Sophomore year aid disappointment

Paying for College
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<p>What OP needs to understand is at schools that provide need based aid, you have to apply every year (almost starting all over again) because family situations can and do change year over year.</p>

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<p>The outside scholarship was most likely used to reduce the **student’s self help portion of the financial aid package<a href=“any%20student%20loan,%20work-%20study”>/b</a>. If the student’s loans were eliminated from Union’s package, the student can still take out loans to help pay the EFC.</p>

<p>Union states:</p>

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<p>When family applied freshman year, school year 2013-2014 they got the 'benefit" of husband being out of work all of 2012 and as a result having to live off of the 60k they pulled out of their retirement funds. </p>

<p>In 2013, H got a job, which he still has. For school year 2014-2015 from the college’s POV, family has to earmark some of this money to help pay for college because the school now views them to have a better financial situation.</p>

<p>I had a student who had a 0 EFC, got full TAP, Pell at a 100% meet need school. Mom hit the lotto and won $5 million . The next year student became full pay because the family’s financial picture changed when it was time to file for financial aid the next school year.</p>

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<p>I’ve stayed out of this thread, but I have been wondering if I read something wrong. OP, when your husband retires, at whatever age, will you be living essentially entirely on $25,000 in income plus social security, unless you cut into the principal? You say the IRAs are near depletion so I am figuring they are for emergencies which come up, particularly as people age and have illnesses, and can’t do some of the stuff for themselves they used to be able to do. </p>

<p>What I’m saying, is that your husband is 62. If his job remains stable and he remains healthy and works until 75, your 11 year old will be 23 and presumably out of college, but any college loans you take on or cosign for for all of the kids will still be needing to be paid. College costs, given how they have gone up in the last ten years, may go up similarly in the time between now and when your kids finish college. And your income would, if I read it right, be dropping from $95,000 to about $25,000 plus whatever social security the two of you have coming. Are you going to be able to work loan payments into that budget? You will likely have to dip into principal at some time based on your own feeling for how long you will live to need the money, but college costs for three could easily eat up the entire $500,000 annuity principal, if you don’t budget this carefully.</p>

<p>People do save from when their kids are born. I started then, but had some bad years myself, and had to use much of my own savings which I assumed would supplement the ‘college specific’ accounts. Essentially, I budgeted ‘worst case’ for the state universities and am fortunate to have lived in California where we have a lot of great schools. However, living here (staying here in bad economy) was in part because of the good universities, once my kids were in high school. </p>

<p>It sounds like you didn’t really look at the numbers on this, and many unfortunately assume it will be similar to when they were in college. It just isn’t the same ball game, at all. Many think the bubble will burst, that this is where government money went and created an unsustainable bubble, but you and I and most of those here have kids who need to go to college NOW, so that isn’t very helpful.</p>

<p>Good luck.</p>

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<p>Thanks Sybbie, I was confused about the outside scholarship and how it was applied. </p>

<p>D went to a school which met need and we had to reapply every year. I was very clear that if the school became unaffordable we would have to look at transferring. Thankfully that didn’t happen but I must say that I was very nervous every year until that FA package came out. </p>

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<p>The outside scholarship that Op’s D received was a one shot deal.</p>

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<p>collegevetting, thank you for your clear and helpful post. Please understand, my husband was laid off from a book publisher (and we all know the devastation the book publishing business went through) in Jan 2009 and was very seriously underemployed until just last December. We had savings and could have provided college money. The job loss swept away our savings and ate into our retirement IRAs too. It is scary for me to write this, but the girls will have to take out loans for their tuitions because–because of the job loss–we have depleted our savings. We have a comfortable house, a fairly good salary now, good health and wonderful children. But no savings. I am at a loss to understand loans. I need to educate myself about Parent Plus loans which I understand the parent must cosign. But in reality, we will not be able to pay back these loans for the girls. They will have to pay them back themselves. I need to learn if there are loans which we do not have to cosign. This is a tangle, and if you could provide any enlightenment, that would be appreciated.</p>

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<p>pizza girl, I am not trying to be nosy, but to truly understand. My husband works with a woman who earns a modest income and her husband is a contractor who is not exactly thriving. Their daughter will graduate in May from Bucknell and they have a son at St. Lawrence. I just want to understand how middle class families send their children to expensive private schools.</p>

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<p>You will not be able to transfer these loans to your daughters. If they should get a job where they can do Income Based Repayments (IBR), PAYE (Pay as you earn) or take a public interest job where the loans may be discharged after working in public interest and paying loans for 10 years, your loans will not be considered. While you may say that your daughters will be paying these loans, they are not legally required to do so. This will always be your debt, which cannot be discharged through bankruptcy.</p>

