Tough Financial Situation (I Need advice)

Paying for College
61

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Why is my dream school better than U of Iowa? At the above schools, I will be surrounded by people that are very smart. At the other schools, from what I know, there are a lot of intellectual conversations and interesting viewpoints. I want to have those conversations and have people with high-reaching goals all around me. Of course, Iowa will have that, too. BUT it is not nearly as prevalent as the other schools. Next, Iowa’s campus is really spread out and I do not like that. It’s a pain.


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There are many very smart students at all the flagships. If you major in Finance or Econ, then very likely your classmates will also be very smart. You have an ACT 30 single sitting. That’s very good, but please don’t act like tht makes you above the rest.

Many kids make the wrong assumption and think that a school’s top students are spread evenly across all majors. They’re not. They’re often clustered in STEM, English, Finance, Econ and a few other majors. So, as a Finance or Econ major, you would likely find that your classmates are in that ACT 28-36 range…which are our nation’s top 10%.


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Next, it gets pretty damn cold in Iowa. This is the 3rd day that my school has been cancelled. Apart from Brown, the other schools have warmer climates. This is just part of being happy, I am much happier when it is warmed out since I love to be outside. It's just my personal preference. I also believe that I will receive a better education at the other schools.

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Hell, Iowa has been ranked in the princeton review I think for schools where students don’t study.


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It’s been a few years, but I’ve spent 3 days on Iowa’s campus. It’s a lovely setting next to a river. It’s not like colder or “more spread out” than several schools on your list. Brown isn’t the only school with similarly cold climate.

It’s silly to pay attention to things like PR’s list of “where students don’t study,” when dealing with large state flagships. Large publics are there to serve the residents, which means offering a VERY wide variety of majors, including some that don’t require much “study time.” It’s silly to apply that thinking to the more serious and academically challenging majors. My kids went to a stereotypical party school, but as Math and Enginnering majors, they had to study…as did their classmates.


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@GMTplus7 Yes, I ran the net price calculator before I applied. It is hard to get a good estimate of what I will be paying because of merit scholarships.


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Not really true. many of your schools will not give you much/any merit because your stats aren’t high enough or they don’t give merit.

It’s intereresting that you seem to want merit, but you applied to many schools where your stats are too average to get awarded much/any.


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SMU, for example, is at 65k. I'll be in the top part of their applicant pool, though, so I may get some good merit scholarships. <<<<

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While SMU is known to be generous with merit, your stats are NOT top of their applicant pool. Their top quartile has an ACT 33+. Which means well over 25% of their frosh have higher test scores.


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It's very hard to tell. Also, my intended major is business admin, entrepreneurship, or finance. I'd be fine with an econ major as well. <<<

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Those are good majors and offered at many schools.

62

This is actually a quite good point—but I’d stress that it depends on the institution. At the college I currently work at, the finance students…well, not the best academic reputation. At other schools, they’re the cream of the crop. At some schools, it’s the English majors that are the spectacularly brilliant ones, and at other schools it’s the biologists, and so on.

I mean, hey, there’s even a couple schools that produce well-regarded leisure studies graduates. :slight_smile:

63

If you want to go somewhere warm, Alabama has a sunny climate. Too bad you didn’t get a 32(free OOS tuition, but Dec senior yr is last test to count.) But even the 31 would get you 2/3 tuition and the total bill would be around $20K/yr. Correct me if I’m wrong here mom2. You could take a gap year and see the world to get some of the wanderlust out of your system and attend a good school in a warm climate after that. (Or do they require application to be made during senior year of HS?) They have a high number of OOS students, many attending for the scholarships, so you would meet lots of people from all over. I think it’s too late to apply for the scholarship for this year anymore, Dec 15th was deadline(??)

At Iowa 75th%ile is 28 and 18% have 30+.
At U of Alabama 75th%ile is 31 and 31% have 30+.

I have always lived in snowy cold climates and liked it, but during our 6 years in Ames I REALLY felt the cold. It’s so windy on the open plains, cuts right through you. And those crazy icestorms, turning the town into an ice rink so you can’t even get down the driveway to pick up the morning paper.

