Swallows to Capistrano ( Financial Aid Myths and Realities )

Parent Cafe
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<p>jmmom: I agree with your sentiment with this caveat. Both of my kids identified a school that led the pack for them. When they investigated everything about the school fit for their personalities, their interests, their goals and the student body.</p>

<p>These were well considered choices based on much research and several visits. I think each tailored applications to those schools, and each were admitted but wait listed or rejected at less selective schools.</p>

<p>Had they not focussed psychic energy on these schools I doubt they would be attending today.</p>

<p>That said, the attributes of these schools led them to a balanced list. </p>

<p>Sometimes it does help to know exactly what you want provided you can withstand the disappointment of not achieving it should that be the outcome.</p>

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<p>Amen, Jmmom. That was one of our biggest goals for this year. </p>

<p>“Son, we are going to visit colleges. I want us to choose a balanced list that you think you would be happy to attend. Do <em>not</em> fall in love with any school. We do not have money to send you to most of these schools without serious aid. You need to realize that in most cases these are “academic recruiting scholarships”. You may be in the top rank of students but lose out because they have too many in your major this year, or too many from our area, or whatever. Choose a bunch of great schools and let’s wait to see what happens.”</p>

<p>It has worked very well. It made choosing between them much harder when the money came through on several, but it kept the angst to a minimum.</p>

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<p>Anothing thing to add that’s CONSTANTLY happening in my family, no matter what. Make sure both parents are talking to each other/you’re actually talking to your spouse about the kid’s education. My mother’s realistic on FA situation (as she is an investment advisor) and knows what the family can/cannot afford and pushed both of us (me and my bro) to try and look at financial safety schools (aka SUNY or URochester). On the other hand, my dad thinks money grows on trees and encourages us to go where we’d really like to go. When I say, “but Daddddd, it’s $15K this semester! I still need another $5K!” He’ll respond, “Don’t worry about the cost. Let us take care of you. Go and study.” <em>cough</em> Us? Is Mom part of the dialogue?</p>

<p>It was a bit nerve racking for graduate school for me. The three of us thought my bro would end up at a SUNY school and I could end up in a full-ride PhD program. Didn’t happen. He ended up actually getting in a pricey state school in Ohio and I ended up getting in MA programs with zero funding (typical). </p>

<p>When I told them that MA programs are unfunded and I’d have to pay for them out of my savings or loans. Their responses:
My mother said, “Okay, hun, the loans are in your name. You’re paying for grad school. We can’t afford to support both of you now that your brother is going to an expensive state school.”<br>
My dad said, “Don’t worry about the loans or total cost of everything. Go where you really want to go. I mean, I’m supposed to pay for your grad school, right?” </p>

<p>Finally, I had enough with the two of them being on separate pages so I sent an e-mail to both of them, basically scolding my dad for making “empty” promises. That he should NOT say anything unless he actually means it. I felt that he put me in an (unfortunate) situation of taking out $50K in loans for the next two years where I could probably have attended a program elsewhere for only $20K total but the deadline had passed (it wasn’t even that good of a fit anyway). This is what I get very upset when I see kids complaining on these boards when parents say things but don’t mean it because they didn’t do their research or talked to each other. I feel for them, really.</p>

<p>Now, they claim that they’re both on the same page. I checked last weekend.
My mother said, “Don’t stress too much about the housing. We’d like to help you with that and maybe we can help you a bit with grad school, pay the difference between the actual tuition cost and your loans from the university.”
My dad said, “We’ll take of you in terms of your living expenses.”</p>

<p>Now I feel much better that they’re speaking in the same language.</p>

<p>Lesson learned for all. And parents should note that it really can be frustrating for the kid trying to achieve his/her goals and dreams, especially when they went to go onto graduate school, where the degree can really count for something. I almost wanted to cry over it but I knew that if I wanted to do this badly enough, I’d do whatever it takes.</p>

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<p>you can talk to people till you are blue in the face but if they don’t want to hear it, they will gloss over the FA info and think…not my kid..they’ll get in and get that free ride,or they think the EFC will magically be covered by the school, or that all the aid offered will be “free money”
.It’s amazing here in my high net worth zip code/high achieving school district how many kids wind up in that apply to 5 high cost plus state u situation ,get accepted to all and then wind up attending the state U.Happens every year,and between my two kids I covered that HS for 10 years.I must have talked to a hundred people over the years.</p>

