Paying for an Ivy League Education? Advice?

Paying for College
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<p>I am at the beginning of the college process with a sophomore. I am trying to find out how a family can afford an Ivy League education without paying full price. My son is a very strong math student with a 3.9 GPA, 5 AP courses and a high score on his SAT. He is also a swimmer. If he is able to get accepted at a school like Dartmouth, Brown, Princeton or Stanford, will we have to pay the full price? </p>

<p>Our family will not qualify for need based aid. Is the ivy league out of our reach? How does an upper middle class family pay for a private education?</p>

<p>Thanks</p>

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<p>If your family will not qualify for need based aid, then you’ll be expected to pay all costs. Those schools don’t give merit since all their students have super stats.</p>

<p>Upper middle class families do several things when they won’t get aid…</p>

<p>1) save for years and years to pay for college
2) have their children apply to schools that give merit scholarships.
3) don’t limit their kids to private schools only
4) borrow the money (not a great idea)</p>

3

<p>The Ivy League schools offer NEED based aid only. If you don’t qualify for need based aid, you won’t get any aid from the Ivies. They also don’t offer athletic scholarships.</p>

<p>If your income is below $100,000 a year, you might see aid from Stanford.</p>

<p>The good news…if your kid is really a competitive admit and/or a recruited athlete, there are plenty of other schools where he might garner merit aid.</p>

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<p>The family makes sacrifices: home equity loans, no lavish vacations, parental loans etc.</p>

5

<p>None of the colleges in the Ivy League give any aid other than if there is need. The very top schools HPY use formulas, however, that may give your family aid. The cutoff for need is very high for them. Run the NPCs and see where you fall. The big problem is getting into those schools.</p>

<p>Depending on his academic numbers, there are merit award that may be possible at some of the other top ranked schools. About half of the top ranked USNews&WR national universities, in the top 25 do give merit money. It’s very hard to get significant amounts at most of them. Duke, JHU, U Chicago do have awards, but you have to be the top of the top to get them.</p>

<p>Depending on your son’s times–does he make National and/or Olympic Trial cuts, schools like USC, UVA, UNC_CH, UMich may have athletic awards for him. I know kids who had swim scholarships at those schools. But, nope, not a dime from the Ivy 8 and a bunch of highly selective LACs unless you have the need.</p>

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<p>Also keep in mind that some of the Ivies offer aid to students whose family income is approaching $200k(four years ago it was $180k). </p>

<p>It is really early in the process and there are many fine schools outside the Ivy League.</p>

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<p>Why does it have to be an Ivy League school? As others have said, there are many great private colleges and universities for good students. If you are worried about paying so much, find institutions where your son is at the top of the stats range (especially for test scores) or where they need swimmers (i.e., D3 schools??) and you will find you have a LOT more options.</p>

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<p>Families with $180,000-$200,000 incomes might see a VERY small amount of need based aid at some
Ivy schools…but this is with “typical” assets…whatever that means. If your income is in that range, I would not count on substantial aid from even the MOST generous schools.</p>

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<p>As to how families do it, they use past, present and future earnings, both theirs and the kids, with whatever goodies, such as outside scholarships, graduation gifts, that come their way.</p>

<p>Families and kids with college in mind should have been saving. As a kid, I had savings bonds and a little tiny nestegg that my parents got me started in saving for college. Piggy bank too. It adds up over all of the cash and checks starting from the Christening to graduation. Baby sitting money, pet walking money, grandma’s hand outs. Titheing isn’t just for church. Also, hopefully, there is some money that the family has saved being upper middle income, though everyone should have something.</p>

<p>Then when they go off to school, you scrimp. Fried rice, fried noodles, creative leftovers, inexpensive toiletries, watch the driving to preserve gas, cut down any discretionary spending, put off any purchases. Scrimp, scrimp, scrimp. I’ve been doing it for a long time with all of my kids, the way their ages are spaced and private school choices. We don’t live like most people in our community who make what our family does as we have a huge education nut. You do save a little when the kid leaves the household, and it is good time to go on a diet! Start selling your extra stuff on Ebay, if there is a SAHM spouse, look for a part time job, even if it just clears $50 a week. Every bit helps. Then, you take out loans to stretch the payments out ten years for each year, which means 14 years for 4 years of college if you start paying on the loans as soon as you take, them, something I highly recommend as you can feel the pain and stop when it’s unbearable instead of getting it all at once in the end. </p>

