Parents are hung up on loans, advice? [LONG]

Paying for College
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<p>xzoosermom is correct. Everyone I know with dual special ed licensure is only teaching special ed (and hating it). The sped-only people knew what they were getting into, sort of, but the ones who got both for marketability are regretting it (except the paycheck part I suppose). At best, you get to teach history to a collaborative special ed class by yourself instead of co-teaching with a special ed teacher because you’re dual licensed and they will get away with everything they legally can. Only pursue special ed licensure if you have a passion for those students.</p>

<p>I’d also like to point out how 1/2 of all new teachers leave teaching within 5 years. Make sure you have a back up plan.</p>

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<p>Actually, I don’t believe the FAFSA allows student to be independent for financial aid purposes unless they’re 24 or legally emancipated, regardless of whether she is claimed on tax returns as a dependent.</p>

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<p>OP, you have a lot on the ball, and a nice future. Don’t mess it up with too much debt, or with being stranded financially and unable to finish a degree. You have several schools that would all be nice for you, and you have family financial problems. I could see you applying to all, and not getting your heart set on anything. Remember that the goal is to get the degree, and each one of those schools can get you there. When you get the aid packages in the spring, see which is most affordable. Compare that, financially, to starting at community college and finishing at an in-state public without merit aid, as transfers typically do not get merit aid.</p>

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<p>You could also consider going to a community college and in a year or so getting a roommate in an apartment. That would give you independence at a financially-responsible price if you prepare to do so. You may find that there are plenty of commuter students who would be excellent roommates and there is often student-appropriate housing in the area of community colleges and sometimes businesses and resources that cater to students. If you prepare and are willing to work hard, the best of both worlds really is possible for you. Attend a local college that will give you connections at a low cost, get a job that will give you money to put toward a roommate living situation when the time is right. May I also suggest that if you have a good GPA, there are sometimes paid internship opportunities available at CCs to put students into the classrooms in difficult schools. My daughter did that for two years and she made very good money while learning how to manage a very tough classroom. To say it was priceless to her is a staggering understatement. I think there is now nothing she hasn’t seen or couldn’t handle. She told me that when you’ve seen one of your students hauled out of the classroom in handcuffs or tried to broker peace between two young mothers who are literally arranging to kill each other, lesson planning and management is a snap.</p>

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<p>Wow, lots of responses! (Sorry, i’ve been so busy with school and work and q_____q. I don’t know if i’ll get a chance to respond in this post, but I will eventually - promise!)</p>

<p>I kind of giggled when someone remarked that my mom might have mental health issues. If by ‘mental health’ you mean ‘dealing with a family that has people with mental health issues’, you’re spot-on (not myself, but basically everyone else in my family).</p>

<p>I talked to my mom about finances over dinner the other night (a reasonably casual way to bring it up, I think, without being confrontational) and we laid out the guidelines: mom can contribute the ~$20,000 college fund (that she is still adding to and will keep adding to while i’m gone, though I don’t know how much she can add), after that it’s all me. I asked her about her previous stance on co-signing loans, and she was like, “no, aomame, you don’t want and can’t afford private loans in your life, you want federal loans instead.” I was admittedly slightly frustrated, because I had just explained that I could only take out $27,000 in federal loans over 4 years, so I was like, “if I could, I would, but I can only take out so much by myself.” Plus, she said she’d co-sign loans. I asked her about private loans through our bank (as opposed to Sallie Mae - the bank has rates starting at 5.75%, even though not a lot of people get that rate, most likely) but she shut that down.</p>

<p>In the end the conversation was good, because she admitted that she thinks I would be okay no matter where I end up. She told me that if I picked a major and stuck to it, I would be fine because i’m not the kind of person to give up easily, if at all. So there was a lot of feel-good but true things.</p>

<p>You’ll notice I left all mention of my dad out, because he was working. (My dad works 3 jobs.) He’d likely agree with what my mom said.</p>

<p>I think one thing I might do is try and get my dad to help me explain loans. I’ll admit that my financial…lingo? might be confusing to my mom. Maybe my dad can explain it in a way that makes sense to her besides, “I hope aomame gets in at Dream Private College because they have a lot of money to throw at her.”</p>