<p>Also…watch out people..the boom is about to fall on student loan programs.Criteria will tighten up soon.Lenders are dropping out as they can’t repackage and sell their loans on the secondary market..no institutions are buying them.If your strategy was to finance 2008-2009 with loans,you could be out in the cold.</p>

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<p>And then the people for whom State U is the cheapest choice are unpleasantly surprised at how expensive public schools can be. The COA for our in-state flagship was $28,866, which includes an extra $4K for engineering. </p>

<p>I do wish that every school’s “Financing Your Education” section had very clear, very up-front information and a Calculator that would factor in their unique methods of calculating aid. And every school should be as informative as possible about your chances for merit aid. </p>

<p>The more applications that a school receives, the more selective they become. Prominently displaying the bad news about FA right next to the actual costs would discourage many from applying.</p>

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<p>Oh one other thing…</p>

<p>You KNOW what state you reside in. THAT is the state where you are eligible for instate residency for tuition purposes. If you want to have instate tuition at a flagship university, your family should plan to be living in THAT state 12 months before you plan to start college there. Otherwise…plan to pay out of state tuition.</p>

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<p>I agree that the problem is a combination of:</p>

<p>willfull ignorance
naivete about how desirable your kid is vs. the rest of the world
denial.</p>

<p>Financial denial isn’t limited to college and FA. I have a cousin who is a realtor in Larchmont NY; a common sight is to walk into a three million dollar house which literally has no furniture. Parents divorced, mom fights to get the house as a settlement until she realizes that heating oil, taxes, mowing the lawn, water and sewer bills, etc. are tens of thousands of dollars more a year than she knew. So she gradually sells off the good stuff and belatedly realizes after a few years of deferred maintenance (can’t afford to paint it, can’t repair the broken roof shingles, can’t have the pool area re-tiled) that the house is worth nowhere near what she thought it was. My cousin says she has to supress the question, “so exactly what magic house fairy did you think was coming along a year or two ago to allow you to live here when you clearly can’t afford it?” And that was before the current real estate spiral…</p>

<p>People regularly lease cars they can’t afford and go on vacations they don’t have the money for. Why be surprised that for something as emotional and costly as a college education that they’d be any more rational about their limitations or funding options???</p>

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<p>I am amazed at how many people think if they get into H or P that they will go for free, the “no loans” bit. D got in to P and everyone thinks she is going free and says congratulations you don’t have to pay. Not even close, I am above the magic number, but not enough to make it easy.</p>

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<p>Please excuse my ignorance, but how do you go about finding a “financial safety” especially if you’re an average kid?</p>

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<p>There seems to be a lot of anger towards colleges from kids that get in and can’t pay. I haven’t found a single college that didn’t advertise their cost on the website, and I’ve never seen a college guarantee that the student will only have to pay the FAFSA EFC. A few mouse clicks on collegeboard.com or usnwr.com would confirm that the college costs $49,000 and gives 75 percent of the kids who apply for FA 68 percent of their estimated need in a combination of grant loan and work study.</p>

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<p>There also seems to be the general feeling that learning to deprive oneself is a good thing. Since I teach early American Lit at times I know which Protestant theologians we have to thank for this national ethos.</p>

<p>I agree that being realistic is a great advantage in life, but I think getting what one wants is more pleasant than having to sacrifice it. Of course this isn’t always possible, but I don’t think desire is the enemy. Sometimes it is unrealistic expectations, but sometimes it’s a lack of ingenuity.</p>

<p>Why so much condemnation of those who don’t completely understand the process or are a bit vulnerable to wishful thinking?</p>

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<p>Tickle’s experience with parents who don’t talk finances (either college, or otherwise) with each other is very common, with one parent dominating the management and often the other one sabotaging the plans. Lots of complex (and some simple) psychology behind those dynamics.</p>

<p>Kids are told to dream big and not worry about the finances. My experience was otherwise, with the parents telling us from about 7th grade on to expect to go to the local state college. We didn’t qualify for Pell, and my parents (state college graduates themselves) knew little of private college finance. It was a bit depressing to think that no matter how well you did, the end result was likely to be the same. I think it contributed to my being a big time slacker. </p>

