NJ resident here… NJ has the average highest property tax rate but that doesn’t mean it has the worst property taxes. First, the rate varies materially from municipality to municipality. Second, the rate is applied to assessed property values rather than sale price. And you can get way more for your dollar in suburban NJ than in the Bay Area or LA area of CA (used to live in each). As an example, when a company was trying to pitch me to relocate to the Bay Area several years ago, I did a lot of house hunting (before declining the offer). I would have had to half the size of my house, quarter the size of the property and still would have ended up paying at least 3x in property taxes to what I pay in NJ.The rate would have been lower, but it would have been tied to sale price and the home costs are much higher than assessed (or actual) NJ costs.
As a Los Angeles county resident, I can tell you I pay 12k a year in property taxes for a suburban tract house on a tiny lot. We’ve lived here almost 20 years, so it’s not like it’s a new purchase either. We also pay 13% state income taxes on top of what we pay to the federal government. We’d love to cash out and not retire here. All our friends are moving to Idaho, Tennessee, or Texas!
Starting to freak out about money. Its one thing to look at the cost, its another thing to pay it.
Still crossing my fingers.
I’m so sorry you’re freaking out. I can’t remember what your situation is, how many kids, what kind of EFC, etc… When our older two were in college we opened a home equity line of credit. This helped take the pressure off cash flow, timeline, etc… We had some money saved for each kid, but not nearly enough. The college years were lean years for our family, but obviously the investment was well worth it.
Financial offer from North Texas has been received, and it contains very good news and mildly bad news.
The mildly bad news is that the scholarship that was received was (just barely) not a high enough level to gain automatic entry to the honors program, so there’s another essay and resumé yet to write. The very good news, though, is that even so their offer (which includes a waiver of the OOS surcharge) brings the total COA down below even Colorado Denver’s offer of WUE tuition plus a small additional merit scholarship.
So the lowest cost option so far is North Texas, followed fairly closely by Colorado Denver. The one definite wild card still outstanding is Middle Tennessee, which will be even less expensive if D23 gets the really good scholarship she applied for (which is a long shot, but within the realm of possibility), but is otherwise way too high for us.
This started to happen for me today, so I made a spreadsheet that made a few things clearer. I guess we’re turning a corner and getting closer to this all happening.
Hi there. This sounds like a music school list. Did you get the scholarship offer together with the acceptance from UNT? My kid’s been accepted, but with no other materials other than the acceptance letter and stickers. 
ETA : Accepted pre music. Audition in February.
The area in the state obviously matters a lot and the info I saw didn’t go into those details. The charts I saw online were giving the average property tax bill in California as under $4K I think, whereas NJ’s was over $8K, which is what we pay in suburban south Jersey, a less expensive part of the state. We could hardly afford to live in northern NJ, much less places like LA or the Bay Area.
Great, sounds like she has some good options!
I’ve been hearing about a lot of people moving to Tennessee lately.
I’m sure this is common. People throw around amounts - $50K, $75k like it’s nothing.
But when is stroking that check, it has to hurt. And for many, I’m sure cause panic.
I’m not sure I know anyone in the top 1% - $620k a year. But nearly a quarter of WUSTL families come from than band - so paying $80k for them, probably not a huge deal. The latest data shows the median family at over $270k - a few years ago. Those on the bottom end may get aid (40% got any need aid and 3% merit aid…maybe some got both).
There are others like this.
Finances are personal of course but for anyone freaking out as it is a lot of money and markets are down - for anyone in that position, there are cheaper yet solid alternatives.
College should be a win for the kids and families. If it’s going to cause strain or suffering on the family, revisit lower cost schools. If you plan to tackle this year by year, seek lower cost alternatives before it’s too late.
We see stocks down 20%. Yet companies like Amazon and Facebook are down 50% and more.
It’s ok to be scared. But being paralyzed isn’t good.
The quality of the education provided doesn’t necessarily equate to the price paid - even if full.
Kids think they found a perfect place but they truly don’t know. And there are likely many places where they can excel.
Best of luck.
Not quite music, but music-adjacent—audio tech. (But yeah, as a result the list of schools looks very much like the lists for music majors.)
