<p>Ctciemmons. things have so escalated in college prices that some very fine merit awards still leave huge gaps to be paid. We so rejoiced when one of ours got a $30K merit award, and it was a sobering fact to swallow that we still would have more than the award amount to pay for him to go there. COAs of these schools are going into the mid $60K range, and as you well know having done a year there, those numbers are not complete. You go to drop kid off, spend a day or night there, take them out for a little shopping and dinner, watch them in a college show or a rugby game, and the talley goes up astronomically. Union’s COA is high from the get go, as are such private LACs, and it’s hard not to spend more. I just sent an Easter basket to my college kid and that was thirty bucks right there after postage and materials. </p>
<p>Ctclemmons: if your daughter insists on Union, can she take a year off? There are administrative rules so that she’s still considered a student so she doesn’t need to reapply, just re-enroll, and during the time between end of classes and Fall 2015, she works full time at any job she finds? Would she be amenable to that?
(Does she know you’ve taken money out of your retirement funds and that you are 30K in credit card debt?)</p>
<p>Because Union is not affordable for Fall 2014. It’s just not possible. Not with 30k in credit card debt and with so much money used from your retirement. Even the 19k you’ve taken out is too much for someon who’s 62 and that wasn’t for college. And it’s very generous of you to be helping your relatives whose son was homeless, but you’ll have to indicate to them your contribution will have to go down. If you worked, even part time, wouldn’t your mother get used to not calling you 3 times before 9 am? Even if you and your daughter work, Union wouldn’t be affordable next year but it’d allow her to save for college and you to reimburse part of that credit card debt without touching retirement funds. Even with all these changes, Union isn’t affordable for your family Fall 2014 AND would jeopardize the entire family’s situation.</p>
<p>Since your second daughter will be in college Fall 2015, your eldest daughter’s EFC will be halved. However, since Union doesn’t meet need, it doesn’t mean your financial aid will be doubled, but you can at least hope they will and have your eldest daughter wait till then if she wants to stay at Union.</p>
<p>For your next daughter who is first in her class: have her look at schools that meet 100% need, in particular St Olaf and Gettysburg since they’re among the easiest in that selective bunch (only 61 schools out of 3,700…!!.) Obviously based on her stats, you know whether she can apply to some of the top schools -the wealthiest schools will often be quite generous to incomes up to 180k. In addition, look into merit aid at many different schools, including Geneseo - check out Clark’s LEEP, for instance, or Centre College’s Brown Fellows or Allegheny’s Trustees. UAlabama has the presidential scholars program, where students get honors college, honors dorm, free tuition for 1400 CR+M/32ACT.
Have her look at these threads:
<a href=“Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Automatic Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;
<a href=“Competitive Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums”>Competitive Full Tuition / Full Ride Scholarships - Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums;
<p>First of all, the OP is already starting to live on withdrawals from retirement money. Already has $30K credit card debt, and the Daughter already has borrowed money. Union uses PROFILE, so they will be highly unlikely to split parental EFC in half when there are two in college. PROFILE schools tend to multiply their own parental calculation by .6. But that is assuming they will even meet their own need figures. The merit award the girl has well come straight away off of any need as well, and the pension withdrawals will be counted as income. So two girls going to full need met generous PROFILE schools is still going to generate an expected parental contribution 120% of what it would be for one student, and the OP has indicated that even for one kid at this kind of private LAC pricing, it is unaffordable. </p>
