I was rereading this thread, trying to make sense of it, and the following statement caught my eye:
The word “primary” jumped out. Do you own other real estate? A second home, or rental property? That could be the reason for the high costs at Ivies for an apparently poor family. If they refused to increase your aid, it could be that they are expecting you to tap the equity in other properties in order to pay.
I agree with others that it looks like both kids need to transfer to less expensive colleges. No one needs to go to an Ivy.
Or transfer to a local community college for the spring and continue to make progress toward fulfilling likely requirements of their majors with transferable courses at relatively low cost while writing transfer applications to affordable four year colleges.
It’s unlikely kids who went “Ivy or bust” for the college admission process would accept attending a local CC.
Taking an official leave of absence for Spring and working would perhaps be more socially acceptable.
The OP is just going to be one of those families with huge educational debt. More families do what the OP did for their kids to attend an elite school than you think. Not wise, imo, but no one on CC is going to change their mind. I hope it works out for them.
I thought OP said they weren’t in a position to borrow much. That’s actually for the best. It sounds like they’d need to borrow well into the 6 figures to cover both kids’ educations. The federal student loans ($27k total over 4 years) is a reasonable debt load. Taking on 6-figure debt isn’t wise or necessary.
Here’s the rub-- based on what the OP has posted, taking a HELOC (on a property she sold in a short sale) is not an option. That’s what most of the people I know who have borrowed aggressively for college have done. You can’t borrow against an asset you don’t have, and the OP has stated that bad credit is part of the picture. The best way to exacerbate bad credit is to borrow more (if you can find a lender).
Even more families find that they can’t afford the 2nd or 3rd year because they can’t get credit, and their kid has to drop out of college with the debt and without the degree.
Taking an official leave of absence would allow the family to figure out what to do, how to move forward to avoid this horribly too-common endpoint.
OP said that they did not go to college in the US. Many Asian immigrants spend all or most of their life savings to send their kid(s) to an Ivy if they get in. I know multiple Asian parents who have sold their homes to afford HYPS for their kid. I even know a family who lived in a station wagon for four years to send their daughter to Harvard as a full-pay student (this was before Harvard’s generous financial aid policy for middle-class kids kicked in). Having your kid transfer from an Ivy to a state school would be social suicide in many Asian immigrant circles. No amount of persuasion on CC would be able to deprogram the intensely hierarchal socializing that occurs among Asian immigrant families.
Of course, it could be that OP is not an Asian immigrant and nothing I’ve written applies. In that case, OP, your kids should definitely leave their current schools as they seem unaffordable.
Spending all or most of your savings is a rational choice. You may not agree with that choice, but if one has specifically saved for college, then that’s what the money is for, and you would rather see it go for your kid’s education than on vacations and big screen TV’s and a fancy car. Your money, your choice.
The OP has no savings. The major asset (presumably) was the house, which is now sold. Credit is bad- which suggests not only that there are no other savings, but that their is consumer debt (if you have no savings but are not in debt, your credit is likely fine. Pay all your bills every month and leave $100 in the bank? Your credits is fine). The only way to have lousy credit is to spend what you have and then some… i.e. loans, debt, large balances on a card which you pay off a little bit every month.
So we aren’t talking about “social suicide” here, a parent who scrimped and saved and now spent all the savings on college. We’re talking about someone with no savings and bad credit. Retirement is tough on social security with nothing else to supplement…
Adding…and they knew they were stretching to pay for the first kid.
This situation is one where the whole family needs to understand the financial issues here…and work together to come to a reasonable solution that will work. If this means both kids have to attend less costly colleges, that should be on the table as an option.
My opinion….incurring any further debt should not be on the table…at all.
Maybe I am just tired, but my head is swirling. (I honestly wondered if the post was actually real.)
Their kids didn’t apply to anything but ivies, they have 2 kids that actually got into ivies (at least one got into multiple ivies), they make enough that they don’t receive financial aid, but they don’t have enough to afford an an ivy, much less 2 - and they know this - but they sent 2 kids to ivies anyway.
Given the lack of money to afford the current colleges, wouldn’t it be likely that such a leave of absence lasts indefinitely, as far as the current colleges are concerned?
And remember also, at least for FAFSA purposes, the dividing of the family contribution when two kids are in college ends in the 2023-2024 academic year. So if these kids take a leave, they have the potential for the one kid to lose that. No one really knows how Profile schools will be dealing with this change in family contribution calculation.
But it saves face and gives the kids time to adjust to the situation, which is likely to be a huge psychological shock. Even for the parents, the discussion is likely to be very painful so it allows foe a positive spin " we are so proud you got into Ivy X, but right now we cannot pay for next semester and an official leave of absence* allows tou to return without problems when we get the money together."
(* NOT a withdrawal)
I think we’re all missing many details. If Ivy#2 denied any need-based aid with two children in college, obviously the family has a high income and/or significant assets. Ultimately, it seems like the family can pay, but the expense may dramatically affect their lives.
I don’t think we need to worry about this family ending up homeless and living in their automobile. They may have to rent instead of buy, they may have to live in a different neighborhood, they may have to make other sacrifices, but I don’t think they’re going to end up going to food banks for groceries.
It seems like a final decision that both children will continue to attend Ivies. Transferring to a non-Ivy university seems fully out of consideration. Basically @Mixedfeelings101 is simply going to have to come to the reality that their financial good fortune means it will be highly unlikely that their 2nd child will receive significant need-based FinAid from an Ivy League school - even if transferring becomes a realistic possibility.