$300,000 in student debt probably means that someone borrowed medical school or law school costs in addition to undergraduate debt.
Why not sell the rental, if it is just consuming management time, causing financial aid issues, and not making money?
@acbalumnus, I did say that we were thinking of going OOS for a merit scholarship so we can defer big loans until grad school. For now, D is thinking of going to med school, possibly to medical research. If we can manage to rein in her loans, we certainly will do our best.
As for the rental, it’s not creating a monthly income for us, but is building equity for future use, since there is a real possibility of our younger daughter with autism will not be productive in the future.
@kellybee2
I get that you don’t feel ‘rich’ but, any appreciable retirement savings and invested assets will keep you out of ‘need based’ financial aid at most schools no matter what state they are in. Filling out the FAFSA each year, knowing the answer is zero is a frustrating process - I know first hand.
Selling a rental can trigger significant tax liability, even if you aren’t sitting on a large profit. Tread very carefully and talk to an accountant. Perhaps a HELOC would help you spread the the cash expense over a few extra years.
Unless your daughter plans to live at home, you’ll have to pay room and board anywhere she goes. Fortunately, 90%+ of Californians live a commutable distance of a CSU and/or UC. If she commutes, the costs are really manageable.
Take UNR as an example. Reno, is renowned as a low tax, low cost place to live - their dorms/meal plans cost about $10k/yr, roughly in line with Chico, Sonoma, Sac State and curiously Long Beach. UCLA, about as high cost as it gets, charges about $14k for similar housing/meal plan. Tuition, room and board at UCLA is about $28k. That’s almost exactly what you’d pay to attend UNR under WUE; making it a simple choice if you can get into both.
http://www.unr.edu/tuition-and-fees/cost-calculator
https://www.admissions.ucla.edu/prospect/budget.htm
Do the math - how do you get anywhere near $100k in debt without making a series of very poor decisions? A motivated kid can easily earn $3k-$5k per summer and $500/mo during the school year - offsetting the cost significantly.
Nobody accumulates $300k in debt of any kind without seeing and signing lots of paperwork outlining the terms of their obligation - especially here in CA. There was an article in the Sac Bee the other day about this poor gal who had a $300/mo student loan payment yet was only earning $1k/mo working on a farm. How did she think that would turn out?
@NCalRent, thanks for all the useful advice. As for your last comment, I wholeheartedly agree that many college-bound kids do not look at their expected income post-graduation in relation to their debt. Truly as you put it, “a series of very poor decisions,” when kids get bedazzled by possibly getting a name-brand diploma and having that “whole college experience.”
So far, we plan on looking at:
- nearby CSU’s
- UT Dallas. It seems she may qualify for their merit scholarships that would pay full tuition and some living expenses. And it also seems maintaining the aid (GPA 3.0) may be a reasonable endeavor on her part.
- WUE (thanks @Happy2Help)
I have two undergrad “children” and one in grad school. We don’t qualify for any aid but have managed to pay for their expenses through a combination of their 529 plans and short term loans which the kids pay off within the year, and sticking to a tight budget.
One D attends Davis, and helps with her expenses and loans by working summers and having a ten hour per week campus job. She shares a townhouse with 6 roommates which have cut our costs for her rent significantly. She also uses the ISBN number to find used textbooks online and checks with her professors to see if the used texts will work. We’ve rarely had to pay more than $100 per semester for her books, since she also looks through the campus student website to find sellers who are disposing of their books for cash.
DS received some aid at his private school with a combination of outside loans and national merit funding, but it his costs are down to 28k, which he also helps to pay through his summer jobs.
Dd works full time and attends grad school part time (1-2 classes per sem) in order to not get hit with a large tuition bill. She tries to find summer courses that she can pay for with her earnings and lives at home to save money.
It’s not financially easy, but somehow it’s getting paid.
I would also suggest the California privates, as well as WUE and the SUNY schools in NY that offered significant money to my eldest.
