<p>Stupefly-let me make this easy for you. Ask your parents one more time how much they are willing to put toward your college expenses. Whatever answer you get is what you have to accept. It sounds harsh (and I am not trying to be rude), but at this point I think you are better off accepting reality and putting your efforts into figuring out how to fund the difference. You are a very tenacious and creative kid who will find a way to get what you want.</p>
<p>Actually 5k a month for a mortgage is not outrageous for 250k/year income. It is still only in the 25% range. Most other people with less income have 15 or 30 years mortgage that amount to about 33% of their income. You can call it speculating or exaggeration here, but I am still not convinced that she/her family cannot pay for college be it taking some loans or doing some work study like everyone else does. I help out paying for my parents private health insurance so I know the ball park cost of that. Calling auto and life insurance a big burden with that kind of income is again to me disingenuous. I also find it a little out-of-place that she would know exactly the financial situation of her parents, I have kids and I don’t talk family budget to them down to every pennies I make and spend. We discuss what I can stretch to spend for their college expense and that they probably will have to work and take out some loans to pay for college because we will likely not get much from FA with our income. Most likely we along with them will keep paying for their college expense years beyond graduation. Somehow, I think she will get by better than my and most other kids.</p>
<p>As a parent listen to Kajon…it is important advice</p>
<p>We had a disconnect with out son about finances and he went ahead and applied to the schools he wanted to (and we let him. It was his choice). We weren’t getting FA and scholarship/merit money would determine if he could do any private colleges. He got into the colleges he applied to but had to settle for the ones that were only affordable. We felt bad that is very highest choices weren’t on the list , but he should have listened more closely to what we said and applied to a couple of lower tier schools that had a decent chance of merit/scholaship money. Bottom line? It all works out. He is happy and can transfer if he chooses in a couple of years.</p>
<p>agreed, this op has a beef with her parents not the colleges</p>
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Guess that depends on your definition of “expensive”. $5K/month over 6 years works out to about a $300K mortgage. While not small, this is not what I would call “expensive” either.</p>
<p>The reason I used the word “expensive” is that a mortgage needn’t cost that much each month…they CHOSE to have it cost that much. If they had a normal mortgage (15 or 30 year), they would have the cash flow to pay for college.</p>
<p>oldfort said…>>>College is a business, whether it’s public or private. Sports raise a school’s profile and increase alumni donation. Rutger’s popularity went up, even with instate students, after it started to do better in football. With more applicants, they get better students, acceptance rate goes down, and results in moving up in NSWK ranking. It’s good for the business. .<<<<<</p>
<p>But you didn’t address my point as to why should we as taxpayers support a defacto sports entertainment business at a state school? And, isn’t it really a catch 22 situation? The more scholarship money given to athletes with bad grades in HS will lower the academic profile of the school. It also lowers the profile by way of poor kids with great grades not getting the FA they need to attend because this money was given to the athletic scholarships. Granted, you may have a point about the number of applicants going up because of a good football team but I will speculate that this won’t raise the profile that much. The college might just build more dorm buildings, cafeterias, etc. to increase the enrollment and end up keeping the acceptance rate the same.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids said…>>>>For some sports (especially women’s sports) in state schools, you are subsidizing a “sports business.” But for sports like football, you often are not. Many football programs (and maybe some basketball programs) not only pay for themselves, but they also pay for other sports as well.<<<<<<</p>
<p>But without the scholarships the teams probably would not be very good. So, do they pay for themselves after adding in the cost of a 4 year scholarship for most of the team, 5 year for a redshirt? Maybe so do, some don’t. If they do, then I guess it is an effective leverage move by the school with the scholarship. But as a taxpayer, with a state school, I have a problem with a classroom seat being taken away from our state’s best and brightest and given to a academically less deserving athlete, which might cut down on the amount of future technological innovation and advancement. All in the seemingly pathetic cause of a having winning sports team? Am I wrong?</p>
