"Sticker shock" - how to reconcile >$70K/year expense at Duke

@EDRacketShock You said that your son is aware that you do have the assets to pay for Duke, or at least he thinks you do? Is he really aware of the sacrifices you’d have to make, which include your younger child?

My s20 has worked in light construction for the last few summers. Most of those around him are earning their living, making about the same wage. Hence, he has a VERY keen sense of how hard it is for someone to earn $70k.

Not to poke an angry bear, here, but our kid made the opposite decision, and we were sad and pushed him to consider the $70k option. He would not. But he is an unusual 17 year old and a little dorky. He convinced himself quite completely that no loans=good. And no guilt over parents spending $70k=really good. Maybe if he has a fuller sense of what this would mean for the family, he would think differently? Just throwing that out there. Risky, as he might be like my other two kids would have been (still want to go to Duke). I feel for you. We dodged that bullet completely.

Congrats to your kid for getting accepted at Duke.

Your statement above doesn’t just apply to Duke. This is the downside of ED. The net calculator are just for references. One should be considering worse case scenario when it comes to ED. Don’t do ED unless your kid plan to go regardless of the cost if accepted. Otherwise, it is a wasted opportunities for other school.

I really feel for you but that is the main reason why my kid did not do any ED. He decided that paying sticker price to any university is a last resort.

Did your kid apply for the Robertson Scholars? If so, maybe there is hope. You never know.

I think you should contact Duke but I wouldn’t expect much.

Then, you should figure out where the extra money could come from and how it affects retirement and your younger child’s college options. Get to the black and white of it. If it means no vacations and working two more years, is that a reasonable sacrifice? Once you come up with a place as to where the money is coming from, you’ll have to decide if it is “worth it”.

I feel for you. Hindsight is 20/20 and, at the very least, you should have told your child that you ran the NPC and it shot out a number you were comfortable with. And then you could have made it clear that the estimate has to be right on in order for him to attend. It’s too late for that. It will be very hard to go back now. We allowed our S to apply to full price schools when we were about 90 percent there with being ok with it. When it came to biting the bullet in late April, it was a difficult time around here. S had four other options that were less expensive - two of them were $100k less expensive for the four years. At that point, though, we had gone too far. S had a favorite school, and we eventually decided he could go. But I get it. It’s hard.

Could you have your child take the federal loan? It’s not much. I think it’s $27k max over the four years but at least he’d understand more that this is a sacrifice.

Duke’s financial aid formula, though not the most generous , is one of the best. Hard to do better than that. So though this is a terrible shock, it gives you early warning on what’s ahead.

If Duke comes up with a $70k price tag, it’s highly unlikely OP is going to be seeing much less unless student gets generous merit money or schools have lower COAs.

So whatever is sitting on standby in case Duke did not pan out , needs to be re-evaluated in light of this financial aid situation.

IMO, it’s not a waster of time to apply ED. You get a real life look at how a school actually evaluates your ability to pay. Though not much time with 12/31 deadline schools, this is better than being left a hand of unaffordable schools in the spring when you can’t do anything else.

Have you broached the affordability issue with your son at all since his ED acceptance? Does he know you are having second thoughts? Sounds like from the initial post, likely not.

Not to beat a dead horse, but time is limited and reaching FA people at Duke during a holiday week might be a challenge.

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I think you need to call Duke ASAP but I also agree that you should not expect much. I think it’s time to have a chat with your son…and that chat will be difficult for sure.

I would also go through your expenses and see if you could reduce some of them without jeopardizing your retirement. Vacations? Dinners out? Etc…

Lastly, if you do send your son to Duke, be prepared to do the same for your younger child if he/she wants the same.

I am sorry that you are dealing with this…I feel for you too. Remember there are plenty of schools out there that would love to have your son.

How much do you think you can afford? $38k? $48k? If so, then you need to figure out how to get from $48k to $70. Your son can take the loans for $5500. He can work and earn $5k (yes that’s a lot but even my daughter who was making $11/hr plus tips made that much in 3 months this summer, and if he wants to go to Duke that’s what it will take on his part). If he wants Duke, that will mean no extras for him - no fraternity, no spring break vacations, no family vacations. No coming home during the semester.

If you can make up that $20k per year, is it worth it? Only you can decide. For our family, it wasn’t even possible so we didn’t have to decide on whether it was 'worth it. Education is always worth it if you can afford it, but really there are plenty of schools that are cheaper and provide the same opportunities and quality education.

One thing I told my kids was that they can apply to any school that they like. But we will only send them to schools we can afford. They both have 529 plans but not for the full amount of 4 years. , we opened up our financial books and they had a good clue of what to expect. We actually had a very detailed spreadsheet with lots of financial information. My kids getting rejected by some schools was actually a blessing. Didn’t have to deal with those over priced schools BUT my daughter auditioned (with her portfolio) and was accepted to Emerson in Boston to a program that very few kids get accepted in and fewer get merit. She got very little and it broke our hearts that we couldn’t send her there. Her number 2 school gave her merit that made it affordable for us since we had kid number 2 coming up soon. It ended turning out good since she would of been locked into this program and she evidently transfered to another Lac college. Changed her major and got $30,000 in merit which makes this school a bargain.