I remember when I lived there I thought I was in the middle of nowhere, having always lived in cities, though a very pleasant middle of nowhere, have to say. I always remember the day I met a little girl on the playground who was in town for some kind of fair with her Dad, first time in her life. Lived out on a pig farm and only got to come into any kind of town a couple of times a year. She thought she was in thrilling big city heaven, just waxing ecstatic over Ames. It’s all perspective, I suppose.

If you have such a yen to go other places that it’s certain to prevent you from appreciating your college experience in Iowa. I recommend a maturing gap year. Travel. Experience other places. You may be more ready to settle down and figure out how to get the most out of all that Iowa has to offer after that. A gap year doesn’t have to be expensive. My S is so jealous of one of his HS buddies who is taking a gap year in Australia. He started by travelling around to visit a couple of family contacts, but quickly found a lucrative waiter job at a seaside resort where he gets a posh free room overlooking the water, is having the time of his ife. Another friend is doing humanitarian work in Malaysia for her gap year. Good luck. Wherever you go, you can have a good college experience if you are receptive and look for opportunities. Keep an open mind.

My S has lots of friends whose parents I assumed were well off but to my surprise are making kids foot the complete bill for college with loans and scholarships and jobs. Other friends have all paid for by parents. Luck of the draw. You should thank your parents for the $100,000. That will make your life after college much easier. It isn’t enough to pay for what you desire, but nonetheless it is a big chunk of money for most people.

Good luck.

64

As an aside on the weather - Those who’ve never lived in, or visited Iowa in the winter, really don’t know how cold and windy it is. #62’s post is spot on about the weather in winter. My stepdaughter claimed it was colder and snowier than in the Chicago area, by Lake Michigan, and when we visited her a couple of times in winter, we thought so too.
Iowa is fairly flat, even in the “hilly” parts, and mostly plains and farmland, nothing to temper the wind…
I think if OP just got to Missouri or Kansas or southern IL, they’d find warmer weather!

As for cities - someone mentioned Drake earlier. Drake is in Des Moines, and I keep reading and hearing that Des Moines is one of THE up-and-coming cities…

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You probably would like Elon, and it may be in range financially. It has a cool looking business school.

Just an FYI, most of my stocks can’t lose…unless they put out a less than stellar Q, get fined or in trouble, or world markets are roiling. We all do. That’s no secret:). Yet the vast majority of my $ is in mutual funds. A) bc I don’t want to have to think about it 24/7, and B) restrictions on my trading make it impossible to implement my own strategy.

Options are gambling. Be careful, bc gambling is addictive. People rematch horse racing too. Just take the advice on board. No one is making you take it tho, right?

Good luck with schools. Remember, my colleague did great from Iowa. You can too.

66

There’s still time for Drake, including scholarships - but hurry! It’s a great university, Des Moines is different enough that it may not feel like ISU/UI, and anyway there’s no risk, it’s free to apply!

67

Thank you for all of the posts. I’m definitely learning a lot about my different options. I’ve been very busy catching up on some school work, but I’ve still been actively reading and rereading the posts. Thanks to the people who have shared their personal experiences. It’s great to have many perspectives evaluate my personal situation.
It will be interesting to see what kind of financial aid I get from some of the schools. I called my U of Iowa admissions counselor today, and we had about a 15 minute conversation. I learned that I automatically qualified for another 1,500 worth of renewable scholarships and I’ll be eligible to enter for another 4,000 one-time scholarship which is awarded to 40-50% of applicants. The presidential scholarship I wrote about had about 650 applicants, and only 33 got in…so my chances were not good for the scholarship anyways. I told him about my situation and all.

I’m still definitely interested in taking a gap year, but I don’t know exactly where to start. I mentioned WWOOFing, but the average stay on one farm lasts about one month. The staying time does vary from farm to farm though. What other options do I have for a gap year? I’m not interested in just staying in my area for 9 months before I begin reapplying. I could be a foreign exchange student, but I am not fluent in any other languages apart from English and I feel like it would be too late to be a foreign exchange student for this upcoming year. I’ll have to do some researching.
I’m sure this entire thread will start to slow down with activity as time passes, but I will post my acceptances with financial aid letters once I receive them. I’ll have a better at what kind of debt I would have for some schools. Heck, I may not get into any of them and then my choice will be clear!