<p>I don’t see this as an affordable endeavor, but with DD’s puppy dog eyes, and DH’s ego at stake, it’s highly likely the loan route will be the way they will go. I’ve seen this too many times. Hard to say no when this has been a goal for so long, and things have “worked out” one way or the other. THe magnitude of college costs is what makes it such a disaster when one takes out the loans or makes that commitment. It’s 4 years of increasing costs and interest at no bargain rates that can go on for beyond the parent’s expected life spans, and with the cosigned loans, your Student will have to assume them if the parents die. At least with PLUS the obligation then ends. </p>
<p>The other consideration…there will also be JUNIOR year aid disappointment as the family has elected to take $19,000 out of retirement again in 2014, the tax year which will be used for the 2015-2016 academic year. Add that to the dad’s income and you have a good income. And as noted, any merit awards from Union would reduce your financial need. And union doesn’t meet full need anyway. </p>
<p>Plus that year, they will have college costs for TWO kids. And loans for both in all likelihood. </p>
<p>To the OP, this is your decision. But really, just how solvent do you want to be in your retirement years. YOU will be on the hook for the very vast majority of these loans. Your kids can’t take these large loans without you as a cosigner…or you just taking the Parent Plus yourself. </p>
<p>As I asked earlier, if Union had not given you a financial aid consideration for this academic year, what would you have done? Would you be spending money you don’t have to fund this college? </p>
<p>Remember when planning for the rest of this kiddo, as well as her younger sisters…college is a four year financial commitment. Be sure that you can fund ALL FOUR YEARS. </p>
<p>Right now, you are not able to fund one, and pay your living expenses without dipping into retirement savings. Is that correct? If so, this school is not an affordable option.</p>
<p>^
This is my impression too. Can that be summarized thus to the eldest daughter? She may not realize how stark the situation is.</p>
<p>Can you stop dipping into retirement savings? (not rhetorical, true question…) This way your income would go down and… hearing you took so much out and your spouse is 62… would make me very scared without any mention of kids going to college.
Right now, it sounds like you can’t afford to live off your husband’s salary as is. So, either your daughter can take a year off to return to Union (hoping you’ll get a better offer, which is not certain), or she can try and transfer to a SUNY. Bing and SB are excellent, for instance. </p>
<p>I really hope, for your sake but most of all for your other two daughters, that you won’t go the loan route. Because from a concrete point of view, it means your other two daughters would be in trouble so you’d be mortgaging your two younger daughters’ futures to keep your eldest daughter happy for one more year - with no assurance she’d even be able to stay for the 3rd and 4th year.</p>
<p>If your husband’s salary is 75k and you don’t dip into retirement and are 5 living off the salary (even if you get a part time job and earn about $15-20k) the financial aid offer at 100% need colleges for your second daughter should make college doable, <em>only</em> if you can meet your EFC. That credit card debt is going to hang around your neck for instance and no allowance will be made for it by the colleges. Only medical expenses will be taken into account. </p>
<p>For instance, I ran the net price calculator on the St Olaf website*, entering 75K salary, 19k as your salary, 5 person family, 2 kids in college, 0 income for your second daughter, a 234K current value primary home, no secondary home or assets, 4.0GPA, 33ACT, 7APs. The net cost (which certainly includes merit scholarships) for your family before any loan would be $11,000, from which you’d deduct $5,500 in federal loans and you’d receive a $2,300 work study, meaning your out of pocket costs would be under $4,000.
However, your EFC would be reduced for your first daughter (even if it weren’t split in half due to Union being a Profile school) in all likelihood by more than $4,000. So if your second daughter can make a good list after running net price calculators and your firs daughter can wait a year before returning to Union, there may be a way for you to swing it for both of them without sacrificing either of them.
But not this year.</p>
<ul>
<li>as previously mentioned, St Olaf and Gettysburg are the two 100% schools that also offer merit aid and are relatively accessible (especially if you compare to Pomona or Yale… 
but make no mistake: they’re very strong schools.)