You can only decide if you can afford it. But it is ridiculous to me that some parents go so far into debt that they are still paying off their kids loans in retirement while their kids are living Scott free.

Please read this article and look at the bold statement on top. Show this article to your child today!

https://www.marketwatch.com/story/college-loans-are-making-it-harder-for-parents-to-retire-2017-02-27

The OP wrote:

Folks, the federally funded $5500 student loan is already part of the financial aid package. The kid already has that…and the balance is still nearly $70,000 a year.

The family needs to decide if $70,000 plus a year in college loans (including the federally funded student loan) is worth spending on any college. And they have to decide if they are willing to fund that amount for four years.

And they have to wonder what will happen when kid 2 wants to do the same.

Not worth it! Your child can attend and thrive at plenty of other schools that you can AFFORD with the money you have budgeted all these years. Sure, it’s a tough conversation to have but you are the one who’s paying. A school doesn’t define who your child is/will be.

Only you can decide if it’s worth it. Sometimes the right school is worth it if you can afford it without creating problems for your retirement. Some families stop saving for retirement during the college years, plan to work a few extra years, refinance the mortgage, etc., to fund college. There’s nothing inherently wrong with some combination of those options if they don’t adversely affect your retirement plans. Depending on your investments, it’s possible your retirement funds have grown more than you expected the last few years, so you might be ahead of where you want to be there anyway. Do keep in mind that older workers don’t always get to choose when to retire though.

One thing I thought might be worth mentioning: If a student attends a less expensive university, sometimes this can open up other options.

For example, some students take a semester abroad. Even if there is no additional cost for tuition, there still can be costs for flights, a visa, clothes, or for a short vacation while abroad.

As another example: What if a student gets a great internship or coop opportunity, but it requires a car? If you are not already stretched to your limit, this may be easier to afford.

I think there is probably a lot of value contacting Duke and asking them to help you understand how your projected costs via their NPC were so completely different than the financial aid numbers you received with acceptance.

If nothing else, it will help you to explain to your son how this big change occurred and might help open that conversation with him.

This is just so hard and I hope you figure out the best course of action for you and your son.

Thank you all very much for your comments.

I’ll be contacting Duke FA office soon even though almost everyone I’ve talked to informs me not to expect any change.

But yes, I had used incomplete data during my NPC calculations which were done early in the college decision process. I had missed out on catch-up contributions to retirement and an investment, both made feasible by some extra work involving a lot of hours that I could take on the side during 2017 and early 2018. These ended up being the added parental contribution. I didn’t realize my oversight until I started working on CSS Profile in detail mid-Nov which was well after the ED application was submitted.

In a sense though, my slip-up was a blessing in disguise. The lower estimate of the family contribution helped us pursue the ED option to Duke. Considering how some of these schools stack the “deck” in favor of ED these days, few can take the chance with the regular admission cycle - especially with their “dream schools” - when the fewer remaining seats have a lot more applicants.

Another positive aspect here is Duke’s Pratt school. A degree in STEM from there (which is the education goal at the moment) appears well-regarded. Time will tell how the “ROI” turns out for the child.

So my struggle remains with the “price tag”, it does not appear fair at all to me as a parent. Duke essentially wants to admit students with perfect academic and extracurricular records. Parental contributions play no small role toward achieving such a record: countless hours and $$s of parental guidance and assistance right from early childhood toward advanced reading, math, music, science, tech, sports, and also independent thinking have already been invested in the child. Duke then effectively receives a college-educated student on whom they get to confer a college degree; >$305K seems too much for such an exercise on their part. But as a parent, I’ve no choice really other than to pay up.

P.S.> This is my first post on this forum; any other similar threads are unrelated.

I know when I applied for grad school and law school that the brand of the undergraduate university meant something (they even had me photographed with the dean wearing a shirt from my undergrad school). But I don’t think that is the case anymore. Hiring companies mainly care about your most recent employer or school. So a $300k Duke undergrade degree is actually worth less than a school where your grades will get you into the best grad school or the location will get you the internship with an industry leader.

Your preaching to the choir but you have a choice and pick a school that is more affordable for your family. To say you don’t have any other choice is silly. Either you can or can’t afford it.

The cost/value proposition at the top privates for full pay students has changed drastically from the mid 70’s when I started school.

Full pay at IVY’s, room and board included was under $8k/year or about $32K total at that time. A $32k starting salary wasn’t out of the question for the more lucrative majors/fields coming out of school, making for a pretty quick ROI.

Get a $300K starting salary these days? Not so much.

As you can see, a student who has parents who will not or cannot pay for college, but whose parents are determined by financial aid formula to be able to pay, are in the difficult position of not being able to go to colleges that proport to meeting full need. The student’s need is determined by parents’ financial status, . So a kid accepted to a school like Duke whose parents are deemed able to pay $x but won’t for whatever reason, is highly unlikely to attend as most kids are dependent on parents paying for college.

From an earlier post in this thread: “Is he really aware of the sacrifices you’d have to make, which include your younger child?”

Please don’t sacrifice your younger child. That didn’t work out well in Game of Thrones and it won’t work here either.

Op, FA is recalculated every year, so if this was a one time boost in income that won’t be reflected in 2019 and later, it’s quite possible you’ll receive more aid in the final three years. It’ll depend on income each year.