<p>Steven’smama: It’s a prep-paid account and it allows parents to save money that can be applied to in or out of state schools. They also have a 529 state plan - but I’m not in that (good thing considering the market!) Money for college comes from MY account - not my husband’s…</p>
<p>Pea - thank you for the kind words. It’s some comfort to know that I haven’t done anything terribly different form what most folks have done. We’ll be looking for some additional outside scholarships and we’ll try our best to keep it all real. It does seem as though folks who save their money, pay off their mortgages, and live below their means don’t fare all that well when it comes to paying for college.</p>
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<p>NOPE. The FAFSA requires the custodial parent income and assets…and the custodial parent’s spouse’s income and assets if the custodial parent has remarried. The FAFSA does NOT NOT NOT require the information from the non-custodial parent…EVER. </p>
<p>NOW…the CSS Profile is another story. That requires the information from EVERYONE…parent, non-custodial parent and any spouses of either. BUT do check because there are some Profile schools that do not require the non-custodial parent information.</p>
<p>To the OP…did your child apply to ANY instate public universities? I don’t see those listed on your list. Many folks in your position find that the price is more affordable at an instate public university…than out of state. Your $60K in savings would be used $15K each year…which would be a goodly chunk of the amount for the cost of attendance at many instate public universities. To be honest, when finances are a significant consideration, this is what most folks do…they go instate to a public university in their home state.</p>
<p>^I am divorced and remarried. S’s father is not contributing, but ex’s sisters had set up a 529 for S, which is helping.</p>
<p>Stepfather in my household is contributing (like he has a choice , <heh> )</heh></p>
<p>Still, much like mamabear, our income is a snapshot; it does not reflect previous year’s lesser income and larger expenses incurred, resulting in not enough savings. We also have 2 further down the line to pay for.</p>
<p>So, S is going to an instate public. It was the best option for his major, and it fit his other criteria - large school, urban environment (though it’s really not urban, just large), and not too far from home.</p>
<p>Given that S’s stats were not as impressive as your S’s, the merit was not there at the pricey, more competitive privates that appealed to him.</p>
<p>I don’t know how people manage full pay at 50K+ a year either.</p>
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<p>We are making our last expensive private school tuition payment this month…woohoo…for two kids. Here’s how we did it. Both of us work. MY ENTIRE INCOME has done nothing but pay college expenses since May 2003…every penny has gone to college expenses. DH’s pay deals with our other bills. We have not gotten any new cars, gone on vacation, rarely go out to a restaurant to eat, discretionary spending significantly reduced, DIY home improvement projects, ditched extended cable tv, turned down the thermostat a lot, look for sales and bargains on food, changed all light bulbs to CF, no fancy clothes, etc. In other words…we really economize…a LOT. We also used our home equity line of credit from time to time (not a lot on that line…can pay it off soon). </p>
<p>We required our kids to take the Stafford loans. Both worked and provided their OWN spending money, books, school supplies, and all other discretionary spending. Neither had a car on campus, and they economized as well. No fancy spring break trips, no trip to Europe during the summers (they worked), they learned to limit their spending.</p>
<p>It CAN be done. Is it fun? Well…In May, we’ll feel like we’ve won the lottery!!</p>
<p>Well, as a divorced single mother, I did accrue some debt. And I did choose to be mommy tracked for a few years with the younger two. Then there’s the non discretionary new roof, foundation work, medical bills etc. which ate into our home equity, and we are still paying back. The child care costs for the younger two that allow me to work but don’t allow for 50K a year of tuition payments.</p>
<p>No fancy trips, just life.</p>
<p>thumper…WTG! I bet you will feel like you won the lottery! Great advice. I can’t imagine getting so far in over my head either. I have so many friends whose kids did not succeed in college after 1 or 2 years and those loans still have to be paid, even though there’s no degree. Plus, many friends whose kids can’t find jobs in their fields (or any field for that matter) and the loan bills are coming in anyway. Scary situation out there and all we can do is pray for the best outcome.</p>
<p>mamabear…we wanted to pay for college for our kids so we made it happen. To be honest, I would have scrubbed floors part time in addition to my full time job…if that is what had been needed. But that’s us.</p>
<p>YES…we’re pretty excited about being done with college tuition bills…and we ARE taking our first vacation since May 2003…unless you call driving to relatives for a holiday meal a vacation!!</p>
<p>It’s not possible for everyone to do what we decided to do for our kids…but it worked for us. AND we have very grateful and wonderful kids!!</p>
<p>My hs senior just got a full ride to an out of state very good school. He has decided that even if he gets into one of his 3 remaining dream schools, he will take this full-ride offer since the school has the major he wants and he got into Honors College which means he will have priority in registration. He figures he will try to get into dream school for graduate school. His grades are top 10% of his class but not over a 4.0. He has received 650K in merit money from 8 schools. He got rejected today from 5 of his dream schools.</p>
<p>In this process we have discovered that many schools will give you great scholarships which helps us as a middle class to upper middle class family-we only qualified for 5K in loans as financial aid. Be sure to scan the merit scholarship pages of a college and pick at least 5 where your child could apply and qualify for them. It really does help that if you get rejected from a “dream” school you at least have a lot of college paid for your mid or safety school. Had a college rep not grabbed my DS and DH when they attended a BIG Ten college conference and told them about the merit scholarships at the above school, my DS would have never applied to the school and gotten a full-ride.</p>
