Yep, agreeing with looking at high merit schools. You can find solid academic choices amg them. We have a very high achieving student at Bama, and he loves it there. He graduated from high school with credit with 5 of his in major physics core classes, similar in math. At Bama he is pursing their University Scholars program where he can earn his masters while an UG and use his scholarship $$ to do so. He is actively involved in research, has great adult mentors. We have absolutely nothing but positive things to say about Bama,
Our current 11th grader is searching for equivalent schools. Bama does not offer her major, but she sure wishes they did.
Wait a minute. If the whole income including the rental rental properties, is under $49,999, this family might qualify for the simplified needs test for FAFSA purposes.
They would need the qualifying income plus ONE of the following…and if they have this their assets would not be considered.
Ability to file a 1040A or 1040 EZ form...doesn't sound likely with the rental properties.
OR
Qualifies for a means tested benefit like SNAP or free/reduced lunch. Do these means tested benefited look at assets...if so...unlikely the OP would qualify.
OR
One parent is a dislocated worker.
But really all that would net you is federally funded grant money possibly…and a Direct Loan.
AND there is NO simplified needs test for schools using the Profile. They will view those rental properties as an asset.
******It does not sound like the income is that low, however.
The meets full need schools with generous policies clearly state “with typical assets”. One million dollars plus in real estate exceeds typical…in my opinion.
We, in the Thumper family had both parents working while kids were in college. One income was totally dedicated to paying for college.
I agree with the above posters…you might want to be looking at merit aid for this student…but your yearly income…you will still have some costs to pay…so you need to figure put how that is going to happen.
Yes, income is too high for simplified needs…way too high.
To the OP…you need a good plan to seek out merit aid for your son. This won’t be at HYPSM or equivalent schools because they don’t give merit aid. And they won’t give you need based aid to fund yoir continued ownership of rental properties.
As a Washington resident, you have some good in-state public universities (but he needs to be careful of whether he gets direct admission to his intended major at UW, or general admission; in the latter case, some majors may require a very high college GPA to get into later).
Thank you ALL for the great insight. It appears that all of you understand my dilemma and your feed backs are helping my family tremendously. We will have some serious soul searching to do.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek, when you say Bama, do you mean U of Alabama or something different? and what is UG?
My ds is part of CBH. It is an exceptional program targeted specifically toward UG research. For students wanting to attend grad school, it is a great program.
I’ll put in a plug for LSU. I am an LSU grad and will admit Bama offers nice awards particularly for National Merit Finalist but LSU offers good merit scholarships and the Honors College is impressive. Right now LSU Honors is my daughters safety school but as I’ve visited multiple Ivies I see how LSU is modifying the curriculum to offer a more personal experience. The Honors College modifies LSU core curriculum requirements to match a distribution requirement met with seminars rather than a strict core curriculum taught via larger lectures. This seems to be similar to Princeton’s style. I’m not saying LSU is offering a Princeton education but the price tag is substantially less and they post the ACT/SAT’s required for the various merit scholarship levels.
