We are within income range, have some pension, have a fair amount saved for retirement, had no EXPECTED inheritance, had a fair amount saved for each kid (100K each for 2, and 50K for other - we only paid half for that kid). We are full pay, if you consider all but merit money full pay. We would not pay for the the most expensive tier, but went for one level down, in search of merit money,mf or son who wanted prestigious school. I flat out told my son I would NOT pay $65K per year for any school (2012 costs), and that I would not take any loans for his school. (I would let him take up to the amount students can take). Hedid not even apply to his dream school, but was accepted and attended as expensive private where he received a reasonable amount of merit money. We paid about $40K per year, and he graduated dept free. We also paid for half of another private, and tuition, room and board at a state flagship (3 in at once for 1 year).
IF I had known I would get a fairly substantial inheritance, I would have let son go to dream school.
As it stands, I will consider helping with grad school, which was never in the plan. (I alWays told my kids I’d fund 4 years of in-state tuition, room, and board).
I’m new to this…sorry for the basic question…but is there some ballpark income number where the colleges will expect a family to be full pay? Ie, is 200K some sort of threshold where over that number, it’s very hard to get any aid, but under, some will give aid? Or is it 150K? Or ??
Thanks!
@sunnyschool, it depends on the college. Most colleges are too poor to provide any fin aid besides what governments can provide, but the top-tier/rich schools can be generous enough to give out money. Run Net Price Calculators.
DH and I came to US (separately and married after meeting in US), for the American dream, both getting graduate degrees on full ride scholarships. In our late 40s, we live in PA, with $250k income. We have been good savers and investors, so we have about $1m combined on retirement, and bought our second house in cash 5 years ago. But we are cheapskates, no review class or bought books for any AP or any subject tests, and no college counseling.
D17 got admitted to U Chicago EA, of course we are only eligible for stafford loan of $5k from them! She is also pursuing a stamps scholarship from another school and waiting for RD…she wants to have her options.
DS20 is a so-so student who tests better than his GPA, as he spends very limited time and efforts on school.
Here is my theory on EFC…based on my study on NPCs and sensitivity analysis 
EFC= 20% of parents income + 25%of kids assets + 5.6% of parents assets.
This seems to work for us!! Does this work for you? I believe the % of parent income may change based on the income.
@SincererLove Sorry, That formula doesn’t work for me!
The FAFSA formula is part of federal regulations and therefore public information
https://ifap.ed.gov/efcformulaguide/attachments/071416EFCFormulaGuide1718.pdf
The CSS/Profile is a proprietary black box, and colleges are allowed to tweak it and ask extra questions though you can enter your data on the College Board EFC estimator if you want.
Finally, the net price on your financial aid package does not have to equal the EFC the college calculated (gapping).
@SincererLove no, that doesn’t work out for us either. In our case EFC seems to be more like 31% of parent income pre tax with one kid in school, 16% pre tax after for 2. Post tax though, yeah, with 2 kids in school 20% is about the right number given that all retirement contributions are added right back into income. 40% with one kid… Add in retirement savings and it’s more like 22/45… Given that we have 3 out of 4 years for S18 overlapping and then 2 out of 4 for S19 I do look at that to see if it helps an iota.
It really doesn’t. Unless you count an offer of an subsidized loan help. LOL!
That’s with FAFSA, PROFILE is less favorable to us than that.
I WISH we had 40% + disposable income annually!
@novicemom23kids wrote
As an aside, this bothers the hell out of me since my MIL was doing it, as well. They’re wealthy and they sent their three kids to the “rich kid” schools (NYU, GW, CMU), and was pushing those schools on us. D17 nipped it in the bud by saying “I’m not going into debt for a GW degree” over Christmas dinner last year when MIL wouldn’t let it go. BIL luckily has a very good sense of humor and didn’t mind that she was throwing shade at his alma mater to make a point.
To keep this on topic, @woods1234 are you considering downsizing or moving to a more affordable part of the county? I know a few people who have done that to fund college, and it’s a tactic we’re going to use.
@Hoggirl wrote
Yeah, I wish, wish wish we’d stretched a little on house #2 and bought it, because we could have saved ourselves three bad house purchases.
House #1 we should have rented until we knew we’d be staying (it turns out Boynton Beach is boring, full of old people, and was not a good fit for us, took 9 months to sell that house), house #2 was so far from H’s work that he didn’t see D1 when she was awake (that was the pivotal wrong choice house-if we’d spent 130k instead of 110k and bought the close-in house with the good schools, we’d still be there).
