Thanks @2muchquan - CB hosted NPC’s are precisely the ones I ran this week, all very discouraging. I hope admissions officers at the so-called top-tier schools are monitoring these threads for the reality confronting highly qualified students who are just not going to apply to their schools because they are financially out of reach. As an example, NPC for U of M came out to 60K per year EFC. Nada, you won’t see my daughter come to your school. Most of these schools are penalizing parents for having an income. I recognize I must pay my fair share, but comparing 20K at local state school (OSU) vs. U of M at 60K? I doubt I can justify the expense.
I am not saying she won’t apply RD reach schools (so she can compare merit aid offers), but if what you say is true about NPC’s being accurate, U of M won’t be on our radar screen. Neither will the next 10 or so schools for which I ran the NPC.
Can you recommend any programs for learning JAVA programming, daughter is interested. Would have to be online or one of those big nationwide programs with multi-locations.
@OHToCollege …yes, looking at OOS tuition to schools like that has brought on several conversations about taxes and how we’ve paid into taxes for our state for years and that is why it is so much cheaper for her to go to our state school vs. those who want to go to UT from out of state. She has learned a lot and has really embraced the challenge.
We had our heads buried deep in the sands when it came to saving for college. We dutifully put in $100-150 a month into college savings and totally thought that would do it. It was far more than either of us ever had in college savings back in the day…then came grad school for me (no income for me x 3 years); layoffs for husband (engineer) and then recovering from all that. Our income looks fantastic on paper today and we have no complaints and are very thankful.
But sadly it does not reflect years of income at that level and we wish we had >$200K in her college savings plan that the NPC seems to think we would have. We could’ve done better and could’ve learned more. We have not lived extravagantly at all but I think we could’ve saved more.
Anyway…yes, lots of us here feel your pain. Take a week or two to mourn and then start working happily towards a new plan that involves merit aid at some great schools like @2muchquan says…your daughter will be proud she can contribute. It has pulled our family even closer together to work towards a common goal and my kid is excited about this part of the journey. Honestly, I think she would’ve been a small fish in a very big pond at some of the schools that were on her list before…and it would’ve been hard to watch her splash around in those ponds. I’ve learned she is not the special little snowflake we thought she was (she’s a great kid, but there are thousands and thousands of great kids who have worked hard like she has!) and she has learned she is one of many as well.
@OHToCollege The COA is a shock, isn’t it? The net COA for us ballooned when I factored in a projected increase in income, and going from 2 in college to 1 in college.
If a family needs to budget carefully, it’s important to factor in cost increases, if applicable, & changes in income or # of kids in school, over 4 years.
The COA you’re looking at now is for 2016-17. The NPC might be outdated by a year or two. Your D17 will be going in 2017-18 and those prices haven’t been posted yet.
The spreadsheet I made for our D16’s short list included cost increases for each year of school. 3-5%. We also quickly moved away from referring to any particular school as $15K, $25K, etc. (the per year net COA) and talked about each schools in terms of the FOUR year net COA.
One school with a full tuition scholarship, still came up to ~$100K for four years due to high room & board costs, fees not included in the scholarship, and plane tickets.
It’s humbling to realize how many families at top schools are indeed full-pay and are able to swing it. We cannot. Colleges are businesses. Repeat a million times, as necessary. They don’t owe us affordability.
Find your budget and find your schools. So many great schools out there!
@OHToCollege The mission of public universities like U of M is to educate their residents, which I understand. As an out of state resident, you will not get much need based aid there. Some offer automatic and competitive merit aid to attract strong students so focus on those.
@OHToCollege Proud UofM alum here, and D will not be applying there, either. Actually, she has a father, grandfather, and great grandfather all of whom are UofM alums. Again, feel your pain. You’ve got some excellent choices in OH where your D can get merit. Consider yourself very lucky. Also, probably a majority of people here have gone through what you are going through now.
Plenty of information on CC to help you out. I like @carachel2 's suggestion…take some time off, and re-energize. Maybe D can’t go to Harvard for undergrad, but there’s always grad school
Funny, I’m a UofM grad, and OSU is on D’s list. Maybe they can room together…
@carachel2 wrote “…But sadly it does not reflect years of income at that level …”
Exactly. Current income drives the NPC. We have also had to go dig out from two painful setbacks (thank you, 2008!), and it takes time to catch-up. We look good on paper too, income-wise. Welcome to the donut hole!
