of a car because you are helping grandma pay for her nursing care, then by their teenage years you can start to have more complex discussions around money.
But kids who have been raised to believe that their parents are a bottomless pit of dough-- and that nobody EVER has to make a decision to spend on A which leaves no money for B- well, you are looking at a tough senior year. I know families like this. The kids have never had to defer gratification for anything and then all of a sudden come senior year and the parents tell them they can afford 8K per year and why can’t the kid be happy commuting to the local branch of the state college? And the kid is thinking some swishy country club of a college a plane ride away since “we’ve got money” except we really don’t.
Talk, talk, talk. If your kid has never had a job, then the idea that a huge chunk of your earnings goes to FICA and what-not sounds like you are lying to them. So start talking about money and keep talking. What does it take to save 100K per kid. What does it take to make the loan payments on a 30K college loan. How much is life insurance and why the wage earners in your family can’t go without it even though it costs money to keep the policies in force.
Etc.
So JUST yesterday, I ran into the mom of 1 of my daughter’s friends. Her oldest child is graduating from high school this year and has just decided which school she (the high school student) is going to be attending this fall. Her kid got into Grinnell College and received a good merit scholarship, but they’d still be paying out $25,000/year for the kid to go to Grinnell. The parents had spoken w/their kid quite awhile ago and told her that if Grinnell came in with enough financial aid to bring the annual price out of pocket to be $15,000, then she could go to Grinnell. That didn’t happen, so the kid is going to U of A this fall with a merit scholarship that pays for everything. The mom seemed to feel a little guilty. She said, “You know, you really want your kids to go to a top 10 or top 20 school.” I told her, “Yeah, but now your daughter is getting ~$100,000 of education for free. That’s like buying a house. What an awesome gift that she’ll be able to graduate debt free!” 
Just hopping on to thank all those folks who helped me back in around 2010-11 with first kid so that I figured out finances first. Who knew the NPC would show we are full pay (but without full pay resources)? Both kids are at affordable schools which became their first choice over time, in part, because we had the money talk early enough for it to sink in. So, UW full pay, we can swing it. Michigan full pay, we cannot. Top 50 LAC with substantial merit, we can do. NESCAC with no merit, nope. Grateful we knew that heading into list-making and decision making time. CC is a wonderful resource.
I completely agree with what others have said about giving your kids a budget in advance. One of my daughter’s coaches just directed one of her teammates to sit down with his mom and get a budget, and “then we’ll go shopping.” I loved hearing it described that way. If you know what you have to spend, and you know your basic stats, you know whether to shop at the Kia dealership or at the Lexus lot. [Insert mandatory disclaimers here about highly-competitive scholarships, blah blah blah.] . We’ve given my daughter a clear budget, and she is an athlete with times fast enough for multiple mid-major Div I programs. She feels like the whole world is open to her despite the fact that there are tons of schools for which she is not fast enough or, frankly, couldn’t get in even with a little bump from a coach. She’s focusing on the scads of schools for whom she is a catch and is loving it. It frustrates both her and me to see her friends and teammates flailing around with no clear idea of what they can afford and no plan to figure it out.
@tucsonmom Not a parent, but I had to read through your last post twice because I was in the exact same financial situation (right down to the choice being between Grinnell with debt & the state flagship with merit $) and chose to stay in-state.
More generally, CC is the only reason I made my parents talk to me about a college budget. They didn’t go to college in the US and couldn’t believe that college is as expensive as it is. Luckily, I did that early enough that I had plenty of time to structure visits/a list around a range of affordable options and I really have no regrets. Can’t say I’d be in this situation if not for all the folks who have been explaining the financial piece of the college search to clueless teenagers for years!
I honestly cannot imagine looking for schools without the NPC. What did people do eight years ago? #:-S
And the University of California application should start with a big red banner: :"[color=red]We do not provide financial aid to out of state students and we know all the tricks that families use to try and gain CA residency."[/color=red] This would require the applicant to check a box that they understand it.
And all should be aware that the FAFSA EFC is meaningless at CSS profile colleges.
8 years plus ago, some of us parents just assumed we’d get pretty much no FAid and hoped we might get SOME merit aid. It’s great there is a NPC! We were fortunate that the private HS had a decent college GC that worked with us to help come up with a list of Us that might offer good merit aid to S or kids like S with his grades and stats. We knew we’d get no NO FAid, even though we surely didn’t feel we could afford full-freight for two kids with retirement looming. Glad to have applied to schools that S would be happy to attend and after merit aid were affordable.
@Hlmom Your comment sounds like what we went through. Our sweet girl attended a private IB HS with an awesome GC. We knew we’d get no fiancial aid so we told her if she actually got into her top college (The George Washington University) AND the top program at that college for her major (The Elliott School of International Affairs) AND got enough merit, she would attend that college. Since the freshman tuition at GW is fixed for four years we knew the COA would be somewhat consistent. We knew what we were in for. Because we were all in financially before she was accepted, it made the process less stressful when she was accepted to GW-Elliot School of International Affairs, University Honors Program with enough merit!
“I honestly cannot imagine looking for schools without the NPC. What did people do eight years ago?”
worry- a LOT!
Yes, we worried and also insisted our kid apply to instate public, if it was affordable, just in case. We also hoped our kids might be attractive enough to a school they liked to get enough merit. If you had one kid who might get merit, you hoped he would so you could more readily fund sib who might not get merit anywhere.
This is a fantastic thread. I hope every parent who is new to the college search reads it.
CC completely changed our lives. Without it we could have had an economic disaster, mostly because we had no clue. Thanks to the advice we received on this website, our misconceptions were blown away. Our two college students are on very different educational trajectories yet each one is just right and they are on course to earn graduate degrees with very little debt. We are now on search #3 with eyes wide open.
Thank you CC.