<p>Brenny is right - if (like the typical CCer) you're applying to HYP, etc., you stand a very good chance of getting aid even if you're in the upper class. Very few students pay the sticker price - just pay attention to the financial aid pages of the college's website. Lower-tier colleges may not be able to offer as much aid, but the amount should still be substantial. If your parents really can't afford it, colleges which promise to make up any "demonstrated need" will help.</p>
<p>I'm surprised that I never noticed this thread before.</p>
<p>This whole discussion makes me kind of sad.</p>
<p>I am a parent who sympathizes greatly with the kids. I think that the students should pay as much as reasonably possible towards their college educations... But that amount is not likely to be large.</p>
<p>Our family is in the less-than-$100K/annually income range. Middle-class. Our "new" car is now seven years old. No family money. No investments. One child in college; the next one applying as I write.</p>
<p>If we paid after-tax, out-of-pocket money for college tuition, we would have literally about $8,000 a year to live on (pre-tax!). So, it's loans and some work-study, and whatever-whatever. (Have never had a lavish lifestyle -- not much to cut back on.) And grants and more loans. And more whatever.</p>
<p>BUT... I absolutely want my children to go to the schools that best fit their desires and their abilities. And in that sense, cost is a very secondary consideration. (DS turned down full and partial scholarships at three excellent schools in order to go to a "dream school." Even though I actually liked one of the less-expensive options better. But DS did not.)</p>
<p>My own parents (farmer & teacher) could not easily afford college for multiple children. But they told us that our education IS our inheritance.</p>
<p>I have told my kids the same: Their education is their inheritance. First of all, it is (IMHO) the greatest gift I could give them (help them to get, anyway). Second of all, a good education will be an important tool to allow them to create their own "inheritances." If our retirement fund is zero, so be it. We'll work longer. We'll sell the house and move into a one-bedroom condo. Whatever. But, by God, our children will be as well-educated as their abilities and motivation allow!</p>
<p>Two interesting follow-ups: </p>
<p>(1) Remember that I have said that my parents sacrificed much to educate me and my several siblings. Then my father died suddenly and unexpectedly when my youngest brother was just finishing college (Harvard University, thank you very much!). The rest of us were barely out of college, and several had young children. But ALL of us contributed to my mother's financial welfare, and she is living comfortably 21 years after being unexpectedly widowed.</p>
<p>(2) As a direct result of being a sophomore at a very prestigious university, my DS was offered a killer summer job last summer. He earned enough money to pay for a full third of what the university wants as our "family contribution" this year. (He was recruited on campus.) That was partly luck and partly being IN THE RIGHT PLACE at a good time. The "right place" in that instance is a very expensive school.</p>
<p>That said, I know many people whom I consider to have superior educations, who went to relatively unknown schools. Neither a school's high cost nor its snob-appeal reputation is necessary to a good education. (But a really good school/good fit is SUCH a jump-start....!)</p>
<p>I also know that even at our relatively modest income, we have more wiggle room than do some other families; no one "answer" fits all incomes or all families.</p>
<p>I do wish everyone well... And I also wish that I could adopt some of you student posters. Maybe even more than that, I wish that I could communicate to all parents the profound joy of rewarding a high-achieving student with the gift of the college education of that kid's choice. It is, to me, a parental high second to almost none... And it lasts!!! (As does the education, presumably...)</p>
<p>As a parent fairly experienced with the college process, and a long time CCer I want to caution all the kids out there reading this thread. </p>
<p>Most of the advice on here about generous aid is just plain wrong. Do not believe it for a moment. If you are very top applicant, and you get lucky, you might get some merit money from a top college. Most likely, you'll get nothing. Need based aid - do not count on it for anyone with only one student in college and an income over $50,000. Don't forget too that if you do qualify for need based aid, there will be a loan involved.</p>
<p>Come April you will want to have some choices for schools. If all you apply to are a bunch of top schools and your state U, you had better be prepared to go to the state U, because that's likely to be your only choice.</p>
<p>Build a list where you have a real shot at merit money - hint - this is not a list with all top 25 schools! That will require a lot of research - on here and maybe the US News premium site, which has great stats for scholarships by school.</p>