I have one other question - How useful is a business bachelors degree without an MBA? Do I pretty much have to get an MBA to get any good job placement? I don’t have a good idea if I want to go to grad school, and that would make a big difference on my college decision because of course I would want to have extra money for grad school.

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People generally work for a few years before going back and getting their MBA. It’s not really advisable to get it right away. However, there are programs for STEM students to get their MBA’s simultaneously, but maybe because their career goals are different…I don’t know.

If you do decide to take a gap year, you should apply to Alabama this July. You’d get the 2/3 tuition award. Your remaining costs would be within your dad’s budget. Very good Bschool, very good econ and finance programs, gorgeous school…and since the top 36% of students have an ACT 30+, you’d be surrounded by more very smart students…particularly if you did go the Econ or Finance route. The Finance students (often double majoring in Math) are often the full scholarship ACT 32+ students who walk into top pay jobs upon graduation.

69

The way you feel is not at all uncommon. You have likely grown up in an environment where your family has enjoyed a particular lifestyle that would lead a young person to think that attending any college may be possible.
While your parents income is significant it is not significant enough to be in a position to afford privates unless they had lived well below their means and saved like crazy.
You are incredibly fortunate to have a debt free undergraduate education taken care of. That is huge and I believe strongly that a student should not incur undergraduate debt! No debt equals freedom and more choices to do what you want to do not what you have to do to pay the bills.
Given your interests you should have been strategically pursuing merit money.
If you can’t get your head around being in an honors program at your states flagship you are likely looking at a Gap year.
With no offense intended (how is that for a lead in?) big merit money isn’t easy to come by. You are going to be hard pressed to get the total cost of attendance at schools that are in the $60,000 range down to $25,000 a year. They look hard at standardized test scores and yours while very very good are not likely to have you qualify for most schools highest merit awards.
You are in an enviable position and have the luxury of a paid for undergraduate education, that is a big deal and something that you may not fully appreciate until many years later.
As someone who put themselves through college by attending community college for two years while working 30 hours a week and then went to an in state flagship while working 10 hours a week and 60 hours a week during the summers and had student loans that I paid off over 10 years my perspective may be a bit jaded.
All you have to do is go to school and focus on your studies, you are very fortunate.

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@adamfromiowa

I thought your parents were giving you $25,000 a year for undergrad. That plus the $5500 Direct loan should be plenty to pay for University of Iowa without any scholarship money. And you have some.

Why are you NOT seriously considering this offer?

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The OP will receive the Gold Scholarship from The University of Iowa, where the COA is less than $22K/yr, so there is no need for student loans. He said he might get some smaller scholarships from U of Iowa, so he will have close to $46K+ leftover from his college fund.

I really do not see the need to take a GAP year.

72

My daughter’s BF is getting his MBA immediately after undergrad because he has 1 year of athletic eligibility left and wants to play another year. His youngest brother is also going to play, and they’ve never played together before (5 years difference in age) so that’s another (minor) reason. The school gives a discount if two members of family are in school at the same time. Lots of little reasons added up to make it the right time to do the MBA.

Other friends have gone directly to grad school just because the scholarships offers were there now. I do agree that waiting a year or more might be a good idea, but not always.

73

Anecdote, but, a Very Impressive™ friend took a gap year to work and save money to attend a top STEM school. She got into the Honors Program at said top STEM school in her high school senior year; was entirely rejected after taking the gap year.

Be careful.

74

Hey guys, I’m just posting on this for a follow up. In early February, I got a likely letter to Whitman saying that they would fly me out to Washington for free. When I started getting decisions, I really anticipated my Tulane decision because I really liked the school. So here are my results:

Brown - Rejected
Claremont Mckenna - Waitlisted
Elon - Accepted w/ Presidents scholarship of 6k/year (38.8k/year in total)
Emory - Accepted with 10k/year (55k/year in total)
Oxford College of Emory University - Accepted with 5k/year (Idk how much per year but a lot)
Pitzer - Waitlisted
Pomona - Denied
Rice - Denied
Southern Methodist University - Accepted w/ Deans’ Scholarship of 22.5k/year + BBA Scholarship of 5k/year + auto acceptance into Cox Business School (38.7k/year in total)
Tulane - Denied (This denial really sucked)
UNC Chapel Hill (OOS) - Denied
Vanderbilt - Denied
WashU - Waitlisted
Whitman - Accepted with 12k/ year. They added 3k/year to max out my possible merit aid when I visited and spoke to my counselor. (48k/year in total)
University of Iowa (IS) - Accepted with 8.5k/year and entrance into business program. (14k/year in total)

