Duke is not worth 305K when you are not financially flush.
There are other, more affordable paths to a college education and a great future. It’s time to have an honest heart to heart with your son. Not only do you have to take care of your own future but you have another child’s future to consider.
It’s just Duke…just one more school. There are many wonderful schools within your savings range.
^ Yes. Now.
@EDRacketShock , only you can ultimately decide if the expense is something you can live with. It sounds like you can “afford” to pay but the expense would dramatically affect your life choices in other areas.
Personally, if I had your situation, I’d tell my kid to apply elsewhere. If he got accepted into Duke, he will get accepted into many other great universities. And some will offer enough merit aid to make your costs even less than what you already have saved. Tell him that he can go to one of those schools, save some of the money already saved for college, then use that money for grad school.
As parents, we all have to say “no” sometimes. That does not make you a bad parent.
Will your younger child overlap the college years with your Duke-bound child? That will also increase your FA.
It would be very hard to turn down the Duke offer at this moment, so I would just bite the bullet and have your older child start working part time now. Good luck and congratulations.
Ugh. When is drop dead date to accept ED? You’ve gotten lots of good advice. Definitely go back and ask for “more, please” but don’t expect much. Has your son applied anywhere else?
If you decide to go ahead and honor the ED, you need to have a frank discussion with your son re: expenses. Could he apply to be a RA for sophomore, junior, and senior year? That would cut living expenses - but also potentially limit options such as joining a frat or study abroad. He could get a part-time job 10 - 15 hours a week, but as a STEM major you don’t want to jeopardize grades. There are lots of “top kids” who once they get to “top colleges” in pursuit of an engineering or STEM degree get weeded out.
Will your income be substantially different (i.e. lower) next year or the year after? Sounds like the second child is much younger, so no overlapping even for a year? There are plenty of wrenches life can (and will) throw at you. Health, market correction, etc. - you’ve got to allow for “surprises,” too.
There were a couple of threads not too long ago about students who accepted the too-big-of-a-price tag school, only to discover a year or two in that they couldn’t afford to pay the balance. One was a girl at Rochester who ended up transferring when aid was altered in year two. Another was a boy at Amherst who didn’t realize FA would change once he no longer had a sibling in college - I don’t seem to recall the OP ever posting an update on that one. There are plenty of folks out there facing similar decisions. Only you and your son can make yours.
Well…you know your 2019 income now…and probably can do a good estimate of your assets. My suggestion…run the net price calculator for Duke using those accurate numbers. In your case, I would err on the side of higher for the assets. See what the NPC says the net cost will be with that income and assets. All the income from 2019, and assets.
While the net price calculators are now set for kids starting fall 2020, this might give you a rough guess…a very rough guess of what your net costs would be NEXT academic year (2021-2022). But do keep in mind that financial aid awarding policies do change from year to year so this is just an estimate. Also keep in mind that if your income increases in 2020, your kid’s aid will decrease.
I can’t see that it’s worth it when there are so many more affordable options, just having to pay 8K/year for the meal plan there would make me ill. How does it cost more than double to feed a kid at Duke than at pretty much any state school?
If I understand correctly, you thought that Duke would cost approximately $40,000 a year (possibly up to $48,000 a year) which you were prepared to pay. You just learned that Duke will cost you close to $70,000 a year, which is an increase of at least $22,000 a year…or $88,000 over 4 years (probably more).
If you can save $2000 a month from your current income…and still put money away for retirement, emergencies that come up etc…and still save for your younger child’s college (which might be a similar school if he gets accepted and wants to go) then go ahead and send your son to Duke. If not, then don’t.
I would not take out large parent loans. What if you can’t pay them back? What if you stop qualifying? I don’t know about you, but when I inch closer to retirement I don’t want $200,000 in loans to pay back for college for 2 kids. That would make me nervous.
I know plenty of kids who graduated from lower ranked schools with engineering degrees. They are all employed. You do know that graduates of NC State work with Duke grads, yes?
