<p>My parents are somewhat unclear/unwilling to take about finances with me, which is particularly frustrating at this stage in the game. Around 20k is somewhat reasonable, they’ve said, as I’m trying to avoid taking out loans</p>
<p>Oh, it’s sooo difficult when parents are vague about how much they’ll spend. 
And, it’s not unusual in these cases for parents to later realize that even their vague initial offers are unaffordable.</p>
<p>Put it to your parents this way…$20k per year is about $1800 per month. Ask them if they can afford to pay $1800 per month for FOUR YEARS toward college costs. Sometimes when parents look at it that way, they get a better perspective. Your parents KNOW if they can tighten their belts to come up with $1800 per month for 4 years…or not. They know how much money they have left over each month. They will also have to consider what “other” kind of expenses will DEFINITELY pop up over the next 4 years…major car expenses, appliance replacement, home repairs, dental bills, etc. Those things are unavoidable!! </p>
<p>Anyway…when parents are vague, I always recommend that a student protect himself by applying to a few schools that will give HUGE merit. There are many, many threads that feature stories from kids whose parents first indicated one amount, but then later realized that they couldn’t pay nearly that much. And, talk to BOTH parents…sometimes one parent is overly optimistic and the other parent is more knowledgeable about affordability. I still remember my SIL promising her D that if she got accepted to a certain pricey private that the parents would pay. My brother overheard and quickly provided the reality check that such a school would not be affordable.</p>
<p>Thank you for the advice. I will be applying to Alabama. Northeastern and Pitt are also possibilities for large scholarships, right? My mom is definitely the more financially-knowledgeable one and she says 20k is doable, so hopefully the NPCs are accurate. College is so overpriced!</p>
<p>Though we gave our kids a hard figure, we also helped them find some choices where they could for free or nearly so. The hardest schools to find were the ones that we knew would accept them, and where the cost was a low as we could get it to be. We had commuting options, state options, a few schools with names unknown to this board but where good merit was extremely likely. In the end, they had some schools that wanted the full freight which they just took off the table and costs ranging to what we could affford as a family–what we, the parents were willing to pay plus what they could cover which stretched the price range up further, and they picked from there. </p>
<p>The thing is, they also had some no or very low cost options in the mix,something I don’t see in alot of kids’ lists here. Unless the school has a formula for merit and you get accepted early, if it’s a name that’s well known, there is probably a lot of uncertainty as to whether any given student will get the full ride award. Pretty much, gone are the days when there are that many full rides or substantial awards that are automatic. So you do need to do a lot of searching to find true financial safeties and go down some not so beaten paths.</p>
<p>Even when parents say that they can pay X, it’s a good idea to still have a big financial safety in the mix because “life happens.” All you have to do is read a bunch of threads here to find kids whose families suddenly lost jobs, had serious health issue, or whatever and then suddenly the family can’t pay what they thought.</p>