Need advice on college choice, $$, etc.

Parents Forum
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My previous answer was intended to point out that either there is a lot more need-based financial aid than the OP realized OR that the OP is much more capable of affording the tuition than the original ‘we’ll have to delay retirement’ posting indicated. And actually I do live in one of the most crazy expensive parts of California with 4 kids (two already at a pricey private) and I make <<<$250K, yet my opinion holds.

As to the original question, my wife and I would send the child to an Ivy in a second. I graduated from one. The quality of education, the students he’ll befriend, the opportunities, the campus events, (and yes, the credential and doors it will open) at these top institutions is absolutely worth the cost. I will happily take a 2nd mortgage and drain the investment accounts to send my kids to top schools. What else am I saving for? But this is just my personal POV and I know many disagree.

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There will always be people that have the same point of view @pickpocket, that the premium education is worth the premium cost. It seems that as far as the kid of the OP is concerned, that was the OPs point of view. But now that the bill is almost in the mailbox, the reality of the cost is scary, particularly if the applicant also has some hefty merit offers. This is tricky when the applicant was lead to believe that the cost was not an option and then suddenly it is.

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On behalf of the rest of us who graduated from non-ivy schools and managed to have happy, intellectually rewarding, fulfilled lives in the 1%, I think you’re nuts to “take a 2nd mortgage and drain the investment accounts.”

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Does this make sense?

If he attends one of the in-state schools, he doesn’t need more money than that school costs.

If he attends Princeton, the amount of money you’re talking about isn’t enough.

This was information your son needed when he chose schools to apply to. (For example, he might have been attracted to a top state school in another state, such as UVa or Michigan, where costs would have been higher than for an in-state school but lower than for Princeton.) It doesn’t do him any good now.

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I’d just like to point out that this was a TOTALLY avoidable scenario, especially for parents like the OP who are savvy enough to be planning early retirements and whose income is such that they do not qualify for need-based aid. Princeton didn’t just announce its tuition when they sent your S his early admission offer - you’d have to really try to not know that elite private colleges cost upwards of $50-60K per year in 2016. Hopefully people who read this thread in the future will take note.

What are his other options? Depending on where he applied, this middle way you are proposing may be an empty promise that’s accompanying the bait and switch.

I’m sorry for the student that the parents didn’t do their due diligence and/or have the hard talk before this point.

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26

You know how when you show up in the ER in excruciating pain someone will ask you to rate that pain on a scale of one to ten?

I always find that a helpful way to focus the mind in other areas. Since my one and only ER visit (my pain was a 12 on a scale of 10 while I was waiting to be evaluated, but turned into a 4 after watching the gunshot victims and a kid burned in a house fire get triaged ahead of me) I’d like to offer you the same opportunity.

Take a deep breath.

Book on your calendar a “financial physical” night with your spouse but without your kids for now. Get out the tax returns and the visa bills and the cancelled check PDF’s from your bank and the last quarter’s statement from your IRA and other retirement accounts, and the payoff statement from your mortgage and anything else that shows you exactly where you stand financially. How much exactly did you pay for the muffler repair last year?

Make yourself a good old fashioned chart of exactly where the dough for Princeton (or any other option) is going to come from. Maybe you do this exercise and discover that you pay off the mortgage a year later than you thought- and you think- we can live with that. Maybe you do this and discover that it requires you working the same jobs until you are 93- which is likely a pact with the devil. Maybe you do this and realize that you do not need to put both kids through Princeton- you can help Kid Number 1 with Princeton while he does his share (working summers, coming home once a year not five times a year, getting a job on campus) and you can help Kid Number 2 with the same deal (i.e. nobody is going to Aruba on Spring break).

It is so easy to fall into extreme thinking with these decisions- i.e. “if we do Princeton we’ll never retire” or “If we send him to a UC we can quit our jobs tomorrow”. The truth is usually more nuanced- you may not actually WANT to quit your job tomorrow, and if you are continuing to finance your lifestyle by continuing to work, then using college savings for college may not hurt as much as you fear.

But do the math. I always thought I’d retire when I was done with tuition. But then had elderly and ill family members with extreme medical/nursing expenses. But then had other stuff come up. And guess what- now I don’t want to retire. I see friends who are doing it and it’s nowhere near as much fun as they thought; they are trying to get back into some sort of work situation and a couple of them regret having bought into the myth that playing golf in the morning and going to Target in the afternoon and serving on a few boards of local charities was somehow going to be a fulfilling life (for the next 30 years?).

Take a deep breath.

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These parents may not be earning a very high income. One of my brothers earns a strong salary, but not a very high salary, but he and his wife are extremely frugal, very good savers/investors, and even with 3 kids in college, the Stanford NPC (which is similarly generous) shows NO AID. Also, 20+ years ago, they bought a low-priced fixer-upper in a pricey Calif area, did the repairs themselves, quickly paid off the small mortgage, and now they’re also sitting on a huge amount of equity.

