<p>“Why would one pay for a very expensive,private HS, then attend a state school?”</p>
<p>This was our case. We live in Los Angeles, in an area where the public schools stink, and we paid high tuition for good private schools. Good publics were at the top of our list. Good publics were at the top of the lists of most of the students at our D’s well regarded HS.</p>
<p>But California has good state colleges</p>
<p>The CSS Profile, which many private colleges will use to figure out your financial aid, does allow you to list the private school tuition of any other K-12 kids. So your FA picture may not be as bleak as you think.</p>
<p>The honors college at a state flagship could be a very viable alternative for even the most high-achieving kid. Even out-of-state, you could be looking at $35k/year instead of $50k at a private.</p>
<p>If you own your home, a Home Equity Line of Credit may give you a lower interest rate on a loan than PLUS or other student loans. We told our kids to say “yes” to subsidized loans (interest deferred until 6 months after graduation) and turn down any unsubsidized loans. When the repayment period begins, we will pay it off for them with a check from our HELOC. Potential downside - HELOC has a variable interest rate. However I am assuming it will be a while until rates rise very much, given the current economy.</p>
<p>We also came up with disheartening EFC numbers when we tried the simple calculator on the College Board site. However, beginning Oct 29 of this year, most colleges will be required to provide a calculator on their web sites that reveal the average grant amount for students based on the information you provide. We were pleasantly surprised to find very generous “discounts” are the norm for private LACs. Here is the web site that describes the new requirement:
[The</a> Integrated Postsecondary Education Data System - Net Price Calculator Requirement](<a href=“http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/resource/net_price_calculator.asp]The”>http://nces.ed.gov/ipeds/resource/net_price_calculator.asp)</p>
<p>Also, this is the best source of information I have found on how to maximize your eligibility for financial aid:</p>
<p>[FinAid</a> | Financial Aid Applications | Maximizing Your Aid Eligibility](<a href=“Your Guide for College Financial Aid - Finaid”>Maximizing Your Aid Eligibility - Finaid)</p>
<p>Some suggestions, such as the spacing of child birth, are clearly too late to implement. However it had some information that I haven’t found elsewhere, and many things that I wish I had known before my child’s senior year. Another strategy is to apply to as many comparable colleges as feasible, as a certain amount of negotiation may help boost the package to the college of choice. </p>
<p>I believe most students obtain loans in their own names, as the repayment terms are determined by graduation date.</p>
<p>If, as you say, your children will be off to college in a few years, those top private colleges cost upwards of $55000 a year NOW. If costs keep rising $4000-5000 a year like they have been recently, they will be more like $65000 a year when your kid starts and $75000-80000 by the time they graduate. Ouch! I just scared myself. Thank God my kid’s a junior in college.</p>
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<p>Stony Brook and Rutgers are not awful, and they are very good in some subjects, even if the prestige meter is pretty low for them. In any case, even a student aiming very high needs to find safety schools (definitely admission, definite affordability); the in-state state universities are the most obvious candidates to consider.</p>
<p>It might help if the OP mentioned the state of residency and the subjects the students are likely to want to study. That could determine whether the state universities are (a) desirable top choice schools at a bargain price, (b) acceptable but not top choice safety schools, or (c) unsuitable for the students due to lack of desired major(s), etc…</p>
<p>Thanks again. I will look into these calculators.</p>
<p>One question arises. I do hear people sometimes say that they can’t afford to send their children to expensive colleges. Does that generally mean that they have decided that they simply won’t pay, or go into debt for these preposterous college tuitions, or are some colleges simply out of reach financially, because they are unaffordable on present incomes, and there are no ways to finance the tuition with student or parent loans? </p>
<p>As to my quickly composed sentence about assets, we have none. No car and no house. We are renters. We only have student loan and credit card debt.</p>
<p>I did not really want to steer the conversation toward the merits of state colleges at this point. Perhaps later. Right now, I’m just trying to prepare for the worst case scenario. That my first child is accepted into and loves a very expensive school, and whether or not we’d be able to pay for it. Once I get a sense of our financial possibilities, I’m sure I’ll start thinking about specific universities and areas of interest.</p>
<p>EFC is determined to the amount families will pay out of past ( savings), current & future ( loans) income. Debt is ignored unless it is unusual i.e. an organ transplant or paying the expenses of an elderly family member.</p>
<p>I expect schools may look at a high income & wonder why no savings or even equity to borrow against.</p>
<p>Using the bulk of your income to pay current educational expenses may have been not that bad of a move, particularly if your kids are then able to get merit awards &/or attend an honors college at a local flagship university.</p>
<p>The princeton calculator will be able to give you an estimate on what your institutional EFC may be, but remember, most schools do not meet 100% of EFC- if your EFC is say $20,000 and school expenses are $50,000- you may be offered a grant of $10,000, loans of $5,000 and expected to come up with the rest. ( let alone the $20,000 EFC)</p>
