Kid aims high, I aim cheap :)

College Search & Selection
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@collegemom3717
TY for the law thread, makes sense

<<have you="" thought="" about="" offering="" a="" deal="" along="" the="" lines="" of="" “honors=”" college="" at="" state="" u="" costs="" x,="" and="" we="" can="" cover="" that.="" our="" max,="" no-debt,="" budget="" is="" y.="" if="" choose="" school="" with="" net="" cost="" x="" or="" less,="" will="" put="" difference="" y-x="" into="" savings="" account="" for="" college.="">>

While we can’t cover State U, the idea of offering a deal now for $$ later is worth considering and might fly with him.

@CollegeMamb0
Bummer on the top awards at Conn Coll/Trinity CT/Dickinson, but I’m not very surprised. I found this with D19: most of the private school options that folks urged us to consider, because they had “great merit!” really didn’t come down to what we needed. In fact, they all ended up working out suspiciously close to Penn State’s COA.

Agree on UNM; it was on our list for D19 but she is a homebody and flat-out refused to go so far. S23 is quite happy to go to the other side of the world if we could swing it. He’d love Trinity in Dublin, e.g.

Thanks for Texas ideas and heads-up on Austin/St.Edwards

West Chester was one of our D’s safeties. It’s a great option and probably will be S23’s safety also. We don’t live anywhere near a CC; the closest is an hour away.

@cptofthehouse
D19 is at WVU; she got a unique full tuition scholarship that would not available to S23. She will graduate (hopefully) the year S23 graduates, so not 2 in at once.

<<that you="" are="" paying="" half="" tuition="" at="" a="" private="" boarding="" school="" along="" with="" full="" room,="" board,="" transportation="" and="" other="" such="" costs,="" is="" money="" coming="" out="" of="" what="" could="" be="" funding="" college.="" my="" friend="" who="" has="" child="" (not="" the="" top="" group)="" reports="" sticker="" price="" $64k="" (doesn’t="" include="" personal="" expenses)="" $40k="" being="" tuition.="" award="" still="" comes="" to="" whopping="" $44k="" paid="" directly="" school.="" can="" add="" an="" additional="" $20k="" costs="" for="" most="" expensive="" colleges="" in="" 2021.="">>

No, it’s more like $20k all-in that we pay for his boarding school. He got the half-tuition plus fin. aid (about $35k all told). This is why we figure our budget for college is $25k - it’s not much above what we cash-flow now. Sell a kidney and we’re there!

Yes, it’s money that could be funding college. But we live in a bad school district (kids were not something I wanted when we moved here; hence I never investigated the schools; horrible horrible planning on my part). And we decided at the kindergarten level that we would gamble on private school and its advantages/opportunities vs. gambling on a very rural, very distant public school district where (checks stats) 9% passed an AP course last year out of the 20% who took one, the free lunch % is about 50%, and the graduation rate is in the low 80s.

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DH’s biz is sole proprietor (he’s a writer) - there’s not much counting against us there. We get a lot of sympathy from it, not income or assets :slight_smile:

Florida State - yeah the FYA program is interesting and it was on D’s list because of that. We will look at it again. Thanks much for all the other schools you named, some good possibilities in there.

<<your son="" and="" you="" will="" need="" to="" stay="" on="" top="" of="" this="" info="" because="" things="" are="" changing="" so="" rapidly="" uniquely="" these="" days.="" no="" idea="" what="" the="" college="" scene="" be="" like="" in="" 2023.="">>

So true. I honestly don’t know whether to plan for a per-year cost of $100k or free college. (Obv. will be planning for the former.) It seems like there are seismic shifts that could be coming; it’s just so unknowable right now.

22

Another thing! All these colleges going test-optional sounds great but if you’re chasing merit, it’s absolutely moot.

And another thing I forgot: stacking!
We have schollys available through my work; WVU allows stacking and D19 gets an additional couple of thousand that goes toward her living expenses. I know stacking is rare, but if anyone knows offhand whether any of the schools mentioned so far allow stacking, that’d be hugely helpful.