Other schools worth it for your second daughter to explore, outside the SUNYs: Centre, Hendrix, UAlabama, plus all the NMF schools (ASU Barrett, etc) if she qualified for NMSF based on her PSAT scores, you should know fairly soon.</li>
</ul>
<p>thank you all for thoughtful and useful replies. As you can imagine this has been an intense and indeed sad weekend at home as Dd is home and we have discussed this at some length and yes with tears.</p>
<p>First of all, let me clarify a few things. dh was unemployed from 2009 till last October. He is in a soft field and did earn with freelance and temp jobs but it was not much.But miraculously at his age and with this market he did , in dec, find something right in our village at$75000. So the retirement distributions are definitely over. But I also want to clarify, and I don’t understand this fully, he had a retirement account–Iras–AND we have a size able annuity. Before the job loss he did squirrel a lot of money away ( I like to think we are not complete idiots) . We have not touched the annuity. Starting in May, dh is talking $19000 a year to supplement the $75k, bringing our income back to $94,000. this will be for tax yr 2014 and I am guessing we will be locked out of financial aid with this salary, does that seem right. I can work it out on the net price calculator. Our money in the annuity which is a lot, the capital I mean, will not be affected by drawing $q19k a yr. this is totally different from those two unfortunate years of retirement Ira distributions . Remember, Union disregarded the first yrs distribution , gave her small loans and she won a $10k local scholarship. We paid nothing out of pocket for her first year. </p>
<p>this is what we discussed last night and I am eager and rather anxious for your feedback. dh suggested, and I can’t push that dd go back to union for her sophomore yr and then transfer to Stoney brook for her jr and sr years. dd is not psychologically prepared to leave union abruptly in June into a no mans land. dd says that he wil recall a $13000 loan from a sister in law. Yes, we will probably have to supplement with loans, but remember, she practically got a free ride at union the first yr. dd is adjusted to transferring to SB. She cried and was very loving and understanding. This just breaks my heart. She was salutatorian and has like a 104 HS average. She loves her family and does no wrong. DH believes we can swing this with our new salary. </p>
<p>We did not discuss a leave of absence or a job for like a yr. We live in the country and the jobs are at supermarkets ( for which I with my two MA s was turned down) .</p>
<p>Daughter number two cried about forgetting about bard, bryn mawr and skid more and ct college, but after a few minutes she was reading about the honors college at new paltz. </p>
<p>I will call union and see if we can’t augment dds merit scholarship. Remember, we won’t actually get the awards letter till mid May or even June,</p>
<p>So my intrepid and thoughtful friends, how does our current scenario sound.?</p>
<p>And to answer your question, thumper, no we wouldn’t have considered union in March 2013when the fA letter came out without the generous financial aid. The cost of attendance is$60k which had no relevance to us with her awards letter. She got the same pkg from Hobart and wm smith, a very nice school, but they didn’t have engineering. We couldn’t foresee that the retirement distribution would be counted as income the second yr but not the first( how could we have known.) and now that dh is reemployed again, it changes our status for financial aid in a completely different way.</p>
<p>If your daughter did not take out Stafford loans for 2013-14, she can still do that, bank the $5500, and use it for fall tuition. I think she has until June 15 to do that. She can also get $6500 for sophomore year, so she’ll have that $11000 to start out 2014 ($3,250 won’t be released to her until Jan).</p>
<p>In 2015 when you have 2 in school, you might get some need based aid with a salary of under $100k. If that’s all the income you have, you should also get a $4000 tax credit on 2014 taxes (AOC). Make sure both children apply for outside scholarships.</p>
<p>The only think I don’t like about your new plan is that your daughter is not working to pay some of her costs. If there are no jobs in your area, she may have to look elsewhere. Working is necessary. She did well in high school, she was rewarded for it with a one-time scholarship, but that’s over. She really has to find a job.</p>
<p>This is your family’s decision. I will caution, however. You are going to face the SAME issues next year…the same ones. Union does not meet full need. With a $90,000 income, all you might see is that merit award and a Direct Loan…even WITH two kids in college.</p>