Per post #17
I have seen you quote this number before as if it is some huge amount. Actually, given the size of the UC system, it is tiny. Sure, politicians love to make a big thing out of it because $32 million could certainly be useful elsewhere. But lets break that down.
According to a comprehensive UC report, http://legacy-its.ucop.edu/uwnews/stat/ (click on the very first one, Fall 2013) On Page 16 it states that there were 188,290 undergraduates system-wide. 24,304 were OOS. So $32,000,000 divided by 24,304 = $1,316.66 per student. Hardly a windfall that cuts deeply into the $58,000 price tag.
Even 10x that amount, $320,000,000 or $13,166 per OOS student, would leave the UC system with a net gain compared to in state. Just shows how stupid the politicians are, complaining about such a small amount compared to the tens of thousands of $$$ per student, or around $1 billion extra if I did the math right, the OOS payments represent. Now there is a big number.
It’s definitely becoming more and more common for students with the stats to get into top schools to attend lower-ranked private schools for the sake of the scholarships. A friend of my daughter’s is going to University of the Pacific on a full ride.
I agree with those who say that it’s the room and board that can be the biggest chunk. Looking at UCs or Cal States that are in urban areas where it’s easier for students to find off-campus apartments that they can share with fellow students to save money is one possible option.
@kellybee2,
Haven’t read all of the intervening posts.
Chapman u will offer merit aid of $20-25k per yr. and then you might get financial aid as well. Take a look at chapman.
Many posters on cc tout u of Alabama as being (almost?) free for high stat students.
Also check out the fin aid forum on cc.
There are also the CSUs.
Bottom line for CA is that the cost of room and board is what makes the COA so high for th CA colleges. Do yes, the COA does decrease a lot once you go to college outside of CA,
This was an info thread so @kellybee2 it would be better to have your own thread to discuss your personal situation. I did want to add that I have a student who rec’d 10k per year from UCR Regents which would be quite helpful and I think with the new med school and the health careers advising it would be something to look at.
For OOS applicants, please take out a California map (Google map) and LOOK at the locations of our UNIVERSITIES!!!
1). California is an extremely LARGE, geographically-diverse state!
2). It takes a full travel day to go from southern counties to northern counties, unless you fly.
3). Berkeley is NOT in Southern California. It is not sand and surf.
4). UCSD, near the ocean, gets overcast and foggy skies. It does not LOOK like your typical university since the architecture, in places looks like office buildings. The May gray/June gloom effect can last for months.@-)
5). Merced is at the base of the mountains and is in a very agricultural community, hundreds of miles away from the beach. It is in the “middle” of the state with no direct freeway access. It was placed in a small agricultural community. Temperatures can get extremely hot and cold.
6). Davis, in northern Cal, is very agricultural but, over the years, a college town developed around the university. Davis is 20 minutes (in good traffic) west of Sacramento. No Pacific Ocean views! The closest “beaches” are probably in San Francisco or Tahoe, several hours away in average traffic.
7). Santa Barbara is north of LA county and also has an agricultural component. It does not have a “large” airport and is very difficult to fly into. Most people drive the distance from LA, which can take hours on the coast freeway.
8). UCI is in Irvine, Car Country Safari (we natives remember when it was being built, on the site of a animal park called Lion Country Safari- thankfully no dentists shot at lions then). Find a friend with a car, or buy a car in Irvine since there are tons of car dealers there. A car is your friend.
9). UCLA is in Los Angeles, near the community of Westwood. Take public transportation, or a car, to get to see the ocean. No, you don’t walk into movie stars walking around UCLA. My dd went to school in upstate NY and was actually asked if she saw movie stars often. Yes, in the MOVIE Theater. Or, visit our town at Comic Con in mid July.
10). UCSF is in San Francisco. It only takes grad students in health related fields. There is no undergraduate program.
11). UCR is in an inland southern community, the car is your lifeline. Beach access is not easy.
Please look at a map before you apply.
