We have a Jr. in High school. Of course, like all of you, we have been having many discussions around college. I went a2 year school way back when and lived at home and really want better for my kids. Husband and I have been saving for a while, and with 2 kids, can afford to spend about 25K per child. Which is about state school cost here in Mass. Would like her to be either in Mass or a train ride away. The schools she is looking at cost much more than 25k (more like 35-50). My question to you all (since I am new to this) is , does this seem fair to offer to pay what we can and they pay the difference (if they choose to go to a school that is more than what we are offering?) I feel bad and of course want the world for my kids and want them to go wherever their hearts desire, but like many of us, can’t afford to do this. I have been stressing for months over this and just want to know how you all deal with this? I’m sure its a common question and the answer is - they get loans and pay them off. I just hate the thought of sending them out into the real world with 100K in dept. We will of course look into scholarships ect; her grades are good, not amazing though. In all of your experiences, do most parents pay for all of the costs of college?
Before you go too far- make sure you have run the numbers (the net price calculators) for the schools your D thinks she’s interested in. Depending on your income and other assets- and where the college savings are- in a 529 plan? under the mattress? you may qualify for need based aid.
Or not. In which case, it’s time for plan B which is your original question.
You will get all sorts of answers here from the parents who think their kids should “figure it out” by themselves, to the parents who pay 100% regardless of where the kid goes, to everything in between. The right answer is what works for you and your kid. A very ambitious self-starter will likely do well anywhere. A kid with more nuanced needs may need something smaller or more customizable than your local state college. A kid who wants to major in chemistry and hopes to go to medical school needs to complete undergrad without a lot of debt. A kid looking at a major in biostatistics who already knows she wants to work for a big pharmaceutical company modeling clinical trials can likely afford to take on some debt. A kid who wants to teach nursery school is going to have trouble paying back any kind of loans.
etc.
Your child can’t borrow $100k of debt unless you (naively) cosign.
It would be horrible for you to cosign that much debt.
Your child can borrow
frosh year 5500
soph 6500
jr 7500
sr 7500
BTW…wanting the best for your child does NOT equal pricey school.
No…the common answer is not…student borrows $100k and pays it off. For one thing, most parents would never agree to cosigning such crazy debt. Another reason would be that very few newish grads could EVER pay off that much student loan debt.
Find affordable schools. Either schools that are within budget or schools that will give merit or FA and have a net cost of about $25k
25K per child per year for 4 years? That’s some real nice saving on your part!
But just because said college costs 35-50K doesn’t necessarily mean that that will be your total cost. Merit scholarships and grants can bring down the price. Especially at private schools.
Your kids can only borrow a certain amount of money by themselves regardless of family EFC. $5500 (either subsidized or unsubsidized) their freshmen year, $6,500 sophomore year, and $7,500 junior and senior year. So that totals $27,000 over the course of their college career that they can borrow. You will not have to cosign for that.
So for said college, if your child borrows the $5500 as a freshman, for example, and there is still a shortfall after your 25K contribution, then you will have to borrow (home equity, other loan, pay out of your monthly cash flow etc) to cover the difference.
That’s why it’s critical that you run the NPCs on the colleges that your child is interested in to get an estimate of what it will cost you. Then you need to have the tough conversation with your kids about what you will be able to pay without them going into tons of debt.
For my family, when we were going through this, we were very diligent in doing our FA research and we were very clear to the kids what we were able to pay. And we were adamant about no debt. I do know some families however that have taken out over $100K in Parent Plus Loans per kid. Fortunately, with a combination of our savings, scholarships, and grants, our girls will be able to graduate debt free. I hope the same for you.
You kids can’t borrow that much on their own. Limits on federal loans are $5,500 for freshman, $6,500 for sophs, and $7,500 each year for junior and sr year. You would be taking out any loans beyond that. A lot of people would recommend stopping with the federal loans, as they have more protections and the debt level isn’t too high.
Our kids worked starting summer before college, and took responsibility for their own books and spending money. Kids can save on housing by being RAs in the dorms, but you can’t count for sure in them getting an RA position.
Agree with the above advice to run the net price calculators. If your kids have high stats (especially test scores), they might get some merit aid. We can help with advice on that if more info is provided.
One other tool that is useful is the Common Data Set. A lot of colleges have it – Google " Common Data Set". Tons of good info there, including test score ranges, % of students getting merit, number of graduates by major, 6 year graduation rates, freshman retention, etc.
And you can look at some options in this thread: http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/1678964-links-to-popular-threads-on-scholarships-and-lower-cost-colleges.html#latest
Agree with @intparent. My kids pay all books and spending money. D2 who lives in an off campus apartment now pays her internet and utilities as well.
The general advice here is to have the money talk with your children and tell them the budget. If it’s 25k a year, tell them. Make sure there are two schools on the application list that come in at or under budget, either because that’s the cost (in state public) or there’s guaranteed merit aid in the picture. Then, let the children apply at some other schools just to see what happens. You might have some more affordable acceptances in the mix, but if not, your child still has a list with two affordable schools on it.
It’s much easier to have the budget talk now than in the spring when the kid has fallen for and is holding an acceptance to a school that wants $50K a year.
my parents paid for my 1st year and my final semester, and since I was kid #4 I worked and paid the rest. of course the college landscape has changed radically over the past 30 years.
fast-forward in the DeLorean from 1985 to 2015…
we don’t make all that much, have debts due to health problems the past few years, and as a result have no college savings. told our D we could only swing CC + local state U. i don’t think she was all that happy to hear that. thankfully, she got accepted into a great program sponsored by both schools. she was accepted immediately into their Nursing program, does her first 3 years at CC for her Assoc, then gets BS in Nursing at the U after 4th year. the best thing is, she is doing really well and seems happier than she has ever been. school has never been easy for her but with every A she gets, you can see her confidence and self-esteem grow. we couldn’t be happier how it’s turned out.