<p>I honestly don’t know where i’m going to end up yet, but November 15th is when i’m applying to my financial safeties, That Other State’s Flagship, and Dream Private College. If I end up adding any other schools, i’ll apply regular decision. So my search isn’t done yet.</p>

<p>I’ll admit that i’m letting the financial situation and all the financial details completely cloud my judgement and obscure what’s right in front of me. I can’t even focus on my applications or much else because all I do is “worry about the money,” as everyone has put it so far. My mom and teachers encouraged me to set that aside until after i’m done with my applications, so for now i’m doing just that.</p>

<p>Thank you all so much! (For the financial and academic advice, and basically everything else.)</p>

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<p>Sounds like you have about $11K per year with your family’s savings + your own federal loans? (I agree with your mom, borrowing more than your federal limit just doesn’t make sense).</p>

<p>Apologies if you said earlier…is there any chance of need-based aid to add to that?</p>

<p>In any case, it sounds like you have your financial safeties and you are working on your apps and that’s awesome. Best of luck to you.</p>

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<p>Yeah, more or less. My mom said it didn’t matter how I used the money she had saved, whether I wanted to “use it all at once” or “spread it out across four years.” My parents also said they’d buy me a new laptop as a graduation gift, so I offered to pool my own money and buy a refurbished Macbook Air or something.</p>

<p>So 20k + 27k = 47k…a little more than 11k a year, then. I’ll have like 5k before freshman year and my own expectation is i’ll have a job either through work study or another part-time job (my mom doesn’t want me to “take on too much” my freshman year).</p>

<p>There’ll be some need-based aid, not much at the state schools but Dream Private College’s NPC estimated i’d get a little over 30,000 a year in both merit and need. Hooray. </p>

<p>And with the faithful Dream Private College NPC, after taking out my own loans and work study i’d only have $8k/yr left. That’s the best estimate i’ve seen so far, running these NPC’s.</p>

<p>See, if I could get into colleges like the Ivies, I wouldn’t have to pay hardly a dime. How depressing.</p>

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<p>I’m going to weigh in late on this discussion and I’ll admit that I skipped the middle. </p>

<p>From your original post, I gleaned a few things:

  1. You are mature and well organized.
  2. Your grades and scores are much lower than I would have guessed from #1.
  3. Your mother is irrational about the FAFSA and CSS.
  4. Your family has medical expenses larger than average.
  5. You will be the first to graduate from college in your family.</p>

<p>Given all of the above, and the fact that you are 17/18 years old.

  1. You should be focused on scholarships and NON-LOAN aid. You AND your family have to do everything you can to maximize the amount you’ll get in grants, scholarships, fee waivers… etc. Mom needs to get off the dime and get real information into the EFC calculators and into the CSS profile. The reason private schools want the CSS is because they can, and will, take extra expenses (like medical) into account thereby increasing your awards. (If you have to, create a FAKE CSS profile, with wrong address and name and such, but put in the real numbers from your tax returns. At least you’ll get a legit EFC to think about.)
  2. You should be submitting applications for local scholarships like mad over the rest of this year. There ARE big scholarships out there like Coke and Gates but the competition is fierce. ON the other hand, many local scholarships have few applicants.
  3. You should expand your area of focus. Teaching History is a fine, noble vocation BUT, rarely do people know at 17 what they REALLY want to do with their life. NO school demands that you declare a major as a freshman so OPEN up your blinders. You’ll find more potential scholarship opportunities if you look wider. I have an employee that will have ALL his loans paid off for him by the state, as he does 3 years of social work (drawing a salary). He’ll then have social work experience, a teaching credential, a 4 year degree and NO DEBT! He would never have found the opportunity if he’d narrowed his focus too soon.
  4. There are lots of organizations like Questbridge and Posse that are looking for minority students AND first-gen to college students. You’re now too late to Questbridge but you should be getting together with the rest.
  5. Get your grades in order, both this year and every year afterward. MANY schools have merit money that you can get just by LEARNING, which is why you are going to college anyway, right?? (You should be calling all of your potential schools’ Financial Aid offices to ask them directly about Merit money… )</p>

