<p>So daughter applied to about 9 schools, got into most- decent, but not great, merit $. We will have 2 in college her first year so the private she wants to go to (Providence College) is doable. Problem is, years 2, 3 & 4 would be more than what I want to spend. SHe got into Binghamton- a great SUNY school. I want her to go there and think it would be a good fit for her major (premed), she apparently loved Providence and wants to go there. HELP!!!ANy advice? Don't need this stress right now....</p>
<p>It’s a shame you didn’t have this discussion before she decided to apply, but here we are now.</p>
<p>It’s your money. You get to decide how to spend it. If you can’t afford to send your daughter to Providence College, according to your estimation, then you can’t afford it. Tell her how much money you are willing to spend. Do not cosign loans for more than you are willing to borrow, since if you cosign, you owe the money.</p>
<p>Every year we have this same discussion. Every year some students wish they could go to an expensive school, and their parents have to explain the financial realities to them.</p>
<p>It is too bad that this discussion about finances apparently is happening NOW instead of before the applications were sent. </p>
<p>I know everyone looks for a break when a kid is done with college…but if you won’t be paying for kidlet number one any longer…is that money possibly available to cover the costs at PC?</p>
<p>If not…I hope your daughter is happy with her other college choices…the ones that are financially doable for your family. If not, she could take a gap year and perhaps reconsider her financial safety choices at that time.</p>
<p>My son and I went through this in the fall. I told him if he was accepted at certain schools, he would need X amount of merit aid, or we couldn’t do it.</p>
<p>I showed him specifically what we could pay and what the difference would be. I showed him the huge payments he would have to make after graduation if he were to borrow the difference. (not that I would have cosigned)</p>
<p>I then showed him how much better shape he would be in financially at an in state public or safety, and luckily he loves the in state flagship. I think there is a little disappointment about not going to his first choice private, but giving him all the information behind our reasoning helped him see the truth of the matter.</p>
<p>The fact that you need to do this now and not before is obviously not the ideal situation. But I think you need to go through a similar process with her. Just saying, no, you can’t go without showing her why, will definitely not help her see reason. I think if you walk her through it, it will take her a little time, but she’ll come to accept it.</p>
<p>I would have very much been in your situation now if not for reading CC and seeing that some of our expectations were unrealistic.</p>
<p>Should have been discussed with daughter before she even started applying to colleges. Good lesson for other parents out there.</p>
<p>She needs to fall in love with Binghamton again. Since you don’t have to make any decisions right away, I suggest you wait and let the topic cool off. She knows the financial issues, so let it sink in. Then find an advocate, like someone else in the family, or your GC. Go visit Binghamton on their college visit days, if they offer that. Try to make this a win-win situation.</p>
<p>We DID have the $ conversation prior to applying- I agreed we would spend = amount as a state school, but we applied anyway to see what kind of merit & FA she would get. I just worry about tuition rising and years w/out 2 in college.</p>
<p>NY mom, try to be specific with her. You can approximate and show her how the FA will drop for years 2,3 & 4 and what the EFC would be. What that difference would be in loan amounts and payments for her. If you are expressing vague worries to her, I don’t think that will help her to understand and better see your reasoning.</p>
<p>Do I understand this correctly? You said the maximum you’d pay was whatever it costs to go to SUNY. Now she has been admitted both to SUNY Binghamton and to Providence College. For her freshman year, the costs would be the same, but for her sophomore year, Providence would be much more expensive because her aid would go down. Is that right?</p>
<p>Can you and she call the Financial Aid Office at Providence and ask them what to expect in her sophomore year? I believe you are correct that if her aid is partially dependent on your having two kids in college, it will go down when the older kid graduates, but getting confirmation from the school could help explain matters to your daughter.</p>