The acceptance to UNT—and the stickers, stickers are apparently gold—came a month(?) ago. We found out about the scholarship offer not through a letter/email, but because we were poking around the UNT website, and saw there was something in the financial aid section of the student portal—so there may be something posted there for your kid, not sure whether they get rolled out all at once or over time.
I’m getting nervous about whether or not financial aid grants will be renewed in subsequent years with the FAFSA changing how it calculates multiple children in college.
I think I would feel safer if she would choose one of the schools where she could afford to go with just merit.
But the choice that would give me the most confidence to be able to get her through four years is the instate public option with merit and financial aid strictly based on AGI because if she lost fa, she’s still have merit; and if she lost merit, she’d still have fa. And even if she lost both, we could still find a way.
@2plustrio I don’t know if this would be helpful, but we started cash flowing the money we would be paying towards D20’s college the fall of her senior year in high school - beyond what we had saved in her 529. We already had the budget worked out theoretically, but that fall was when the cash-flowed money would actually be available (the money was coming from other expenses rolling off and the ‘freed’ money from those previous expenses being allocated to college costs).
It went into a completely separate account. There was some feeling of relief seeing the account increase monthly, but I won’t lie - getting the first bill due that August made my tummy flip flop. We still put that monthly cash flow amount into the college savings each month (we’ll be doing this until S24 is through). I’d love to say it’s gotten easier to emotionally handle those college bills, but that would be a lie. I still cringe with every payment due, even with our plan working as designed thus far.
I’m starting to fully realize our college expenses are going to basically double this fall with D23 starting while D20 finishes up her senior year; I’m sure I’ll be using all my yoga deep breathing knowledge when both bills come due this August.
At least the 
is still available for actual posts.
CA is a massive state compared to NJ so an average isn’t that meaningful compared the the major population centers of LA and the Bay Area. Comparing two places in the same state would be like comparing the cost of living between Manhattan and rural Alabama. But for those that still need to be within a commuting distance from one of the major metros, CA is much more expensive than living in Central NJ. Having lived in each, I get so much more for the same dollars here in NJ. Not just property taxes but the resulting schools, local services, etc. The frustrating part of paying so much more property taxes in CA is despite that most of the public schools are not awesome. Part of the issue being that your neighbor in a near identical house in CA might pay 1/10th of much in property taxes if they have lived in their house for decades. In NJ you can pick your town based on the public schools you want and at least I feel like there is a clear cause and effect between my property taxes and what I get from them.
I just have to say that I’m happy that we’re going with in-state tuition. Going into this, I figured an upward cap of $45K per year would be my limit. Now that we’ve decided, I have to think I must have been nuts to think about doing that much. It’s so easy to get caught up in all the different options, but at the end of the day, for my kid - I’m not sure any school outside of the most “elite” schools (like HYP/Standford, MIT) would be worth it… and even then maybe not for my kid.
Im hoping to have the opportunity to do more work coming up so I have more income. Im divorced but remarried and Im the primary income.
My ex says he will pay a certain amount but I dont totally trust him. Thus increasing my worry.
My son has some acceptances with total COA in the 18-23k range. We are making him take out the 5500 in loans the first 2 years to ensure he has skin in the game.
My oldest is starting back up in school too this semester. Just a lot of bills and my salary is stagnent the past few years.
Oh yes, it would be easy to view the amounts as monopoly money. But then the bills arrive, and not just one. (and one would be enough!) I think it is the unrelenting nature of it that gets me!
185k is not struggling but it would still be hard to pay private school tuition. They would be considered upper middle class and still not rich. College tuition prices have been set to a price where you are either so rich you can pay in full so poor that you could possible get in free if your poor (and have amazing stats). Then people who fall into that upper middle class range either go to in state cheaper institutions or pay hundreds of thousands on student loans with interests. I grew up and my family had a huge jump in money three separate times in my life. Despite that nothing much changed in my life no matter how much my parents made. Most people don’t budget and spend all their money which makes them think it’s hard to get buy on such a high amount. So while I agree they make a lot of money that doesn’t me the financial aid game is stacked against them.
Go by merit, FA changes year to year based on your FAFSA, already, and the new changes are unknown at this time. You also do not want to be in a situation where you need to pick up a second job for something, and it affects the costs of college negatively.