I do know that UNM allows it - or did. I talked directly to the financial aid director about it two years ago.

That brings up another problem with state schools: so many of them are likely to cut back significantly on aid, just because of the yawning state budget gaps coming up. I don’t know whether that aid will ever come back.

23

“Stacking” versus “scholarship displacement” is most commonly an issue when there is a mix of scholarships and need-based financial aid.

Here is a sample of college policies on “stacking” of outside scholarships with need-based financial aid : http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/2184881-list-of-outside-scholarship-financial-aid-policies-stacking-scholarship-displacement.html

24

Well, Keep in touch here. I’m looking too, for both this upcoming school year and next. There is a long interesting, informative thread by a parent this past year , Kevin, is his name that is good reading.

My son’s close friend turned down Yale for a great award at URichmond. They had hoped to get aid with a seriously disabled child and some erratic income situations, but it was a no go that way. The parents were going to come up with the money anyways but kid took the Richmond offer. Loved it there and now has a PHD from Yale. Said the opportunities at Richmond likely would not have happened as a UG at Yale. That his parents are not out the $250k+ that they would have spent as full pay UG at Yale had made things financially much better as they have been hit with illness and other crises since.

My youngest had opportunities go to school at no cost to full top cost in his choices. Had he not stopped the process early, possible that even more scholarships have come in play. All of my kids had opportunities for a free good college education.

25

Oddly, this thread, which I certain did not start in the Women’s College subforum, is now parked there.
Is there a way to get it moved back?

26

That appears to be a display problem when looking at http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/college-search-selection/ . If you look at the thread listing and the URL, it is still in main College Search & Selection section.

Bug already noticed and reported (but previously observed in Christian Colleges): http://talk.qa.collegeconfidential.com/community-forum-issues/2195170-most-recent-thread-for-christian-colleges-is-often-not-a-thread-in-that-section.html

27

On Trinity University, their website indicates the school grants up to to 20 full-tuition Tower scholarships each year. Very competitive, but still attractive, and they have other levels of merit as well. Trinity’s base tuition is also lower than many other schools (so is Rice’s). We looked at Trinity initially because I have family in the area, but it it really is a gem, not yet as well-known as it should be in some markets. The school is trying to address that by aggressively courting and supporting strong students. FWIW, I also know at least one superb lawyer who studied at Trinity undergrad and then went on to a T5 law school.

28

Do look at Rice U too. They have what the call The Rice Initiative where they discount their tuition to half price for families making under $200k. It was not reflected in the NPC last year. There are other such schools and programs too

29

Our experience was it was easy to get private colleges down to around $40K/year. Much more difficult and competitive to go below that unless you are looking at auto merit schools and regional instate schools.

30

OMG, I was looking into the Blount program and came across this FAQ page, which is pretty much the BEST UNIVERSITY WEB PAGE EVER and increased my estimation of Bama by a factor of, like, a gazillion.
Seriously.
https://blount.as.ua.edu/about/faqs/

31

We live in PA and went through the process last year with S20. He’s in business with an eye on law school. $25k will be tough. Has he taken SAT or ACT?

S20 got Temple to $15-20k COA with scholarships. I was very impressed with the business school and their law school is actually well regarded. Philly grew on us. The area around Temple isn’t the best but it looks like there’s some gentrification going on and they have a large police presence. They’ve been trying to attract top students. We were also impressed with the Honors programs.

Pitt gave him a $5k scholarship and business honors. They also gave him guaranteed admission into the Law School which typically adds scholarship money for law school. Their law school isn’t bad but not highly ranked.

Didn’t bother applying to PSU but I’ve heard they’ve been giving $4-6k scholarships.

No other schools, public or private came close to Temple or Pitt. Loyola Chicago was around $35k and SMU around $40k. Most privates came-in around $40-50k.