<p>So then based upon the financial aid award, does it currently look to her like PC will cost nearly the same amount as SUNY Bing? If so, you need to explain about the cost without 2 in college, and show her the new EFC and what may change. Tuitions rise at all schools, and I don’t know how one can predict very accurately how much they will rise. When the SUNYs raised tuition significantly for OOS students, we dropped the idea of having our son apply to any of them. Also, are her older sibs at private schools and if so, is she feeling slighted?</p>
<p>To others who are reading this thread…and I’m not meaning to hijack it…but it’s related. DO NOT let your kids apply to colleges they have no desire to attend. EVERY school on their list, including their academic and financial safeties should be a school they would be happy to attend if accepted.</p>
<p>And…hard as it may be to prevent…try not to have any child fall in love with any school.</p>
<p>Very good advice, thumper. I did tell my sons just those things. I told them that if they could not be happy at a school, and make it work at that school, not to apply. I told them that money was a very important factor and FA packages would need to be compared, so they were warned not fall in love with any one school. I let them know that there are many schools that would be a good fit for each of them. When all packages arrived, each was told that they choose from schools A, B, C etc., but schools X, Y, and Z were just too expensive for us. This went very smoothly, as both understood.</p>
<p>I have mixed feelings on this because fundamentally I believe she should save for med school. HOWEVER, my daughter hated Binghamton with such a raging passion that there are no circumstances under which I could have made her go there (she was waitlisted, so it worked out well, believe it or not). We also know many people who attended and got a wonderful education but didn’t have a particulary happy experience. Is there any third possibility? A different SUNY, maybe? Are there any SUNYs still accepting applications?</p>
<p>ny mom - I feel your pain. Was in a similar situation last year when S1 was accepted at Michigan for sports mgmt and then got virtually no FA and we could not afford to send him there. Had I done my homework, I would have realized that as an OOS, he was not going to get much FA, and quashed the Michigan idea. But 20/20 hindsight is just that - it doesn’t do you much good in the present. In our case, S1 rcvd 2 more great acceptances with great FA and things worked out very well. But, March of last year was one of the worst months of my entire life, so I really do understand. </p>
<p>I think previous poster’s suggestion to talk with PC FA office was a good one - let them explain to you both what her FA might look like next year. Does she ever look at CC? She might want to read through some threads on the FA forum and see how amny families struggle with paying for college.</p>
<p>Has she attended an accepted student day at Binghamton? Does she know anyone there? Anything you can do to get her excited about this affordable option might help. Good luck.</p>
<p>many colleges do not use the EFC as the mold by which they assign the aid given. They take it into consideration but some have their own calculated budgets and it might be a different amount than the EFC. Find out how they arrive to the figures, do they use the EFC as the final say or they have their own calculator? Also, including a personal financial statement explaining special circumstances and showing how your expenses are barely covered by income, if that is the case, can help. I had a lot of credit card debts that I included in my financial statement, and I explained how they had come about and took a good chunk of my monthly income. Sometimes you can’t just explain everything in a standard application.</p>
<p>just a note… we had a major meltdown at our house last night too… we had talked about finances before, safety had always been ok with him until some of the other acceptances came in and then his perceptions of the school seemed to change (no different than any other school they like at first and then seem to lose interest in) we continued to discuss finances along the way as merit offers came in BUT when the reality of where they WANT to go and where they may END UP hits, there unfortunately can be some upset. our scenario was complicated by the fact that our pact plan has basically collapsed and now no guarantee that money will be available… so some schools that he applied to thinking would be doable with the pact plan included may no longer be.