<p>I think you’ve been given great advice earlier in this thread that you should NOT go into debt NOR get your parents to go into debt. They (your mom) needs to get on board with that. (I understand that she IS on-board with you not going into debt but she also has to fulfill the responsibilities demanded of her to allow you to get MAX financial aid and to plan. The poster that excused her behavior with “parents may have information they want to keep from their kids” is absolutely WRONG. She’s put years of effort and expense into you this is NOT the time to handicap you with some irrational fear of the FAFSA, CSS or desire to keep some secret from you.)</p>

<p>Good luck… Hope you can get her on board. And I hope you’ll strat applying for max scholarship money.</p>

<p>-d</p>

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<p>Well, i’m technically not first-generation, because my mom graduated with an associate’s. That would make me second generation, right? Nor am I a minority, or anywheres near low-income. Just a solidly middle-class family (in terms of strictly household income, towards the upper end of the middle class) that just happened to be dealt a lot of unlucky cards like medical expenses and high property taxes.</p>

<p>I have to pay to fill out the CSS PROFILE. Is there a site where I can get a rough estimate?</p>

<p>I was under the impression that the PROFILE just ended up hurting people, really, since it takes a close look at assets. Our house has a high value (and a stupidly high mortgage) and one of our cars is considered an asset, so that just kind of makes things worse.</p>

<p>Oh, and Dream Private College doesn’t use PROFILE, but one of the private colleges i’m applying to does, so i’ll use that school.</p>

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<p>Profile will take your parent’s home equity into account. So if the mortgage is super high, that can help.</p>

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<p>Yeah, it is.</p>

<p>What i’m a little confused on is the numbers my mom gave me - we bought our house in 1997 for 214,000. Now it’s worth 385,000 and they still owe 300,000? I feel like something is very wrong with that number because I know the mortgage is at least $1000 a month and my parents are trying to/just refinanced.</p>

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<p>Have the FAFSA set up so that your mother can privately put in the family information. Some parents are funny about sharing it. </p>

<p>Your parents could have another lien on the house; have taken out bill consolidation or borrowed using the house to secure them which means they could owe $300K. Or they were able to refinance and the new mortgage is up to $300K . There may be a lot of things going on that your mother does not want to discuss with you, so she should just fill ou the FAFSA info her self.</p>

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<p>Mmm, okay.</p>

<p>She doesn’t seem to understand the purpose of it, though…I tried to explain it to her in terms of, “you have to fill out this form to be eligible for financial aid, it asks for information on the tax form like salary and assets and whatnot,” and all I got was “government conspiracy blah blah there is no money blah blah”</p>

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<p>Often the private schools offer more “scholarship” money, making them less expensive than the public state schools. Why don’t you see what you are offered and try to negotiate with the schools once you are accepted. You can also get a work loan where you have a chance to get a job on campus. We are trying to pay back the loans for our kids, and we are having to spread it out over about 10 years.</p>

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<p>Lots of great posts in this thread already. All I have to say is: the FAFSA was the easiest source of money when I needed it. Yeah, I got a big chunk of money, but there were parts that were also loans (both subsidized and unsubsidized). The interest rates on those subsidized loans are so low that I’m actually glad to have them, so I have the opportunity to invest that money elsewhere.</p>

<p>It’s because of the FAFSA that I didn’t bother applying for private scholarships.</p>

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<p>I know you don’t want to hear this, but where you go to school is not nearly as important as the work you do and what you learn while you’re there. In your case, an in-state public university will likely be the best bet both finanically and career-wise. Financially, $60K sounds like a lot, until you try to actually live in a high-cost area. Another poster mentioned that your hiring school would pay back your education. This is NOT true everywhere. In fact, most disricts are STRAPPED for cash right now because of the housing market as most schools’ funding comes from property taxes and with properties in foreclosure, many people aren’t paying property taxes. </p>

