<p>I’m curious what the OP’s son ended up doing. Hope he got a nice merit award for TCNJ. I wonder what state flagship has no engineering program?</p>
<p>For those parents with younger high school students, I recommend taking classes at a community college during the summer. I have been doing that since the summer after 7th grade, and I now have enough units to graduate with my AA. I am only going to be a senior this year, but I can now apply to more expensive schools knowing that I cut about 2 years out of it. I am going to a UC which will definitely take my credits, but this doesn’t work for private schools that won’t take them. Check out which classes will and will not transfer. Also, I got 6 units free from the school each semester and just had to pay for supplies like books.</p>
<p>My D and I took some tours of SUNY’s last spring after looking at the numbers. We have about $30,000 saved in a NYS 529 plan, but our income the last few years has gone down dramatically. We do have a decent amount in 401k’s that don’t get counted in the FAFSA, but we feel she’ll get something from NY TAP, and perhaps some merit aid. Very little, her grades and scores are decent but not crazy good. She’s going into her senior year and taking the ACT and SAT’s once more, she scored 26 and 1180 the first times, high scores in math in both, about a 90 avg, and took AP Calc & Env Sci last year, with AP Bio and Stats this year. She has worked every summer, and all of last school year and has saved as well, this summer working 2 jobs and really focusing on putting the money away. I think sitting at the info sessions and hearing about the costs and financial aid hit home for her. If her grades were higher, than there would be more available for us. What will hurt us is that we own a rental home that is impossible to sell in the current market! but we do have a lot of equity in it, but don’t earn a lot off of it. Yes, if I sold it for what it was worth we could pay off our current mortgage and pay for a lot of her school as well…but that’s not happening. I’m thankful that she doesn’t have her heart set on a private school and not really sure that she would do better there. I’m looking forward to seeing who accepts my wonderful child and where she decides to go! She love all of the SUNY’s that we visited (with the exception of the closest one, Stony Brook, and that’s it, it’s too close to home) and would be happy to attend any of them. </p>
<p>For years I did the auto withdrawal into the 529 plan for her and her younger sister, it was a bill that came out of the checking account and I didn’t really notice it. Wish it was more. So how we’re doing it, is our past savings and going the State U route and hardly any vacations, no new cars, etc.</p>
<p>bella28,
Sounds like you have figured out some of the “secrets” on your own. Keep visiting this forum. There’s lots of good information. We (parents) are all students here, ever learning the basics and in-depth details of financial aid and paying for college.</p>
<p>Hopefully you followed some of the threads involving fin aid surprises that students receive in April (accepted to dream school, can’t afford it, no plan B). They can be instructive in terms of exercising the proper foresight when searching for and applying to colleges.</p>
<p>*I am only going to be a senior this year, but I can now apply to more expensive schools knowing that I cut about 2 years out of it. I am going to a UC which will definitely take my credits, but this doesn’t work for private schools that won’t take them. *</p>
<p>If you’ve been going to a Calif CC, then privates should take most/all of your CC credits. Actually, many/most privates accept CC credits. </p>
<p>Or…are you OOS and going to pay OOS rates for a UC? If so, why? Even if you’re saving money by only going 2 years, you could save even more money by going to a good school that won’t cost $50k per year.</p>
<p>Even if you’re instate…with your stats, you could get some good scholarships from good schools.</p>
<p>Are these your latest stats?</p>
<p>I feel that I have strong stats for UC Davis …
**High school GPA 3.97 <a href=“Freshman%20year%20wasn’t%20amazing.%20But%20everything%20is%20A’s%20since%20then.”>/B</a>
Community College GPA 3.94 (54 Units taken since 7th grade in free time)
SAT Reading 700, SAT Math 720, SAT Writing 750
SAT Subject Math II 700, SAT Subject Chemistry 740
AP Chemistry 4, AP English Language 4
Strong clubs and leadership, too.
