It could be helpful for you to switch the way you talk about college and instead of talking about finding the “top college” or “best school” for your K1, you talk about finding the best fit for K1 - and that includes your financial situation. Take a look at schools where you think there’s a good possibility of getting merit aid. And if K1 thinks a competitive grad program is in the future, then you really want to look at where K1 can graduate near the top and without debt. Together you can decide whether it is worth it to be full pay somewhere. (I personally don’t think so…)
Then when it is time for K2, you once again talk about finding the best fit. It seems that it would be “fair” if you enable both children to attend a school that is a good fit for them.
This really depends on the sibling relationship as much as anything else. My son has always felt inferior to my daughter academically. He really isn’t, but it seems that way to him. So we were very careful to offer them the same support when it came to choosing a college. He happened to choose the school that gave him a merit scholarship, but we absolutely supported his right to pick a full pay school as his sister had done.
Family relationships are more important than where the kids go to school, so focus on those first. If you think your kids will feel that equal love means equal dollars, then divide what you can contribute in half and offer half to the first kid applying to college.
I agree with those who say evaluate how much you have to spend total and divide by 2.
Then go from there.
Let K1 apply to full pay schools if you can afford them and are willing to pay full price. If you can’t afford them (or are not willing to pay full price) but still plan to let him apply, set his expectations up front before the application process that being able to go there will be dependent/contingent upon getting enough aid to justify the cost.
But these kids are YEARS apart in college. An equal dollar amount might not be the same %age of support for the younger kid…as for the older.
As an example…my older kid started at an expensive private school which was $38,000 total cost of attendance. By the time he graduated, that cost was over $50,000 a year.
Just saying. Consider cost increases as well…even at your public universities.
You also don’t know what your family finances will be when younger kid hits the college search trail. Keep that in mind too.
I let my daughter apply where ever she wanted. She was accepted to state schools at 21K, 25K and 29K (net) and also private schools at 40K and 45K. She ended up at the 29K…the other ones weren’t worth the extra $$.
There are a lot of different philosophies about this whole thing. In my view, the most important thing (which OP is doing right) is to make sure the kids know what your philosophy (and budget) is before any colleges are put on the list. Don’t pull a bait and switch on your kid–if you tell him he can go full-pay to a top private, don’t renege and tell him he can’t when that big merit scholarship from the flagship comes in. Remember that any kid who has the stats for a top selective school WILL have access to merit money at good schools. Talk about that situation in advance, and be in agreement about what you will do about it.
The other thing I would say is that a full-pay education at a top private is a luxury item. How you value it vs. other potential luxury items is up to you. It shouldn’t come ahead of necessities (like your retirement), but some people might value it over, say, a vacation home.
Our kids have different levels of academic talent, ability to get great test scores and other ECs that help them financially (merit, athletic). We gave them all the same financial parameters and then let them choose. Like others have said, there are some FANTASTIC Tier 2 schools that give great merit to the top students and that is the road all of ours ended up taking. So far they are doing great.
My kids all did apply to some schools where we weren’t sure what financials we could get - but they went in with their eyes wide open about it and so were not gravely dissappointed when a different option was more reasonable.
I have to say…this is one of my favorite threads right now. I live in a suburb of Boston where “middle class” houses (like ours) are being torn down and replaced with $1.5-$2.5 million dollar homes. My wife was talking to the former HS principal and college came up. My wife mentioned that we were worried about the cost but had been talking to our son about it. The principal said, “Believe it or not, the vast majority of the parents in this school are petrified about how to afford college. Everyone seems to feel like they are the only ones worried about it.” We started saving when the kids were babies but no one ever anticipated how fast the cost would rise.
Thank you, everyone. The open dialogue is sincerely appreciated.
Every family needs to find its own comfort zone. In terms of what they can/will pay and for what. That will vary by family. To each his/her own. Good news is no matter what you decide, you will have company. And you will have others that took different paths.
But ultimately you need to be open with your kids. And early in the process. Every year we have kids who come to this board after having been admitted to a dream school only to find out parents either can’t or won’t pay for it. Absent an intervening change in circumstances, that shouldn’t happen.
But the mistake some make is thinking you have to have the same colleges on the list as you did in the mid-90’s. Things have changed financially, and sometimes the college list also has to change. Parents can get as fixated on ‘dream’ schools as the kids.
Let me repeat one other comment I’ve made on other threads: parents really need to do their homework on the financial element of this. Don’t pick an arbitrary top cost out of thin air, unless it has some logical relationship to what you are able/willing to pay. (I personally don’t like the idea that parents will pay for the cost of the state flagship, but no more. I think this is kind of arbitrary as well.) Come up with some limits and principles that you can explain to the kid with logic, and not just “because I say so.”
Also, be realistic about how much a kid can contribute to the cost of college by working. Answer: Not much.
“We started saving when the kids were babies but no one ever anticipated how fast the cost would rise.”
When my youngest was born, I added 18 to my current age, and realized that in 18 1/2 years I was going to be 65 years old, retired, with two kids in university. We put away enough money to (i) have the mortgage fully paid off before the oldest started university; and (ii) have enough in a combination of a 529 plan and a bank account to pay for what was then the full cost of attendance plus a bit to adjust for anticipated inflation. You have to start early and live below your means to make this work.