Yes, “technically” they can afford it (on paper), but they’ve told their perfect stats/Val child that they will not pay for S or similar schools. They have 4 children, and with recent healthcare changes, they’ve seen their healthcare costs soar in shocking ways. They are trying to be sensible even though they are excited to have at least one super-brainy kid who likely would get into a tippy top elite school.

Parents of the super-brainy sometimes do get ahead of themselves with excitement. Another sister-in-law promised her kids that if they got into Notre Dame, they could go. This family also has 4 kids, but spaced with little overlap, and would be full/near-full pay. When her husband later heard about that “promise” he put the brakes on that idea pronto. The kids have done well at UC schools.


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How about your ask your student to pay the difference between Princeton and instate schools back to you after he graduates. You are just fronting it for now then without loans for him.

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This is so short-sighted. The “desperate” child will say yes to anything, even selling his first-born child at this point in order to go to Princeton. To dangle that to a 17/18 year old child is simply a recipe for disaster.

I think this approach is best: We just didn’t really “do the math” as to the impact of 8 years of a $70k per year school. By the time the younger one is going, who knows what the costs will be.

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wife and I would send the child to an Ivy in a second. I graduated from one. The quality of education, the students he’ll befriend, the opportunities, the campus events, (and yes, the credential and doors it will open) at these top institutions is absolutely worth the cost. I will happily take a 2nd mortgage and drain the investment accounts to send my kids to top schools.


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Hmmm…I’m not going to stand anywhere near someone named @pickpocket

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Did you do any planning or saving?


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Like many people, it appears that this family did a lot of SAVING, but not particularly “college savings”. It sounds like their savings has been directed mostly at retirement/emergencies…and maybe “some” towards college, but not one that would cost $300k per child.

Heck, there are a lot of “college savers” out there that (18 years ago) were told that $80-100k saved per child would be more than enough.

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You allowed your son to apply SCEA to Princeton…and he got accepted. The cost of attending Princeton has not appreciably changed since his application was sent, and his acceptance received.

Why didn’t you “realize” the cost of Princeton before his applications were sent.

Ifmcost was going to be THE factor…then this should have been discussed up from…unless you have had a significant financial change in circumstances…like a lost job or something.

I’m going to put it out there…I feel badly for your son. You led him to believe Princeton was affordable and a possible choice. You’ve had a couple of months since hie SCEA acceptance to deal with this.

No college savings?

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How much later would you have to retire if you paid $500,000 for both kids’ college education?

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Yes, we could technically afford it. However, we were looking forward to retiring in the near future, and that much of a college bill would upset that plan.


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I think THIS is the issue. The family may not have a super-high income, but the frugal living (small home/old cars) and careful investing has allowed them to amass a lot of money.

Some here might say, “just work longer,” but if income isn’t that high, health issues pop-up, or the main breadwinner gets down-sized, then the idea of working longer to re-save $600k won’t happen. Some people who arent working desk jobs, physically can’t just keep on working.

We also don’t know if the “other spouse” is now chiming in against the original plan. One parent may have known college costs, and the other may not have known…and that parent may now be saying, “hold on there, we’re not doing that.”

Do parents have to sign off on SCEA apps?

33

I am not sure why to apply to any expensive (for you!) school if family cannot afford it. No UG degree worth the huge student loans, NONE. It is an UG, not Graduate school, not medical school, not law school…etc.

There are plenty of public and private colleges that would offer huge Merit awards to such a top caliber student. What a waste of resources to apply to the schools that are not awarding on the Merit basis! I can see that kids of Trump, Gates,…etc. would apply anywhere that their heart desires, but for the rest of us mortals, we need to be a bit more frugal not only with our money, but also with our emotions, we should not be aiming at something that we cannot afford, just save yourself.

I personally took 2 years to research my D’s potential colleges and made a list for my own fun and entertainment. I included ONLY UGs that I knew 100% would offer Merit scholarships. D. choose to use my list although I told her that she did not have to. Everything happened as predicted, I guess, if you put time in research, it pays off. She was not interested applying to Ivy’s despite of the great push from her GC. She said that it made no sense for her as she is prepared to do well at ANY place. Instead of chasing the name, she did a lot of research on her own, multiple visits to her top finalists and ended up attending at in-state public on full tuition Merit award. The college happened to be a perfect match to both her personality and very wide range of interests and her experiences and accomplishments there went well beyond our expectations. Another college that offered close to full tuition was small private. That freed our family resources to pay for her Medical School. She graduated loan free, among only 16% of medical school graduates.

