<p>My kid goes to a private school where many of the kid go to top colleges. They see their counselor monthly and the counselors have made some suggestions for routine state schools and some top expensive universities. Many of these we would have never thought of for our son money wise.
We would definitely not qualify for financial aid; most of the ones which now interest him give no merit aid; no national merit scholar here; and and we made the mistake? of letting him look at some of the schools. I thought it was ok to check out some of these expensive ones but never stated a priviso whether we thought he should go there if accepted ahead of time.
No applications have gone out yet.
Were we foolish to let him look at some of the expensive ones (like ivys) if we don't want him to go there. After all we should be in on the decision.
thanks</p>
<p>My opinion is the kid can look wherever he wants, the parent decides how much they want to contribute. If the kid chooses a school beyond what the parents are willing to pay for, then it’s up to the kid to figure out how to close the gap.</p>
<p>The parents should be clear up front what they are willing to contribute prior to him sending out applications and visiting colleges.</p>
<p>This is so hard. I don’t think there is a right or wrong answer here. You want to help your student choose the right ‘fit’. We used to look at model homes all the time to help us find the size, features, & area we wanted to live in. We knew we would not be buying those homes, but it helped us visualize, prioritize, and make a decision…but we were adults. Only you can decide if your student is able to ‘test driving’ schools but walk away.
We were very clear with our son regarding our budget and didn’t visit schools that were not real possibilities. He also has a narrow major so he only wanted to visit where it was offered. If he’d been interested in private schools I don’t know how we would have handeled it. He’s a Sr so we’re not out of the woods yet…he could still throw a curve ball.
I do think it’s irresponsible of GCs to set kids up like that. I do think students can be successful in a number of situations, however it can be hard to undo that image in their mind and get them to move on if they fall in love with a school you just can’t afford.</p>
<p>^^ The reason behind going to a private hs is trying to get into a top tier college, you could goto a public school and get in a state college without spend that private hs money.</p>
<p>Anyway, if you cannot afford it and not be able get need base fa, then you have to consider lower level schools with merit moeny or a state school to save money. Normally, a state school is about the same price as a private hs when everything is considered.</p>
<p>
Actually, there are many reasons why parents choose to send their kids to private schools; the one you state being just one.</p>
<p>Others include:
-a potentially better education, for its own sake, regardless of impact on college admissions.
-An environment and culture more in line with the family’s beliefs and values.
-Wider/stronger availability of ECs family values, such as the arts.
-Smaller class sizes, lower student-teacher ratios and more individualized attention.
-Fewer disciplinary/behavioral incidents for staff…freeing them up to do more true teaching/counseling…</p>
<p>The list goes on and on.</p>
<p>I told my sons to “play some poker”. Your applicant has some good cards to play (good school, hopefully good academic preparation, hopefully also some EC’s that speak of the joys in his heart) – but he’s not holding all aces. So he needs to keep an open mind and apply to a range of places – including some pricey ones if they appeal to him. </p>
<p>Have some good conversations NOW that this is not the time to “fall in love” with one school. He wants to give an assortment of schools the opportunity to impress him with their offers (if he’s like many males, that will sound rather awesome). So, he applies to an assortment of schools. Tell him that he keeps an open heart until late March/early April when the letters arrive. Only after a school convinces him of a serious interest, will he think about making a commitment. </p>
<p>Let him know about the admit/deny stuff – that some schools are dreadful teases. They will admit a student but do so with absolutely no merit aid so that the family is brutalized by the costs. Is that any way to treat a great fellow? Of course not!</p>
<p>Meanwhile, take lots of walks. This is the time of year that parents are looking at four years of college costs and having heart failure (sometimes literally). You aren’t going to know your sticker price until those letters come in late March. </p>
<p>Do research a great deal. You may think you won’t qualify for aid – but you may at some schools. </p>
<p>A great approach is for the student to pick whatever two schools sound awesome to him and have him apply there. Then each parental unit gets a choice – make yours a school that is both affordable and awesome (which means you get to do a lot of website hunting too --but you know your boy and you want a happy ending, so you’re motivated here).
