@WhrlingColleges this poster has already said…$15,000-$20,000 is his annual contribution and that’s it. Please read the thread. He has no intention of taking $100,000 or more in loans which is what he would be looking at if his kid gets accepted to the top schools you are suggesting.
He has other family obligations which make this loan taking you are talking about not realistic for this poster.
And you know…I agree with him. His kid has a lot of excellent engineering choices in the mix already…that will come in at his price point.
@WhrlingColleges -I have to disagree with your comment above. If a family cannot afford a school, while some loans might be reasonable in certain circumstances, taking out any significant amount is not wise. This family has 2 other kids, one of which is special needs. The student can only take out a limited amount -any above that is the parents’ responsibility. And stuff happens. Students change majors, leave school before completing, etc., or do finish, get a good job but have some other reason they do not repay the parents, and the parents are saddled with the loan.
Back when DS#1 was applying to college, GT was his safe school. It was easy to get into. And we are instate. And he would have gotten the HOPE scholarship (the Zell Miller wasn’t around then). He turned it down, with our approval. He went elsewhere, got an engineering degree and is doing extraordinarily well. No loans, no debt.
As an aside, while it was surely not intentional, the “locked and loaded” reference to getting ready to “pull the trigger” and send applications, was an uncomfortable choice of words (was a phrase used recently in the news). JMO.
@WhrlingColleges I disagree with your advice. Having a ds who is a chemE who co-oped alongside GT students and was offered jobs alongside them when he graduated debt-free, the GT students had no advantage over him.
Equally, our physics/math UG student was also accepted to GT as an OOS and attended Bama on full-scholarship vs GT as full pay. He is now a grad student at one of the very top grad programs in his field. (Again, not attending GT did not hurt his future at all.)
The motto attend the best school you can get into is not sound advice for families where budget is a priority. Kids can attend affordable schools, excel, and have equally excellent outcomes.
I think my son is a lot smarter than I am about this and is just going along with my craziness to humor me. He told me the other day, “It’s like shopping the toothpaste aisle at Target Mom, having more choices is not better, it just drives us nuts. And you know after wasting all that time trying to figure out which one is best we’re going to just go with the one on sale”.
I’m predicting great results. OP’s daughter is a near unicorn as a Latina with advanced math work, near perfect testing, proven boarding school record, and high level (though not recruitable) sports. If she only had some results in real math contests… Anyway, I have seen a few students like OP’s d and all had outstanding results. The most recent one, whose stats were lower and had only a tangential URM connection, turned down HYP for Caltech.
OP has said “most” NPCs have their contribution at $30-40K, but they are only willing to pay $15-20K. The biggest “problem” appears to be OP’s home equity. There are a few schools that won’t take that into account, and might result in lower EFCs than “most.” Moreover, if she is accepted, OP can always ask for a review of offered aid on the basis of special expenses for his older daughter.
If she were my kid, after the initial safety and automatic acceptance applications are in, I would spend a lot of time on the Caltech, Princeton and Vanderbilt applications (if indeed those are all still in the mix). Especially with CalTech and Princeton, the EFC may well come in under $30K per year. That would be only $40-60K over what OP feels they can spend over 4 years. Personally, I wouldn’t be afraid of the extra debt if this scenario comes about. A home equity line is deductible up to $100K, after all
@dropbox77177 According to the 1st post, $40k is approx 1/3 of their take home pay. The issue is not just home equity. Their gross income is not going to result a 15K EFC.
@Lindagaf, you are right. There are the occasional merit awards out there that one might get once enrolled or in future years. Actually my kids were recipients of some of them. And one at CMU! His was a big $100. Another did get a hefty award sophomore year
But you can’t count on getting those things. You go with what’s in hand when you are accepted
I think OP’s DD will do fine and as acceptances roll in, more priorities can be set. She won’t be visiting all of these schools. She likely will stop the process with some of them, once choices start appearing.
I would keep GT. I’ve seen some nice awards for women and URMs coming from there, and it is a top school
@Mom2aphysicsgeek - If $40K is approx. 1/3 of take home pay, my assumption is that gross earnings are less than $200K. Obviously we do not have all OP’s details.
But I never said that that level of income will result in an NPC of $15K. OP has already told us that, saying that “most” NPCs come in at from $30K to $40K. Running Princeton’s NPC, for instance, with some assumptions of taxed and untaxed income around $220K, I get an EFC of $29K.
