So, I’m currently a junior and am deep in the college process. I have taken the advice of many very wise posters on CC and attempted to discuss the financial side of college planning with my parents on several occasions. But, for some reason, they essentially refuse to engage in the conversation with me. I’ve tried talking to both together and each one separately, but have yet to be successful. It seems that they’re under the impression that “everything will turn out fine,” “you should just focus on getting into a school that you really want to go to,” and “we can take out loans if we need to” which I know is impractical given that I have three siblings (one is in college now and the other two will be entering in the next few years). We are not full pay, but I really have no idea what my parents’ salaries or savings look like and they have not been willing to fill out a NPC with me. I just don’t understand why they aren’t being more transparent about this.
I have taken the liberty of adding my state flagship and another public university that I am highly likely to get merit-based aid at to my college list (my parents don’t know that that’s why they’re on the list because I worry that they’d discourage me from applying if they knew that). What else can I do to either successfully open the conversation with them or otherwise ensure that I have affordable options at this time next year?
Is your older sibling receiving financial aid? You may need to apply to a wider range of schools to find the best FA and/or merit. Also probably avoid an ED application unless or until you resolve the money question with your parents. But if you did have an ED choice in mind, you could use that to force the issue with them.
Your parents are probably just very private people. I’m the same way. I don’t like anyone knowing personal items like my salary, bonus, assets, etc. I most certainly would not fill out one of those NPC forms in front of my kids either.
Here is what I suggest:
Tell your parents that you’re trying to be responsible, and want to know how much they can comfortably pay out of pocket for college
Explain that you understand their desire for privacy
Send them a link to one of the NPC websites and tell one of them to fill it out, and send you the final result. Explain to them that the online calculators are anonymous and don’t involve saving anything.
We don’t disclose our personal financial details with our kids. They know their budget. From our perspective, that is all the info they need.
Perhaps you could approach your parents that way. You could ask if they are ok paying $300,000 for your UG and therefore $900,000 for you and the younger 2 siblings. If their reaction is a shocked no, then you actually do have parameters. You just need to get them to define them. Ask them to clearly define the maximum they can afford.
How much are they actually paying out from their pockets to pay for your sibling’s college? (Not loans, actually paying out? ) Maybe your sibling knows this. Ask your sibling if he has any loans or any co-signed loans. If your sibling is commuting to a local school, then maybe his/her costs are very low.
Unless your family is wealthy, I would be very concerned that either they don’t fully understand the process or they’re “not doing the math” and figuring out how much massive debt they could end up with with borrowing for 4 kids!
Very few families can afford to pay for 4 kids’ college costs. Very few.
The “loans” comment by your parents suggests to me that they’re thinking co-signed student loans that you’d have to pay back. Yuck.
If I were you, I would assume that it’s possible that they’re naive, and find at least THREE financial safety schools where your test scores and GPA will get your ASSURED HUGE merit for stats that would leave a smallish remaining costs to pay. That way you’ll be protected. You may not end up needing them and that would be super. Your parents may surprise you, but don’t count on that.
Talk to the sibling who is in college. Find out how that sibling is paying the bills.
In terms of your college search…cast a broad net. Look for schools where you have guaranteed merit aid for your stats, schools that are more modestly priced to begin with, and the like.
Get the book “Paying for College Without Going Broke”.
Look at the Colleges that Change Lives. Some of those might have good merit potential for you.
Your parents already have one kid in college…so they know something about this.
My only free advice…don’t finance your undergrad college degree with private, Parent Plus or any other loans beyond the Direct Loan.
I think that the root of the issue is that they are under the impression that every school will either a) give significant merit aid for my stats (3.9 UW GPA and 36 ACT) or b) are very prestigious schools that will meet full need for everyone. I’ve tried to explain to them that large merit awards are not as common as they think and that “meets full need” is different from “you only pay what you can COMFORTABLY afford” but they won’t listen. Does anyone have any suggestions for educating them on these realities?
@mathhappy Just how is your older sibling paying for your college? Are they attending on scholarship $$? Institutional grant $$? Loans??
If your sibling is attending on institutional grant money plus parental contribution, are they comfortable paying that amt x4? (We could easily afford our expected contribution X1 child, but not across all of our kids.)
I would tell them that selecting colleges to apply to is critical. There is no point in applying to a college you cannot attend b/c you cannot afford it.
FWIW, there are schools that would be affordable with a 36. Bama and UAH are 2. Do you have a weighted GPA above a 3.9?
But you are willing to run NPCs privately and tell them which colleges are affordable, right?
To the OP: will your parents be willing to run the NPCs of colleges privately and tell you which ones are affordable (without loans greater than the federal direct loans)?
