@Peteclo , we are far from rich with relatively modest income and assets, and our daughter was accepted to and waitlisted at Ivies. For us, Columbia provided slightly better financial aid than our state flagship, UW.
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I presume that your daughter would qualify for the University Honors Program at KU. If so, then she could do a lot worse than attending KU and being in a smaller and more select tribe of the sort she would find in the honors program.
If your daughter is likely to want/need to attend school for a post-graduate or professional degree, then it is the caliber of the post-graduate/professional education that will be more important than where she gets her undergraduate degree. So if there are financial constraints, your daughter should consider going in-state to KU (or to a school where the cost of undergraduate education is low); then you can spend your money on a better/more prestigious graduate program for her, since that will have more impact on her ultimate employment opportunities.
You might also look at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio; it is a good school where your daughter might qualify for automatic merit aid: Scholarships | Costs and Financial Aid | Miami University. This might get you into the financial ballpark.
Yeah. Not sure y I put UW. Maybe I meant to go WSU. Their tuition with scholarship can go to 15k. Thx for catching.
And agree on KU Honors. Itās well thought of Iām regards to Honors Colleges.
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Ivy League schools are very generous with financial aid, including to families that make more than you think (up to $200k at some schools) so it may be worth it to run the NPC for a couple to see if brings your COA more in line with what you can afford. And, no, they do not offer any merit.
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Thereās a tendency to lump Ivy League schools together. The reality is that theyāre very different. And difference is significant in financial aid as well. For some students, some of these schools are much less generous than others.
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For what itās worth, according to the Princeton pamphlet sitting in front of me, for the class of 2023, 82% of students with a family income of 200k-250k received financial aid, with an average grant of $35,000.
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I wanted to apologize for my comments about who can afford the Ivies. I certainly donāt want to disparage anyone that was able to put the money together, major kudos to you for sure. I just find this whole process horribly frustrating.
Appreciate the kind words about KU and itās honors college. That has always been the backup plan. My impetus for the original post was the feeling it was my only realistic play. You guys have given me some very interesting ideas and helped to clarify a muddied picture.
Thank you.
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I understood your comment, there are many of us in the donut hole of having income/assets which make us not eligible for FA, and yet not enough to pay for a reach school, maybe not even a match. It all works out.
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Your hypothesis was good. Should you waste time applying ? The answer is if you will not qualify for need based aid and you donāt want to spend $80k, then no. There are many wonderful schools that are lower cost and not just the home school.
There are also schools that offer merit by income. Make less than $100k get x $$. With those you have to be wary of the lineā¦assumes normal assets. My daughter was in at W&L, a strong liberal arts school with fantastic merit opprtunitiesā¦starting with the Johnson Scholarship. While she got in, we did not receive merit although she was a finalist and interviewed for a tuition only award. Itās $81k a year. At my income level they show 88% of kids receiving $38k on average.
I was one of the other 12%.
With KU affordable and an easy in, you have max flexibility. Use the NPCs to see your cost. If thatās too much and the school only offers need aid, save your time. Of it offers merit, take your shot !! As long as KU is truly seen as a winner in the family! As youāve seen ther are other affordable safeties as wellā¦strong schools like FSU which is rapidly gaining national respect.
There are also opportunities in her preferred areasā¦but if she ends up in a non preferred and momās wallet is fuller because if it, sheāll love and still have a wonderful experience.
Best of luck.
This is not straight merit aid. Itās what I would call āhybrid merit aid,ā meaning aid that has both a merit component and a need-based component.
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I donāt think you mean merit (if you do, please list the schools that do this). But there are colleges that give need based aid at a certain level to those with incomes below a certain threshold and ātypical assetsā.
My bad. I write too much and too quickly. What you said. Just saying there can potentially be schools within range depending on the OPs income and assets. Right message, wrong verbiage. Thx for correcting me.
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D20 attends a T20 LAC and they just revised their financial aid policies. Families making between $125-150K will only pay 10% of their income for tuition, room and boardā¦providing they have ātypical asset levels for their income groupā. It is pretty amazing that an income of $150,000 is low-income but there you go.
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Peteclo wrote:
I wanted to apologize for my comments about who can afford the Ivies. I certainly donāt want to disparage anyone that was able to put the money together, major kudos to you for sure. I just find this whole process horribly frustrating.
No apology necessary! I posted about Princetonās financial aid not to be argumentative, but because some folks prematurely rule out wealthy private schools, not realizing that families in the lower- and middle-income brackets (and even some ādonut holeā families) can receive excellent need-based aid (if the student is fortunate enough to be admitted). So donāt donāt eliminate a school from consideration without checking the net price calculator!
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Congrats to them for making it to the party!!
I donāt think that your Dās college thinks that $150k is low income as much as it is looking to make college affordable for many families where making 150k (2 mid career teachers in some states) in the past would not have been able to afford to send their kid to this school
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A friend of mine said Harvard did the same thing (charged 10% of family income) when she had a kid accepted about four years ago, although it might have been tuition only. I donāt know what the threshold is, though, or if that truly is their policy. She fell in that 100,000-150,000 range.
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ā say, what do you think typical asset levels for income group means?
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You have to ask the school. Cornell over 1 million no aid. W&L two times income.
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Honestly, I have no idea. At each school, there may be another formula at play that isnāt published. Otherwise, the school I mentioned would say $X income and $Y assets. I would think if you have a $75K income and $1M in assets, that would be atypical.
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They did not do that this year!