Not an expert but undergrad GPA and LSAT matter more than where you went to school for your undergraduate degree. Law school prestige might matter. Law school isn’t cheap so a low cost undergrad is a must.

32

Thanks for the info; kid is only a sophomore; no SAT.
Temple to $15-20k is perfect. Were they institutional schollys? I know Temple five years ago had an automatic full-tuition award but that went by the wayside and I sort of thought they’d totally eliminated the big money.

33

My S19 got a $25,000 scholarship from Pitt. I know they are quite competitive but it’s possible. It seems like even one of their $15,000 scholarships would bring Pitt into your price range.

34

My son got the 2nd highest scholarship which I think was $15k and then Fox added another $5k. He appealed for the full-tuition but was denied. A year earlier and he probably would’ve received full-tuition. That said, $20k was still close to full-tuition. I think they still offer nice scholarships. They’ve just gotten more competitive. 1500 SAT was the cutoff for top scholarship last year.

Pitt is supposedly moving more towards need based aid than merit.

If he’s only a sophomore I’d walk away for now. Come back to it in his junior year. Too many variables right now with Covid and budgets.

35

There’s a really simple solution to that. Just say NO. If you can’t afford it without loads of debt, he doesn’t go there. If he wants merit aid, he’s not going to find it at a hyper-competitive private school. You find that at schools that he can stand-out in, like a big or medium-sized state university.

36

Just a comment about FSU’s FYA program. It’s an awesome program that my D20 was very, very interested in. Unfortunately, the pandemic really put a wrench into everything and all of FSU’s international locations are closed at this time. Let’s all hope things will be different next year, but just something to keep an eye on.

37

Thanks all, and yes, we will say no to unaffordable programs; I have no intention of bankrupting myself on the cusp of retirement. Agreed that it’s a bit early to do anything concrete; I’m really just casting a wide net, with the understanding it may be moot in two years. I started about this time with D19 and I think the slow but steady research was helpful; no last-minute panicking or surprises or hasty moves.
This time around, who knows what the college landscape will be like in two years? Bleak, most likely…

38

Two years from now:

The pace of consolidations and closing will continue- colleges without robust endowments are too dependent on tuition. And in order to fill the seats they have been relying on discounting aka merit aid. This isn’t news- but it will continue.

Colleges will continue to question the value of smaller/less popular programs (both big and small colleges) whether it’s a full time department which attracts 2 or 3 majors per year, or a non-revenue sport, or a center/interdisciplinary study which does not have its own endowment or an endowed chair to keep it going. This isn’t news- but it will continue.

The “bleak” in my view will be if International Students continue the slow drip towards Canada and other countries where both the student visa situation AND the work permitting is easier than the US has become. I don’t think enough attention has been paid to: The tuition dollars which come in from overseas; the enormous intellectual vitality that international students bring, particularly in grad programs, the enormous economic contribution that international students have made when they graduate, stay, start companies, get awarded patents, do research, hire people…

But to go into more detail is to get political and since I won’t violate the terms of service, I will just say that there are universities and departments and research projects which will get hollowed out unless the US encourages foreigners to study here. The impact is already being felt in some parts of the tech industry… the path from OPT to Green Card- no longer a path, depending on where the young person is from.

Gator- we had one rule for our kids- before we left a campus, everyone had to note something fantastic about that college. Since you’re not visiting- you can try a variant with a virtual visit/tour. Just make sure that the last impression is a positive one- even if it’s “the Ag school has a great ice cream parlor” or “that WW2 Memorial to the students who enlisted was really moving”.

You may need to loop back on colleges which your kid wasn’t especially excited about, and it helps to have a positive “tag” to use!

2 Likes
39

@blossom Cornell’s ice cream is amazing and if I had been admitted, I would have made it my life’s goal to eat it every day of college. :smiley:

40

The merit landscape can change quickly. One the schools at the top of S20’s list went from being a slam dunk with enough merit to not even close in a two year span.