Hi,
I need some advice. My DD2 is a senior and wants to study fashion . She has a 4.2 gpa and a 33 ACT and tons of community service/ECS etc. We live in Florida where she would qualify for top Bright Futures and we have Floridaprepay for her, so her tuition to a state school is paid. She also has enough credits to graduate in 2 years. Here is the problem, she doesn’t want to go to school in Florida. Her older sister attends Cornell. I have taken plus loans out for her that she will have to repay. However, she isn’t studying fashion. Should I let her get into debt as well? She would love to go to a school in a city. None of our state schools have a fashion major. The closest thing we have is FSU retail merchandising. We advised her to go to University of Florida for 2 years and major in marketing, graduate and then go to NYC. I need opinions please.
Fashion Design or fashion merchandising?
Fashion merchandising
Not worth the debt. The pay is LOW in that career.
If she wants to go OOS, go where her scores will get her huge merit. Will any of the CUNYs or SUNYs near NYC give her merit?
I don’t know. FIT is a SUNY school but they don’t give a lot of merit. In fact, she takes classes there every summer and I sat down with an advisor. She told me she had too many college credits to qualify for the freshmen honors program!!!Cornell has a great fashion program.I was thinking of letting her apply ED just to see if she gets accepted.Maybe they will give us more aid having 2 students attend.
Agree, but the OP’s real problem may be that s/he set a precedent by taking parent loans for the older kid to go to a private non-Florida college, so telling the younger kid that her choices will be more limited by cost will be difficult from a family relations point of view.
I think the idea of finishing college in Florida for free in 2 years, and then you helping finance a move to the NYC (or other fashion forward place) would make the most sense. Why take on tons of debt for an Ivy league degree to use in a low paying/highly competitive field?
You making the effort to help her establish financially may balance the sibling fairness book.
The debt would be crippling in her future and impact her travel and business opportunities.
Why don’t you have her look at the National Student Exchange http://www.nse.org/mobile.html
She could study a semester or year in another US city. Or plan for an extra year studying abroad in Paris or Milan.
She only has two years. One additional year abroad could be an exciting compromise that she could not afford otherwise.
Given your situation, I would vote for Retail Merchandising at FSU. Passion, drive, and capability are what perseveres in retail. If she does well at FSU and gets some internships she will be off to a good start.
For what it’s worth, my wife is in retail and does very well. Graduated from a 2 year retail program at a Boston college that is now a condo!! Has been a buyer, merchandiser, several store manager roles at flagship department store locations, and a VP of sales for 15+ years at well known brands. No one ever cares or even asks about her education. Retail is a different animal.
It doesn’t look like UCF is part of the National Student Exchange. Still she could study one year in Florida, one year abroad and then one year back in Florida. Two years goes by quickly. She could even fit in more study aboard during the winter or summer sessions.
Please don’t plan on your kids repaying PLUS loans – sure, it would be nice, but not all kids are able to, especially if there is a recession when they graduate. If you are stuck with these loans, are you going to be able to retire?
If you are already in a hole, stop digging.
(If your credit rating is good, you might look at credit union and other parent loan options that might be better interest terms than PLUS, and whether you refinance or not you should be making payments whatever payments you can on those parent loans while sibling is in school. Payments are deferrable but the interest is accruing.)
How many years overlap will your two kids have in college? Because when kid one graduates from Cornell…the two kid advantage will go away at meets full need schools.
What is your college budget for this student? She needs to know what you will…or won’t pay.
But your bigger issue…you are paying for her sister…and taking big loans to do so. I know some folks here won’t agree…but we set the same budget for both of our kids…not taking their major into consideration…at all. One was an engineering major, and the other a music major. We allocated the SAME money for both.
I want to add…that engineering major got a degree, but never ever wants to be an engineer…and is now pursuing a completely different career path.
The music major got a masters in music performance also, and is a self supporting freelance musician.
@thumper1 But OP envisions herself as not paying for the PLUS loans. It was risky the first time. Why do that again? Sometimes you’re just wrong as a parent and life can’t be perfectly fair. Maybe a conversation in which you tell your younger that you were wrong and it’s too risky and would be overwhelming if the parent had to take on that debt.
