I did give my kids a budget, but after we started looking I discovered it was too low for one, and just fine for the other. If it is the first child in a family looking, many people just don’t know what is available, what the average cost will be. Parents have been fed the ‘there are thousands of scholarships available’ and ‘there are full ride scholarships going unused every year.’ These kids have been told since K that they are geniuses, that smart kids get lots of money, that Harvard and Yale are free. I absolutely understand how families get to this point in the process and realize they can’t afford some schools, that the FA packages didn’t come out as they expected them to, and that the kids have favorite schools that they still want to go to even if it makes no financial sense.
Even after following CC for a while, much of the wisdom on here is different from what I’ve experienced. One of my daughters is sort of surviving on the small one year scholarships. Her talent scholarship was for one year, but luckily has been renewed. Her gpa is high enough to keep her small merit scholarship. A little here, a little there, and she’s making it. Last year the school awarded her a small alumni grant, and I’m really hoping it shows up again in her package for this year but there are no guarantees. My other daughter has bigger scholarships (at a private school so more expensive tuition) but the little scholarships are what bring the whole thing into ‘affordable’ for us. My kids have listened to me preach ‘no loans!’ for years, but they still didn’t and don’t get all the money pieces of their education. I did, however, have veto power on their colleges because in the end, I’m paying more than they are which is what I got from the article - the parent still has to make the responsible financial decision.