Of course, the cost went up faster than we had anticipated.
We therefore set a budget for each kid. The budget was the same at the time that the oldest started university. A full pay school in the US was not in budget, and therefore was not going to happen (goodbye to Northeastern and BU and Bowdoin).
The kids stuck with the budget. Both ended up being able to attend their first choice.
And yes, I have seen many parents who are quite worried about the cost of university, including many that are solidly in the upper half of the middle class.
“Like others have said, there are some FANTASTIC Tier 2 schools that give great merit to the top students and that is the road all of ours ended up taking. So far they are doing great.”
@Hunt I did use the ‘cost of a state flagship’ as a max. I didn’t find it arbitrary as other things were built around that amount. Prepaid tuition plans, scholarship amounts ( Bright Futures. Hope). Housing costs are somewhat based on the COL in the area. Local scholarships are set by the people living in the area, and they consider what would be the most helpful - five $100 scholarships or one $500 scholarship?
But mostly it was because they could get a really good education for that amount of money, so why spend more just because they wanted to move OOS, or wanted a school with better colors, or wanted to be near an ocean or ski hill. Many families have focused saving for college on the price of the state flagship. Florida has a prepaid tuition program totally based on it. When you shop for a house or a car, you set a budget. Even when looking at private high schools most people have to have a budget.
@DadTwoGirls I agree on the costs - my oldest was able to get enough scholarship (and in state tuition) that her net tuition after GSLs for us was $12k a year. My next daughter got merit and some athletic money (she had a really good ACT score) and was able to go net cost to us $12k a year, my youngest is a nursing student and this was a tad harder! But even she is able to go to her school (next year a freshman) for $14k a year net cost to us. These include room and board.
My ex believes these amounts are outrageous (he has to pay 15% - I pay the rest) - honestly I think we did pretty well. Im not sure what he expected exactly.
@Eeyore123 We struggled with this very question and decided that there wasn’t enough value added for a top 20 school with no merit as opposed to a top 40 school with merit. We did not qualify for need-based aid but to fully fund D1 might mean not being able to fund D2 at the same level. They are equally strong students and equally motivated. We did not want our kids resenting us or one another.
It took awhile to get to that point so I appreciate your dilemma. When you have a great child who has worked hard, you want to give them the moon. What we discovered is that there wasn’t necessarily much qualitative difference in limiting options to places where some merit is available. If your kid gravitates towards quirky LACs, Oberlin or Macalester might be as appealing as Wesleyan or Vassar. For mid-sized research universities, students are likely to have an experience that is comparable to Tufts at Wash U, Case Western, or U of Rochester. UCs, U of Washington, U of Michigan are superb public options, but a school like U of Arizona or Alabama, especially if admitted to an honors program, will provide similar opportunities.
We set a budget for our D17 and she applied to schools that met that figure, assuming merit at a given level. The best fit school was among the more expensive, but it came in under the number that she set, so there she went. She’s happy, we’re happy, and we will be able to offer something comparable for our next child in four years.
Well, I certainly agree that those reasons wouldn’t justify paying more, but I would submit that there are other reasons that might make it worth it to spend more, if you can afford it.
As you point out, when you are planning to buy a car, you set a budget–but you also think about what features you want. You might want features that are only available on luxury cars. If they are valuable enough to you–and if you have the money–you may well go ahead and buy the luxury car. Lots of people do. I confess that I’m perplexed when I see a Maserati going past, but not when I see a Mercedes or a BMW.
Another way of putting this: if you can afford to spend money on luxuries without endangering your retirement or other necessities, what luxuries will you pick? We picked expensive educations for our kids. Also, berries out of season.
Well here is a different perspective. Growing up with 6 siblings all a year apart you can imagine the difficulties my parents faced when it came to college. The older 5 (myself included) all went the self pay route of state schools and took out tons of student loans. I paid my last loan off in my early thirties. My parents financial status changed tremendously by the time the younger two attended school. They both went to cushy private schools and graduated with zero debt. It is a miracle we all made it through so I am very happy about that. Let’s just say there was a lot of resentment for years and I mean years from the older siblings. So don’t create a potential situation with your kids with the road. It seriously still comes up among some siblings at family events and most of us are well past 40.
I take it that you believe that it would have caused fewer issues if your parents had used some of the improved financial capabilities to help the older siblings pay off the student loans, rather than use all of it on the younger siblings?
“Another way of putting this: if you can afford to spend money on luxuries without endangering your retirement or other necessities, what luxuries will you pick? We picked expensive educations for our kids. Also, berries out of season.”
But if you can get the berries at Kroger’s instead of Whole Foods for half the price, wouldn’t you?
When I set the budget at the amount of the instate tuition, it is because I knew my kids could get a very good education at that price. There wasn’t an educational need to spend more. Some WANT to go to a certain school, and that’s fine. My kids were shopping for schools on my dime, so the budget was a Kroger one, not a Whole Foods one. One actually goes to an expensive school, but she had to do it on a public school budget.