Your EFC for DD1 in 15 was 38K and you had 3 other kids and were looking over 100K of debt for her, does she graduate in 2019 or later? Do you actually have the ability to even borrow money on this next (2018?) kid? Would you even be able to manage the second round of loans?
Is DD1s tangible ROI arguably even better than your DD2’s? Your DD2 has better stats than DD1? That is one tricky corner to be in. How do you have DD1s repayment looking in your plan? Was her degree human ecology as in old threads?
DD2 is fully prepaid for instate as also in your other thread?
Florida school. She can get a graduate degree in exactly what she wants after 2 years, but UF or one of the other schools will have a business degree that can be tweaked to fit her. I love the idea of a year abroad (Paris, Rome).
UCF is in a city. Is she interested in costuming at all? Plenty of that in Orlando.
By the way, I have no issue with two kids getting different amounts for school. My two kids go to schools that have very different COA. One will have a much higher paying career, but she actually has a full scholarship (she uses her BF money, school merit and other Florida money). The other will have minimum wage jobs for many years, so we really couldn’t have her borrowing huge amounts of money. They both understood that during the school selection process.
^With three more kids, that would be another 300k of debt if you could take that on. Of course, if the first goes to Cornell, all the rest will want equally fancy educations. Life situations change and families have to adapt. There was a mistake made and equitable opportunities will not be possible. You just made a mistake as parents do sometimes though you try not to. Just be really straight forward to the kids about what you can really afford and don’t cripple them with debt.
If this student can graduate in two years or so in Florida…with NO debt…that opens up the door for some interesting study abroad or study away options. Do the FL schools offer a semester away program? Some schools do? She could do this in NY. Or an internship in the summer…or a great study abroad in a fashion go to place.
My D16, was also interested in Fashion Merchandising. We were on the hunt for merit aid and she had good stats like your D, 32ACT. Since there is a lot of overlap with a Marketing major, she applied for Fashion Merchandising at some schools and Marketing at others. She was actually accepted to FSU, and their retail merchandising program is really very good, including some electives geared toward fashion. With merit, It would have been cheaper than our IS flagship.
D also applied to the following for Fashion merchandising:
*U of Alabama, which has a good FM program, your D would also get some nice merit there, $25k per year, I think.
*U of Delaware, nice FM program, they do offer some l)merit aid to OOS. Nice campus, small city location with lovely main street running through campus.
*VCU in Richmond, great smallish city location, very good fashion programs. D was offered $14,500k/yr merit aid.
*Drexel U in Philadelphia, nice FM program, fun city location, D was offered $24k/yr merit, but still expensive due to $70k COA .
She applied to the following for Marketing:
Rowan U in NJ, an up and coming regional public, they have invested heavily in growing their business and engineering programs in the last several years. They have a 3 year Marketing degree, very attractive. Offered my D $15k/yr merit, a nice discount.
Temple U in Philadelphia. It was intended as a financial safety for D, since she qualified for their guaranteed full tuition scholarship at the time. It is now a competitive scholarship. She ended up choosing Temple after attending an awesome accepted students day last year. She had a great freshman year as a Marketing major in the honors program. The Fox School of Business also has its own separate honors program with extra advising and mentorship, help with internships, educational programs, etc.
In the end, I think choosing to major in Marketing was a better choice for D than FM, since clothing retail is changing so rapidly with a shift to on line shopping. Your D could always major in Marketing , but pursue an internship or part time job in Fashion retail.
@sybylla actually the EFC changed and she received scholarships. So, her loans are not as high as anticipated… DD1 had better stats than DD2. DD1 will graduate a semester early, Dec 2018. The situation was also different because we never had Florida prepay for DD1. We have it for my other 3 children, and we already invested and paid for their educations, if they chose to attend a Florida school. We are paying the interest plus some principal every month on DD1s loans. Yes, I would be able to take out more if needed. The problem isn’t whether the situation is fair, its just whether it would benefit her in the long run to go to a better school.
@twoinanddone She has always wanted to study abroad. If she goes to FIT after UF or FSU, she will study abroad for a year with their program.