<p>Just a hypothetical question for dadgrad: If #2 child gets into Stanford, or Yale, or top LAC, will you take on another $100K in debt? #3?...#5?</p>
<p>CLdad,</p>
<p>Hopefully it won't come to that (FA formula would get more favorable),
but if it did, yes.</p>
<p>Camelia,</p>
<p>Housing help may not be common throughout the US, but in California, where housing prices are beyond most young people's means, (and most families period), it is common to at least <em>want to</em> help out. Many parents or grandparents do help out or co-sign, since otherwise home ownership is out of reach.</p>
<p>As you know from my prior posts on this thread, we feel the same as dadgrad and have chosen the same path. Dadgrad, now that our kid #2 is also in college at the same time as kid #1, the financial aid package is definitely more favorable. Perhaps it is a cultural thing, I can't say. But in my upbringing and culture, my parents, as well as my hubby's parents, paid for undergraduate and graduate school. They also helped out with a down payment on a home, even though we supported ourselves once we graduated grad school. In turn, we have opted, even with sacrifice and incurring loan debts, to fund our kids' college educations and graduate school (though only one kid plans to go to grad school as she must for her field and the other is in a terminal professional degree program as an undergraduate). It does involve debt on our end. Grandparents will also help with that. It just simply is our way and was never discussed to do it any differently. I would expect my own kids to pass this onto their children in terms of an education anyway. I can't say in terms of help with down payments on a house or not, but if able, it is in the realm of a family "tradition" of sorts. I do expect my kids to support themselves after they get their educations, as we have done so as well. But our parents gave us our start with an education and the help with a house, which wasn't for many years after we went to graduate school, nor until we were married for about 8 years. I give lots of credit to kids who have funded their own educations. The concept of parents paying for college and graduate school just is a given in my family for generations.</p>
<p>soos--Tradition is great if you can afford it. It sounds like you have come from a long line of successful people, who saw the advantages that having a good education can bring and more importantly were financially able to help out. My parents (middle class--two incomes) didn't save a dime for my education so my grandfather had to bail them out by paying for my college. I also had to work and keep my grades up in order to "qualify" for grandpa's scholarship. I kept up my end of the bargain and in return I have remained a faithful granddaughter who looks after grandpa better than anyone else in the family. I am so thankful for his ability to change my future for the better. We would not have qualified for financial aid--but with no money saved it wasn't going to be easy to go to college. Anyhow, I think it is wonderful that you have been able to help out--I wish everyone was so lucky.</p>
<p>camelia--we live in S. California also and with a starter home (900-1200 sq ft.) that needs work, running around $550,000 plus getting "started" is almost impossible. The property taxes alone will kill most any new grad that also has school loans. Buying a new home in this area really depends on the generosity of others--If you have parents who can help out, then you stand a chance. Otherwise you are stuck with rent, running around 2000-2500 a month to rent a small 3 bedroom house. So much for that high paying job you got in Orange County--between gas, rent or mortgage, and a school loan--you have nothing left to eat! Living in a cheaper part of the country would certainly be helpful if you are wanting to buy a home.</p>
<p>I was just checking out more stuff about financial aid and the different opinions and theories. I found a website that had some interesting stuff on money issues--but also was amazing with a bunch of tips on taking the entrance exams. I am actually going to have my son look at the videos for his standard achievement tests--he isn't a big fan of test taking, so I thought his might help him as the advice can be applied to lots of different test taking. Of course using it for SAT ACT testing it would be most applicable. Here is the link to the financial aid section--which contains some other links too. <em>I just had to edit this post---ok look online at a site called </em>******* and click on their Financial Aid topic on the left side--they have some interesting stuff.</p>
<p>Try it again-the site is eprep...sheesh</p>