As I said earlier, I am sorry that you are in this position. Hopefully Duke will offer you more money, but if not…it’s time to sit down with your son and show him the numbers. I wish you well.
Unless you could pay the sticker price or something close to it, you should not have signed the ED agreement. You traded the boost in ED admissions for not being able to compare financial offers. Private schools like Duke rely heavily on the CSS and consider things like home equity etc. They expect you to liquidate any savings. take a loan against your house, sell your investments, put off saving for retirement, etc to send the kid to their fine school. Either you tell Duke your son can’t attend for financial reasons, or you suck it up, take out loans, put off retirement contributions, etc. State schools will be less expensive. Hopefully he has applied to a few of them. Other selective privates will likely look at the CSS about the same way Duke does.
@twogirls. Exactly… NC has so many great schools and NC State is one of them. If it’s for engineering then just pick a school the OP has on his list that is affordable. Once his kid gets a job he will see he is working side by side from schools with big names and schools that no one ever heard of. Think of it like an offensive or defensive line in football. Some of those players are from great programs with a national names and some of those players are from programs you never heard of but talent is talent and they are all playing together now. That pretty much is stem… ?
What kind of STEM? if it’s engineering, your child can get a first class education at a state school that are higher ranked than Duke in engineering for tens of thousands less.
IMO unless your kid is going into IB or politics, it’s definitely not worth a $70k/yr price tag.
My concern for this student is are there other EA applications already submitted or will he have to start from scratch? Some of the top state schools for STEM fill the majority of their classes EA and those deadlines have long passed.
I’m not sure I understand why this is the case. If you can’t afford to spend $70,000 next year for college…then this is a subject well worth discussing with this student.
That’s about $6000 a month…do you have an extra $6000 per month to dedicate to paying for college?
My husband is a VP at an engineering firm and does quite a bit of interviewing and hiring. He only interviews folks who are grads of ABET accredited programs due to the nature of his firm’s work. He doesn’t care at all which college…and there is no pay increase for graduating from an expensive private university at all…or preference given in hiring. Mostly he he looking for newly minted grads who want to learn…because a lot of what individual engineering jobs require is the ability to learn on the job. In other words…a degree from Duke is no better than a degree from no name accredited ABET engineering college. My husband graduated from a basically no name school with an excellent engineering program, and no debt. He has done extremely well professionally over his career. And no debt was certainly a gift to this family when it came time to do things like buy our first home.
@Knowsstuff I must have missed something…but is this student from NC? Do we even know his state of residence? But point well taken that the OP could pick from any number of public colleges in his state (assuming they have ABET accredited programs) and do just fine.
When applying ED, most places do allow students to apply to their instate public universities. Did this student do that?
I’m speaking from the seat of a parent who did pay just about full price for two kids to attend expensive private universities…and not ones that met financial need either. One got a decent merit aid award, and the other a teeny merit aid award. The difference was…we did not have financial constraints. Two professional working parents. My entire salary…every single cent…was dedicated to paying undergrad college costs for seven years (one year overall with two in college…oh that was a fun year). That was our “plan” for financing college and it worked for us.
If Duke is $20,000 more costly, perhaps one or both parents and the student can get part time jobs to make up the difference. Of course, this added income will affect the awarding of need based aid in the future.
At our high school’s NHS ceremony last year students talked about their majors and what schools they were going to attend. Some were accepted to BU and Duke and other selective schools.
But they are not attending there now. The financial reality has hit and they figured out that they can get the same degree in a local instate public much less costly.
This is a 2 parent family, right? Is mom bringing in income, if not, could she add a job?
The best student jobs are work study, a higher rate than local hourly salary and built-in flexibility on hours, to begin with. Then when school papers or exams come up. The question is does he qualify for that. And/or is there a cap.
If you’re full pay now, the chance of 20-30 more in need-based is slim. Unless there’s some strong additional consideration.