That’ s four schools. Have the kid work hard on getting four FINISHED and then you all can have a conversation about whether or not he should do more. </p>
<p>So, no, you weren’t “foolish” to let him look wherever he wants to look. Let him apply to any two schools he likes. Just make a deal that he has to do two more (one per parental unit) so he has an array of options. </p>
<p>Don’t argue about this now. Keep your powder dry until April. Educate him on your family’s situation but don’t agonize until you actually see the numbers. </p>
<p>Good luck!</p>
<p>Apply to the schools that would be a good “fit” with his interests, but with the understanding that the money issue has to work for him to attend. I was pleasently surprised at the amount of merit scholarship that one of the private schools my daughter applied to gave her. We, too, do not qualify for any kind of need based aid. You could be surprised also. Don’t know until you try. She is currently a freshman at the private school and she is doing real well there. We couldn’t be more pleased with the whole situation.</p>
<p>I think parents have to be very careful about letting their kids visit/apply to schools that will very likely be unaffordable.</p>
<p>If you have a VERY level-headed kid that is very “money savvy” and completely understands that such schools are likely going to be unaffordable (and won’t be angry), then it’s fine. The child has to understand that such applications are being submitted just to see what the school might offer.</p>
<p>However, if your child is like many kids for his age (rather clueless about money and/or has an entitlement attitude), then I would proceed with many precautionary words or (more likely) avoid those schools like the plague.</p>
<p>You need to sit down with your son NOW and let him know how much you are willing to pay for college – and give him enough information about his finances so that he can run a FAFSA calculation on his own. You need to explain to him the difference between need-based aid and merit aid, and also explain to him how student loans work, so doesn’t go into the process thinking he can easily borrow $100K or more on his own.</p>
<p>It’s not fair to your son to let him go into the process without understanding the financial limitations. Once he does understand them, then he can make his own decisions about where to apply.</p>
<p>I don’t think he was being foolish for looking at the good schools, I think you were foolish for not saving the past 15 years to try to be able to help pay for college. If you do not qualify for merit aid then you make enough that if you saved you would be able to pay for his college. Think, instead of buying that huge house or buying that brand new BMW just because your other one was 2 years old was really necessary? Keeping up with the Jones really does kill.</p>
<p>Adding to what I said before, if you kid is looking at schools like Tulane tell him no way in hell will he be attending. The deal with my parents is that they will pay for any college I want but not grad school. I know that going to a mid range school for 50k a year is a very stupid move. If I don’t get into one of my top choices - UVA, UNC, Gtown, any Ivy, then I’m going to UF for free. No mid range schools where I waste 200k. I would rather have my parents give me 150k and keep the other 50k.</p>
<p>scubaguy, since your son has already looked at some expensive schools, I wouldn’t waste time and energy wondering whether that was a mistake - I’d just move on from there and communicate now to your son how much you can afford toward his education. The process does go more smoothly when the student knows going in what the financial limitations are. That doesn’t mean that your son can’t adjust to financial realities now. Don’t buy into the notion that once a student has toured an obviously great school like Harvard that he can’t possibly be happy anywhere else.</p>
<p>The choice isn’t only between “routine state schools” and “top expensive universities.” If the counselors at your son’s private school give that impression, they’re doing their students no favors. Can you post a new thread with information about your son’s interests, stats, and general preferences (size, location, etc.) so that we can suggest some more affordable options? </p>
<p>What are your state schools like? Will your son qualify for their Honors College, if there is one? One possibility is doing well for a year or two at a good state school and then transferring elsewhere - though your son may well find himself too happy at that point to consider transferring.</p>
<p>If you were going to buy your son a car and you had enough money for a Toyota Corolla would you let him test drive the new Lexus? I guess it wouldn’t hurt, but I’m sure you would caution him first that it’s a look-not-buy situation.</p>
<p>I guess you could also let him sit out on the street with a sign that says “the Lexus is a good ‘fit’ for me” and hope that strangers would chip in to buy him the Lexus. He could also try to get the gov’t to loan him money to buy the Lexus. To me, that’s what you do when you request/expect/demand financial aid for a school you can’t afford.</p>
<p>A picture is worth a thousand words. Have your son look at the photos posted on the Huffington Post college site- the feature is titled “Majoring in Debt”.</p>
<p>[UPDATED:</a> Share Your Story – Majoring In Debt](<a href=“HuffPost - Breaking News, U.S. and World News | HuffPost”>UPDATED: Share Your Story -- Majoring In Debt | HuffPost College)</p>
<p>You will see students holding signs displaying their student loan debt. Many are in their 30s and 40s, owing tens of thousands of dollars (some hundreds of thousands).