<p>Anyone who thinks that a school will "somehow make it possible for you to attend" is dreaming.</p>
<p>I hate to say it, but my generation (the parents now) just haven't done a very good job of anticipating college for their kiddos. I haven't quite figured out if they have just been living the good life and thought that college costs would be the same as when they were in school. At any rate, as the parent of a child who is paying the full fare, I can tell you that for 18+ years, all I have heard is that we have to put money away for the college fund. I would love to live in a bigger house and drive a new car every year, but alas that has not happened. Our child's future education came first! While I realize there are unfortunate circumstances that occur in every family financially, I feel that the vast majority of parents just did not prepare. Somehow, I wonder about pure merit anymore. As a previous poster mentioned, there are plenty of colleges out there. It is very disheartening to hear how hard students have worked and then find out come college decision time, that Mom and Dad don't have or will not fund their college education.</p>
<p>I especially like Johnlees comment about hardly anyone paying sticker price. Is he serious? The majority at top schools pay full price.</p>
<p>Those calling "********" on the statement that a majority of students at colleges like HYP don't pay the sticker price ought to, like I said, pay attention to the financial aid webpages. Harvard</a> says:
[quote]
Two-thirds of all undergraduates receive some form of financial assistance, including outside awards.</p>
<p>Half receive need-based Harvard Scholarship aid, totaling over $86 million.</p>
<p>One fifth of the families receiving need-based scholarship assistance from Harvard have incomes above $130,000.</p>
<p>As a result of our new Harvard Financial Aid Initiative, parents with total incomes below $60,000 are expected to pay nothing</p>
<p>Foreign students have the same access to financial aid funding as U.S. citizens, including the new policy outlined above.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>They also have a very nice graph summarising the numbers of applicants for aid, and the total who were successful, broken down by income. This is just for Harvard, and I've looked at the Yale and Princeton sites, which both offer similar statistics. (Princeton is even more generous; they do not include loans as part of financial aid, and only provide grants.)</p>
<p>Anyone claiming that "The majority at top schools pay full price," ought to either show how HYP is lying to applicants and parents, or shut up.</p>
<p>^^^ Remember that their (Harvard etc.) definition of financial aid includes LOANS taken out by the kid or the family. Loans have to be paid back, so it is not financial aid. My parents make like 120 K. So we expect zilch financial grants or breaks. We don't see loans as financial aid, the colleges lie with statistics.</p>
<p>Johnlee: I am talking about merit aid, not need based. Harvard does not offer merit aid. Also, the "under $60,000 income" has already been proven to be pertinent to an extremely small percentage of kids at Harvard.</p>
<p>Here are Harvard financial aid figure as they reported to US News:</p>
<p>(The first percent is first-year students, the second is all undergrads.)
Need based Aid:
Students who applied for financial aid 64% 55%
Those determined to have financial need 52% 50%
Students whose need was fully met (excluding PLUS or other private loans) 100% 100%
Avg. financial aid package (% awarded aid) $32,009 (52%) $30,715 (50%)
Avg. need-based scholarships or grants (% awarded aid) $29,950 (52%) $28,004 (49%)
Avg. self-help aid, such as work study or loans (% awarded aid) $3,058 (37%) $3,369 (42%)
Avg. need-based loan (excluding PLUS or other private loans) $2,816 $3,439
% need met (of those awarded need-based aid) 100% 100%</p>
<p>Non-need-based aid:
Avg. merit award (% awarded aid) $0 (0%) $0 (0%)
Avg. athletic scholarship (% awarded aid) $0 (0%) $0 (0%)</p>
<p>An important exclusion to note is the exclusion of PLUS loans or private loans - the parents could very well be paying the balance with huge loans.</p>
<p>I don't know why they are claiming two-thirds when it is more like half. But either way, I think kids are foolish to buy the line that "somehow it will all work out financially" and all they have to do is get in...If they buy that line they are apt to end up at a school they don't want to be at because they haven't explored all the better, more affordable options.</p>
<p>Let's switch for a moment off the Ivies and go to the #1 ranked LAC. Here are the financial aid data for Williams:</p>
<p>(First figure is first-year students, second is all undergrads)
Need-based aid
Students who applied for financial aid 60% 51%
Those determined to have financial need 49% 44%
