We started this 6 year adventure (2 kids with 2 years of overlap) anticipating we might need to do a HELOC or the like. But so far (currently year 5 of 6), we have been able to do it purely on current income and minimum student loans. This is due to a decent income (thankfully) and having paid off our mortgage prior to our kids entering college.
(You said, besides grants, scholarships etc…but to be clear, these of course played a big part in our ability to afford everything as well.)
Post #19 I edited it, but it wouldn’t post. ???
Anyway, the kids’ basic info is there. I will add that we have a low EFC, so they all qualified for Pell Grants & state grants where applicable.
They should all graduate w/ degrees that will provide enough income to pay back the federal loans.
Both of my kids took the best financial offers they got (the first one took a little negotiation but came through). It was/is not easy to pay my share but I did it, and my oldest took the max Direct loans. My youngest is at a no-loan school but did take a small one last year to cover our shortfall.
This was the Thumper family plan.
I worked…full time…and my entire income for seven years was dedicated to college expenses…tuition, fees, room, board, etc. My paycheck went into my account direct deposit…and out auto withdrawal to some college.
My spouses income was used to pay our other family expenses.
We had no college savings. No grandparents helped us out. We did not qualify for need based aid. We didn’t take out loans. One of our kids got a decent merit award (25% of the cost of attendance). The other got a small merit award.
Our kids worked while in college to earn their spending money…including books.
Both kids went to expensive private universities.
Grandparents offer 20K per year, we can pay 10K per year. S16 crashed and burned in college so will be starting over at CC. As a result, he will cost less otherwise it through. S18 has a hefty scholarship at 2nd choice, a smaller one at first choice. To go to his first choice he’ll need a 15K to go with his 15K scholarship. We don’t see loans as an option for a liberal arts type undergraduate degree.
We sent our first two to Catholic grade schools and then a Catholic high school, so while the savings were gravely reduced we did have a good sized tuition hole already hacked into our household budget. The two younger kids did some time at the same grade school but mostly go to a charter now. They’ll still end up at the same high school, so it won’t be cheap, but it’s a choice we’ve made. (We decided this before we had kids, which led to some very aggressive mortgage work early on that has reduced that to a very merciful number each month. That’s been key.) So far it’s worked out: we’ve received good merit aid for one and the other chose trade school, and the next two seem to be on track for good merit as well. Luckily they’re spread out enough that we only end up with a couple years where the high school and college are piled three deep. Even so, anyone need their walk shoveled? How about babysitting? My wife can do that if the kids are busy.
Everyone is in a different financial situation and as a previous poster put it, “If it’s unaffordable, it’s unaffordable”.
That said, leaving the parents piece out (we could afford) and putting responsibility back on the kid, we positioned his choices as follows: A. Go to state flagship without having to work during school yr, no personal payment, and incur no debt, or B. Take scholarship at out of state private, pay 5k per yr (funded through jobs over the summer and personal savings, no debt, or C. full price out of state private - pay 10k per yr (loan and work). Graduate with approx 28k of debt.
We then explained the real cost of debt using basic interest rates, lost opportunity cost (making loan payment instead of investing in a mutual fund for 10 yrs). Showed him how the loan actually cost him well in to 6 figures.
Then we let him make the decision (again we could pay but wanted him to have skin in the game). He chose the full pay private because he loved it and felt it was worth it (would provide the best opportunities and education of the three). I think he made the right choice - for him (not for everyone) We would not have allowed it if it meant twice the debt as that could cripple a kid.
We saved enough $$ in 529 to pay for an OOS State school and an instate school.
We did have the kids take the $5500 loan with the proviso we pay it if they maintain a 3.0 average
@bopper We’re doing essentially the same thing. With four we can’t pretend to pay for college out of our income, but if they borrow and do well then we’ll come back around later after the rest have graduated and help dig out.
@StPaulDad And parents have the ability to say “no, i won’t cosign that huge loan”…that makes them look for good values. Both my kids ended up going to the "parent pick’…i listened to what they were looking for and found good value schools that met their criteria.
@bopper we have 5 kids so we said no to the cosigning – the kids had no choice but to stay within our financial parameters – GSLs, Merit and our OOP yearly limits. They ended up going to schools where they had the top stats an thus were able to get significant merit
Only one acceptance, FA package so far, but S18 has substantial merit scholarships and financial aid. He is applying for 2 other private scholarships that would be used for this college. Remainder will be monthly payment/private loan/parent plus.
Such a good topic. I really wonder how those in our community are doing it as they should be in about the same position we are but I don’t dare ask. I assume many loans being taken out and I don’t want that for my kids.
My oldest daughter is going to community college and will complete a program there so no 4 year school. She has $5250 in scholarships so far and I will cover any tuition that doesn’t cover (will probably be $2000 at most over the whole program). She works and pays her rent and food, drawing from savings if needed, but with her job she hasn’t had to touch it since a couple times at the very beginning. So she’s cheap for us. To top it off, we’ll probably get back all the tuition expense on our taxes.
My youngest is a junior and this is the one I stress over and the reason I’m here. She is definitely college material and excited for the whole package college experience. Wants to major in theatre, history, education, or recreation/parks. (Yeah, we need to keep debt down with those choices.) The recreation major is what lead me to find a handful of small public universities at reasonable cost. We have narrowed it down to some that will cost between $10,000 and $15,000 a year after automatic merit. I’m thinking we could afford to contribute up to $5000/year. She will have some savings and work summers if not year round. So maybe she can get by with the $5500 or less loan each year. Particularly if she chooses $10,000/year college (and gets the ACT score to make that possible). Although any college I suggest she finds something superficial to not like about it so we’ll see. She would love a private Christian college but we can’t find one under $20,000 after merit so the extra expense is just not worth it.
A problem with the above is that we are not contributing near as much to the oldest daughter as we likely will to youngest. (This relates to some other current threads!) My oldest will graduate debt free and with $12,000 of savings still in the bank. My youngest will likely have at least some debt. They will both have an education but just had different situations. I know fair doesn’t mean equal, but I still wonder if I should give the oldest some more money to make it a little more the same.