<p>WHere you CAN find loan forgiveness is through several programs. HOWEVER, PLUS LOANS are NOT eligible!!! Here is a link to the Federal Student Aid office with all the details/specifics: [Teacher</a> Loan Forgiveness | Federal Student Aid](<a href=“http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/charts/teacher]Teacher”>http://studentaid.ed.gov/repay-loans/forgiveness-cancellation/charts/teacher) </p>

<p>More than 1/2 my family are in education either as teachers or administrators. I am currently working toward my BA in Secondary Math Education. So, this is something we’ve all discussed. As a Social Studies major, I’d suggest either a reading, ESE, or ESOL (or combo of these) endorsements. Not sure about your state, but in my state these are one of the only ways to ensure that non-English/Math/Science teachers keep positions when they get shuffled around because of high-stakes testing requirements. :(</p>

<p>Go where school is cheapest. Free, preferrably. This means going to school WITHOUT loans or very minimal federal student loans (personal, not parental). Heck, if you have to go to your local community college first so you can get your prerequisites done cheaper, do it! I am an adult student transferring from my community college this next summer to a school to finish my BA and they’ve offered me a scholarship based on my AA. So that’s another route.</p>

<p>Which ever way you go, the dream school experience is NOT worth saddling yourself (or your parents) with oodles of debt. You’ll have more freedom in selecting your dream job if you don’t have to drag a wagon full of debt behind you.</p>

<p>Good luck!</p>

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<p>Tell your mom that if she wants you to take out government loans (which she apparently does) then you have to fill out the FAFSA. And you <em>might</em> get additional help for school from some of the schools you apply to on the basis of that information.</p>

<p>FWIW, Profile doesn’t compute it’s own EFC. It’s just a common data collection vehicle. It sends the data to schools that each do whatever they choose with them. So that’s why there are on “Profile Estimators” online. If you use a school’s NPC that’s the closest you can get.</p>

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<p>What the heck, I’ll weigh in here too. I’ve taught for 32 years and have seen and heard much. In my state, most special ed teachers are history/social studies teachers who can’t find a history job. One of my dear friends has several degrees in history/social studies and could never find a job in state. She is now a fabulous special ed teacher. But this path did take her more time to get there.</p>

<p>I have never heard of a school paying for a masters degree. (Though I live in the Midwest.) There have been moments when my state has offered to pay for a masters in counseling but also required that one counsels in a high need school for many years.</p>

<p>The advice given here by others is wonderful. Their best advice is to watch the debt. </p>

<p>You are bright. Bright enough to do the basic math it takes to figure this out, and bright enough to navigate the twists and turns our adult world requires. Our schools will be lucky to have you as a teacher some day.</p>

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<p>I absolutely and completely support your mom’s stance on everything. You are trying rationalizing everything what you are thinking and not what your parents are thinking about you. For a guy with 3.4 GPa, I as a parent won’t give a cent unless my S/D attend CC! Life is tougher than what any 18 yr old kid feels or knows anything about the real life. You will be reading this e-mail 5 yrs from now thinking that how completely wrong and blatantly ignorant you were. Wake up and listen to what your mom is advising if you have an iota of any sense of common sense and rationality.</p>

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<p>"I know it is horribly, horribly selfish to ask my parents to take out loans for my schooling, but asking them to cosign a private loan seems just as bad. It’s a lose-lose situation all around, I think. I really have my fingers crossed over the full ride from Dream Private School, because it would be the answer to my prayers that keep me up at night when I worry about how i’m going to pay for 5 to 6 years of schooling, but obviously I need to have another plan. "</p>

<p>Yeah. $20K is very generous IMO. That can easily cover tuition of your first two years (at a community college) and part of your junior year. They are already giving you $20k, don’t make them give more unless you have to. </p>

<p>Personally, if after you aid/scholarship package comes in it’s cheaper to go to community college for two years and then transfer, then do so. </p>

<p>And when I mean cheaper, I mean the total cost of both you AND your parents. Sometimes students think the money their parents give them is free and they don’t take it into consideration when making their college decisions.</p>