Many of the private schools here are a great value for high stats kids. As noted upthread, Chapman University is very generous with merit aid if you have fairly high GPA/SAT/ACT. Ditto Santa Clara University and many other privates. We made a chart to compare costs of all the schools that admitted our son when making a decision. With merit aid, Chapman and Santa Clara both cost us LESS that UCSB. I recommend kids coming from OOS look at the many, many good private schools here instead of the UCs and CalStates. Other than the impossibly choosy Stanford and USC, there are many good private schools in California that are affordable for kids with high stats.
@“aunt bea” The public transit thing really depends on where you attend college. If you go to San Jose State or San Francisco State, the public transit is decent, though not without problems. I grew up in Silicon Valley, and at 24 I’ve never had a driver’s license, let alone a car. I navigated the region on public transit just fine, and I still do so now that I live in San Francisco. My only real complaint about public transit was low service frequency to certain areas, but I worked around that with a bicycle. Now, San Francisco is a different beast. A lot of public transit problems up here have to do with the high volume of car traffic showing down vehicles, which makes solving them very difficult, but I cross the entire city on public transit to go to work and haven’t run into any insurmountable problems. I hear good things about Santa Cruz, SLO, the parts of LA and San Diego near major public universities, and Berkely, but I haven’t used those systems myself.
Fair disclosure, though. I’m an urban planning major focusing on transportation, and my dream is to work as a planner for a public transit agency. That general enthusiasm for public transit probably gives me a lot of tolerance for problems and a forgiving attitude so far as transit is concerned. Your mileage may vary.
Also, if you are not a resident but you grew up here and want to return, you may be able to get in state tuition. This won’t really help people going to university straight out of high school, but it may help older students. State law says if you attended high school in California for three or more years and got a high school diploma or GED in California, you pay in state tuition and meet the residency requirement for state financial aid, regardless of whether you are a California resident or not. I used that to get in state tuition and financial aid for community college, because I lived outside of California for four years before moving back to my native Silicon Valley for school. I transferred to a CSU after two years, and they classified me as a California resident (my community college classified me as a non-resident exempt from non-resident fees), but I don’t know how that usually works. Might be helpful for older California natives going back to school.
COSTS MATTER!
Look realistically at your list of schools as you apply. California is expensive.
If you are not a California resident, don’t assume you will get a scholarship to attend a public school in California. Grades and stats are nice, but assume no money to attend.
@LongRangePlan.
’ if you have fairly high GPA/SAT/ACT.’
Can you specify /give a range for private colleges at california you mentioned?
The SuperMatch tool will give you a quick rundown of costs. Tuition, housing, etc totals ~$50K to ~$65K.
what do you mean only 4? that’s way expensive. down here it’s about 1.90 (Louisiana)
What are my chance of UCSB, UCI,UCD,UC Santacruz or even UC Riverside for CS or EE major. I have always taken Honors Course, in SR year taking 4 weighted course, AP PHY, AP STAT, Hon-Pre Cal, AP-PSY, So far my UC GPA is 3.8. I have SAT score of 2220. I have active EC of Boy Scout, Debate, Robotics-FTC, Deka. Have PSAT-2015 score 220 SI. I am in CA and is Asian. Does anyone think I have chance in USC, as I stand a good chance to qulaify for NMSF , National Merit Schoraship Semi Finalist for Class of 2017. Thank you all for feedback, this is my first post about myself.
You may want to post this on the chances forum. This thread is meant mainly for people who are OOS.
My daughter’s mom is relocating with the kids to CA this may - will my daughter be considered instate after a year of her mom establishing residency there? Her mom is being posted there for work so it is a legitimate full move not a scheme to establish CA residency. If she gets accepted to and enrolls in a UC what will she have to do to prove that she is a CA resident?
@Khanam as long as her mom satisfies presence and intent for at least 366 days. http://ucop.edu/general-counsel/_files/ed-affairs/uc-residence-policy.pdf pages 14-16. Each student fills out a form http://ucop.edu/residency/process.html