<p>OP, from other posts it looks like most of the schools you’re interested in a) either don’t give merit aid at all, or give very limited merit aid, and b) are private schools with $50k COA. In other words, these are mostly schools where families with incomes of $180k, or $150k, or even less are paying full freight. If you got into, say, Columbia and Duke, and were turned down by Yale and Princeton, how would your parents react? </p>
<p>Kajon is absolutely correct in stressing how important it is to find out how much your parents are willing to pay towards your college education. Keep in mind that the vast majority of parents go through a period of shock and disbelief on learning how much they’re expected to pay for college. It’s possible that your parents are still in that state of mind. </p>
<p>You might also see if your parents would be willing to refinance to a longer-term mortgage so that they can loan YOU the money.</p>
<p>mom2collegekids said…>>>>For some sports (especially women’s sports) in state schools, you are subsidizing a “sports business.” But for sports like football, you often are not. Many football programs (and maybe some basketball programs) not only pay for themselves, but they also pay for other sports as well.<<<<<<</p>
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<p>Yes, good football teams bring in so much money that the scholarships aren’t costing the taxpayers anything…even the red-shirted 5 year ones. And, so few kids get full athletic scholarships these days, so they really aren’t taking away seats for “deserving kids”. At my kids’ school, the football team pays for itself and for several other sports as well. The football team has an 80% graduation rate and currently has 12 graduates playing on the team. They also had a record number of players who had over a 3.0 GPA last year.</p>
<p>State U’s are constantly having to drop sports programs that aren’t affordable, so they are “cost aware” and not just wasting taxpayer dollars.</p>
<p>And, yes, having a winning team means HUGE bucks for the school - TV contracts, endorsement money, licensed spiritwear, etc. There’s a reason why the top football teams all have NIKE jerseys and their coaches only wear NIKE clothing. The other (usually lower ranked) teams have their sports contracts with other manufacturers, but NIKE seems to snag the best teams…and that means $$$ for the school. Also, when we buy hoodies or whatever that have the school’s logo on them, the school has been paid a licensing fee. And, when you have winning teams, those items sell like hotcakes.</p>
<p>And, yes, having top teams attracts students. There are a number of students who WANT to go to a school that has good teams. My kids LOVE the fact that their college has a long history of having a top ranked football team. It was one of the factors for them choosing the school. The past two years have been a blast for them as their team has remained highly ranked.</p>
<p>I also don’t think you could assume all athletes are stupid either.</p>
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<p>This is very true, especially since so many athletes are only receiving partial scholarships (colleges can “split” athletic scholarships so that more students can receive them). At my kids’ school, many athletes receive a combo scholarship…50% for merit and 50% for athletics, and I know that other schools do this, too.</p>
<p>Last Sunday, I heard the head football coach say that when he recruits athletes he looks for smart players, as well as athleticism. He needs players who can think quickly, re-evaluate a situation, and make necessary adjustments. The stereotypical dumb jock becomes a liability.</p>
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<p>That hypothetical seat wouldn’t be taken from the “best and brightest”, it would be taken from the kid who was on the bubble and just barely made it in. Assuming its taken from anybody. And why do you assume that an athlete is less academically deserving just because they got a scholarship? The vast majority of athletes are just as smart as everybody else. There might be a few dumb jocks who got in because they can shoot a basketball, but there is likely to be just as many dumb normal people who got in because their uncle knew somebody.</p>
<p>“which might cut down on the amount of future technological innovation and advancement.”</p>
<p>Give me a break. So this hypothetical kid, who didn’t make it into State U because of some dumb jock who got a scholarship, doesn’t go to some other college he got into. Instead, be moves into his mother’s basement and wastes his life playing Xbox. Right.</p>
<p>As for your snide “seemingly pathetic” remark- this is a value judgment on your part that most of the world does not share. I’m guessing you’ve never experienced how unifying and morale-boosting and just down-right fun it can be when your school’s teams do well.</p>
<p>I recall many years ago when a close family friend was blessed with a HYPS type admission. She was lucky enough to get that education with 'full financial aid" (need based) and no loans were the policy of the day at those schools (this was before the more recent income & equity caps at many schools) This was an amazing opportunity. The ‘kid’ has been making 6 figures for several years now in finance.</p>
<p>Others from the same graduating class with not much more income, but with more substantial home equity were not as fortunate financially, as home equity was not capped back then.</p>