<p>Your kid does the same with his savings, should be working summers, probably part time while in college too. Yes, swimmers can work too, and usually get first dibs on the gym jobs. One of mine was a national swimmer and he worked even as he trained and competed over the summer. Private swim lessons were a real boon monetarily. Also he can borrow up to $5500 through Stafford loans freshman year on his own without a credit check and the amount goes up a bit as he moves up in college. </p>

<p>So there you have it past, present and future. Like Scrooge’s three ghosts.</p>

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<p>My advice is to read Harvard Schmarvard: Getting Beyond the Ivy League to the College That Is Best for You and/or Looking Beyond the Ivy League: Finding the College That’s Right for You.</p>

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<p>There also are some pretty good scholarships that pay a lot but are not easy to get. There is a SMART scholarship program through the gov’t that students apply for once they start college. They owe the gov’t time upon graduation. Lots of people knock gov’t jobs, but there are some pretty fascinating things going on with the government. Coca-Cola has a program too.</p>

12

<p>Thank you for the quick responses. My son is not a nationally ranked swimmer and we do not have hopes for the Olympic Trials. One of the best swimmers on our team swam at the Olympic Trials and received a 50% scholarship to UNC – my son is not in that category. He would love to swim at a D3 school. He is a Johns Hopkins CTY student and we will definitely apply to Hopkins.</p>

<p>We are not looking for a free ride. We are just beginning our research and schools like Dartmouth and Brown seemed to offer so many opportunities. We also live below our means and have saved for college since birth. We’ve managed to save nearly 100K for college but it does not seem like enough for two high school aged children. I will look into scholarships and start looking for a second job. I am a teacher so I may be able to find something in the summer. College costs are overwhelming! Glad I have a few more years to save!</p>

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<p>Your kids will be funded by the Imb123 Scholarship at such school, is the answer. Same way you would have paid for private high school had you gone that route.</p>

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<p>Ill pick up Harvard Scharvard and Looking Beyond the Ivy League at my library today!</p>

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<p>If your child has the academic chops for the top ranked schools then they will be great candidates for serious merit scholarships. These can range from full tuition deals to partial deals. A student does not have to travel very far down the rankings to find schools who give pretty decent merit aid (enough to align costs with your state school) … these are schools are schools I would have been very happy if my kids had attended (with or without merit aid).</p>

<p>PS -if your kids apply to schools with solid merit opportunities you most likely will end up in a situation where your kid will be deciding a top school at full pay and very good schools at a lower price … the parents should be ready for dealing with this scenario (does the kid pick?, do they have to take the merit?, etc).</p>

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<p>My son is definitely interested in schools that offer merit aid and I think my son will be a solid candidate for these types of schools. He is interested in majoring in math and/or science. Are there any resources that list schools that offer merit aid? Where do I find information on these schools? We are just beginning the process of looking at schools so we are trying to gather information at this point.</p>

<p>Thanks again for the feedback – it is very helpful!</p>

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<p>Hoping someone can provide the link to the thread here about merit aid. There is one for merit aid. Just keep in mind that what is there this year is not a guarantee of what will be there in the future.</p>

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<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1348012-automatic-full-tuition-full-ride-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/848226-important-links-automatic-guaranteed-merit-scholarships.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>Agree with everyone^.<br>
Paying full costs for 2 daughters at state schools and our EFC is 45K. Both work summers. Have one more son coming up with a 2370 SAT score. Expect him to go to a state school and work this summer. Have 529 accounts with savings.<br>
Drive 13 and 14 year old cars with decent mileage.<br>
Shop at local “Sprouts” Farmers market. Eat at home a lot and use coupons only.
Turn on heat only in am, before work for 1 hour, and use the fireplace at night.<br>
No extraneous shopping, if it ain’t broke, we don’t buy or replace it.</p>

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<p>There’s another thread asking pretty much the same question, mentioning CMU as such a school that is so danged expensive. Yes, when you want to put your child in private school, it is expensive. The sticker price tends to be high, especially at the ones most well known. They do give financial aid to level the playing field for those who are below a certain financial position, but many who do get some, but not all of the bill paid find it very difficult to make the payments.</p>