<p>You have pretty much stated your case as to why you cannot stay on this path. While we want to give our children everything they want and always want them to be happy, you cannot keep them in the schools that they want to attend.</p>

<p>The most that your daughters will be able to borrow is the direct loan limits:</p>

<p>5500 freshman
6500 sophomore
7500 junior and senior year</p>

<p>If you are denied a PLUS (parent loan) they can borrow an additional 4k as an unsubsidized loan.</p>

<p>If you do not stop the financial bleeding, you probably won’t be able to finance college for D2 & D3. Is that really how you want to live? If you only have to pay out of pocket the cost of SUNY, that is one thing because you will most likely be full pay at Bing/ Stony Brook unless there is a SUNY that they can attend and live a home. If they live at home and can commute to school you are talking ~ 6k for tuition and fees- if you don’t have the $$ their summer jobs and student loans should be able to cover this.</p>

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<p>Bucknell meets 100%need. if the kud gets in the school provides what they see as sufficient aid. For a family of 5with a 95k income Bucknell would expect 7-10k total. Some colleges that meet need also add merit to need ;that’ s called preferential packaging and is more likely if the appkicant has demonstrated interest, is in the top 10% of their applicants aand comes fro 400+mi away. That’s why I suggested st olaf -An excellent college in mn check it out- and,entering your current financials and good numbers for daughter 2 found your total cost after merit and need aid would be 4k per year out of pocket . Union does not promise to meet need. They base aid on a combination of their choosing. Kids who have the stats to get into 100%need schools whose families make less than 100-130k generally hhave very good packages. </p>

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<p>Sorry for the typos . my phone won’t let me correct :-(</p>

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<p>PLUS are direct loans that a PARENT takes. There is no cosigning with the student on these. If you fail to meet the standards of the credit check that is done, then you can try to get someone to cosign with you, but it has to be another person with a credit history, not the student. So you are not cosigning PLUS with the kids. All your responsibility.</p>

<p>The loans that are parent/student cosigned ones are more insidious than the PLUS loans. Again, credit check is needed, and the interest rate will be determined by credit worthiness. The problem with those loans is that BOTH parent and kid are on them. It goes on BOTH credit reports/histories so it can hurt both parties. Some jobs do require credit checks, and buying a house or getting into certain communities and organizations do too. With the co signed loans, when one party can’t or doesn’t pay for any reason, the other is equally dunned on the report if that person doesn’t pay. Usually the terms are not as good as PLUS which is no great deal either PLUS currently charges about 7%, I believe. But if student or parent dies, the loan is forgiven. Not so with the co signed loans. </p>

<p>Really, if you want your kids to have it just a bit easier, would put the loan monkey on their backs. They’ll pay for a long time for 4 years of college. A very long time. </p>

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<p>Sybbie, thank you for your quick and informed reply. I called Union and found out that Parent Plus loans are indeed PARENT not student loans and we are not in a position to take on parent debt. The woman on the phone told me about private student loans like Wells Fargo and Discover but said they also have to be cosigned. Thank you for helping me with this. We live one hr from New Paltz and it is not great but feasible to imagine DDS 1 2 3 driving there. New Paltz has an engineering dept; in fact, the head of the dept is my D2 piano teacher’s husband, a lovely man. While we were talking about colleges one day, he remarked that all his grads get jobs. Based on what you have explained to me, I would settle this scenario immediately. Live at home, drive to New Paltz. I read your post to DH over the phone and he is not happy with me for taking such a stark vision. In fact, he doesn’t like me writing on College Confidential at all. He is not understanding the gravity of this situation, even after I had him read collegevetting’s post. He has promised D2 a second yr at Union and I don’t see how this will be possible and I feel there is no recourse but to make him realize this, and it may not be until AFTER she is home from exams and all moved out of Union that (if I can’t knock some sense into DHs head) we spell out to the family the course their college educations will take. In other words, what I am saying is we may for her mental health’s sake not tell her about no second yr at Union until she is out of that environment, away from her friends and rugby team… Perhaps she can start at New Paltz in Sept, perhaps in Jan. She has friday classes so I don’t know when she will be able to look for a summer job…She has rugby games on Saturdays. But how much can you make at Dunkin Donuts? But I digress… Do continue to write to me with your feedback, it is very helpful.</p>

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<p>cpt, which do you think is better, sleep away at Stony Brook or N Paltz with loans, or commute to New Paltz from home? Of course they would rather live at school…</p>

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<p>Room and board at NP is about $10K for the year on campus. The $10K could be paid for with a student loan and a job. It might also be less expensive to live off campus in an apt. And NP has a real kicky vibe.</p>