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<p>In many cases, it means needing loans which the student and/or parents are uncomfortable taking on (or may not even be able to get), especially if the student intends to study something with relatively low post-graduation pay rates, or wants to go on to expensive professional school (e.g. medical or law school).</p>
<p>No student wants to be in the nightmare situation of graduating with over $100,000 in student loan debt and no prospects of a job that will help pay it off.</p>
<p>Of course, the level of student loan debt that one is comfortable with varies by person. But some thrown about prudent limits for total undergraduate debt around these forums are (a) no loans greater than the government subsidized Stafford loan limit ([currently</a> $23,000](<a href=“http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/studentloans.jsp]currently”>http://studentaid.ed.gov/PORTALSWebApp/students/english/studentloans.jsp) for undergraduate students), or (b) no loans greater than some amount (usually around half) of the expected pay level for a bachelor’s graduate in the desired major (which would mean something like $15,000 to $20,000 for a humanities or biology major, to $25,000 to $35,000 for the better paid engineering or CS majors), or (c) whichever is lower of (a) or (b).</p>
<p>Yes, that means that some schools with high list prices and ungenerous financial aid will be out of reach for many students who do not want to risk burying themselves in student loans that will be very difficult to pay off. It also means that reach/match/safety assessments must consider cost – a safety for admissions may be an overall reach if the likelihood of sufficient financial aid is small. If there is no chance at all that the school will be affordable, it is not worth applying to.</p>
<p>OP - As you do your long term planning, think about whether there will be years of overlap with both kids in college. In those years, you may qualify for need-based aid. </p>
<p>For schools that use FAFSA (mostly public schools), your EFC gets spread over your college attendees. For schools that use CSS Profile (privates), there is often a break for multiple students. CSS aid was hard to predict a few years ago, so I like the idea about each college providing web estimaters.</p>
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<p>The age gap between the youngest parents on these forums and the oldest parents can span a couple decades. If you are approaching 60 or over with kids in college you are sure as heck not thinking about taking on loan debt to finance college so you roll with what you’ve got. And for those of us who had kids start in 07 before the recession and kids that started in the middle of the recession and are still reeling with a third getting ready to go off…well parental loan debt or a mortgage or an equity draw is simply not a “smart” option. Being “able” to get loans doesn’t mean that “getting loans” is smart for some. So yes, some of us give the kids a budget to work with. I would not care if the very best college in the world accepted one of my kids if it meant the budget would be broken and the kids know and understand the budget and they understand they are fortunate as the budget is generous compared to others. Other people feel very differently or are more risk tolerant. I’m much less risk tolerant than I was at 45 to be honest as is my H who was far more financially “risky” than I ever was. </p>
<p>Parents have to think about their personal situation in context of what can be done with the kids. Every family will have a different set of criteria. The kids come into play with how they can parlay their attributes (GPA, test scores, athletic, musical talents) into merit scholarships if financial scholarship is not in the cards. How each family “does it” is certainly interesting, but the bottom line is very individual.</p>
<p>We have decided that neither us (parents) nor our child will go into debt for college. </p>
<p>We would rather take that monthly loan payment amount, about $400 a month for $40000 in college loan debt, save it and be able to give our son some money 5-10 years after college perhaps towards a house down payment. We will also have standard house repairs coming due…roof, furnace, etc.</p>
<p>Son will also be debt free. Young people are not saving enough for retirement. A student loan payment often takes money that can go towards retirement account.</p>
<p>We are willing to do this because there are loads of outstanding schools within our price range, less than $25,000 per year. I went the elite college route myself but personally don’t feel that it is necessary for most career paths.</p>
<p>The real answer is move and move fast. Between what you will save at a strong public school, lower insurance and other cost of living differences, you WILL have at least half of what you need for the top 20 private universities. </p>
<p>Don’t confuse private with strong schools—plenty of public schools offer 23 or 24 AP courses and very qualified teachers. The top students at our school regularly take 12 to 14 APs in high school and qualify as National Merit. The little voiced difference between our public high and others in the county is that over 60% of the parents have grad degrees, but we still only get $7700 per student. Makes a thinking person wonder, doesn’t it. </p>
<p>Find a bedroom town with an educated populace and then you’ll see how “junior” really stacks up.</p>
<p>Momofthreeboys makes some very good points. All of us parents are different: different ages, different finances, different # of kids, different situations. And our kids are different: different GPAs, SATs, ECs, hopes, dreams… Some are OK with spending the extra $100,000-$150,000 for a private college, some are not. I am just glad that by choosing the public option, I won’t be raiding our nest egg or saddling my D with any student loan debt. It’s a great school and she couldn’t be happier. She’ll get her degree and then can start her life unburdened with loans.</p>