We have saved and saved. But, then, we had a baby in the NICU and that sucked our savings dry. We have started to recover and thought all would be fine, but then my husband had a heart incident. That did not set us back too far. But now he has been laid off. I am sure he will be back to work soon, but that is starting to cut in to our savings. And now, looking at our health, we will both need to quit working by the time youngest starts college. This means, not only will we not be working when he is in college, but, we need to up our saving for our own end of life now, our retirement years. (simply, my husband has a heart problem and now I have a neurological problem that seems to be stealing my ability to think from me). I am so worried! Will colleges figure all this in when our children file for financial aid? Also, our child who had been in the NICU is disabled so we have to provide extra care for him. Two years ago, I thought we had our lives together. We had saved up and done so well. We are thrifty people. Now, I just want to know what to do as we move forward from here.
If you have unreimbursed medical expenses, some colleges will consider that. If you have unreimbursed essential costs related to the care of a disable sibling, some colleges will also consider that. Both of these things fall under the special circumstances consideration area. You would need to contact each college…find out their process for a special circumstances consideration…and go from there.
In the meantime…
There are options for every student attending college. Your kid’s need to do,the best they can tomget the best grades, and best ACT or SAT scores. These will place them in better positions for acceptances to more generous colleges…and for merit aid.
Some states have grants for low income students if that is your situation.
Students can start at a Community college and commute…then finish their degree at a four year school.
Some students work full time and attend college part time.
College is a family expense…and sometimes that means there has to be a limited budget for that. Please just be sure that your kids know any financial limitations when they are choosing schools for applications. It’s better to know,the budget up front than to get accepted to colleges that are not affordable.
How old is your college-bound child?
I am worried, too. I am an older, single parent, and I know that my younger will have to make different decisions than her sister. I can pay for instate or a private with lots of merit (not likely).
I worry, but my guilt at not being able to pay more bothers me the most. One can make plans, such as those suggested by thumper, and take care of the worry. I don’t know what one can do about the guilt.
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but, we need to up our saving for our own end of life now, our retirement years. (simply, my husband has a heart problem and now I have a neurological problem that seems to be stealing my ability to think from me). I am so worried! Will colleges figure all this in when our children file for financial aid? Also, our child who had been in the NICU is disabled so we have to provide extra care for him. Two years ago, I thought we had our lives together. We had saved up and done so well. We are thrifty people. Now, I just want to know what to do as we move forward from here.
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How old is the NICU child?
I don’t think colleges are going to take into acct that you might have to retire around the time the youngest child goes to college. Colleges don’t seem to care about possible future happenings. They tend to deal with current happenings.
If you have unpaid medical bills than maybe some colleges will care, but many do not have more aid to give no matter what.
In truth, most colleges don’t have much to give no matter if you’re very poor or whatever.
when is your oldest child going to college? How strong a student is he/she? You may need to look for schools that will give large merit scholarships.
There is more to the OP’s situation…
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I am feeling a lot of guilt here. We have a bigger sized family. Basically, in our mid 40's, we had a surprise baby. Surprise!! And even after the birth, I laid in my bed in postpartum, looking at his sweet little face thinking "how are we going to pay for college????" I already had 2 children in college at this point. My 11 yr old visited me at the hospital and pointed out that I will be 63 when the baby graduates high school. To top it off, my husband has a heart problem, so we did not want to wait until 70 to retire because we don't know how long he will be able to work, or live.
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So here is how the financial aid has gone. One of the older kids has full tuition and fees scholarship, plus stipend (but does not pay room and board). The FAFSA at the end says our EFC number is $6100 per child. Another child has financial aid and scholarships, including outside scholarships, and work study, getting what we have to pay down to the $6100 about. It varies. We told him he did not have to take out the unsubsidized loans. And here is where it gets tricky. That oldest has a work study. I pay his bill at the beginning of the semester. Then his work study money just goes to his bank account. Our agreement was supposed to be that I took the money from his bank account. But I feel like a thief!!! I cannot do it. He is supposed to save it to put toward the next semester. However, he keeps eating out and on occasion, buying Steam games, so as a result, he has no money left and we keep paying. He can sign something at the college letting them take his paycheck to put toward his bill. I think we need to do that in the future.
Do you think we are obligated to pay the full EFC even if he has enough money to make this number lower?
And for the record, my oldest was in the NICU and seriously medically needy so we postponed starting to pay our own student loans.
For both of us, our parents did not pay at all. As a result, with the interest rates being as high as they were, and we had unsubsidized loans too, our loans kept going up while we were paying. We are now with Direct Loan and interest rates are much lower now.
But we currently owe just over $75K. On the bright side though, we have saved enough money we could pay that off now, except that we are keeping that money to the side to pay for the rest of the children’s educations. We have not been irresponsible with money.
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What are ages of the children?
With your youngest, perhaps in retirement you can live near the college or whatever school or situation for that child; so you can save on room and board if going to any kind of a CC or college/university.
Many/most parents do the best they can. Do not beat yourself over what you cannot do. Should not have guilt.
You have to let go of the guilt. Truely. We make all these plans and life has other plans for us. My dad still feels bad about my lack of college choice due to income. I’m 50…and I am very successful. So as you can see,it’s normal to feel “bad”, but don’t let it eat at you. Because, as you can also see from my example, the kids turn out just fine anyway!
Merit is a great way to go if it is possible. Also, learn as much as possible about financial aid, because when you have these issues life throws out there, timing can help a lot!!
Agree with @HRSMom. The guilt is the biggest thing and you need to let it go. It’s tough to do well in this country.
The key thing to remember is that if they are healthy, brought-up well, and motivated, they will find a way to make it.