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<p>Is your D2 a junior? Did she take the PSAT? What was her score? Her GPA and course rigor is high? There may be many schools she could look at that will give full tuition or even full ride merit awards. It’s a bit more difficult for your D1 as that kind of merit for transfers is harder to come by. But your younger children should have lots of affordable opportunities if they are stellar students and if they target the college search appropriately. I admire you for adapting so quickly to the need for change in plans. And New Palz sounds like a very good solution. But it doesn’t have to be the only one. Hope your H comes around. Summer will be a good time to talk things over with your eldest daughter, I agree. </p>

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<p>If you live out in the country, it may be easier for your kids to find jobs on campus than at home.</p>

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<p>Ct, how much would it cost you for your daughter to live at a SUNY? Is your commute to one of the SUNYs an hour on the Thruway or secondary roads? I wouldn’t consider commuting an hour on county roads in NYS, but the Thruway wouldn’t be a bad commute.</p>

<p>For what it’s worth, my son was accepted to a private college and given $22k in renewable merit aid toward the $50k COA. He’d graduate in 3 years with a CS degree and guaranteed transfer to Columbia’s engineering program if he maintains a B average. We could swing $28k/year if I went back to work part-time (I’m home schooling a younger sibling), my son takes the $5500 Stafford, and we took out $15k/year in PLUS loans for undergrad, but Columbia would be on top of that. However, we’re also a stone’s throw from a SUNY and we could pay for that out of pocket if he commutes. Private college would be nice, but he prefers to not carry any debt, so he’s happily planning to commute to SUNY.</p>

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<p>New Paltz was the first college we visited and I thought it was great! And Stoney Brook was the second school we visited and I thought that was even better! (I thought Binghampton had an ugly campus, but I recognize its stellar reputation. But, really, the campus is ugly). But sadly, with tears, both girls put down SUNYs this weekend. They want the LAC experience. Minds need to be changed.</p>

<p>Erin’s dad, what kind of student loan would you suggest? They all sound pretty bad to me.</p>

<p>D2 is a sophomore. She had a highish PSAT, 71 CR, 65 M, 74 W. She is first in her class (D1 was second.) D2 has 100 and 99 in everything. D1s merit at Union was only $12K. The rest was FA. D1 had like a 103 average when she graduated! RPI gave her some merit, Union and Hobert Wm Sm gave her great FA. But now she doesn’t qualify for FA! We didn’t want to apply to schools far away. To my SHOCK D1 was denied at Bucknell and Lafayette. I wondered if it was because we needed so much aid that year. </p>

<p>Austinmshauri, I don’t know what the SUNY package would cost, I would have to visit their website, but I am guessing $20K. The ride would be all thruway. </p>

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<p>if she went to New paltz next year, tuition and fees would be 7k. If you are in a real financial bind, she could take a direct loan for $6500 leaving you with ~ $500 to pay out of pocket. If you can swing the 10K for room and board you can let her live on campus. If she has friends who are at new paltz she could consider getting an off campus apt with them</p>

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<p>First of all, I am not advocating anything as I don’t know your true situation other than with what you have shared on here. I am not an accountant or a financial consultant, and if I were a sit down would be needed and a look at the whole picture. From your first post, I doubted very much that you would be pulling your DD from Union. Just doesn’t happen that way most of the time in real life. It’s hard to do, and yes, these kids have the demons a-popping out as they make the transition to adulthood. They hang on to the expectations they have gotten from you and your DH. </p>

<p>Monetarily, it’s pretty danged clear to me what is the best way to go But you and your husband need to do a sit down and figure what you have in savings, retirement money coming, your plans for retirement and how you are going to work in college for your kids. To saddle them with huge loans is NOT a good idea at all. Those co signed loans are not a good deal. You are talking many years of servitude to those loans for both your kid and yourself. You may not leave them a whole lot of money or any money when you and your husband die, but don’t leave them loans that they took with you when they were just on the brink of adulthood and didn’t understand what the ramifications of that much debt for that long are.</p>

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<p>cpt, yes, DD understands she has to transfer. DH told her after her sophomore yr, but the more I uncover, as I have written above, the clearer I see it that it has to be before then. But the pitch life has turned us means loans will be part of their future, smaller or larger depending on whether they live on campus. I just talked to someone at Wells Fargo and she told me the only difference between a cosigned Wells Fargo loan and a Parent Plus loan is that the Parent Plus loan is sent directly to the college and the max is 30K (I presume she meant Wells Fargo will give you more.). </p>

<p>Can anyone give me any clearer details about what the difference is between a Parent Plus loan and a Wells Fargo Loan (I presume the interest rate atWF is higher). Why get one and not the other? They both require a cosign.</p>