Son is a HS junior, and he is taking classes at the same Community College. he will be able to graduate with an Associates in Engineering at the same time he graduates HS. at the very worst, he can get full tuition at the local State U and live at home. he is shooting for merit scholarships and grants that might get him into a better school with little or no debt.
i guess what i’m trying to say is, we were upfront and honest pretty early about our limited capability to help pay for school. so rather than putting the ball 100% in either our court or theirs as far as paying, it allowed us to work together as a family to explore all the opportunities available, research every lead, discuss their interests and aspirations, and give each of them a great deal of agency and responsibility as far as attaining their educational goals, without putting either them or us under a crushing burden of debt.
yeah, it might mean telling your children to forget their dream school. it’s not the end of the world. i’ve heard cautionary tales of students whose dream school turned out to be not all it was cracked up to be, and i’ve heard stories of students falling in love with their 3rd or 4th choice school that they grudgingly attended. i would agree 100% with your reluctance to hit the loans and rack up debt. you never know what life will bring that will make you wish you had held onto that money.
First, you’ve done very well to save $25K a year per child. See if you can add $5K-$10K a year out of pocket (if not, oh well). I agree with others to run the Net Price Calculator (NPC) for every single college your child may even consider. Talk to your child about the budget - let them know what your limit is. This may limit the schools they can consider but this is not necessarily a bad thing - there’s a lot of schools out there - constraints are good.
Look closely at your child’s test scores and grades. There are plenty of colleges that will give merit aid. If your child has the stats, this can be significant. Also if your child has the stats, they can apply to schools generous with need-based aid. The key is to tailor the list to your budget and do NOT let them apply to schools you know you cannot afford. I’ve seen devastated kids who get into great schools only to be told they cannot go because the money is not there (and I suspect the parents knew but didn’t want to say so).
Encourage your child to work and save for spending money while in college. Some parents also want their children to borrow a bit of money (skin in the game) while other parents do everything they can so their children will not have any debt. Much of this depends on whether the child plans to go to grad school or enter the workforce immediately upon graduation.
@wien2nc Even tho your son will graduate from HS with an AA, he still needs to apply as an incoming frosh…NOt a transfer.
He will have more opps for merit as a frosh.
thanks for pointing that out. can’t wait to see if he hits 1400 on SAT this Saturday and gets that full tuition to UA!
Thank you all for such great responses so much to think about ! I appreciate all you words of wisdom 
Tammy- take a deep breathe.
You will find that a LOT of kids in the Northeast discover that the further from home they go, the more affordable the options become. So you and your D need to assess how firm you are (and why) on the “train ride away” limit.
If it’s to be close to a medical provider- great reason. If it’s to cut down on travel costs, (for sure a great reason) you need to balance that with a potentially better financial deal out of the region. I can fly Southwest to a lot of great places for less than Amtrak if I plan ahead…
blossom that is a very good point. i would love for my S to go to NC State and stay close, but if a place like Alabama or Mississippi offers full tuition plus Honors College, that will probably be too good to pass up
I did exactly what you mention above - I told my son how much I could afford to pay every year and explained that if went to another school that cost more he would have to pay for it. Then we took it one step further and showed him what a monthly payment for those student loans would look like. It was eye opening for him.
FWIW, my D applied to 19 schools and there was not ONE that came back with a package more than 50% of their advertised cost. The most expensive ended up at $32500, exactly half of the $65K sticker price. Of course, YMMV depending on finances, but be sure to do the NPC before you rule out any schools. Also take a look at merit awards. The state schools don’t give merit and UMassAmherst did not make the bottom five in price. My D applied to mostly NE schools with the exception of UScranton (chasing merit there), Barnard, Vanderbilt, and Skidmore (NY) where she is attending. With a 1400, you might want to look at the top LAC schools, many of which give good merit awards.
As for how much your child should contribute, thats a family decision but personally I think its unfair to strap your child with any more debt than the law allows…$27K for four years. There are plenty of great AFFORDABLE schools out there, you just have to dig a bit.
@NEPatsGirl what is the source for the “state schools don’t give merit” statement? Is that for Massachusetts only? Did the packages you mentioned above include merit?
@Wien2NC What is your son’s M+CR? If he’s an eng’g or CS major, he just needs a 1330 M+CR to get free tuitio plus 2500 per year.
@NEPatsGirl - when you say
do you mean that “the package” was her net cost being more than half, and she got a combination of merit and need-based financial aid at all 19 of the schools she applied to - thus implying that the NPC’s tremendously overstated the cost? Or do you mean that “the package” was the total aid they offered, and the online NPC’s were pretty close?
My understanding is that the online NPC’s are generally pretty good with FA, but they suck when it comes to merit aid - which is typically more competitive and therefore unpredictable. Thus, for middle and upper-middle class families who can expect little to no need-based FA, but who otherwise cannot afford the full sticker price, the chase for merit-aid can have a huge impact on the list of schools where the student will apply.
For both S and D, attending Columbia and Stanford, respectively, the NPC’s were spot on - within $300. But these are need-only financial aid schools, and we have plenty of need. And they know they were extremely fortunate to get accepted at these schools. When we had the money talk with them before freshman year, we told them they would have to work hard, do well at the most challenging courses they could take, and to include appropriate EC activities that they enjoyed, as it would help enhance their applications. They knew they could chase merit money at some great schools, but they also understood that the need-based aid at the elite schools would be much better for them in the long run. They also understood that if our family financial situation was different, their choices would be different as well.
As others have said, the answer for each family will be very different than other families with other situations. I commend OP for being able to save so much so far for her kids.