So I went out and visited Whitman in Walla Walla, Washington, and I loved their students. They are so extraordinary. I’m really surprised their acceptance rate isn’t under 15%. The students gave me quite a bit of insight on my decision. However, Whitman didn’t have a business school and they still were north of 45k/year.

After visiting Whitman, I visited Iowa. It wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t anything special. I went into the tour with an open mind, but the students there weren’t the high achieving students that I constantly want to be surrounded with.

My dad started to become empathetic with my situation, and he revised his deal. He would pay for the first 100k, I would pay for the next 5 or 6k, and then he would match me dollar for dollar up to the next 25k.

About a week after the Whitman trip, I went on a road trip with my dad to SMU (Dallas) and Elon (North Carolina). These schools were the two remaining private schools that I was considering. Emory and the other ones were still too expensive. So I went to one of SMU’s accepted student days, and I felt much more comfortable with taking on student debt. The student have so many internships and the average student graduating from the Cox School of Business has a 60,000 salary right out of college. On top of that, 95%+ have a job lines up before Christmas break of senior year. The Dean of the business school spoke to us that day and he was great. Also, the school was very beautiful and well organized. After this, we went and visited Elon. I probably wouldn’t have visited Elon after SMU, but they didn’t send me my financial aid package so I didn’t know if it was 5k-10k cheaper than SMU or right around SMU’s costs. I liked Elon as well, but it just wasn’t anything compared to SMU (for what I look for in a college). So skip all the other boring parts and I committed to Southern Methodist University, and I’m super excited. I will be 28k-33k in debt, but I am confident I can pay it off quickly considering that I will be in Dallas with a school that the Dallas business community adores. :slight_smile:

75

Thank you for the follow up! And good luck at SMU!!

76

Thank you for the update and the detailed narrative about your decision.
I’m very happy for you also that your dad revised his “deal”. That’s quite uncommon and very nice of him. (The opposite is more often true: parents revise their offer DOWN, which really messes things up for the students).
SMU with scholarship and direct admit to Cox is a great achievement, congratulations!

77

Congrats, and I offer a little more perspective for you:

I would cut off my left arm and sell it to you for 100K for my education.
(But not my right arm - my right hand is my dominant hand and I need it very badly)

I’d do almost anything to have those options, and I have friends in worse positions than me who would also consider selling a limb or an organ for that kind of money. It’s not a lot to you, but it would change me whole life. Just keep that in mind going forward, and good luck with your career.

78

Thanks for your perspective @almosttheremulan I know that $100,000 is a hell of a lot of money. Where I live, it’s the same as a big, fancy house. I will do my best to realize how lucky I am while at SMU which will help motivate me to maximize every single day I spend there.

I just want to point out in general that people with financial wealth may not have always had it easy. Our family has sacrificed a ton to be financially stable. My dad was in the military for 21 years and deployed in Iraq for 16 months during the heat of the conflict, and my mom took over a growing, but small, insurance agency while raising two small children. My parents always made a point to save money for “the big stuff” like housing, retirement, and college educations. All of the sacrifices are starting to pay off.

79

If you think that’s tough, you still have much to learn.

Guess what? My grandparents fought in Vietnam and my legal father (I was adopted) fought in Iraq, too.
My mom is ex-military, and she’s raising three kids on her own (because we left her husband - he was abusive)

My mom was homeless and alone when she graduated HS and not much better off when she had me.

DO NOT tell me what is easy and what is not, until you’ve had someone wrap their hands around your throat, or watched your loved ones die, or grown up with an incurable disease.

My life might suck right now, but it’s a helluva lot better than what it used to be, and still better than that of MANY ppl that I know.

I’m mad right now so I’m going to go back to doing housework and try to remember everything I’ve worked for.

80

Thanks for the update Adamfromiowa! I’m glad you got it set!