Terrible parenting mistake -help needed

College Search & Selection
1

<p>2014 son engaged in search process, I have been reading lots of posts here and have started the research process as well, and have come to realize I have made a terrible mistake. I have repeatedly told my child, " work hard in HS, get the grades and tests, strive to attend best college possible and we will make it happen".</p>

<p>He has worked hard, and has these stats: PSAT 223 (probable NMSF in Texas based on what I've read here), SAT 2230, 1500 cr and math, gpa 3.8 uw, 5.1/5 w, ranking barely top 10 percent if grades go well this semester :)) good EC, medium leadership, I assume good essays.</p>

<p>Financially, we can afford either of our state flagships (approx 20kyr)which have highly ranked engineering programs. However, he wants to go OOS for different climate, experiences, and probably the prestige factor. Currently high on the list of reach choices: Northwestern, Notre Dame, UC Berkley, Michigan, Likelies: Wisconsin, Purdue, Ohio State, Maryland. Possibilities we have visited and he did not care for: Drexel, Case Western, Illinois. </p>

<p>The problem I'm having is the "we can make it happen" part. We have EFC approx 55k year :(
He is likely to be able to get free ride at schools in Alabama, Oklahoma, Arizona If NMSF but has no interest in the schools/locations. The schools he wants to attend are in midwest or northeast and are high priced for OOS. </p>

<p>I foolishly assumed a smart kid would be eligible for merit aid, and understand that he may be at many places, but research makes this seem unlikely at the top private schools/state schools he has chosen so far. If we stretch, 30k-35k is doable. But is it a smart investment? Not really when he can get a comparable degree for free or at least a much lower cost. Plus his brother is going to school in 2 years! I know all this intellectually but emotionally I'm feeling...guilty. </p>

<p>So I'm seeking two kinds of input. Any schools with good engineering and amazing merit aid we should consider? And for parental advice..how do you crush the dream you encouraged before you knew better?</p>

2

<p>You may need to have a serious discussion with him while also respecting that HE not YOU will be the person at a 4 year university that will have to live with it or transfer out. You can’t try to make that choice for him.</p>

<p>Perhaps getting other funds might be necessary? Though… if you told him you could make it happen… why didn’t you set aside the funds so it could be? That’s what confuses me. Most people considered about their child’s education set aside a fund the day they’re born or close to it.</p>

3

<p>At least you are realizing this a year ahead of time.</p>

<p>Have the money talk now and run the net price calculators on the various colleges of interest together. Explain that you can afford $x comfortably, $30-35k stretching it. Perhaps that may give him incentive to look for big merit scholarships, or lower cost schools.</p>

<p>Under your circumstances, Berkeley won’t be affordable unless he goes into mechanical engineering and gets the full ride Drake scholarship.</p>

<p>Lower cost out-of-state schools include NCSU (competitive full ride Park scholarship possible), Virginia Tech, Stony Brook, Minnesota, Cal Poly SLO. But these are all likely to be in your “stretch” range if he does not come up with big merit.</p>

<p>But really, what doesn’t he like about UT Austin and Texas A&M? These are very good schools for engineering at relatively low prices (and Texas A&M is even cheaper with NMF).</p>

4

<p>Just sit down with him and let him know that parents learn along the way as well. If you assumed incorrectly, I would expect that he’ll be disappointed but down the road, a year from now when he needs to make a final decision, he’ll have gotten over it. </p>

<p>Now wow, he does have great stats; you can tell him he is welcome to apply at out of state schools (but that it will only work out if he is fortunate to get $x in aid) but he’ll also need to apply in state as well. You are very lucky to have such a great school at UT in state. Let him know how much you have found out schools out of state cost ($50+ in many cases). He probably already knows this. Then let him know how much you can contribute. </p>

<p>Again, with his decision a year away, hopefully he’ll adjust; he needs to. Good luck.</p>

5

<p>Lots of families find this kind of stuff out even later than you have. Don’t feel like an idiot. You did what you could with the information that you had. You just didn’t have enough information. That is a life lesson for your child.</p>