<p>Just do your homework and you will find lots of opportunities. There is a good book out there called “The College Solution” by Lynn O’Shaunssey (sp?). She writes for CBS Money and has a blog. Be sure to follow her guidelines, they are very worthwhile.</p>
<p>Yes, I was talking about FAFSA only schools. I gave my kids a budget of $20K a year (a little more than the cost of a state school). If they wanted to go to a school that cost more, they would have to take out loans or get scholarships. Also, I would not co-sign loans to keep the loans reasonable. It worked well for my son who wanted to go to a large flagship state school and wanted, of course, to go out of state. The budget convinced him he couldn’t afford to go out of state so fortunately he is at the higher ranked in-state flagship university. </p>
<p>It may have backfired for my second who wouldn’t settle for several full-ride scholarships as a NMF. But, she has always dreamed of going to a top-rated liberal arts college and she worked hard for it. The financial aid packages coming in are within budget since I will have two in school next year. </p>
<p>I’ll have to take out some loans as I chose to fund retirement instead of college. But, having money in retirement will allow me to pay off loans for the rest of my working life. Remember, no one will let you borrow money to retire.</p>
<p>Thumper, I’m like you, dreaming of the 4 year mark when I can stop using a large portion of my salary toward tuition. We haven’t gone anywhere in years and live very frugally, cars get to be 12 years old, no new furniture or big TV’s, things like that. I will get a raise that year, whether I get one or now. : )
My children will or did take staffords, but they are reasonable. One is going to grad school, so will have a reprieve for a while, but pays on it when he can online. He never went on expensive spring breaks either, he worked whenever he could and the savings added up. It was his choice.</p>
<p>We couldn’t afford every school, but tried to spread the list wide to get the widest range of colleges. I found so far, full need schools gave us a less appealing package than others that gave more merit. State schools are usually more reasonable but not always.</p>
<p>I’ve known middle-class parents that worked under the table housecleaning, babysitting, etc. for extra money, one was paid by a doctor to do some work twice a month. I know another mom that worked an office/accounting job during the day and for 4 years worked evenings at Ikea…did she dance the day she gave her notice.</p>
<p>I have so many friends whose kids did not succeed in college after 1 or 2 years and those loans still have to be paid, even though there’s no degree. Plus, many friends whose kids can’t find jobs in their fields (or any field for that matter) and the loan bills are coming in anyway.</p>
<p>Yikes! Can you imagine! I know someone in the latter category…graduated from Columbia last May…still no job…student loans are being paid by parents. Ugh.</p>
<p>Anyway…I guess there’s no easy answer to the OP’s Question. Because each middle/upper middle class family is different. Some are super savers, some have grandparents that help, some have kids who get great scholarships, some “pay as you go,” some borrow, and some do a combo of things.</p>
<p>We are in this situation too. We have saved diligently, via a monthly automatic deposit plan, since the kids were babies but it’s not nearly enough to pay full freight at a 50K school, and our family (two professors’ salaries) doesn’t qualify for need-based aid. We are encouraging our kids to attend our instate public schools, as are most of our friends. My husband and I have taught both at Ivy League universities and elite LACs, and also at a flagship public. Believe me, there’s not a whole lot of difference in the undergraduate education delivered though some of the luxuries, intense advising, etc. might be lacking.</p>
<p>Other parents I know in our income bracket have given the kids a budget equal to tuition at the instate flagship, and asked them to borrow the rest if they want to go “upscale.” That seems reasonable, although many 18-year-olds are pretty vague about money and I’m not sure they really understand the financial implications. In my son’s case, we found that a part-time job during his junior and senior year of high school made an enormous difference in his maturity and his perception of money.</p>
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<p>Jingle thank you for confirming my thoughts. My husband is concerned with “contacts” one can make through elite LACs (my son got into a few), opposed to attending a 3rd tier type of LAC. I asked him if he thought it was worth the thousands of dollars extra out of our wallet, and he said no. Fortunately, our son is happy to attend one of his safety schools, although he could attend a rural match school for the same cost.</p>
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<p>There was a new provision for loan repayment that went into effect last year for the unemployed or underemployed…or those with very small salaries. These students can actually pay a small percentage of their salary toward their loan repayment while they are under/unemployed. This is something that every student CAN do who has taken out a Stafford loan. If the student has NO job, they would pay nothing for that year. It doesn’t FORGIVE the loan repayment…but allows repayment commensurate with the salary the graduate is earning.</p>
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<p>I hear you mamabear.</p>
<p>Thumper1, that is a great story.</p>
<p>After being on CC for about a year now I’ve come to understand there are many different routes to getting a college education and financing it. As already has been mentioned on this thread, every family should decide for themselves what their best option is.</p>
<p>hello everyone. i am a high school senior and am really disheartened because i have been working on many scholarship applications lately to help fund the gap between our EFC and what my parents will pay (we fall somewhere between middle- and upper-middle class income-wise), and today i found out i was rejected from Wisconsin All State Scholars, about the fifth or sixth scholarship for which i’ve been rejected. 