My only point is that with approximately $600K in home equity, if I recall correctly from somewhere upthread, I wouldn’t be worried about borrowing the difference between $15K and, say, $29K EFC if it allows his daughter to go to Princeton or Caltech (or a few others).
I am not against state schools, or keeping costs as low as possible as a general matter. Life is unpredictable, after all. Unexpected expenses can crop up. But it works in both directions. If she decides not to be an engineer at some point in her undergrad career, and would rather look for a management training position in a major firm, Princeton will be better under most plausible scenarios.
But I think @NJEngineerDad is right about home equity line deductions with the recent tax law changes. So, for the extra $15-20K per year, OP would have to fund it with a combination of belt tightening, $5-7K of student loans, and the rest (if necessary) parent loans. I still think it would be worth it for the choice between a true elite school and even an excellent state program. After all, if these assumptions are at all in the ballpark, we are not talking here about the difference between full-pay at $80K versus full-ride $0 at one of the NMF-friendly universities. The cost differential here might be much smaller.
@dropbox77177 only if it’s used for your home. Are you suggesting this poster deduct home equity on taxes if used for something other than home expenses?
@BelknapPoint is this allowed under the new tax law?
Plus, this parent has indicated they do not want to take out loans. Why can’t this be respected? Oh, and this student likely will have some excellent options that don’t require attending HYPSM or the like with loans.
I am assuming that those 3 reaches include Caltech as well as Princeton. (I’m not sure of the other - it is not Vanderbilt or RIce - maybe MIT?)
Again, if it is an additional $40-60K in loans over 4 years to go to Caltech, Princeton or MIT, yeah I say do it. As I am understanding this, such an amount represents about 10% of the current equity in his house, which fortunately is protected by Prop 13, so insane tax rises are not on the horizon. It sounds like you disagree, and that’s fine!
Since this student claims to not have any preferences about college…I hope she gets a couple of acceptances early that are affordable and offer what she wants. If that is the case, she can drop doing any other applications and enjoy her hockey season, as well as her senior year.
She has a lot of good options (if she gets accepted), that will be within the family price point.
Unless something has changed…these are what the OP wrote are the reaches in terms of affordability because they don’t give merit aid…they are admissions reaches as well.
https://smartasset.com/taxes/income-taxes says that to get about $120k take-home, for married with 5 personal exemptions in a city in Orange County, CA, the pre-tax income is probably around $161k.
Princeton’s NPC for $161k income, $22k federal income tax (from above), family of 5 with 1 in college, but no assets, gives a net price of $24k (including a student contribution of $3.5k). However, putting in non-zero assets could make the result higher.
Caltech’s NPC gives a net price of $37k for the same parameters.
@ucbalumnus I think the oldest child graduated from college a while ago…so this is a family of four…not a family of five. The eldest is a son…who graduated from college and has a job. Not part of this family count.
Could you run those numbers with the correct family size?
Not sure why we are going through this NPC exercise. We do not have all OP’s details. But he does, and has already run NPCs, and told us that “most” calculators returned an NPC of $30-40K.
Because Caltech, Harvard, MIT and Princeton do not take home equity into account (indicated as $600K) I am assuming that they will return NPCs at the low end of that range and perhaps below it (that $37K EFC from Caltech looks suspiciously high to me).
I agree that these are all slim chance acceptance, but you rarely see Latina STEM with near perfect test scores and advanced math background. Her chances are much greater than slim in my opinion, though of course none of those schools should be considered a likely admit.
I will say - in regards to how many schools to apply to - that I’m starting to fill a little nickel & dimed here. We pay to send ACTs; pay for applications; and now I just paid to send over the CSS profile; (didn’t know that was coming!) Between it all an application can cost over $100 a school. That might drop down the number of schools by several my DS applies to . . . many are on OP’s same list.
@thumper1 -I believe it is a family of 5. He mentioned a spouse, a son who finished college , a special needs daughter and the daughter in question who plays hockey.
Agreed. Only on CC is the difference of an additional $15,000-20,000/yr considered small. For most families, even in the OP’s income bracket, that is considered a significant amt. (We have had kids walk away from full tuition at schools like Fordham with a room and board costs around 15-20k for schools costing $0-6k bc that cost differential matters to us. It doesn’t matter to us if others think it is doable.)
do we know that for sure? I have nephews, 2 of whom are in grad school and one who is special needs, and IIRC, (&&%Q#$#$( BIL still claims at least 2, and possibly all 3 of them as dependents). And they are in their late 20’s to mid 30s.