<p>Get real about what you truly are ready, willing, and able to pay. Get real about what you expect your kid to come up with in student loans, savings, and earnings. When you define your Actual Family Contribution (AFC) sit down with your kid and discuss the numbers.</p>

<p>You have not lied to your child. You promised something that you thought would be possible. However, it has turned out to not be possible. Things like this happen in life. You regret promising something that you realize now you couldn’t promise. </p>

<p>Your kid will understand unless he is hopelessly spoiled rotten, in which case you have worse problems on your hands than just where he will go to college.</p>

<p>With your real AFC in mind, you and your son can spend some time in the Financial Aid Forum reading up on Merit-based aid, and getting a good notion of his options.</p>

<p>Holding the line is hard. Getting past feelings of parental guilt is hard. But almost all of us have been there and survived. You (and your kid) will too.</p>

<p>Your kid has more and better options with his grades and scores than he would have if he had slacked his way through HS. He also has a solid base for success in college because of his hard work to date. You have not failed him.</p>

6

<p>Your son is old enough that he should be able to handle a discussion about finances. I would never dream of going to a school that my parents could hardly afford. Your son will probably understand. There’s a lot of things we want but can’t have because of finances and college isn’t an exception. However, I hope the conversation you have isn’t all negative. I’m sure there’s a way to compromise. Have your son list his top absolute must haves in a school. Then start searching for ones that aren’t too expensive. Your son might have to wait to go OOS. I would love to go out of state but I just can’t justify graduating with so much more debt, especially with grad school right after. Just get him to look at the local schools with an open mind. College is a place to get an education. While havin fun is important, getting the best education at the lowest price is the goal. He’s going to be an adult soon and he’s going to have to make tough financial decisions sometimes as an adult.
Overall, I really think the best thing for your situation is compromise.</p>

7

<p>Tarheel is incorrect, there are circumstances where you have to bite the bullet and go beyond what you can afford, these situations may be rare but they exist.</p>

8

<p>If your budget allows you could take your son to visit some of the schools that could give him significant merit money. Teens often have a pretty vague idea of what different colleges offer and your son might be enthusiastic about the more affordable options once he sets foot on campus.</p>

9

<p>People make mistakes, it happens. I would suggest sitting down with your son and talking about it.</p>

10

<p>Note that if he is willing to work and/or take Stafford loans (i.e. an ASC (actual student contribution) greater than $0), that can make some colleges that cost more than your AFC (actual family contribution) affordable.</p>

<p>But note that a reasonable ASC is generally considered to be no more than about $8,500 ($5,500 Stafford loan and about $3,000 in work earnings), and many students and parents will want to use a smaller, more conservative number for that, especially for a frosh engineering major with a full load of courses, some of which include higher workload labs that can make working during the school year more problematic (however, engineering majors may be able to come up with greater work earnings in later summers or co-op jobs).</p>

<p>You might choose to further incentivize his search for merit scholarships and lower cost schools by making the offer that if he goes to a school cheaper than your AFC, that the difference can be applied to post-graduate professional school.</p>

11

<p>there are some great schools that offer merit aid to top students. Whitman, Oberlin, Macalester . . even Duke sometimes. Maybe you have to widen your search and look past the usual suspects. </p>

<p>Edited: I didn’t see the engineering part, but surely those schools also have merit. Shake up the list.</p>

12

<p>Your son will likely receive merit aid to U Minnesota bringing the cost into the affordable range I think. U MN is just as good as U WI in engineering. It is also a much better bargain than many of the private schools on your list such as NU for engineering. I personally like U MN better than U WI as we visited both.</p>

<p>Ohio State will also give your son merit aid bringing the cost down into the $25,000 range.</p>

<p>We were in a similar situation to you, a high EFC, but not able to afford it. We ruled out most private schools because of this. Son will be happily enrolling at one of our state flagship schools this fall. He initially thought he wanted to get out of state also. Because he is going instate, we will also be to afford paying for a study abroad and multiple summer experiences in Europe or wherever. We would not be able to afford those experiences if he had gone to a more expensive school.</p>