<p>taxguy, as I'm reading this thread, I find myself agreeing with you, but I keep thinking that people who are going $100K into debt for education can't take out $100K loans to invest in their retirement, so it's not really a fair comparison. I would definitely rather invest $100K in my retirement than in debt, but as it stands right now, I don't have the resources to invest $100K in my retirement. I wouldn't want to go $100K into debt, but it's not like people who are taking on that much debt have $100K sitting around to invest, either. It's really more a choice of taking on massive debt or not taking on massive debt. Although I would definitely think not taking on massive debt will make it easier to have money to invest in retirement after you've graduated, regardless of your income. </p>
<p>I would love it if all the colleges would be more upfront about their costs. We've seen a variety of financial aid letters now, some of which specifically break out tuition from room & board and list every individual fee; some of which give lump together tuition & room & board, and lump together all the fees, and one school which listed a total cost for everything (I called the FA office on that one for a breakdown of costs, and when she broke it down, it came out to a lower cost than the one of the financial aid letter, although it's a moot point because D did not like the school.)</p>
<p>As it stands, we're looking at somewhere between $12K and $14K per year for college, which really scared me when I added it together for 4 years, but as I'm thinking about it more, we'll probably have to take out loans for only half of that amount, since the rest we can fit into our budget (if we use the 10 month payment plan, which we plan to do). So it's getting less scary the more I learn about it. </p>
<p>Thanks for a rewarding thread, taxguy.</p>
<p>I just got into this discussion. I was trying to get some perspective on this and realize it has a lot to do with income. </p>
<p>I recently did the fafsa calculator with some ball park figures and it came up that we could contribute around 22,000 a year and not elgible for whatever the loans are. (I think I need some help in sorting these out too.) There was no way we could come up with that. But I was thinking we could do it with my D having around a 5,000 a year loan (20,000 total). </p>
<p>Could someone explain who is elgible for what kind of loans through fafsa?</p>
<p>This has been such a worthwhile thread -- thank you Taxguy!</p>
<p>We have been encouraging our daughter (still a few years away from applying) to take a long view: i.e., where does graduate or professional school fit into her plans? With the amount of money we can spend on her education, and the high, high cost of medical school (her current goal), she may be better off at a non-dream school and then have something to apply to her life after college, wherever that leads. I don't think you can count on a B.A. being a terminal degree.</p>
<p>Fortunately, for us this is an academic exercise. It must be very hard when your hardworking child falls in love with a school that you can afford only at a big, big stretch.</p>
<p>It's hard to compare things like retirement funding and buying homes to buying an education. I think there's a little part of everyone that hopes that our kids can support us in our old age! I know we joke about that all the time, "hey someday when you are the owner of an big company you can take care of me"--but the reality is probably closer to 90% of the time, no matter how much money the offspring makes NONE of the money comes home to support old mom and dad. In fact I know of people who make plenty of money, but their parents become wards of the state, in order for the government to pay for the aging parent's care. When my dad died unexpectedly, he left my mom with a bills rather than a wad of cash. We ended up selling her small house and moving her to be close to us. Well that meant that we put in about 1/2 of the cost of her home here in S. Cal. There is no way she could afford housing in this part of the country. Knowing that we have put that much money into a house for her, so that she wouldn't have a mortgage payment--I also knew I wouldn't be able to afford to also take care of her, if she were to become ill. So I then got her going on a long term care insurance, so this too would be taken care of.</p>
<p>I think it is very rare that people actually follow through with financial support of their parents. I guess my point is that I think in the battle between investing money in one's retirement vs. investing money in an high end college---probably the retirement should come first. If you can do both--that is awesome! And if you are lucky your kids will be wildly successful, caring, and generous! But I don't think I would count on that.</p>
<p>Well Ivy2B, it looks like you are in fact, one of the 10 percenters you described in your post above! I commend you for helping to support your mother when she was in need.</p>
<p>If you think college is expensive, look at nursing home care! At least the college bills stop (usually) after 4 years.</p>