perhaps some of his apparent acceptance of the terms along the way and sudden upset last night were that he really believed it wouldnt happen? so hugs to you nymom…</p>
<p>ny mom – I was in a similar situation financially – 2 in college on the FAFSA for the first year, but not thereafter. There were other complicating factors as well (noncustodial parent, self employment, fluctuating income). My d. opted for the private college, knowing that the financial aid situation would have to be addressed each year. </p>
<p>In other words, part of the discussion was addressing the possibility that she might have to transfer later on if the money part didn’t work out. </p>
<p>She’s graduating this year. The money did vary from year to year – soph & junior years were the worst, senior year much better, probably because the economic downturn pretty much wiped out the non custodial parent income problem. So in hindsight it worked out.</p>
<p>However, it was a major stress point each year, especially because her school did not give out the financial aid awards for continuing students until July – so we honestly would not know until July for sure whether she would be able to return in the fall, at least for Soph & Junior year. </p>
<p>What would worry me is not the stress – kids transfer from one school to another or take time off for all sorts of reasons. My son left a school his junior year walking away from a good financial aid award – and your kid is just as likely to leave a school she can afford but doesn’t like in year #2. So from a parental standpoint it doesn’t really matter – you can pay $X towards college, your d. can apply that $X where its sure to be enough, or opt to assume the risk of applying it to attend a college she prefers. Sometimes kids also can apply for different merit awards and scholarships in later years, that weren’t available to incoming freshman. Or they can cut costs considerably by becoming an RA. </p>
<p>The concern I would have, based on the thread title, is the “major fight” part. You’ve got 4 years of college ahead of you, and you need to be able to deal with your daughter on a mature, rational footing. I don’t know from the post who was doing most of the fighting – that is, whether you are referring to parental shouting or childish whining or both – but that’s really the important part to consider.</p>
<p>If your daughter opts for Providence, and the money isn’t enough for year #2 … how will she deal with that? If there will be tears and begging and recriminations, then maybe you are right to establish some limits right from the start. But if the current “fight” (your label) is more along the lines of your stressing out and your daughter wanting to take things one year at a time, then maybe you should back off and let her make the choice and assume the risks that go along with it. It won’t be the end of the world if she attends Providence for one or 2 years and then ends up transferring back to SUNY – and a whole variety of options and alternatives might open up along the way. </p>
<p>Also – please contact Providence and make sure you understand the financial aid offer. My d’s financial aid award for her first year left us paying $17K – since I assumed that was figured based on her brother being in college, I had fears that meant we would be expected to pay $34K in year two. I called the financial aid office and they told me know, the $17K was the number <em>without</em> considering my son’s college. They explained that they would not consider his status until they received proof of enrollment along with a report of COA from the financial aid department of his college, in September --and that they would then increase my d’s grant. Which is exactly what happened, except that my daughter’s contribution didn’t go down by half, either. Instead, my son (god bless him) promptly arranged for transmission of paperwork to my d’s college, and her grant was then increased based on that info. So it may very well be that Providence is actually offering your d. more than the paperwork suggests.</p>
<p>Two quick thoughts:</p>
<p>My DD1, back nearly 10 years ago, when CC was in it’s infancy and we did not know then what we know now about finaid, ended up with one UC as a financial safety and NYU/USC type private schools and lousy aid there. So she attended the one UC to which she applied. </p>
<p>Oooops, it was never a good fit, she never enjoyed it. It was a poor selection on the app list. This is her fault and my fault- I kept telling her she would likely end up there and to add small mid range privates with merit, but she was not willing to listen at all, she did all her own apps. But, I also only suspected that, did not know it, and did not know the Profile vs FAFSA aid profiles and I wish I had known how to find out then what I learned the next few years on CC.</p>
<p>I suggested she take a year off and reapply. If the safety is truly a bad choice, that is a better option than attending, doing poorly with a bad attitude and trying to transfer with a less than stellar GPA. Better to do a gap year and apply with all the great HS stats…and perhaps mature a bit on that time off ;)</p>
<p>Another DD is going to matriculate into med school this fall; I cannot even express to you how happy we are there are no loans and she is free to choose her school and fund it with grad loans, but not add that to UG loans. If anyone’s kid is serious about medicine, go for no loans- ask Curmudgeon about his Dds Yale v Rhodes conundrum, and how nice it was for his DD to get into Yale SM after turning them down for UG :D</p>
<p>Remember, too, that many students plan to be premed majors, but switch to other majors and prospective vocations while in college. In fact, most students change their majors at least twice while in college.</p>
<p>18 is the hardest age to learn the meaning of the word “NO”.</p>