<p>Copying the previous post -"now she has to choose" I would love some input to help with my decision.</p>
<p>My son got into the following colleges and below is the amount we would have to pay after his tuition exchange. He is undecided about his major and has many interests. He was accepted to the following schools. (All honors programs)</p>
<p>Syracuse University $23,290
Skidmore College $25,900
Allegheny College $14,100
Lafayette College $21,470
University of Delaware $11,082</p>
<p>I would really appreciate any feedback. We could probably afford 12,000 a year and have to take out loans for the rest.</p>
<p>Now is a great time to go for a walk (walking side by side means there is less dominance afoot) and lay out where the “Gap” money comes from. For instance, if he goes to Skidmore, he’ll have a gap of about $14K per year X 4 = $56,000 that he will owe upon graduation. Paying $500 a month (which is a LOT) means he’ll be paid off in about 10 years. If he repays at about $250 a month, he’ll be paid off in 20 years or so. </p>
<p>If he goes to U Delaware, then he could graduate with a clean slate. He’ll have a degree and every dime he earns after that is for HIM, HIM, HIM. </p>
<p>It is his life, but, man, I’d sure ask him what he likes about U Delaware and if he couldn’t fall in love with it. Because that Skidmore bumper sticker is incredibly more expensive.</p>
<p>PS. If you are the ones footing the bill, it would be smarter to say “Go U Delaware and we’ll throw in a $5K car”. It’d be a ton cheaper for you in the long run.</p>
<p>He has great choices. Allegheny is only a little bit more expensive than UDel if he wants the LAC experience. I can’t see the other three being worth the extra cost, though if he wants to take on extra loans, that’s up to him (the difference is feasible to cover through not-devastating loans).</p>
<p>If you know he was a musical theater major or communications major, a good case could be made for Syracuse. If an art major, perhaps for Skidmore. But I just don’t the $50k “value added”. (If he had an extra $50k to spend on education, perhaps he’d want to use it to travel around the world three times, take a year off and learn to paint in Italy, or spend five years after graduation doing public health work in Africa. Or a year of engineering graduate school, or…) Even presuming you are the one taking out the loans, is this how you’d choose to spend an extra $50k on education for your son?</p>
<p>Be sure to factor in tuition and room & board increases over the next 4 years. For next year, tuition increased 5% at my D’s college; r & b increased 10%.</p>
<p>Delaware and Allegheny look like the clear choices here financially, and they’re academically/reputationally comparable to your S’s other choices. So if he wants big, diverse, and lively, he should go to Delaware, and if he wants small and intimate, he should go to Allegheny.</p>
<p>UD is a popular draw - more than half its students are from out of state. If they were all the same price, UD would still be a strong option. With the price differential, it’s a great situation.</p>
<p>We told d1 the amount of debt she assumes is entirely up to her. She’ll be attending the attending a local college (and living on campus) because she can do it without debt. The choice was entirely hers. </p>
<p>Show your son the costs. Tell him what you can pay. Show him Olymom’s debt figures. If he’s a practical kid, I bet he takes one of the no/minimal debt deals at Allegheny or Univ. of Del.</p>
<p>If he might be going to graduate school then pick Delaware. I’ve given my daughter a “price tag” ($20k yearly) that I’m willing to spend out of my pocket. It’s her decision after that.</p>
<p>Glad you had choices and options … congrats!!</p>
<p>And if he’s not sure about the big/small decision, do you have time to re-visit this month? A second look can help clarify how he feels about the schools.</p>
<p>Thanks everybody for all of your insightful comments. I really appreciate it! My S is being very indecisive - I hate to make the decision based strictly on the finances - I certainly agree with most of the sentiments here, Delaware and Allegheny make the most fiscal sense, but I am having some parental guilt that makes me wish I had more money saved up for college for him, and that I would be depriving him of a “better” education at the pricier schools.</p>
<p>We have visited Lafayette, and Allegheny and we are going to try to visit the other schools again - although time is getting tight.</p>
<p>If he attended UD, he would have the singular pleasure of being in the same program as my beautiful, amazing daughter! </p>
<p>But seriously, if a student is undecided a lot of options can be a great thing. He wouldn’t wake up and find out that he is in a school that can’t accommodate his goals. Have you visited all the schools? They are very different. My D knocked Lafayette off after a visit in which she just didn’t feel like they were her people. She’s in a specialized program at UD, so they are her people, but she likes options. Both her major and her minor are a little unusual, so that works well for her and there is an array of options in both fields which really appeals. In our family, we found reviewing the course catalog to be very helpful in making the choice for both daughters. Whatever you do, good luck! Enjoy this summer because it will pass very quickly.</p>
<p>I like this calculator from the folks at FinAid.org because it breaks down all of the numbers for you, and it also includes some potentially useful non-numeric criteria. It might help you and your son work through everything: [FinAid</a> | Calculators | Advanced Award Letter Comparison Tool](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid)</p>
<p>Son in similar decision mode. I’ve heard on CC, though, that UDel’s 4-1-4 means you’d be looking at an extra $5,000 for the winter session. We had not factored this into the pros/cons until I read that.</p>
<p>My son is one year out of his undergrad degree. Looking at his job options out of undergrad and at a lot of his friends I say go for the lowest loans. Most kids will be happy where they are planted. I cannot imagine anyone out of undergrad being able to afford five hundred a month in loans. Eighty five percent of students who graduated last may ended up living back with their parents and in relatively low paying jobs. I am talking about students who went to UC Berkeley and other great schools.</p>
Not everyone takes classes during the winter session. It’s not mandatory. Some kids study abroad, which costs whatever it would cost anyway, some get jobs, some do internships. And some do winter session classes in order to graduate earlier.</p>