But I have pretty much no volunteer except maybe 3 hrs here and there for random events.
I want to be a biology botany major.</p>
<p>well, I see OP has not posted in quite some time.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, OP appears not to have read on this forum that some publics, e.g. University of Alabama (current rank of #79 in USNWR, higher than any school OP’s son applied to…), will pay 100% of the tuition for OOS students with over 1400 SAT and over 3.5 gpa, and if Engineering, some stipend money on top of that so school is under $10k per year.</p>
<p>I include this in case others this upcoming year come across this thread.</p>
<p>You are exactly right about University of Alabama. My S is going to Northwestern next year, but he applied to U of A because of the amazing trombone professor there. He was 1480 SAT and Salutatorian, and received full tuition OOS at UA and after the music scholarship we owed $0. All was merit and had nothing to do with need. They also have a “siding scale” with scores. I talked another girl from his class into applying and she had a 30 ACT and ranked #3 in class- she still received 1/2 tuition. Nice school with great folks there. Even though S declined and chose NU, they still sent a beautifully engraved cover containing a gorgeous, personalized certificate he was given at awards day as a scholarship recipient. U of A was his 3rd choice school out of 8 school FA packages. Had he not gotten into his top 2 with aid, he would have attended there.</p>
<p>DD was a high school senior last year and she applied to 12 schools, mainly ones who we thought might give her merit money based on her stats. She ended up choosing Univ of Alabama because of the full tuition scholarship given to her (even when she studies abroad) and availability honors housing (she gets her own bedroom in a 4 bedroom “honors dorm” with 2 bath suite). She started classes a week ago, and is very happy there. One nice thing about UA is that their scholarships are posted on their website,if you meet the criteria , you’ll get it. Another is that they still have money even though they are public, and don’t seem to be hurting in this down economy like the Calif pubic universities where we come from.</p>
<p>I have similar problems. None of my family wants to pay, including my stepmother who says she has no responsibility for me (even I’m her dependent), birth mother’s info waived as she was not in my life for the past 6 years, and then, my father has no money, savings, funds or anything. So, I am really stuck. </p>
<p>I have this sort of dream last night while sleeping. I dreamt that I was starting a legit organization or foundation for students with same problems whose parents won’t pay for college. We all would collaborate and work together to talk with businesses, companies, and other things like that to get money/scholarships, and another thing, we would lobby the Congress to make the financial aid process more helpful and favorable for students stuck in this kind of thing or those who had fallen through the crack. What do you guys think?</p>
<p>^^The problem is that no one is required to pay for someone else’s college. It is nice when they want to and/or are able to, but it is not required. </p>
<p>If aid was based on whose parents/guardians WANT to pay, everyone would say that they don’t want to pay and then everyone would get money, no one would get money, or money would be merit based. It seems really unfair when you are the child involved.</p>
<p>The other thing to keep in mind is that most areas of the country have state schools and community colleges that are financially reasonable alternatives for people who have the money but don’t want to part with it. It may not be the top choice, but it is an option.</p>
<p>But still, at least the financial aid system could be somehow changed to catch the students like me who fall through cracks. I.e.-increase the loan option, or lower the independent age from 24 to 18-20. Or better yet, a Scandinavian system where people don’t have to worry about paying for tuition.</p>
<p>If Scandinavia is like much of Europe, not everyone can go to college. Testing starts quite young and kids are weeded out and put into training programs. Be careful what you wish for.</p>
<p>If our colleges were free, then they would drop to the quality (ha ha) of our K-12 public system.</p>
<p>“If our colleges were free, then they would drop to the quality (ha ha) of our K-12 public system.”</p>
<p>No, quite the opposite. My mom attended a tuition-free public college in another country many years ago and there was so much competition to attend for free that the public colleges were better than the private colleges. </p>
<p>That’s part of what attracts students to Cooper Union, Olin or even Alabama honors program. :)</p>