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What’s the son want to do? Will he need graduate school?
He’s bright–teach him the value of money.

35

OP has not returned.

However, the problem “how do we handle two kids in college” hasn’t been thought through: Princeton is a meet-need school.
OP, run the NPC with 2 kids in college: doesn’t Princeton offer you some financial aid?
Does it make the situation easier for you?
(Note that there wouldn’t be a difference in FA if your son attends a UC, because you’re not eligible for FA there.)

As others have said, the issue is that you’re only thinking about this now, when you told your son his side of the deal was to work hard and get into Princeton, your side was that you’d pay for it. He worked hard and got into Princeton IN DECEMBER. He’s gotten used to the idea he’s going to Princeton in the past 3 months. You’ve had 3 months to discuss this. So, I feel really bad for your son and of course he’s feeling betrayed, probably angry and flabbergasted.

How long would you have to postpone retirement?
Are the two in college affordable once you’ve done the NPC with 2 in college (who, by the way, may not get into Princeton, and may not want to go to such a college?)

Another issue is that I’d be hesitant to “force” a student to go to a UC, even UCB, when they got into a top private school, in the light of the recently announced cuts. Quality of advising is already terrible at UCB (essentially, students don’t have a personal adviser for 2 years) but think about the effects of the cuts upon teaching, learning, quality of life. I’m sure that kids whose dream school is UCB are thrilled to get in - your son, on the other hand, will not just resent you for a couple weeks, because he’ll constantly be reminded of the difference between a prestigious college where undergraduate conditions have been bled dry due to the cuts, vs.most colleges where learning conditions are good to comfortable. Every time he tries to go to the library and it’s closed, every time he can’t see his TA because there are too many people in his section, every time something breaks in a lab and isn’t replaced. Not being able to graduate in 4 years, a problem that has been averted for years, is likely to return, and with his major so does the likelihood of graduating in 5 years (or more, due to the sequential nature of the program, if you can’t get into a class your path is disturbed.)

Where else has your son been admitted?

Side note: it’s quite possible to visit Princeton and dislike it. But usually when compared to other similar places (kid whose choice was Vassar, Princeton, and Yale, chose Yale and rally dislike Princeton).

36

The OP hasn’t said whether there would be two kids in college at the same time. For all we know, the second kid may be 4 or more years younger, in which case their attendance wouldn’t overlap.

If you wanted your kid to visit Princeton and dislike it, you should have visited in the worst part of winter. That might very well have discouraged a California kid. But the weather is only going to improve from now on.

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Here is a video of that WSJ report for those who can’t read the full article. http://www.wsj.com/video/news-hub-state-schools-top-recruiter-rankings/E646CE3E-4F94-48EF-A73F-66A1E0E91503.html?mod=yahoo_free

Fwiw, we are upfront with our kids all the time, and guess what, we tell them we make mistakes. We would not feel like we were breaching trust with them by telling them that we sat down and did an analysis of the situation and that paying for Princeton results in these real world consequences for us and that is not something we are comfortable with doing when other more affordable good options do not require the same.

Of course it depends on your relationship with your children. Our kids are raised in a large family where everyone’s needs are factored into every decision. So having to accept that what they want and what we hoped were possible may end up being eliminated as an option is simple reality. Equally, we have had the family agree to sacrifice in order to make something possible for just 1 child. (All of our kids agreed to not doing something we had planned for a couple of yrs in order for their sibling to do something special.)

I cannot imagine parenting in a way that everything was written in stone. Life happens. Things change. Life isn’t fair…Our kids know we do the best we can, but sometimes even our best just isn’t good enough for everyone to have the best possible outcome.

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I’m not in any way suggesting that telling your kid “we thought we could swing this but now we can’t” is off the table or reflective of a character flaw. Happens all the time in real life.

I AM suggesting that you do the math first. Maybe the situation is worse than you think. Maybe it’s better. But feeling overwhelmed and emotional at spending money you don’t need to spend (a very natural feeling btw) isn’t the same thing as not being able to afford something- even with some conservative estimates.

Only the OP knows if the kind of decision-making and budget making and financial triage involved in paying for Princeton is of the “We retire three years later and we’re fine with that since we love our jobs and they are secure” type or the “well honey, if you sell plasma and I donate a kidney to a Narco-Terrorist who will pay us 100K cash we can make this work” type of budgeting.

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The fact that you led your child to believe you would pay for any school he was admitted to is the only fact I need to know. Unless there was a significant change to your income/assets since making that commitment, you need to ante up. Its called integrity. The difference between Princeton and many top schools is minimal. If he had been admitted to a top 50 LAC in the Northeast, the COA is $60K +. So, what you are saying is you hoped he would only get admitted to “affordable” schools? Affordable should have been defined a looooong time ago.

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This.