We don’t know OP’s numbers. But do check scrupulously for errors. Eg, you added back in untaxed and assets, but in the right boxes? You don’t want excludable $ to inadvertently end up in boxes for “tappable” $. Eg, qualified retirement plans/QRP are not considered. They’re protected. Our fin advisors know their end and IRS, but not how FA works.
You could tell you son something is off with the FA. It might be a gentle heads up, before the blow of “sorry, we can’t pay.”
Without OP’s numbers, we can’t give any off the cuff reaction re: that’s too high vs that makes sense.
While your son’s Duke acceptance is certainly something to celebrate, I do not believe that a Duke STEM degree will be worth more in the long-run than a STEM degree from an ABET accredited school. If the Duke STEM degree requires you to take financial risks that make you uncomfortable I see no reason why you should not tell your son that unfortunately Duke is just no longer affordable. Yes, at one time you thought it was affordable which is why you supported his application, but a mistake was made and it is clear that the affordability equation has changed significantly.
What do you or he think will be different about his post-graduation life with a Duke STEM degree compared to a STEM degree from another reputable school that is worth spending $120k more than you had planned?
PS. My daughter was admitted to Lehigh off the wait list after accepting an offer to the University of Maryland Honors College. The Lehigh education would have cost $140k more than Maryland over 4 years. We have the savings to pay for that without either us or our daughter taking out any loans. I still said no. I just didn’t feel that her life after graduation with a Lehigh degree was going to be materially different than with a Maryland Honors College degree.
Even though we discussed this with our daughter before hand she was still upset as she perceived Lehigh to be a better school. But she’s very very happy now, is doing great academically and has already had some interesting opportunities to distinguish herself. I’m sure your son can be happy and successful at a school that is more affordable.
Why do you have no choice but to “pay up”? This doesn’t make sense. You have a choice to put your whole family first before your son’s very expensive educational option. What happens if, heaven forbid, illness hits your family? What about your other kid/kids? What about retirement? What about an unexpected home repair issue: a new roof can cost 10s of thousands. What about vacations that benefit the entire family? Does everyone else lose out on life’s little luxuries so your son can attend a very expensive school?
What about the important lesson your child is missing: that sometimes, despite best intentions, things don’t work out as you hoped. That’s life. Every parent has had to break a promise to a child, and it’s almost always for a totally justifiable reason. If your son isn’t aware that his education is going to be a burden to the rest of the family, that’s something he needs to know. Maybe if you explain, he will realize he can pursue more affordable options.
Your money is yours to do with as you wish, but you asked a question. The near-universal answer is no, Duke is not worth it. Your son obviously has great credentials and can get into more affordable schools.
Apply to Georgia Tech, Cal and Perdue ASAP. Their programs are actually super valued in his field. Even full pay at all of these would be a savings.
Just as a plan b for you.
Purdue’s EA deadline is long past which is not only the deadline for honors admission but also for merit money. They also fill the majority of the class in EA.
Not sure about how GT and Cal do it.
@Private Banker, if you are referring to Berkeley as “Cal”, the application period ended on Nov. 30th.
I don’t think this is about if Duke is “worth it”. I think it’s more about the OP having to tell his son that he now cannot go to the school he’d ED and got into. Sounds like there was no financial talk at all before the application was sent in. And the son has no idea any of this is going on. So, for him, he was told to go for it, picked a school to ED to and got in! Yea! All set…
And now Dad has to face admitting that he has a budget and never brought it up. The son is going to be stunned. That’s why I feel for the OP. Can we all imagine what this would be like? I get that parents need to be parents but it would be very hard to have this conversation. Not too late but pretty darn late.
@EDRacketShock what would you have done if the NPC had been filled out correctly and generated a parent contribution number of $70k annually before the ED app was submitted? Would you still have supported your son applying ED? If the answer is no, then I think you should seriously consider explaining this situation to your son and having him turn down his acceptance for affordability reasons. You have a window of time to course correct.