Be careful not to overextend for child 1 if you have other children.
Thanks everybody, now I’m getting overwhelmed by all the advice, 
But thank you, I do appreciate it.
I am seeing a common suggestion and that is to start plugging numbers into the NPC’s. So I shall do that.
She should be getting her ACT scores by May.
I don’t have a desire to push her to stay OR to go, I just can’t pay a ridiculous amount of money and deferment is important no matter the cost.
I do have another child that is 7 years younger so they will overlap, but not by a huge amount, so that’s good!
Thank you all for the links, these will be helpful also
I assume she is taking the April ACT then? You will have composite back in April, if she is taking the plus writing that could be May but you’ll have a baseline earlier than that.
Unless she goes on to graduate school I don’t see why you’d have overlap if it’s 7 year gap. I would however start putting something away in a 529 for the younger one now, even if it is a very small amount, but a regular monthly savings.
Good luck
@eandesmom
No she took the ACT’s with her whole class through at school. It was either the last week in February or the first week in March, for some reason I can’t remember. They anticipated the scores back by the end of April (but I would need to double check with her on exact timing)
I had never even heard of the 529 until I started looking at these forums. Thanks
Something to be careful of with Parent Plus or Private loans is that they will determine how much you can borrow based on your (parents) credit worthiness. It is possible for them to let you borrow for a couple of years and then tell you they can’t lend you any more money. The more you are borrowing the greater the chance of this occurring. You’re then in a situation where your child has to drop out of school with no degree and you are left with significant debt. That is why it is so important you know how much you are willing to contribute regardless of where the funds come from. You can then base which schools are affordable after you have received each of the scholarships and financial aid packages. If it’s not affordable then it won’t be considered.
Go to the website for Colleges that change lives and/or borrow the book. It’s a good place to start.
Parent Plus loans have no determination of “credit worthiness”. No income verification. No debt to income ratio calculation. The only way you are turned down is if you have previously defaulted on a Federal student loan or have some other horrendous credit situation. The application and approval process takes just a few minutes. If anything, it is too easy to borrow and allows parents to borrow tens of thousands of dollars with no determination of their ability to pay it back.
First…read the links in the thread I’m attaching here. It will give you a starting point. You will need to look at each college website to see what is current in terms of the awards presented on the thread.
Your daughter will have two choices if she goes to Florida. She will either be attending a private college…or she will be paying out of state rates for a public university.
When you look at costs…make sure you also look at loving expenses (room/board/travel/personal expenses) not just tuition. Flagler tuition is $16,000…but what is the cost of the other things that will need to be added?
To be honest, her lack of EC’s is not going to affect financial aid once she is admitted. But it very much COULD affect her admissions to some schools…not all…some.
Here is my suggestion. You need to give your daughter a budget for college NOW…what you can reasonably pay to help her attend college. I would try to do this without loans. In other words…what can you give her per mont/annually out of current earnings to help her with college.
This will be her budget. She needs to look at colleges that are either affordable without any aid…or places where she will be guaranteed to get some merit aid (enough to make it affordable for you parents who are paying the bills).
It’s nice that she wants to go to Florida. That may not be in your budget unless she gets some significant merit aid someplace.
And have her prep for the ACT and SAT…prep well. She has a fine GPA…if her ACT could be 32 or above, that would open up some merit aid possibilities.
From your screenname, it looks like you could be in Wisconsin…which has excellent public universities at a reasonable cost. If she attends one of the more modestly priced schools, you could send her to Florida for spring break every year…which would cost a fraction of the amount you would spend on OOS costs or a private college.
I have found the collegeboard efc calculator fairly accurate. If you have a 401k you also need to add the 401k contributions for the year that is reported on FAFSA in the untaxed income category.
I would start with state schools since the tuition is cheaper for instate than OOS and you might qualify for state aid. Plug your numbers into net price calculator for UW Parkside just to get an idea of costs and net price.
In our state the state schools that require staying in dorm because they are too far to commute run about $20k for tuition, fees, room &board. If parents can pay $10k student might be able to cover rest with student loan and work earnings.
But that doesn’t have to be the only option. If her stats will qualify for autimatic full tuition, remaining costs could be $10-15k. But travel costs might also have to be considered.
@mommdc I was under the impression 401k was NOT listed on the fafasa.
Can someone correct me if I’m wrong please.
Here’s the NPC for New College of Florida: https://www.ncf.edu/admissions/cost-and-aid/tuition-and-fees/net-price-calculator/
Many colleges (not that one) use the College Board’s NPC so you can log in with your kid’s info and save the numbers you put in for most things - makes it faster/easier to do more then or later.
Like Guilford, an LAC in NC: https://npc.collegeboard.org/student/app/guilford - it’s one of the Colleges That Change Lives mentioned earlier. http://ctcl.org/guilford-college/
Assuming UA continues to offer the Presidential Scholarship (full tuition) for an ACT of 32 or above, that will get your daughter her sunshine and warmth, and get your net COA low. In other words, an ACT of 32 or above is like someone handing you a check for $145K for University of Alabama.
Our current income kicks out an EFC that is too high for us to afford. We don’t have the ability to pay our EFC without taking on crazy stupid debt. We had to hunt down merit aid to get the net COA well below our EFC.
We had some push and pull in our home as D was getting one message from school and her peers (get accepted to your dream school!), and we were saying finances would have to drive the decision.
Lots of threads here about being upfront about the budget, and building your school list based on what you can actually afford.
Good luck!
See — https://fafsa.ed.gov/fotw1617/help/faadef23.htm
Qualified retirement account balances do not get reported on FAFSA as an asset, but the current year pretax contributions (e.g.401k) get reported as untaxed income on FAFSA in question 94a. They are not listed on tax return so you have to remember to list them on FAFSA, amount of contribution is usually listed on W2.
Info about Wisconsin 529 plan, provides state tax deduction
^I guess I should say previous year 401k contributions. For this FAFSA we used 2015 tax information, so we reported what we contributed in 2015, which is listed on 2015 W2 in box 12.
I just meant when you run the NPC you might want to include 401k contributions as untaxed income as well as it can add several thousand to income.
@mommdc
Ok thanks, that makes sense.
@Midwest67
I keep seeing people talk about getting full tuition/rides with certain scores, but this is not a guarantee, correct.
Just because someone has an ACT score of 32 with a high GPA, doesn’t automatically get them in with free tuition, right.
Everyone here keeps making sound automatic, but I don’t see how that would be possible? Am I missing something?
@momof2inwi At some schools it is indeed guaranteed. There’s a list of them here on CC.
Yes, automatic, provided the university board renews the scholarship for the year your D attends. You’ll want to re-check the school web sites in August before her senior year begins, AND watch your deadlines carefully.
Someone upthread posted a link to automatic scholarships. Looking at each school’s web site is where you’ll find the big money. With a high GPA, and high test scores, she could be in the running for competitive scholarships or “almost automatic” scholarships, too.
We built our list with automatic money in mind. D added in a school with almost automatic full tuition, competitive full tuition, and one that meets full need. The full need one was way too expensive due to our unaffordable EFC. We ran the NPC and knew it was going to be bad, but it was important to her to apply.
Our D took the ACT 2? 3? times. It’s worth throwing some serious effort, tutoring if need be, into getting that score up because it can translate into serious cash for college.
Full tuition is just that. Full ride is full tuition plus room and board. The latter is rare.
It was in post #5: http://automaticfulltuition.yolasite.com/