Students whose need was fully met (excluding PLUS or other private loans) 100% 100%
Avg. financial aid package (% awarded aid) $31,653 (49%) $30,309 (44%)
Avg. need-based scholarships or grants (% awarded aid) $29,507 (48%) $27,189 (43%)
Avg. self-help aid, such as work study or loans (% awarded aid) $2,258 (49%) $3,470 (44%)
Avg. need-based loan (excluding PLUS or other private loans) $2,128 $2,976
% need met (of those awarded need-based aid) 100% 100%</p>
<p>Non-need-based aid
Avg. merit award (% awarded aid) $0 (0%) $0 (0%)
Avg. athletic scholarship (% awarded aid) $0 (0%) $0 (0%)</p>
<p>Not exactly a majority. Those figures tell me that there are lots of kids who are paying full price, or whose parents have borrowed unknown amounts of money to swing it. </p>
<p>Not to mention that for the average financial aid recipient, they are not only paying for the balance after their EFC, but they are footing over $6400/year in self-help aid (student loans and work study).</p>
<p>" Remember that their (Harvard etc.) definition of financial aid includes LOANS taken out by the kid or the family. Loans have to be paid back, so it is not financial aid. "</p>
<p>I got loans from Harvard that I gladly paid back, and I certainly considered them to be financial aid. Without those loans, I couldn't have gone to Harvard. I also had work study and grants, and was grateful for everything.</p>
<p>It's all semantics. </p>
<p>I'm a parent that doesn't consider loans to be helpful. </p>
<p>I can get my own loans for my children's education if needed, but it is totally unrealistic to think that we, as aging parents, can pay those loans (80,000 - 120,000) back (and pay for the other kid too, plus retirement, plus rising medical costs, etc...)</p>
<p>So they can call it what they want, but if they say are going to give my kid a loan - they might as well tell them they can't attend. That's not meeting the kind of need that we have.</p>
<p>^ Same for us. There will be NO loans. We'd like to have a life too someday!</p>
<p>It matters how much the loans are.</p>
<p>I agree that $80,000-$100,000 in loans is unrealistic and would put handcuffs on a student's future. I shudder to see students posting on CC that they plan to do that to attend their dream schools.</p>
<p>However, most students take out about $20,000 in undergrad loans, and that's a reasonable amount to have to pay back. After all, obtaining a college degree greatly raises one's earning potential.</p>
<p>For places like Harvard, the average total loans for 4 years are less than $10,000. That's extremely easy to pay back.</p>
<p>When I graduated from Harvard, I had several thousand dollars in loans to pay back, which I did despite spending a year in grad school right after college, entering a profession with fairly low pay -- journalism, and having some periods of unemployment. I never missed a loan payment, and continue to be grateful for how the loan helped me get an education that would serve me well for the rest of my life. I could have gone locally to a so-called Little Ivy for free, but chose instead to go to my dream school. </p>
<p>I think it's a mistake to act as if taking out any loans is a mistake. For many people, that's the only way that they'll get a college education. If one doesn't want loans and chooses to go to a cheaper college, fine. However, for many people -- probably most college students -- loans are something very welcome because they make their college educations possible. I also don't see anything wrong with expecting students to help foot the bill for their own education by taking out loans and working.</p>
<p>This is a timely topic for me and I have a question. I had a conversation with daughter last night. She applied, I THINK, pretty sensibly. Here's the gist of the conversation, please let me know if you think this is reasonable: I told her that there are four schools on her list that we can afford to pay for. One of which is a five-year master's. If she choses to attend that school we will pay through her master's. There is one school that we can almost afford, that would leave her with about $5000 in debt at the end, but she's on her own for her master's unless she lives at home and goes to a CUNY school to get debt forgiveness as a high school science teacher. We consider that a valid option and entirely up to her. The third group is three schools (one of which is hands down her top choice) that we simply can not afford. She would be coming out of undergrad with $80,000 in debt and a master's to pay for on a beginning teacher's salary. I think that will make for a life unlivable. We chose to allow her to apply to those three schools because she is a good candidate at all of them and MIGHT qualify for enough merit aid to bring the cost in line with the school in the second category, which then would be doable. Is it wrong to allow a kid to apply to a school that you can't afford without help? She has been told what our budget is, but who knows if it sinks in? I hope we didn't do her a disservice.</p>
<p>Zoosermom.