If not, your safeties need to be automatic full rides for your stats. Unfortunately, there are very few left.
“I have taken the liberty of adding my state flagship and another public university that I am highly likely to get merit-based aid at to my college list”
I think that this is very wise. When the acceptance come in the mail, it is a really good idea to make sure that you will have at least one affordable one on hand.
We did not tell our daughters what our finances look like, but we gave our daughters a specific budget while telling them that need based aid was not going to happen. I did myself run the NPC on a few schools that they were interested in to verify the lack of need based aid. One graduated very slightly under budget. The other is on track to graduate well under budget. Both found schools that were academically and otherwise a very good fit for them.
If you can get your parents to give you a budget that might be helpful. You might want to see if they would give you a “no loans” budget, and keep this in mind separately from the “what we could borrow if we need to” budget.
“You could ask if they are ok paying $300,000 for your UG and therefore $900,000 for you and the younger 2 siblings.”
I would wonder what their response to this would be. There are indeed many schools where you could spend $75,000 per year. Of course if graduate or medical or veterinary school is a possibility, then the total costs could very easily run a lot higher for four children. Also prices are likely to continue rising from year to year.
Okay so I talked to my sister who is in college right now at an OOS public. She got merit covering about 50% of the costs and took out government loans (mix of subsidized and unsubsidized) of about $20k/year. Yikes! From the way she’s talking about them, I don’t think she understands what kind of effect these will have on her future finances. It appears that my parents are willing to help her pay back some of the loans if/when they get in a better financial position (they seem to think this is assured, but I will certainly not count on this especially given the number of kids).
FWIW I estimate that my parents are making a little less than $100k/year. It’s difficult to know for sure because my dad is classified as an independent contractor, so he doesn’t know ahead of time how many hours he’s going to be able to work and therefore how much he will make. I’m also pretty sure that they lost most of their savings a few years ago (long story). I am not planning to go to grad school (at least initially) nor will I be applying ED anywhere.
I did have a short conversation with one parent today which confirmed two things:
They think that I am very likely to get either merit or substantial need-based aid at essentially all schools. Perhaps this was the case when they went to school, but it certainly isn’t now.
They don’t think even substantial student debt is a problem and think that I’m overreacting by being concerned about it. According to them, this is how just about everyone pays for college.
I think that part of the reason they are acting so strangely is that they want me to go to a very selective school and don’t want to discourage me with the financial side of things. They both went to highly selective schools for undergrad and grad school and want me to have the same experience. I would think they’d be happy that I don’t have my heart set on a $60k+ school but I guess not. This is so frustrating!
It’s very unlikely that your sister is getting $20k/year in government loans that she is responsible for without having a parent or other credit-worthy person co-signing for most of that amount.
Do your parents understand that many of the “very selective schools” offer little, if any, merit aid? These schools generally offer generous institutional need-based aid, but in order for you to figure out if the net cost will be within your range, someone should do the NPCs and you and a parent will need to complete the financial aid forms.
OP, I just want to say that I am sorry you are in this position. Fortunately you are obviously a very smart student and I love that you are thinking about these issues when many of your cohort are not. It isn’t much comfort, but better to know where you stand now than to take your parents word that “everything is going to be okay”, and find yourself shut out financially next spring. Also, it takes a lot of maturity to consider your younger sibling’s future “share of the pie” as well.
I completely understand a parent being private about income, debt, assets, and such. However, if your student asks you for a college budget, you’ve got to give them one number towards which they can budget their college search - or at least be up front about having nothing to spare. To do otherwise is to set up student and family alike for embarrassment and disappointment spring of senior year.
Yes, they understand that but they assume that these schools will offer very generous need-based aid and are unwilling to fill out the NPCs to ensure this.
And to your other point, yes my parents are co-signing my sister’s loans and are willing to do the same for me
I also think that my parents are under the impression that my experience with the financial side of colleges will be much different from my sister’s because I have significantly higher stats than she did (making me more likely to be eligible for merit at schools that offer it) and she didn’t get accepted to any private schools (which my parents assume are extremely generous with need-based aid). Frankly, we were all very surprised that she got such significant merit from the school she ultimately attended, so my parents may be taking that as another indication that there is plenty of money out there to go around.
If your sister is borrowing ~$80k for 4 years of college the likelihood is that ~$27k are federal student loans (the undergrad limit). That means ~$53k are PLUS or some other type of loan. If your parents try to borrow that much for you – a situation I’d avoid – they may be approved. But yur two younger siblings may end up with limited options if your parents run out of borrowing power before they finish.