<p>“Some people like to ponder these possibilities before hand; doesn’t necessarily mean they are “preworrying”.”</p>
<p>Geez, the preworrying isn’t about the kid in college and what to do. It is about the articles posted which deals with kids who take advantage of their parent’s home when they should be out earning a living.</p>
<p>Good feedback here. I’m hearing that a college student living at home might be scarce around the house — hadn’t even thought of that. But, with the likely Work-Study job (or other job), continued volunteering as required by her intended major/master’s programs, long hours on homework per those dang LDs, plus a RT commute, we might just become ships passing in the night. I definitely appreciate E’s detailed cautionary tale as well as others’ reports on how successful the live-at-home arrangement can be. Thanks! I’m moving out of the “shock & fear” phase. Moving on to adapt to one more variable in her college search/scenario: commuter student, living at home. All this feedback has helped me figure out where she/we might get into trouble, if she winds up living at home for financial reasons. </p>
<p>Re: TE. What I think I’m seeing is that when you participate in TE (and your kid is NOT a merit-magnet), in most cases, you assume you will not have to pay any tuition for four years. The TE replaces any “grants” or “scholarships” that the kid might otherwise be offered. The receiving school then can turn around and offer those goodies to another applicant. But, a TE family will have to pay everything else outside of tuition, based on your EFC/ESC (a reasonable expectation, it seems, in exchange for free tuition): room & board (for a residential student), books/tech, travel (if not commuting, or commuting costs if not traveling far to live at a school), and personal expenses. </p>
<p>For some idiotic reason, in the days before we really started overtly preparing to tap TE, I had always vaguely thought that our cash flow could cover those expenses. I wish our income could cover that, but hubby’s income has been eviscerated on and off during the recession in a dramatically changing industry, and then there were the extreme medical/education costs for a child with a disability. Hence the tapped out home equity. Now, we’re back in the saddle, but our 2014 income puts us in that weird doughnut hole (it seems — I’m still learning about all this), where a residential cost might just be too much. </p>
<p>Our financial planner has reviewed all kinds of options with us — from sell the house (yeah, no.), borrow from retirement fund, somehow get a full-ride (that includes room & board, right?), get second jobs (of course the kid will be working and borrowing the $5,500 etc.), to D16 as a commuter student. </p>
<p>Ok, if living at home needs to be an option for our kid, we will roll with it. Thanks for cluing me in. </p>
<p>This “newly discovered” possibility just hit me hard and exposed the deep assumption that I must have unconsciously been holding ever since the kid was born — that she’d go away to school and be leaving us at age 18. (Just like I did.) We had the same type of experience when we learned of her various disabilities when she was a young child — you sign up for parenthood thinking the default is whatever your experience or culture has seeded into your head, but then reality emerges and you’re like, “Whoa, what is that? That wasn’t in my plans!” Adjustment time!</p>
<p>She just started visiting colleges, and she/we have been asking about “commuter student life.” FYI: It’s a good baseline to see a really nice commuter student lounge — with lockers!</p>
<p>If you have 4 years of TE, getting the equivalent of at least 2 years of CC at very low cost will help you extend the benefit to be sure it’s still around for when your D has chosen her major. It would also allow for her to be in school a bit longer, in case the LD delays things or she opts for lighter load and/or grad school. </p>
<p>Absolutely, we’ve been thinking of as many creative ways to apply TE to her situation as possible. My employer cuts off TE on the child’s 23rd birthday. So, one option might be that she’d be able to take a gap year, building her skills. Or, she could carry a manageable load of four courses a semester on TE and do summer school at my employer (free) to fill in extra credits. Or, she could transfer from a TE school if the benefit expires before the degree is earned, and finish up at a commutable and affordable state U that has her degree program. Perhaps she could do dual-enrollment (time will tell on that) before graduating HS. She could self-study CLEP, if the college would accept CLEP credits. </p>
<p>The challenge is that we have to plan with so many unknowns about her academic capacity/test scores. It seems that most TE-participating schools favor freshman applicants rather than transfers. And, the academic years attended must be consecutive (not stopping out). We even thought of “flipping” the model and checking to see if she can start in her major in freshman/sophomore years, and save most gen eds for community college for junior/senior years after that, with a final semester back at the original school (but without TE funding) to post the degree. But, that would require a school without a 2-year residency requirement where the credits must be taken at that school. </p>
<p>After all these early mental gymnastics, watch her go and do college completely “normally,” eh? 
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