<p>My cousin attends school in the UK and while it’s not free it’s not exorbitant either (the cost when she was attending was slightly less expensive than tuition at a community college in my home state) and I don’t feel that she got an inferior education to mine. </p>
<p>Price doesn’t always correlate to quality, as we tell many students who are thinking about bullying their parents into takng out PLUS loans for NYU. And if you think public education is bad now, check out a history book to see how ghastly it was before compulsory, state-funded schools became common. Or, Hell, just look at all the 3rd-world countries that are like that today.</p>
<p>wild, nothing is really free…if our colleges were tuition-free, we’d all just be paying a lot more in income taxes. I think most people would agree that taxes are high enough already and if parents would make saving money for the 18 or so years before their kid goes to college a priority, a college education is affordable for most families. If not, there are also military and volunteer options as well as the much less expensive CC’s and public schools within commuting distance. I know several people who went to work and completed their education on their employer’s dime and I suspect that there are many in your situation who are going to school part-time and funding their own education by working. Just because these may not be attractive options it doesn’t really mean that a student has “fallen through the cracks”.</p>
<p>If people continue to foster the “dream school” mentality or insist that they can only go to a 4-year residential college, and don’t plan for those expenses, they have to accept responsibility for that. Frankly, many teenagers also have to start making better choices in the way they manage their own earnings/savings…I’m always amazed at how many have money for designer jeans, iPhones, cars, etc. and have barely saved a dime for their own educational expenses! Putting it on the backs of already over-burdened taxpayers is rarely the solution to anything and seems to be the kiss of death for many of our most cherished ideals. Just my $.02!</p>
<p>Well said, Sk8rmom.</p>
<p>How do you afford college?</p>
<p>This is what we did: 1) when the kids were young we limited their exposure to television and maximized their exposure to books. Likewise, vacations always included a liberal dose of visits to cultural institutions such as museums, aquariums, music festivals and science centers; 2) made sure that homework came first. Until the homework was done no television, sports, get-togethers with friends or extended telephone calls with peers; 3) we have a policy that the kids can’t have a car until they are capable of buying their own and paying for their own insurance; 4) we insisted that our daughters seek admission to schools where they had a fighting chance of winning scholarships and grants that would bring the COA down to our EFC; 5) we saved, but due to several family illnesses not nearly as much as we would have liked to; 6) we don’t dine at restaurants nearly as much as we once did, we cut back on charitable giving, we drive our cars (relatively inexpensive sedans instead of 45K SUVs) until they drop, and we have postponed any additional non-essential home improvements until college is paid for. </p>
<p>It helps that neither my wife nor my two daughters likes recreational shopping. Our major remaining vice is travel – we haven’t had to sacrifice too much in terms of vacations. </p>
<p>All-in-all our plan has worked pretty well to-date, and we anticipate the kids wrapping up their undergraduate education debt free. After that they’re on their own. Maybe by then they’ll own a car.</p>
<p>I don’t know if this is common but my son had a choice between a public college(SUNY Geneseo) and a high cost private(Vassar). I thought because of costs, Geneseo was the obvious choice. It ended up being that Geneseo offered no money, while Vassar provided a significant amount of money and it turned out Vassar had a lower EFC after there grant. So my son made Vassar the choice. So a middle class family should not rule out a high priced private. You just never know.</p>
<p>My family has been living in the US or 4 years now. My son is now 10; he has some 8 years ahead before college, but I am already worried about the college expenses that we have to set for him. Compare to Europe, tuition fees are astronomically heigh !!! 200,000 USd versus 50,000 Euros (75,000 USD) for a 4 year private college, not to mention that public universities are free in France.
Let me tell you than most of my husband’s co-workers are still paying some college debt, by mid-thirty years of age, which horrified us…</p>
<p>Raising kids are terribly expensive in this country…Wonder if this is a good idea to move in the US, but we couldn’t resist sunny California…</p>