<p>However through strange fortune, I ended up accepted to one of the top publics in the country, so I was the lucky 1 (of 5) who once accepted got my parents to pony up for the room and board (I worked to pay tuition, books, travel, and personal expenses.</p>

<p>So I have tried to take a middle of the road approach with my children. I’ve told them that we will make the best effort to send them to a school where it makes practical sense financially as long as they are working hard, doing well, and having fun. They also know that if it is not financially practical, they have (through my employment and state scholarship) free tuition at any school in our home state.</p>

<p>My son, (an Asperger’s autistic) will start at the local community college in the summer on a computer networking 2-year program, living at home. It fits him well (interestwise and socially - he struggles) and we can go further, if his interest and performance and wants dictate.</p>

<p>My (10th grade) goalie daughter OTOH wants nothing to do with the education south of the Mason-Dixon line. She wants to play D1 college hockey. She may have the talent. Even with the possibility of athletic money, I have been consistently (since 8th grade when I started here in CCland) telling her that she needs D3 academic/money safeties.</p>

<p>It is a difficult balancing act to tell a kid to shoot for the moon and be happy if you achieve low earth orbit.</p>

<p>It has kinda worked this way with her current situation. She attends a boarding school with generous FA. Academically it is considered a safety school. She does very well there, and could probably have done very well in a more competitive school as well, but that is where the FA and hockey situation worked. And while it is a bit of a backwater hockey-wise and she has carried her team on her shoulders from the time she arrived in 9th grade, it still is better than the 20K miles we were driving to have her play girls hockey before. I think she understands that she is lucky to have the opportunity she has, but I can understand a bit of chafing that she feels that she could do better and wants more success with college.</p>

<p>And I probably do the wrong thing by jokingly reminding her that she had better study hard and practice well or learn the words to (fight song of the local State Flagship) and like the color (clearly identifies the school). Of course I think she sticks it back to me by rooting for that school’s rivals, but perhaps now that her cousin (who she is close to) will be enrolling in the fall, perhaps she will grow to accept our state flagship as an acceptable alternative should hockey not turn out.</p>

<p>It would certainly save me a pile of money, which ultimately will benefit them in other things (grad school as needed, getting established in life, and perhaps inheritance someday), but I understand that kids have a dream to chase and that ultimately they must decide when the price is too great and it is time to move on.</p>

<p>I think my DW who is not a numbers person at all (I deal with the big money issues, although I do work hard to try to give her reality checks) will be the most difficult one to involve in the whole college process. She is also not a college sophisticate and I will have to carefully spoon feed her so much of what I have learned.</p>

<p>And my D is just starting to learn about schools and really has no idea of how she fits in academically at any of these schools. And when it comes to college guidance, with athletes, my D’s school tends to let the coaches do a lot of the placement work (a big mistake IMHO). I’m going to have an interesting talk with the top guy there at the end of the school year on this. In the meantime, I feel like I’m the guy who has to do the college placement and FA management work.</p>

<p>Not all of us here who come to CC for help have our heads stuck in the sand. I know that many more of us would be much more successful with better metrics to guide us. While I’ve learned much about EFC calculations here and have looked for and found CDS data for schools (I’m not just your average rookie), the averages and other data are not that useful. It is still very much a pig in a poke when trying to guess how much FA a school will grant and what the mix is likely to be.</p>

<p>And I think that is a lot of why many parents keep their heads firmly stuck in the sand, as the total darkness you see is much less confusing than the view when you pull your head out.</p>

<p>And (after a long round about story) so, it doesn’t surprise me that there are so many FA birds coming to CC having had their proverbial heads pulled out of the sand a bit too late. And while many are amazed that the swallows arrive in San Juan Capistrano on or about the same day every year, it doesn’t amaze me as it is a natural response to those birds in their environment. Likewise, the FA birds arriving at CC in April doesn’t amaze me either.</p>

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<p>College education at an elite school is expensive here in this country. </p>

<p>Based on what I read on CC, there are two types of parents - one (A) think they should pay for their children’s education and one (B) thinks it is not their obligation to pay $0.01. Among those who agree to have that obiligation, you again got two groups - one will pay themself first (A1) and one will pay for their kids first (A2).</p>

