<p>You really need to wrap your brain around the fact that things have changed (dramatically!) since you went to school. Your daughter probably has many more options than you did - even if she’s only a “B” student.</p>
<p>It appears that what you’ve done is (1) picked a college, and now you’ve moved on to (2) trying to figure out how to pay for it. That’s the wrong methodology. What you need to do is this:</p>
<p>(1) figure out how much you can afford to pay
(2) find colleges your daughter can attend for that price - using either financial aid (if you qualify) or merit aid (if she qualifies) to make up the difference.</p>
<p>There are some schools (mostly state universities) that offer automatic merit grants to students with certain GPA & SAT/ACT scores. If your daughter does well on the SAT or ACT, this could be an option for her. (You can do a search on this forum for thread titles that contain the word “automatic.”)</p>
<p>There are many, many other schools that offer competitive merit awards. What you need to do is search for schools where your daughter’s GPA & test score put her in the very top percentile of the school’s applicant pool - making her potentially grant eligible at that school. Don’t bother with schools where she’s just “middle of the pack” - there’s no reason for those schools to pay her to attend. Find the schools where she would be an exceptional candidate - those are the ones where she’s got a good shot at merit aid. These are most often going to be private schools, from small liberal arts colleges to larger universities. Don’t disregard the women’s colleges - there are dozens, and one of them might be just right for her.</p>
<p>And, just a reminder, even though you may know what school you want your daughter to attend, this should be her decision, not yours . . . so you should both be doing this research. Just be very clear, up front, regarding what you’re able to pay, so she knows what to look for when she’s searching.</p>
<p>You know that even if she does enroll at Penn State, nowadays, many (most?) people are accepted at satellite campuses first and then transfer to the main campus. There are lots of excellent schools that would be delighted to have your daughter. Cast a wide net and see what you catch. You might be very surprised at how things have changed and how many amazing options are out there. The bottom line is that your daughter gets her degree at a cost you can live with. Her mother is irrelevant. Start doing the research and when the time comes, you will have a really good outcome. If you continue to beat your chest, you won’t have done the legwork to have a good outcome and will then have guilt on top of everything else. Go out in the woods and scream, stomp and tear at your hair if you need to. Then come back and roll up your sleeves. It’s ok to be angry and frustrated. We all go through that in the college process for one reason or another. What’s not ok is to quit before you get started or to limit your options. You said you don’t want your daughter limited. Fine. But as was pointed out to you, Penn State is very, very expensive now and might not be the right choice for your family now as it was for you.</p>
<p>The only thing I wanted to add to Sween’s dilemma: </p>
<p>The FAFSA doesn’t determine who pays anything. All it does is determine eligibility for certain financial aid. That’s it.</p>
<p>Pick a variety of schools to apply to. If Penn State is your child’s dream school, add that to the list. Add some affordable choices. Then, once you actually have offers of admission and financial aid award letters, you and your child’s mother can sit down with said child and decide which school is the right choice how the three of you are going to pay for it. </p>
<p>ALL your daughter’s choices need to be affordable! If she has no chance of getting need-based aid, and the school doesn’t offer merit aid, and you can’t afford the cost of attendance, then there’s no point in applying, no matter how much either of you loves the school!</p>
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<p>I’ll repeat what I (and others) have said above: this is a decision that needs to be made first, before your daughter applies anywhere. Decide what you can afford, and then put together the list of schools. Trying to do it the other way 'round can lead to some bitter disappointments come April.</p>
<p>I have done this five times. You don’t know what is “affordable” until you have the actual financial aid letters in your hand… For all of my kids the initially more expensive schools sometimes netted lower bottom lines than my state choices.</p>
<p>I think what Dodgersmom means is that all schools should be possibly affordable and maybe not waste time on schools that very, very likely will not be affordable because there won’t be merit offers and/or the family income is too high and the EFC is beyond what is affordable.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s ok to apply to a couple of these schools “just to see”, but since the app process is time-consuming and expensive, devoting too much to “impossible schools” will later be seen as a big fat frustrating waste. </p>
<p>In this case, the man’s wife is a doctor and he earns nearly as much as she does. It would not be outrageous to speculate that the family income is about $200k or more. They’ve determined that they can’t pay what their EFC would expect (likely full price), and the student doesn’t have the stats for the super-aid schools like HYPS…and even at those schools, aid might be unlikely. </p>
<p>Efforts should be placed on getting the best test scores possible. Hey, the dad could make some kind of agreement with the D…if she practices and gets test scores needed for lots of merit, he’ll help her get a car. Also, a “B student” needs to manage her GPA so that she’s got some A’s in there as well to have a GPA that pairs with the test scores for merit.</p>
<p>I think what Dodgersmom means is that all schools should be possibly affordable and maybe not waste time on schools that very, very likely will not be affordable because there won’t be merit offers and/or the family income is too high and the EFC is beyond what is affordable.</p>
<p>Maybe it’s ok to apply to a couple of these schools “just to see”, but since the app process is time-consuming and expensive, devoting too much to “impossible schools” will later be seen as a big fat frustrating waste. </p>
<p>In this case, the man’s wife is a doctor and he earns nearly as much as she does. It would not be outrageous to speculate that the family income is about $200k or more. They’ve determined that they can’t pay what their EFC would expect (likely full price), and the student doesn’t have the stats for the super-aid schools like HYPS…and even at those schools, aid might be unlikely. </p>
<p>Efforts should be placed on getting the best test scores possible. Hey, the dad could make some kind of agreement with the D…if she practices and gets test scores needed for lots of merit, he’ll help her get a car. Also, a “B student” needs to manage her GPA so that she’s got some A’s in there as well to have a GPA that pairs with the test scores for merit.</p>
<p>As a step mother - I paid for college for my 2 children now 27 & 31.
I don’t feel I owe my husbands son any financial support for college.
The Bio-mother did everything she could to bad mouth me and my children and drive a wedge between me and her son and she won. He was never allowed to hold my hand, hug me and she became a raving lunatic when I showed up for any of the sports or school events. Now she wants my income tax returns? OK… here you go … I made 150k last year - your ex husband made $28k… you want money for college? Talk to him…he wasn’t writing any checks to pay my children’s tuition and I still am paying their student loans.
I didn’t marry “the child” I should not be expected to assume responsibility for a child who is not mine. As far as I am concerned - he can put himself through school - just like I did…</p>