<p>I speak from experience. DS attended a college that does not met full need. When his little sister entered college while he was still in college, his merit award was increased by $250. That’s it. They don’t meet full need, just like Union. So don’t expect a huge increase in aid once child two enters college.</p>
<p>I’m sorry but if it were me, and I had a kid majoring in engineering, I would want them at the school where they would be completing that degree ASAP. If she is going to transfer, there is no point in waiting to do so.</p>
<p>I personally don’t see any advantage to your daughter staying at Union for an additional year. NONE. All that will happen is that a year from now, she will say “but I am HALFWAY through. I CAN’T leave NOW.” </p>
<p>And your family will be thousands of dollars more in the hole.</p>
<p>P.S. Your college student daughter has a better chance of being hired as summer help at that grocery store than you do with a Masters degree. Also, there are plenty of ways to earn money…babysitting, mowing loans, house sitting, pet sitting. I’m sorry but if she isn’t willing to make a financial contribution, then I would NOT be putting the rest of the family in hock. She needs to get a JOB of some sort.</p>
<p>What does she plan to do for the summer? Sit by a pool?</p>
<p>By the way…I think daughter number two understands this a LOT better than daughter number one. </p>
<p>I hope you don’t think I’m being snarky because that is not my intent. But I do think DD 1 isn’t being sensitive to the WHOLE family. This is all about her.</p>
<p>Oh yes, don’t misunderstand, DD is fully intending to get a job. She is getting help with a resume at the career center. She should find something,anything,this summer…</p>
<p>A suggestion…if she is going to be living at home…which is free, she should be coming home every weekend and applying for ANY and every job in person. If she doesn’t have classes on Friday, she should be there Thursday night ready to pound the pavement on Friday. </p>
<p>My son washed dishes at a restaurant. It wasn’t glamorous, but he earned a good salary and worked 40 hours a week…because he was willing to do ANYTHING…including weeding the restaurant gardens. </p>
<p>This is a very risky road thinking that big loans will solve the problem.</p>
<p>I doubt you could qualify to cosign since your income is modest and you have a lot of credit card debt. and if you are approved for one year, you wont be approved for the next because of the impact from the earlier debt.</p>
<p>Your D may get a $60k job out of college, but she will get hit hard with taxes, and once she’s paying her living expenses, she’s not going to be able to make those big loan payments. </p>
<p>You cant expect her to live at home and work because who knows where her job will be.</p>
<p>I agree with Thumper…D1 is only thinking about herself.</p>
<p>God I wish there were post numbers! </p>
<p>Upstream, you say you also have $30,000 in credit card debt, and are living paycheck to paycheck. </p>
<p>I’m sorry, but this whole scenario says you are living WAY beyond your current means. </p>
<p>You are withdrawing money from retirement accounts to supplement your income. It is highly likely that the FULL amount you are withdrawing will be used to pay for Union College…and then some.</p>
<p>CT,</p>
<p>You have to separate your heart from your head. The reality of your situation is this:</p>
<p>Union gave you a generous need based package year one, because they felt you had some really extenuating circumstances;
your husband had been out of work for 4 years
You withdrew $60k from your retirement to cover your living expenses
these are considered a one time event and were treated as so because:</p>
<p>Your husband started a new job December 2013 making 75k. If you are still withdrawing 19k from your retirement, you will be evaluated based on the sum of the 19k +75k of income.</p>
<p>Yes, your husband can recall the 13k loan he gave to his sister. this does not necessarily mean that you will have the whole 13k to use for college, especially when you are in a situation where every penny counts. Once the 13k hits the bank, it is an asset and it will be treated as on on both the FAFSA the and the profile, meaning that you will have less of a financial need and your EFC will go up meaning that you can now pay more and receive less need based aid.</p>
<p>No one here can tell you how to spend your money or where to send your child. But we can say this; you are conjuring up some magical thinking. Financially your family is in a very precarious situation. There is never going to be a good time for your D to leave Union, especially because she does not want to leave. You and your husband need to stop the financial bleeding; the sooner the better.</p>