i work, but i thought that i would be able to finance a small part of my education through scholarships. now, i’m starting to think otherwise.</p>
<p>i’ve been rejected from statewide scholarships at a very local level (once, from a round of a scholarship competition that sends ~50% of applicants on to the next level), which has been particularly discouraging to me because i live in a relatively uncompetitive area and these scholarships weren’t based on need. i certainly don’t feel entitled to anything, but it is discouraging to be rejected from something like All State Scholars.</p>
<p>i’m thinking about getting a second job for the summer so i can work full-time. hopefully that will give me a little extra money.</p>
<p>Where are you in-state? All the public schools your DS has applied to are OOS. Is there a reason he didn’t apply to a public in-state university? Sometimes, those are the best deals - in the state where I had residency when I was in high school (GA) the flagship universities (Georgia Tech and UGA) have in-state COAs of $18,000 per year, and with the HOPE scholarships the tuition cost is knocked off that for total COAs of $10,000 per year. Even if you have to finance the whole rest of it with loans, that’s only $40,000 in loans when you graduate, which is great.</p>
<p>I know some other states have higher COAs for their in-state schools.</p>
<p>My parents’ combined income was around the same as yours is when I went to college in 2004. My parents told me early on that while they would try to help with living expenses, they had no money to help me pay for tuition at expensive colleges. I took the route of applying to places at which I was the tippy-top of the class (great places, since I was a good student in high school) with my public universities as back-ups (well, one - Georgia Tech. At the time UGA had rolling admissions and I planned to apply if I didn’t get into my top choice early action, so I ended up not having to). and got some pretty large merit scholarships. Of course, that was back when colleges were being more generous with merit scholarships, and I had a scholarship that covered at least tuition at every school to which I applied with the exception of Emory (my one reach/match school). I went to the place that gave me a full ride and worked to pay for most of my living expenses, although I did have to take out a small amount ($9K) in loans (for study abroad, summer supplements, etc.) I’m in graduate school now and my total debt is around $21K for grad and undergrad, and I don’t anticipate having to borrow anymore money.</p>
<p>I didn’t even apply to some of my “dream” schools - Columbia, Yale, Stanford - because I knew there was no way I could afford them. They didn’t give merit aid (not that I would get any anyway - I was the average applicant at all of those places) and my EFC would’ve meant I would’ve had to come up with $19K every year, which my parents were not doing. Even if they could, I would not want to put my parents in $80K of debt for MY education.</p>
<p>My younger sister is now in college and although my parents make about the same amount, they now have more discretionary income seeing as me and my younger brother have moved out on our own. My sister goes to a regional public university; her tuition was covered by a scholarship; her grades fell when she had a hard time first year and she lost it, but the tuition there is less than $3K per year so now she pays it with loans. She lives at home and commutes, and she works to pay for spending money, so even if she has to finance the rest of her college with loans she’ll still come out with less than $10K in debt. Neither of my parents are in any kind of debt for any of our educations (my brother went to vocational school, and paid for it himself by working.)</p>
<p>ugh, sorry, thought this was a more general thread. :(</p>
<p>Hi Tres, with a college freshman and a HS senior, I find, contrary to popular belief, that finding merit money is very difficult. My daughter (valedictorian and NMF) can get merit money easily but not at the colleges she wants to go to. So what’s the use of working so hard and not being able to go to the schools you have been working hard for? It seems to me that getting merit money for the schools you want is not easy. But, despite my daughter and son falling somewhat flat on merit scholarships, they do have a financial safety. Our son is going to our flagship state U and my daughter may go to it too depending on financial aid packages. But, we’re lucky with UNC-CH.</p>