13

<p>You just have to put the “big parent pants” on and admit that you were naive about the whole process.</p>

<p>First you need to figure out how much you really can pay. Don’t stretch yourself too much because you’re going to have 6 years of college (with 2 kids) and during those years there will be several “unexpected expenses” that will come up (major car repairs, major appliance replacements, dental work, who knows!!!). </p>

<p>Keep in mind that during the over-lapping years, you may be paying full freight at BOTH schools since your children may be attending OOS publics that aren’t going to care that your EFC splits.</p>

<p>So, for the 2 years that both boys are in school, you could be expected to pay $80k or more each year.</p>

<p>You have to explain that you didn’t realize that many “very good schools” get enough top students that they can’t afford to give those students merit scholarships.</p>

<p>Give your child the reasonable amount that you can pay. Tell him that he can take out a Stafford loan to supplement and he can work over summers to also supplement. </p>

<p>Also, insist that he apply to a couple of “parent pick” financial safeties just in case those others schools don’t come thru with merit. </p>

<p>Don’t be too hard on yourself. Many, many parents make this same assumption.</p>

14

<p>I think you should look at Canadian schools. Waterloo in Ontario is a top engineering school with a great coop program. It should be about $30K, even without merit aid. There are definitely other Canadian schools to look at too.</p>

15

<p>there are circumstances where you have to bite the bullet and go beyond what you can afford, these situations may be rare but they exist.</p>

<p>this really isn’t such an occasion. The family is facing 6 straight years of paying for college. If they “bite the bullet” and pay full freight for this child (and to be fair, the next child), then they might be expected to pay $100k per year for the two years that both are in college.</p>

16

<p>As far as the “why this happened”, we do have prepaid tuition plan for each of our kids that pays state tuition at any state school and extra 529 savings set aside, so it is not as if we completely dropped the ball. I think all planning we did was for in state school options and we felt like $ were under control until OOS became a priority and the numbers started coming back with such a high EFC. We make a good income, but it hard to believe such a high percent of it would be seen as expected as our contribution. I think momtocollegekids assessed the situation pretty accurately, and thanks for the advice.</p>

<p>I’ll check out some of the options suggested, and I have tried to start the communication process with son. And we will keep reading the boards in search of info that can somehow make the situation work out, thanks again.</p>

17

<p>Some really great advise here. </p>

<p>Once you have “the money talk” it really is going to be okay. You have so much to work with! Great state schools, NMF options, great stats that will garner merit at many OOS schools. As mentioned more selective schools often have very competitive scholarships that can make them affordable. The understanding needs to be ‘this school is an option if a scholarship comes through’. There are going to be lots of options and you can help him research them and find the benefits of schools he’s either passed over or not considered. Time to recalibrate. Kids are really pretty flexible and take their cues from us.</p>

<p>Something else to keep in mind when setting your budget is allow room for tuition increases and the dreaded ‘fees’ that are now very commonly placed on engineers over and above other majors. These can increase each year as well. This needs to be planned for. Also with engineering the four year graduation rate needs to be considered. Are students finishing in 8 semesters? Nine? The 5-year plan? Is this because the program is understaffed and not hiring? Can students get classes? This can cost you an additional year in expenses so you need to know what to expect at each school so you can really compare apples to apples.</p>

18

<p>Maybe apply to some of the tuition free engineering colleges? They are really selective though.</p>

19

<p>Thanks blue iguana- you had some great points but I think the best was “kids take their cues from us”. I do have ambivalence because the mommy part of me is still not convinced I can’t somehow give him what he wants, while the practical dollars and cents part of me knows that is just crazy! I need to get over the guilt and move on to the good options that are going to be available and if I come to terms with it, he will too.</p>

20

<p>Your in-state flagship is a great school so you have some excellent options.</p>