<p>Hats off to D # 2 who is learning how to make lemons from lemonade. Her sense of resiliency will take her far in life and she won’t fold like a napkin whenever life throws her a curve ball. It would be grossly unfair to all of your children and will build some resentment to tell D2, that she has to look at options at SUNY, while you are taking on debt for D1 to attend a school that cost 3x as much as SUNY. Remember, each year you are paying for Union, you are paying for at least 2 years at SUNY. So when your D goes back to Union in the fall, you could have paid for sophomore and junior year at Stony Brook or Bing.</p>
<p>She needs to apply for SUNY this weekend. You can give her a caveat, that if you only have to pay 20k or less (which is the cost to attend SUNY), she can stay. if it is more, she will have to transfer. Also let her know that if she sabotages her application in any way and Union is more that 20K, she will be sitting at home.</p>
<p>You need to explain to D1 that this situation will severely impact her younger sisters and the family. Does she want that to happen? Does she care? </p>
<p>The way things are going, by the time the younger ones go to college, you will be drowning in debt, and in co-signed loans, be grossly underfunded for retirement, and the other two girls will have to commute to a local public.</p>
<p>Actually, it does sound like the OP feels confident that the untouched retirement funds will be sufficient for the parents’ retirement.</p>
<p>But the credit card debt isn’t going to miraculously disappear. And they will be adding to that the debt for Union for this coming school year. And likely for the remaining two years as well.</p>
<p>It sounds like the father is planning to withdraw $19,000 annually while these kids are in college. </p>
<p>But from this seat as a back seat quarterback, the info provided sounds like this family is living far beyond their means. They want to fund an expensive private college for one kid. They have huge credit card debt. They are anticipating taking out loans to fund college costs. They have spent down savings which means they don’t have a “rainy day fund” for unanticipated large expenses. </p>
<p>Even $95,000 a year for a family of five with one kiddo at an expensive private university is NOT a huge amount of money. There are income taxes, property taxes, health insurance, FICA, and the like which will be paid FIRST out of these earnings. Will there even BE $40,000 left to pay the cost of attending Union next year? Probably not.</p>
<p>As noted upstream…head should come before heart on this one. </p>
<p>I believe your DH is indeed doing the magical thinking here by contemplating another year at Union. Your D would be even more deeply connected to Union after another year and would find it harder to fit in at a new school as a junior rather than a sophomore, but he is subconsciously thinking that somehow after another year all this unpleasantness will go away. It’s a Scarlett O’Hara I’ll-think-about-that-tomorrow attitude that will do your D no good come spring of 2015 when it’s time to leave Union and she’s in tears again. Since your D will be getting a SUNY degree, pouring money into another year at Union seems unnecessarily indulgent of your D and financially foolish. And if Stonybrook is unappealing (I know it has its negatives), what about another SUNY?</p>
<p>According to the SUNY program search, SUNY Buffalo and Binghamton are accepting (general) engineering transfer applications for fall 2014.</p>
<p>It sounds like a long (and expensive) goodbye to spend another year at Union, just putting off the inevitable. I agree with those saying she should put in her transfer applications today.</p>
<p><<<<
Actually, it does sound like the OP feels confident that the untouched retirement funds will be sufficient for the parents’ retirement.
<<<<<</p>
<p>I must have missed this…where does she indicate that? with 2 more kids to put thru college and $20k per year withdrawals, that sounds like withdrawing another $140k-160k+…after some very large withdrawals already. </p>
<p>Frankly, how much does someone need to have in a 401k-like account in order to provide enough money for retirement? (I know that this isn’t the question, but I’m just curious. )</p>
<br>
<br>
<p>It sounds like the father is planning to withdraw $19,000 annually while these kids are in college.
<<<<<<</p>
<p>This is very true. The interest on credit card debt is strangling. If they are just making minimal payments, then they really aren’t making headway…they’re just burning interest. And if I were to guess, I’d guess that much of that debt has been accumulated even while they were making very large retirement withdrawals.</p>