Don’t feel guilty- feel smart, that you are able to make the smart decision now, before he starts school, not to saddle him with crushing debt. No one needs to feel guilty for making fiscally responsible decisions. It’s just an undergraduate degree.</p>
<p>I don’t think you should beat yourself up about having let your son look at expensive schools, but I think you absolutely need to sit down with him and talk financials. Tell him exactly how much you can afford. Research student loans and show him exactly what it takes to pay them off. Show him your financials. My kids were shocked to discover how much money we spend on mortgage, real estate and income taxes.</p>
<p>We knew we could manage instate tuition room and board for all of ours. So from a young age they knew that was what they would get from us. When time came to look at schools they could take the money we would provide and work with scholarships to go out of state or private schools, or they could go in state. We would not sign for loans. 2 went in state and 2 took another route. </p>
<p>DD knew the deal when she applied to NYU but wanted to try anyhow. They did not come up with enough scholarship money so even though she really wanted to go there it was off the table. She went to another school where she could put together the right numbers and it has been perfect fit for her. </p>
<p>Give them the ground rules and let them own the process. There is a lot of growth in the process.</p>
<p>I think you should do something like what others have offered here, though I don’t agree with the attitude that you should go in automatically with a “no loans” posture. I know that CC is debt averse, and I think it’s good to caution your student about how much debt they take on. But IMHO the best approach is have a frank conversation with your child and say “We are able to pay this much. Beyond that, you have to come up with the rest, either through merit aid, or through loans.” Be sure they understand how loans work and what it means to carry a large loan load. Also make sure they understand they’ll need to be spending their summers working to contribute as well. </p>
<p>And since they already go to a private school with regular counseling, suggest that either they or you the parents meet with the counselor and be hones that you’re concerned about financials. Show the counselor what schools your kid is looking at and ask if they can help you identify a few schools that are similar to the ones on the table, but offer good merit aid or other kinds of aid.</p>
<p>We started out looking at expensive private colleges with S before we understood how high our EFC was and had a better handle on what stats would be required for merit aid.</p>
<p>We had to tell him at that point that if he didn’t qualify for X amount of merit money, the school would not be doable.</p>
<p>So it is your decision ultimately. You need to tell him what you can afford so he can have realistic expectations going into the application process.</p>
<p>It wouldn’t hurt to apply to some of these schools - you could be pleasantly surprised, but he needs to know he shouldn’t get his hopes up. Help him target some schools that he would be happy to attend that are within your budget.</p>
<p>Better that he understands now, rather than after acceptances, that your family can’t afford to send him to his ‘dream school’</p>
<p>UVA or bust, you have a very simplistic attitude toward finances. The EFC calculator assumes you’ve been at that income level all along. But in many cases that is just not so.</p>
<p>Families have divorces, periods of unemployment or underemplyment, medical or other financial setbacks. But the EFC calculations are based on what your income is right now.</p>
<p>Also, colleges seem to assume as part of attending their expensive institution, your family is willing to take on loans. Given the shaky economy and our job situation, I was not willing to take the risk of taking on large loans, then losing our jobs. We have two other children to pay for down the road.</p>
<p>And we did not want our son to take on large loans either, in effect paying a mortgage like loan for much of his adult life.</p>
<p>Lastly, EFC calculators do not take cost of living into account. At our income level, it would be much easier if we lived in a low cost area. It doesn’t matter to the EFC calculator that housing is 3X or more what it would be in another area of the country. Or that taxes are higher, etc., etc.</p>
<p>I probably wouldn’t agree with UVA on too many posts out here… but if you plan and save from birth for your kids’ college expenses, even divorce and job loss can be overcome. My ex-H and I divorced late in D1’s junior year of high school, and I also had a period of unemployment at the beginning of the recession. But we were big savers, and it paid off when things got bumpy. D1 ended up at a private college she loves with some merit money (about 1/3 of the cost), and will come out with no debt. I expect D2 to be able to attend the private college of her choice, probably without loans. I have also paid for private schools for both of them. Ex-H does not contribute one penny for college or private school since the divorce.</p>
<p>To accomplish this, I work in a job that I don’t particularly love, but it pays well. I have carefully diversified our investments, and mostly hung in there during stock market drops to gain back in the recovery. Many of our vacations were cheap (drove rather than flew, stayed with grandparents, etc.). We live pretty frugally - don’t eat out often, have a fairly low mortgage payment, rent movies instead of going to the theater, etc. I drive used cars - not beaters, but never new off the lot. My kids did not have cars in high school, take limos to prom, or have cell phones before they turned 16. It is really all about your priorities.</p>
<p>If you set your sights on this goal early, it can be done. If you just hope it is going to work out and someone is going to just drop grant or merit money on your kids so they can attend elite schools, not so likely. Reminds me of kids who want to grow up to be professional athletes, it is about as realistic.</p>