You just need to be on the level with your college bound kid(s). Let the kid know well in advance what the finances are and what the options will be. (Community college? Merit scholarships at lower-ranked colleges? ROTC?)
I think the saddest situations I read on CC are when the parents encourage their kids to apply anywhere and tell them, “don’t worry about the money, it’ll all work out” — and then change their tune in the spring when the acceptances start rolling in - or when the parents expect their kids to take massive loans, or take responsibility for paying back PLUS loans. So don’t mislead your child. There ARE affordable options to get a college degree – it is still possible for a young person to work their way through college and make it – but those options generally aren’t at prestigious, private colleges, with the exception of the elite privates that meet 100% need, are very generous with aid dollars, but also very hard to get into. (As you are now retired, your FAFSA EFC may be quite low, qualifying a high-performing child for generous aid)
But it’s not the end of the world if your offspring are not able to go straight to a 4 year college, or earn their bachelor’s degrees in 4 years. There are many other paths that can be followed – and if your kid ends up enrolled in community college or a local public commuter college, there will be plenty of classmates with similar financial limitations.
I’m confused. Is the oldest child in college? Or is the oldest child disabled due to premature birth…or whatever got him into the NICU?
Your husband lost his job and has a heart problem, you have a serious health problem and are not working, and your youngest is medically needy, and you have two kids in college already. (I wonder if it was a typo when you wrote the oldest was in NICU and medically needy: did you mean the youngest or did you have two kids in the NICU?)
This would all be included in a special circumstance letter to financial aid (some have forms) or that section in the CS Profile if the school requires it. Many schools would give you financial aid, but make sure when your kids apply.
My family has some similar situations, not identical, but our youngest is indeed working while going to school part-time (the other two had conventional 4 year educations at excellent schools) and I sold our house as well. We were also thrifty thank heavens.
Your family will find a way for this to work out, and aid will be available from schools and the state. Good luck!
BTW, what state are you in-state for?
I knew a family with a lot of kids who moved to a college town so their kids could attend the state flagship while living at home. This was in a state where the flagship is quite affordable, I know not every state is like that. The community college route saves a lot of money. Our local cc has many high quality offerings and regularly sends students off to the state U’s and illustrious careers and graduate education.
You do the best you can with what you have.
Yes, I know it’s from another thread, but I think your college student son needs to use more of his own funds.
And no one should go into debt like you and your H did. It seems at this point that it was not a wise investment or you would not be worried about finances and paying off student loans in your 40’s.
The most debt I would have let my D incur was $20,000 and that was only as a last resort. She could have lived at home and attended our cc completely free, then done 2 years at State U for just a few thousand a year. She was happy to receive excellent need based and merit aid elsewhere.
I have two in college. One is a national merit scholar so got school covered. The other is not and has scholarships, but we still pay a portion and he takes out student loans. The rest are 15 yrs old down to a one year old.
Which one was in the NICU? Is that recent…or a long time go?
I think you need to restructure your savings and spending to match your current circumstances. You figured out how your oldest two could go to college, and you’ll figure out the rest too. Maybe the 15 year old will get scholarships to, or pick a local school and commute. You need to be honest with him now, tell him that because of the needs of the family, he’ll have to choose college carefully.
There usually isn’t a lot of need based aid unless the student also has the stats to get into a top school.
I think it is a mistake to not let the student take the guaranteed loans - they are not that overwhelming for a young person - it makes no sense to have no retirement money and then pay for a young person who CAN take a loan. And if they do not want to, start at CC or another place where one can live at home – find the merit scholarships and go to those schools
Perhaps one of the older two will live in a city where there are college options for your HS student, when the time comes. What state are you in, and what are state school options? Are there any schools where student can live at home, work, and go to school?
Last night on the news, they were talking about some millennials who are not doing as well as their baby boomer parents. It is a different paradigm out there. One gal and her H had $70,000 in student loans; they had a baby, and she quit her job due to high day care costs - they were living in her parent’s basement to save the 20% for a house - sounds like they were doing the slow school loan pay off. Another worked 30 hours a week making pizzas - had a college degree and student loans to pay off, and she was 27.
Heavy student loans and slow pay off is going to be a weighted chain around a young person’s neck. Have to pay down more quickly because otherwise paying so much interest! They often look at the minimum payments and often choose to do that instead of getting a second job, living frugally, and pay additional principal to get out of the debt much sooner. They throw in the towel, instead of looking for ways to pay off the debt - and more wisely not take out so much debt in the first place. There are free budgeting tools like Dave Ramsey Every Dollar that work with the iPhone ap/tools that young people use.
I know what my two kids’ college education cost, and we are in a friendly college education state - had we not had other funds, they would have needed to live at home and commute to our local university that did have their majors. We would not have allowed them to go into student loan debt with our options. However the other schools (in state, but away) were better for their education in their fields and we had the funds available - they had scholarships (the oldest had about 1/3 paid by scholarship), a stock account (with me as custodian) that for the first paid about 1/3 of the costs, and we had a pre-paid college plan that for the first paid about 1/3. The second has better scholarships and two well paying internships, and will have money left in the stock account at graduation (that is growing with dividend payments and stock gains). They both are in fields where they can make a very good income with their 4 year degree.
How good was the pre-paid college plan - it was very good - paid out more than those funds could have gained since we bought in when they were newborn and 1 year old. Few states have those plans too.
Please let go of the guilt, OP. You need to build some for your retirement/health care/needs under your roof.
Your kids will feel blessed that you have done what you have under the circumstances. Better to be realistic and go forward with what your situation dictates.
Is the 15-year old a good student? How did he do on the PSAT?
What about the idea floated upthread, moving to your state flagship’s town so that your 15-year old could commute (in addition, a college town’s public schools would likely have excellent special education programs).