<p>My father looked into nursing home care for my mother, just in case he could no longer care for her by himself at home. She had diabetes, a bad ticker, slight to moderate dementia--the "good" thing is that she also had arthritis in her hips so wasn't a candidate to take off out of the house. $7K a month!</p>
<p>I know that we kids want to be generous and follow through with financial support for our parents, but who can afford something like that? It makes college bills pale in comparison. </p>
<p>But now back to college bills...</p>
<p>I agree with you on that, Ivy2B. We were fortunate (with help from our own parents) to be able to support every dollar of our kids' education without any loans. But had this not been possible, there is no way I would have compromised my pension. Long before we would have entertained and rejected such a proposition, we'd have used the last piece of home equity the house, but more importantly we'd have limited the kids' options about what school they could attend. At the same time, we knew we wouldn't have to keep a reserve to support our own parents -- and indeed they were in a position to help their grandkids through college.</p>
<p>Well, I will have one daughter going to college at age 59 and the other at 62. The pension and college expenses are very much all in the same ball of wax for me.</p>
<p>Wow, your daughters will be the oldest in their classes at ages 59 and 62 :)</p>
<p>(just kidding - I know what you really meant!)</p>
<p>My 12 year old gave me the message, that as a parent I must listen too. Today he starts his standardized testing in 5th grade. He was upset about it and asked me, "mom what if I don't do good on these tests?" me--"you will be fine, you are really smart and these tests are more to grade how the teacher is doing at teaching you, so just do your best" Him, crying--"mom, I just don't want to disappoint you. I know you want me to go to only a really good college and what if I can't? I don't want to disappoint you. What if I don't do very good on my SAT that gets you into college" Me--"honey you are really smart, or you wouldn't be able to go to the school you go to. Kids who aren't smart wouldn't make it at **** school. Don't worry, you will do just fine. And you don't need to worry about getting into college yet" Him--"But ****school is easy". Me---"It's easy only if you are smart! And you ARE smart and you will not disappoint me if you do your best".</p>
<p>Ok--so I need to back off a bit on the discussion of the "dream" schools. No need to burn him out before he even gets into high school. I feel bad now that he is already stressed about his SAT's!. He was asking me earlier in the day what the difference was between the SAT and his standard achievement tests. I will try harder to be less "dream" oriented and just encourage him to become a well rounded student, who will be a wonderful person as both a kid and adult.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>"you will be fine, you are really smart..."</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Wait, according to another CC thread, we shouldn't be telling our kids they are smart, but should tell them that their hard work has/will pay off..."</p>
<p>Your 12 yr old is in 5th grade? Worry about getting through elementary school first!</p>
<p>Allmusic--I don't think an insult to my child's age is very appropriate, in fact it's downright rude. Not that I owe you any explanation--but here it is. He was socially immature in preschool, so we decided to hold him back a year before he started into school. Obviously you are not aware that many children also have birth dates that put them right on the cusp of school entry cut offs--consequently you will have 5th graders who are 10, 11, and 12 years of age. He is extremely bright and fits in perfectly with his classmates with his social and intellectual skills. And if you have read my other posts, he is in an advanced elementary program that is about 1.5 years ahead of many public school programs and will be heading to a private college preparatory program for high school. I don't have any worries--thank you very much.</p>
<p>Ellemenope--I guess I shouldn't ever reveal personal parent/child conversations--it only opens one up to being critiqued on their parenting skills. I think we all say what comes to mind during those moments when your child is hurting and you want them to have confidence in themselves. I think saying "hard work will pay off" is great--I just happened to tell him he is smart--because he is, I don't think that what I did was wrong. We all do our best.</p>
<p>I am feeling very hurt today...I didn't realize what would result from my post.</p>
<p>Ivy, You are a very wise parent to pick up on this message from your son and to decide to change because of it. Your post is one of the most important in this very important thread. Take care.</p>
<p>Ivy, you are a fine parent. Please don't worry about critical comment from others.</p>