It ties into the same kind of attitude I see some people have about all the “complaining” the younger generation is doing about finances – something, something avocado toast, something, something boot straps.
In the 1970’s it was possible to work a minimum wage job and pay for many colleges without going into debt. That is pretty much only possible to do at community college here (as long as you don’t have to pay rent and can live at your parents’ home).
College costs are astronomical. And it’s just spiraling up b/c of fear that if you don’t do it you’ll get left behind.
$18k is a lot on top of rent if your family doesn’t have savings. Accumulating $80k in debt puts people in a huge hole to start out. Virginia does have other options - several with tuition in the $10K/year range (plus another $10k in living expenses if you aren’t near your parents’ house), and $5500 for community college.
I don’t think it’s unreasonable to have an educated and employable citizenry as a state priority (or a national one), and funding options to make that easier I think would be a good use of funds.
We used the Whitman financial pre-read - they open it up in July and continue through early winter for any potential applicant (ED or RD).
We submitted it mid July and heard back in early August - the numbers worked for S23 to apply ED and so kiddo was one and done.
I think every college should offer a financial pre-read for ED applicants; it’s really the only way to make that choice workable for families who can’t afford full pay.
To piggyback on this, in 1972, the minimum wage was $2.10 and the average yearly tuition and fees of a 4 year public school was $542. Now the federal minimum wage is $7.25 and the average tuition and fees is $9349.
There should be a variety of price points and it seems reasonable for a flagship to cost more than a directional and for community college to be virtually free. I think it’s worse when the flagship is either somewhere remote, so no one can commute (like UVA), or in a super expensive city without enough housing (like Berkeley).
If more money was available for education then I think there are higher priorities than subsidizing tuition at state flagship colleges, like ensuring that as many people as possible have commuter options available.
I don’t necessarily disagree with this. My point is that there should be a good quality option for every resident regardless of ability to pay. I think certain programs that offer more should cost more - however, I also think for public university there should be some means testing done so that it is affordable to everyone.
I also just wanted to point out that college tuition has exploded relative to the minimum wage and median household income. This is largely demand driven, so the answer would be to increase supply in some manner.
And what will this all look like in 10 years if there aren’t some major fixes to the college application process? The combination of ever rising college costs, ever shrinking acceptance rates, lack of transparency about merit or financial aid, and merit and prestige chasing will have kids applying to 40-50 schools. It’s nuts!
And this is particularly frustrating when said relative says that without understanding that—important caveat: for those kids who are very, very focused about what they want to study—programs are far more important than universities.
D23 got that sort of reaction in an extended-family Zoom session recently when she said that her most likely three colleges are Colorado Denver, Middle Tennessee, and North Texas. The response from one relative D23 considers herself quite close to? “Really? I’ve never heard of any of those.” (Imagine a slightly dismissive tone as you read that.) D23 went a little bit deer-in-headlights, so I stepped in by pointing out that those are top-end places for audio tech, no matter the cachet the names of the universities as a whole may or may not carry.
It doesn’t help that all the older cousins went to either rejectives, selective LACs, state flagships, or wide-name-recognition religious colleges—so D23 is the first in that branch of the extended family to have to deal with this particular issue.
And given that bit of context and also recognizing that not everybody (read: probably very few) has done the sort of research into audio tech programs our family has by this point, I probably shouldn’t have found it quite as annoying as I did, but yeah.
You should still have found it annoying! How hard is it for a relative to just say “Tell me more about these schools you’re excited about”?? Instead of being ignorant and hurtful.
The odds of getting into a good school your child can drive to from home are slim though, even in a city like Los Angeles. My kid could live at home and drive to UCLA, but probably can’t get in there. He could drive to the closest CSU, but I wouldn’t send him there for undergrad because of the quality level. So we’re left with 100-160k price tag for a state school education with dorm. In theory a family could cap costs at 10k a year tuition on a CSU, but in practice, it may not be feasible. Also, many of the top students at the school I teach at are graduating high school with their associates degrees, so there’s really nothing for them to do at a community college. For budget conscious families that do not qualify for financial aid, there really aren’t a lot of options: auto-merit schools for the high stats kids or living at home and going to local directionals of dubious quality.
I would say the biggest and most frequent misperception I continuously heard was that “full rides” are sure things for strong students.
My peer group’s parents all seemed to believe that the grandchildren - “good kids” who were “great students” - would get these “full rides” and be going to college for free. They’re such great students!
Amongst my fellow parents, that was still a pretty persistent belief and/or they thought that “financial aid” was going to take care of everything at each school, so that it would all boil down to a reasonable number.
Yes–to some kind of reasonable application cap, though unsure what that number is since so many schools are a crap shoot and hard to predict outcomes.
But —application inflation is clearly out of control and impacting the record low acceptances. My D was deferred last week to one of her EA top choices, a highly rejective school. There was a student on the thread, who had beaten the odds and was accepted. But instead of being excited, he was wringing his hands, unsure if he may have better options with one of the 32 other schools he applied to!
Kids can only go to one school but the trophy hunting for the top 20 schools is real.
My DD got an email from one of the asst prof from one of the schools she applied to (met her last summer during a visit)- happens to be a top 10 school) who asked how college apps are going and did she decide where she will be going to college? She was way too honest and responded she was deferred- (but it was deferral from a different school). I hope that this doesn’t hurt her in anyway going forward, it’s still one of her top choices. Kids will be kids…
I just think it is crazy to have the sticker price on a state flagship be $120-160K for total COA for in-state. Then the smaller schools in-state range $80-$110K. I know some schools will give merit$ to many but if you live in a state that doesn’t give much then you either take on debt or go the community college route. It is just a crazy time. Glad I only have to this once more and will be done with it.
Just to throw another wrench into the attempt to make affordable/encourage families to use in-state schools, while simultaneously indicating again that my family’s situation seems to violate every assumption made to help with funding —
Many states require three years residence and/or school attendance to qualify as in-state. We have lived in three states from 6-12th grade for S23 and will be selling the house here the week after high school graduation (God willing!) to move to yet another state where husband already is working. This means our highly desirable (to others, not S23 for very good medical reasons) university system might or might not have said we are residents with only junior and senior year attendance. They officially require three years in state. You may have noticed on Common App (FAFSA too, I think) they keep asking if you have lived in that state for more than 2 years. For us, the answer is no. And would have been no since 17.
Could we convince “highly desirable state U” that S23 really was a “resident” for long enough? Maybe. But like so many of the assumptions made about families (income will be stable year-to-year, people have access to a 401k at work, with a good match no less, that people should choose to live in a house rather than rent and save the money, when maybe they know they are going to need to move again soon) another one is that people don’t move every three years to different states.
Don’t get me wrong, I know we are atypical and that is why we really only deal with merit to avoid the issue, but people do move, and if we are talking about state subsidies, it would be worthwhile to figure out how to deal with that. (I mean, if this CC Parents of Class of 2023 were writing that tax and funding legislation for all the states, which we are going to do, right?)
NY U just sent out a survey from their enrollment marketing manager. They say the results are confidential and wont affect your admission, but they ask for a lot of info - like what other schools you are applying to. Should my daughter fill this out, or no?
Yes, but that is on the parents more than anything else. They can choose to send their kids to a very good college without stress or breaking the bank. Also, CC and A2C are not representative of the real world. In the real world, most kids go to state directionals, community colleges, or smaller schools that they can afford. Many go to local colleges that are commuter friendly. The most popular choices in my son’s cohort are App State, UNC Wilmington and Wake Tech.
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