Honestly I’m not sure how much I have to contribute to this conversation since it seems like OP has her head screwed on right.
All I can say is: Bama Bama Bama. Barrett Barrett Barrett. And the other schools (Drexel? Temple? idk. The 36 opens up a lot of doors). Compete for Robertson or whatever.
And if you need someone to convince your parents that it literally doesn’t matter where you go (as long as its accredited) for undergraduate cs, I’m here (it sounds like you already know and understand this).
Giving you kids a budget, and the information that there is likely to be no need-based aid is fine, as it provides all the necessary information. But for most students that’s not really the case - they need a sense of both the family budget (or at least willingness to pay), and a way of knowing whether the school is likely to meet any need. If you tell you son you can afford $30,000 a year and he’s applying to schools where the COA is $75,000 he needs to know the net price.
It’s all good and well to not want to share the financials with your kids (whether to keep them from knowing how bad it is, or how frugal you choose to be), but there is a point where that information is vital to selecting schools. Even more so with private schools that consider more than just the basic information. While Yale and JHU and others do their best to meet need, their need formula is based on an institutional formula, not just FAFSA
@CTScoutmom It really isn’t that complicated. We ran the NPC on a lot of different schools and determined that we could not afford our parental contribution for them. For our kids, it simply came down to they couldn’t afford schools without merit $$.
@mathhappy I don’t know what part of the country you’re in. But I just wanted to let you know that NJIT has a great Honors College that you’d be a shoo-in for. It’s free tuition + room and board in Honors dorm. It just got recognized as an R1 university (the only others in NJ are Rutgers and Princeton). Plenty of research and internship opportunities in the area. My kid is not in the honors college.But he is a CS major - it’s a rigorous program and he has a summer internship already lined up with a Fortune 50 company.
I second what @CourtneyThurston says about Alabama and ASU Barrett - I am an ASU alumnus, and they have a great CS program. Temple is also very good - they may not be as generous with merit as they once were , though. Still check out Temple. And Drexel too. It has a high sticker price, so you would have to get a very high amount in scholarships to make it work.
Co-signing loans with their kids is standard operating procedure in my upper middle class neighborhood. Going OOS for college (regardless of the selectivity of the college itself), is a “signal” that the family is well-off. During our college search for DS1, I was informed by well-meaning parents that I can take out private loans and I shouldn’t be limiting him. Umm…whatever. I did not want to disclose that DS1 had other issues that we needed to deal with and we have enough saved up for both kids to send them to wherever they got in. Smile and nod, and move on.
ABET accreditation for CS is not strictly needed. The presence of such indicates that the CS major meets a good minimum standard (but also requires significant non-CS science), but many non-ABET-accredited CS majors are good (e.g. three of the big four in CS offer non-ABET-accredited CS majors). However, some of the non-ABET-accredited CS departments have rather limited course offerings, so it would be wise to check catalogs and schedules. There may be some “CS” majors at some schools that are more like business based IT majors rather than more technical CS majors, so that is another thing to check if not ABET accredited.
ABET accreditation is not strictly needed, but it’s highly recommended, not least of which because a ton of scholarships, fellowships, and other opportunities WILL require ABET accreditation.
I do have friends in non-accredited programs, and while they’re employed, they did face lots of obstacles. Wouldn’t recommend it.
Luckily my younger sibling will enter college right as my sister graduates, so this won’t be an issue for me
That being said, there is a very slight chance that my sister will graduate one semester (NOT one year) early. Does anyone know how this would work in terms of financial aid? Would my need-based aid be significantly higher in the fall than the spring or will it be counted as though she were enrolled for the whole year?
Thanks all for the suggestions! In addition to the ones mentioned, I'm also looking into Pitt - I know that the big merit is not a given, but the results thread looks very promising this year and it seems that if you apply early (like as soon as it opens), they will be a lot more generous! I'm also planning to apply to UConn (I'm in-state there) and my counselor said that I'm a shoo-in for their honors program. The only thing is that they're not exactly known for having fantastic aid, but I guess we'll see.
Also, if one or both of my parents were to get higher-paying jobs in the middle of my undergrad career, that would affect my aid for future years, correct? Let’s say this were to happen in the middle of the 2020-2021 school year. What would be the first year affected by this increase?
Income earned in 2020 will be reported on the financial aid documents for the 2022-2023 academic year. Income earned in 2021 will be reported on the financial aid documents for the 2023-2024 academic year.
UConn isn’t generous, indeed. Do apply but consider it an academic safety, not a financial safety.
Do apply to UAlabama Honors, Pitt, NJIT Honors (that should cover things for financial safeties).
https://financialaid.arizona.edu/types-of-aid/scholarships/freshman-transfer indicates that University of Arizona also has large scholarships for stats. although the largest such scholarship is a little short of full tuition (which means that room, board, books, and travel costs need to be compared with what the actual budget is).
One thing I haven’t seen mentioned is that the NPC estimates you got MAY BE INACCURATE if your dad is self-employed (independent contractor) as I believe the system will not use the “net” amount he calculates after expenses the way he does – depending on the expenses it could be a big difference.
Dad is an independent contractor…that often means that student will NOT be getting a lot of aid.
Your dad is taking business deductions…maybe car, gas, phone, home office, etc. at the schools that give the best need based aid, some of those deductions will be added back in…
Net Price Calculators do not work well for people who are independent contractors. I can almost guarantee you that the income that your dad puts down on your sister’s FAFSA will not be the same income that CSS Profile schools determine for your parents.
Please protect yourself and apply to some schools that give HUGE assured merit for your stats.
You could run the NPCs twice for schools using CSS Profile. Once with regular numbers, and again with worst case numbers adding back all business to income.
If the worst case number is not affordable, treat the school as a reach.
So, I am one of the ones that made a lot of mistakes when I went to school. I accumulated lots of student loans. I am still paying on them almost 20 years later.
I am encouraging my son to attend an in state college that has given him merit. I want him to be comfortable and I don’t want him saddled with debt. It has long term effects that you can’t see when you are 17-18.
My son is looking at engineering, so we are looking at ABET only schools. He can be a rockstar anywhere by hard work, but an accredited program provides an easier starting point when looking for internships and jobs.
My son did apply to a few elite places. He chose some that offer merit and others who meet need. We haven’t received answers on these, so no financial packages yet.
I’ve learned that merit is not as readily available as I had thought. This generation of students has really upped the anty so there is not enough $ to go around for deserving kids.
Your parents will not be able to get around you seeing their financials if you apply through FAFSA or CSS profile. Many scholarships also require copies of the 1040. It is difficult, but I sat down and talked at length with my son.
I suppose I should clarify. My father works for a company that assigns him clients and pays him for the services he provides to those clients. The company handles all of his work-related expenses. I thought that set-up him an independent contractor, but that may not actually be the case. My only point in mentioning that was to say that he can’t really predict his income in advance because he doesn’t know how many clients he will be assigned or how many hours they’ll want him to work for them. Sorry for the confusion and thanks for the advice!
