<p>Thanks for the words 2boysmama. Needless to say we ARE feeling pretty “stupid” at this point. I didn’t realize college was a cat and mouse “game”, or it was much like playing hard-to-get in high school romances. This IS the school he wanted and we obviously were too honest up front to say that it wasn’t. It has definitely been an eye opener. He still has two or three colleges persuing him but this is STILL the one he wants. </p>
<p>The good news is after going over the expected cost of the school about $5K of what I previously thought to be total tuition is travel and personal expected expenses. He won’t take a car for the first while because we only have two, it would stay parked most of the time (if he ever moved it, he would spend alot of time trying to find another parking spot) and we’re not prepared yet to let our second car go. He will have a bike and is actually kind of excited at the idea of having a place to ride. There are a lot of bikes on campus from what we saw. Of course in the spring we will look at the situation again and either sell him our second car for a little of nothing or he will choose his own. He expects his personal expenses to not be nearly what they estimate, but I have told him that they have to get these estimates from somewhere and we shouldn’t expect much less. However, this is my frugal child. He has high expectations of earning money in engineering…and saving as much as he can. (I’ve told him it’s not that easy…but as with everything lately…he is learning) </p>
<p>I realized on the FASFA that the workstudy/student loan question was “don’t know”. I have gone back today and changed that to “yes”. Which leads him to another question: IF he applies for federal student loans, does he HAVE to accept them if he gets most of his financial need? We can help with some…maybe $3K a year but he does not want loans if he can keep from that. Is student loans “a game” also?</p>