House #3 was 2 miles from H’s work but turned out to be in a neighborhood that was reverse-gentrifying. House #4 was a fixer upper and it turns out I hate fixer uppering and after 2 years of constant repairs was done. House #5 we bought in 2008 and we’ll be here until 2018. We should make money on it (bought during the great recession, picked one that didn’t make all our other mistakes), but wow, we lost or broke even on the other ones.
For two kids who graduated in 2000 and 2004:
170ish income, but only up there starting when first was in HS and ended while second was in college. Much lower now.
About 300K in retirement funds, plus small defined benefit.
Northern NJ suburbs
Both full pay–except older one had a merit scholarship first year but transferred to no-scholarship/aid LAC second year. Second one full pay at private till his last year–some aid, because our income had plummeted.
How we did it-- we lived like our income never went up, once it did. Same small starter house, etc.
Basically when D was in college, our take home was low 100’s. One third went to her school, one third went to savings, and one third was what we lived on (about 40K a year.)
This is why I think we’re in good shape for retirement–we’re not looking at the same lifestyle a lot of upper income folks are.
No regrets–they both graduated from fine schools with fine educations.
Our starter home was a 1 bedroom condo so that wouldn’t have worked with 2 kids, LOL. We moved from that to a 3 bedroom townhouse, which is what we had when our son was born. We moved when he was 3 months old to our current home though, stretching ourselves a little bit to move into a very desirable school district. That has worked out well as our home has more than doubled its value since then and we have nearly paid off the mortgage, which is our only debt.
Most of all, we have been very fortunate to have not had any major illnesses or bouts of unemployment for which I am thankful. It could still happen of course, but we are better positioned to weather those crises than we would have been say 20 years ago.
When you say 25% of parent assets - does that include 401K/retirement funds, or are those “protected” from the expected family contribution?
@2014novamom --yeah, our “starter home” was in the “non-desirable” school district. Somehow my poor kids muddled through! We could not have afforded to sent them to the colleges they went to had we opted for the expensive district.
Retirement funds are protected from FAFSA family contribution. PROFILE is a black box, in theory protected but in t reality they are a measure of overall financial stability. Retirement contributions annually however are not protected and are considered income.
One house, one spouse. It is true that makes a tremendous difference. Many of us do not have that luxury though and while I celebrate and appreciate those for who have been able to accomplish that, it always feels like a dig at those who have not.
I do find it interesting that some move to different parts of the country to cut costs during the college years. There is no way we could maintain our income, or careers if we did that, they are not transferable, especially my H’s. It is an interesting thought though. We’ve taken a different approach actually, we now plan to extend our stay in our current house 2-3 years post college graduation of the youngest to allow for any fall back needs that the various kids might have and a stable base until all 4 are fully (or mostly) launched. Original plans had been to likely sell/downsize when he was about half way through.
These threads about affording college inevitably drift into a little bit of self congratulation. We’re full pay but I could totally see others making a different choice in our same situation. Our D2 is more of a B student with some LD’s. I believe fit and proper support are even more important for her than for D1 who is the type to succeed anywhere.
@eandesmom - sorry. My “one house/one spouse” comment was not intended as a dig. It’s just a reality. I’ve managed to have just one spouse, but we have certainly had more than one house. Moves, job changes, etc. And we definitely have more house than we need - we plan a MAJOR downsize sometime in the future.
We’re still living in our starter home. There was no reason to leave it while I was still employed. I could walk to work! Paid off the 30-year mortgage long ago; never played the refinancing game. Never “upsized” (3 bdrm home was plenty for 2 children). Now that I’m retired, we are relocating out of single-family home to collective living (bought a condo), and are in process of slimming down our collected treasures. A lot of stuff will be totally unneeded (gardening tools and machines, etc.).
I hadn’t heard of the “one house, one spouse” recommendation. Makes sense, keep it simple, “millionaire next door” style.
I do know people that have lived in very nice houses then done a major downgrade just as the first leaves for college, using the equity (in the cases I’ve observed, this looks to be $200-400K) to pay for the childrens’ colleges, and also living debt-free in a smaller house once the kids leave for college.
We’ve kept our housing fairly simple, based on needs not wants. But, this area is expensive (NYC suburbs) so all housing is pricey.
(Too late to edit, but just want to clarify that when I said two kids who graduated 2000 and 2004, I meant HS, not college.)
@Corinthian wrote
As well they should! I will be first in line to congratulate people who can get their kid(s) through college (however they did it) without drowning in debt or going broke. Good for y’all, and I hope we’ll be joining you in 6 (ish) years when our younger one is through.