What you did sounded reasonable to me. She's welcome to apply where she wants, but you've made it clear how much you're willing to pay for her education.</p>
<p>I strongly suggest that you also put it down in writing and give it to your daughter. As part of that, also write down that she is welcome to look for outside scholarship $. You even can steer her to CC, her GC's office and to fastweb.com.</p>
<p>In her heart of hearts, your D may think that you'll chip in more if she gets an acceptance to her dream school that costs more than you've promised to pay. By your writing down what you're willing to pay, that will clearly put the ball in her court in terms of her figuring out how to make any of her expensive dreams come true.</p>
<p>Northstarmom,
Not to beat a dead horse, but the indebtedness figure that you quote for Harvard only includes Stafford or Perkins student loans, not private loans or parent loans. There's really no way to know what that real figure is.</p>
<p>zoosermom:
That is exactly how we handled it with my kids. They know our budget. </p>
<p>However, they will not be permitted to borrow $80,000. No way. (I might be able to be talked into $10,000 in loans for the engineering kid, but zero for the liberal arts kid, who wants to go to law school or grad school.)</p>
<p>If it comes April and it's a big argument, prorate out her payments using <a href="http://www.finaid.com/calculators/loanpaymentchart.phtml%5B/url%5D">http://www.finaid.com/calculators/loanpaymentchart.phtml</a>
on an $80,000 loan and then do a complete estimated monthly budget for her for 10 years. Include rent, car, insurance (health, renters/homeowners, auto), clothes, food, and NO fun at all. Estimate her teachers salary.</p>
<p>Then ask her what happens if she wants to buy a new car, or go to Europe, or buy a house (!), or have a kid...</p>
<p>My point is that kids have no idea the burden of $1,000/month in student loan payments for 10 years of their life.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Remember that their (Harvard etc.) definition of financial aid includes LOANS taken out by the kid or the family. Loans have to be paid back, so it is not financial aid. My parents make like 120 K. So we expect zilch financial grants or breaks. We don't see loans as financial aid, the colleges lie with statistics.
[/quote]
Loans allow you to pay for something you can't afford now in the future, so they are a form of financial aid because they allow you to effectively defer payment. The loans offered by many colleges, especially HYP, also have more generous terms than those you might get from banks; for instance, I saw one package that doesn't put any interest on your loan for one year after you graduate. Many colleges also extend the interest-free period through graduate school if you decide to do a graduate degree. For international students, if after graduating you go back to work in the developing world, some colleges even cancel your loans.</p>
<p>That sounds like aid to me. And if a loan is good enough to buy a car or a house, I fail to see why it isn't good enough to buy you an education. Odds are you won't be borrowing a crazy amount anyway - most loan packages I've seen are in the realm of about $5,000 a year or so.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I am talking about merit aid, not need based. Harvard does not offer merit aid.
[/quote]
It doesn't matter what kind of aid it is, as long as it can help put you through college. Harvard doesn't offer merit aid because it can afford to meet the demonstrated need of needy applicants, and if you can already afford to attend Harvard, it makes zero sense to be asking for money from them.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I don't know why they are claiming two-thirds when it is more like half.
[/quote]
We all know colleges (heck, anyone) can play games with statistics - but 50% is still a lot. That's a 1-in-2 chance of getting aid.</p>
<p>
[quote]
But either way, I think kids are foolish to buy the line that "somehow it will all work out financially" and all they have to do is get in...If they buy that line they are apt to end up at a school they don't want to be at because they haven't explored all the better, more affordable options.
[/quote]
Anyone who doesn't look at all options on the table should blame themselves if things don't work out. That's exactly why people shouldn't immediately say, "Oh, I'll never be able to afford HYP" and don't bother applying, and that's exactly why people shouldn't be complacent about investigating alternatives to their dream college. Educational and financial safeties are just as important as educational and financial reaches when you are thinking about colleges to apply to.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Not exactly a majority.
[/quote]
As I said originally, I was mainly talking about the top of the top - HYP. I specifically said that the chances of getting substantial aid decrease as you go down the tiers. But still, 49% of all first-year students getting aid is not something you can scoff at. Your figures also don't look at income distribution - generally speaking, the odds are much better than 1-in-2 of getting financial aid if you're earning less than, say, $100k.</p>
<p>The fact that about half of Harvard students are paying full freight needs to be understood in context -- that the median family income for Harvard students is 150K.</p>
<p>"Not to beat a dead horse, but the indebtedness figure that you quote for Harvard only includes Stafford or Perkins student loans, not private loans or parent loans. There's really no way to know what that real figure is."</p>
<p>True. What I know is, however, that Harvard's financial aid package worked for me and my friends. To my knowledge, none of us took out loans above what we got for Harvard.</p>
<p>In talking with students who go there now who have loans, I also haven't heard of anyone taking out extra loans.</p>
<p>I suppose that a student might do something like that to buy things over and beyond what is needed . For instance, a student might prefer to go abroad instead of working over the summer, so might take out a loan. However, I found that I was able to meet my expenses through Harvard's package, including the loans and part that I was supposed to contribute by working.</p>