I have no idea what planet I was on, but I had NO idea tuition, room and board had sky-rocketed out of proportion to income. I remember the days when it was possible to work and pay your way through school. Duh.
We are in the boat of not being qualified for any FA but not wanting to use our retirement savings to pay for college. The prices are insane. We saved a lot of money in a 529, but not enough to cover 65,000 a year times 2 without help from my generous parents.
I suppose my rant against U of M is not justified. They are designed to educate local students just like OSU is for OH residents. I should really complaint against private schools which have priced themselves out of reach from the so-called upper middle class income families.
It appears lot of top schools are spreading tuition from high income students to lower income students while expanding their endowments! people making 150K in CA are not rich by any measure given high cost of living. Same goes with few other states.
Has she programmed in Python or JavaScript before? The suggestions would probably be different if this isn’t her first text-based programming experience.
I sent DS to an IDtech camp (locally, not sleepover) on C++. He was very underwhelmed at the level of knowledge of the teachers and I felt it was far to expen$ive for what they provided. We have friends whose daughter goes to and enjoys their sleepover game design camps, so YMMV.
Another welcome, @OHToCollege. Add us to the list families who cannot even come close to affording our EFC. Our jr is our 5th (out of 8), so we have been through this process several times now. Our search for her is different than the other kids bc this dd wants to major in Russian and French and Russian is not offered as a major at a lot of schools.
FWIW, my oldest ds attended a lower tier university and has a fabulous career as a chemE. Our current college student is attending Alabama on full-ride. (One thing to learn quickly if you are on the merit hunt is the difference between full-ride and full-tuition. But, there are also schools like Alabama that allow students to stack multiple scholarships. Unfortunately, there are also schools that will not allow scholarships to exceed a certain amt.)
IMHO, the biggest fallacy perpetuated on CC is that kids described with sentiments similar to what you posted
cannot find a peer group on your typical college campus. It is a fallacy b/c the number of kids not being able to afford selective colleges is absolutely NOT small. It is probably the majority of them.
Our ds at Bama entered at a very advanced level. He will be able to graduate in 4 yrs with his masters in physics simultaneously with his bachelors in math and physics. His professors are great mentors. He has been active in UG research since his freshman yr. And…yes, he is surrounded by a peer group of extremely bright, high-achieving students.
We are not concerned about our dd. She is also a very advanced beyond typical student. She will bloom wherever she goes b/c she is 100% internally motivated to achieve her goals. There is no doubt that she will, wherever that school is in the rankings.
Hello, another new member here. This is my 2nd post, my 1st was to lament the loss of Prince. It’s hitting me hard, he was my first concert in 1984 and just saw him last month. Anyway, I’ve been reading CC for quite awhile, and learned so much (common data sets, who knew?). My DD will be applying to colleges this fall, mostly UCs and CSUs, I expect. I also have a DS20, so he’s in his last year of middle school. I look forward to continue learning from all of you helpful parents!
Welcome @canypava. Yes, I saw Prince around that time as well. I liked his early stuff, and SheilaE on the drums. Haven’t kept up with him, to busy with 13 and 16 yr-old girl music now. Very sad.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I assume you have looked at Emory? I was just noodling around there (they have Emory Scholars partial-to full-tuition scholarships). I notice the Russian major as I was looking around. Not sure FT is good enough for your situation…but I assume your D would be very competitive. (probably a dumb questions, aren’t you in GA? )
“IMHO, the biggest fallacy perpetuated on CC is that kids described with sentiments similar to what you posted cannot find a peer group on your typical college campus. It is a fallacy b/c the number of kids not being able to afford selective colleges is absolutely NOT small. It is probably the majority of them.”
I recognize that this number is not small, and many qualified kids like your kids and my daughter have toiled away at it for years perfecting their academic record, only to realize that the benefits of good education, networks, opportunities, a kick-start given by top-tier schools is beyond their reach. I also recognize that the perseverance (honing away) shown by my daughter is a very important life skill; she will do well no matter where she goes. But, I am also fairly confident my daughter can be admitted to a handful of these schools, but what the NPC shows is completely out of my reach. Am I alone in thinking that the top-tier schools (barring Harvard or Princeton which appear to have good merit aid) is either for accomplished students from poor families or rich families that can shell out 60K+ a year without hesitation? There doesn’t appear to be a good middle ground for family incomes between 125K to 150K. It was fun just playing around with income levels to see what one qualifies by way of Need! Jokingly, I told myself I should quit my job and then I could afford for my daughter to go to the ivies!