<p>Most of these “I got in but I can’t afford to attend” came from the family of A1 group. Parents built a new house or what have you so they will not have enough to pay their EFC. At this time, it is really a family decision. If they really want to make it work, they could have sold the house. A lot families live in small house and drive old car to pay the EFC.</p>

<p>Most of the school tells you how much their costs. I like to believe most of the parents are capable of paying EFC number wise. One could have done all the preparations. If the parent decide not to pay EFC, you got the problem.</p>

<p>My point - it is not a question if they could afford it or not, it is whether they are willing to pay for it or not.</p>

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<p>Oh…one MORE thing…I will add to my list.</p>

<p>Do NOT assume that you will get a scholarship that covers the full cost of attendance. These scholarships are extremely competitive and represent a very small fraction of the number of students applying for financial aid every year. Even if a school offers such a scholarship, the number of students receiving it will be very few. Better to assume that you won’t be getting that one when you apply.</p>

<p>There is no “Financial Aid Fairy”.</p>

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<p>Read college websites and brochures very carefully. Example:</p>

<p>"The cost of an undergraduate education today is obviously a major investment for most families. **While the costs of an exceptional education are well reported, the substantial financial aid often available is less well known. ****The University of Pennsylvania is committed to working with families to make a Penn education affordable for all students. **</p>

<p>As part of that commitment, students from families with annual incomes of less than $100,000 who qualified for need-based aid will not have loans included as part of their financial aid package beginning in Fall 2008. In Fall 2009 this policy will extend to all families who qualify for need-based aid. As a result, students from these families will be able to graduate debt-free."</p>

<p>What does this mean? The students will not have any loans as part of their financial aid package. That does not mean that parents/families can meet their EFC or that their family will not need PLUS loans, etc. </p>

<p>Kudos to schools like Penn who are eliminating loans for students. However, I bet there’s a lot of prospective applicants who think they won’t need any loans at all and a lot who will not be able to attend schools such as these due to financial constraints. (See post #1)</p>

<p>This is, of course, true of many schools’ literature, not just Penn’s.</p>

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<p>

Because they come back here, and presumably to those around them IRL, to act as though they have been “done wrong” and that it is someone else’s fault.</p>

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<p>I’d like to vent along with the rest of you, believe me. But I would also like to answer biokids question on an earlier post. “how does an average kid find a financial safety?”
Biokid: You sit down with BOTH your parents and discuss what the family can afford, and what your borrowing comfort limit is. If that means that you need to attend a local Community College or work for a year before attending college that is what you do. If that means you can afford the state school and pay instate tuition, apply there.
None of us is saying you shouldn’t apply to a reach school or two…
I am doing college tours with my second child now and I am encouraging her NOT to fall in love with any one school. She will apply to a range of schools both academically and financially. Then when the acceptances and rejections (yes there will be some) come in we will sort it out.
Parents and kids need to talk way ahead of time about finances.<br>
I just spent two hours on the phone with someone who wants their kid to attend a UC but they have saved no money, and qualify for no financial aid. They are stunned and my attitude is “would I let my child test drive a Ferrari when I know I can’t or won’t afford it?”</p>

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<p>On more for Biokid: once you know how much your parents are willing to pay, go to college board.com where you can enter specific college locations, the size of college, the gpa/sat, major and price range of college etc. and a list will come up which you can then research further. A financial safety is one that you are academically a shoo-in for that you can also afford.</p>

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<p>I am going to stand on my soapbox in the most public place I can find (maybe the mall!!) and scream at the top of my lungs: YOUR EFC IS THE AMOUNT YOU ARE EXPECTED TO BE ABLE TO PAY. THE FINANCIAL AID FORMULA THAT DETERMINES YOUR EFC ASSUMES YOU CAN PAY THIS WITHOUT BORROWING. IF YOU MUST BORROW TO PAY YOUR EFC, THIS IS OVER & ABOVE THE LOANS IN YOUR FINANCIAL AID PACKAGE — BECAUSE OF THE EXPECTATION THAT YOU CAN PAY YOUR EFC!!!</p>

<p>Please, parents, learn it, live it … even if it’s pretty much impossible to love it.</p>

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<p>Yes. Perhaps if people typed out Expected Family Contribution instead of EFC, they might remember its meaning.</p>