<p>So, you have student A with ‘middle class’ family making $30-50k and getting what is essentially a nearly full ride (work study) at HYPS and then you have classmates making $30-60k and having more equity, but no such offer.</p>
<p>Nearly a decade later that makes a big difference in the every day lives of those families who took loans or in the student who attended a state school instead.</p>
<p>I can understand the point, in principle, of the OP feeling like they just missed a cut off. Why should that person who meets that cut off be so much more advantaged than me??</p>
<p>We can never get the whole story here and we do hear people’s shock at the reality of the system when they vent here.</p>
<p>The problem is there is simply no way to make a formulaic system fair for every one, somehow some one will do better and some one will do worse under the formula. FAFSA wise is it fair to only count one parent income if they are divorced? But is is fair to give the single parent less asset protection? Some one will always do better than some one else under the rules of the formula.</p>
<p>OP must learn, as all of us have, that the formula is what it is. Can she adjust to it? Can mom take a 100 deferred compl plan and take no income for the next several years? Can they pour income into a SEP? (which might be added back in??) I am not sure. But even if they did some fancy income reduction avoidance technique, what would be the amount for which she is eligible? Doesn’t HYPS formula include home equity? To a max of a percent of income? With a 6 year mortgage they are building equity, even in a down market. </p>
<p>Before too too much more complaining, maybe ask mom & dad to run the online formulas with varying income amounts, but leaving the assets the same. You may be surprised by the answer, the assets may prevent much aid even with reduced income.</p>
<p>I agree with everything “notrichenough” wrote…</p>
<p>wasting his life playing xbox…LOL</p>
<p>uncle knew somebody…so true</p>
<p>morale boosting and just down-right fun…priceless (as a good point, and priceless to the school)</p>
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<p>Using that assumption, I ran the numbers on a bank’s online calculator. OP’s parents can refinance for 30 years at 5.125%, with a monthly payment of $1,633. That will open up $3,167 monthly, or $38K per year to apply to tuition. With the $60K saved, the family should have more than enough to pay for HYP. (They can subsequently go back to paying down the mortgage at $5K per month if they want).</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>That’s what I suggested, including the idea of going back to their $5k a month payments after OP graduates. </p>
<p>So, there you go…the money could easily be had.</p>
<p>notrichenough wrote…>>>>That hypothetical seat wouldn’t be taken from the “best and brightest”, it would be taken from the kid who was on the bubble and just barely made it in. Assuming its taken from anybody. <<<<<<</p>
<p>It has to be taken from somebody. It’s a zero sum game. There are only so many beds in the dorms. </p>
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<p>It’s a reasonable assumption. As you mentioned, the stereotypical dumb jock. In addition, I have seen plenty of admission scattergraphs where there is one admit on the chart that is far away from the main grouping. I guess it could be a tuba player and the college orchestra needed one, but the fair assumption is that it is an athlete with a mean slapshot or pass rush. </p>
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<p>I doubt it. Legacy admits and the like are definitely not as prevalent and easy to come by as in the past. These days, you would have to donate a new $5 million dollar building to get any traction. Many admissions officers now state this. </p>
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<p>No, he goes to the other one, but it wasn’t his dream school, and now he hates it there and is not motivated and just sits around his dorm room playing Xbox and drinking beer instead of going to class. ;)</p>
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<p>You guessed wrong. Went to Univ. of Miami. More football national championships in the last 25 years than anyone else 
But I’d be more proud of any groundbreaking technological breakthroughs founded at the Univ. of Miami</p>
<p>Bay said…>>>>Using that assumption, I ran the numbers on a bank’s online calculator. OP’s parents can refinance for 30 years at 5.125%, with a monthly payment of $1,633. That will open up $3,167 monthly, or $38K per year to apply to tuition. With the $60K saved, the family should have more than enough to pay for HYP. (They can subsequently go back to paying down the mortgage at $5K per month if they want).<<<<<</p>
<p>Not only that but there is the benefit of paying lower taxes because of the increased interest (mortgage tax deduction) they are paying on the longer term mortgage.</p>
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Getting a deduction for something is <em>never</em> better than not incurring the expense in the first place. At least until Congress raises the incremental tax rate to over 100%…</p>