<p>This is a fascinating thread, full of excellent advice. </p>
<p>There’s one thing I haven’t seen mentioned. It is probably a dumb question, but is a “Guaranteed NMSF” scholarship definitely going to stay with the student for the full four years? Or is it the type of merit scholarship where the student has to maintain certain academic standards (GPA) in order to keep the money? If student has to keep his grades up, would that be considered a positive or negative for this student? Is the school still equally appealing if he were to lose the scholarship?</p>
<p>We were in precisely the same boat as Olympiclady. It is very easy to start dropping zeros and rounding (20K = 50K). And then it hit us…we have another child who is a HS Freshman this year. He doesn’t have the same academic gifts as his sister. We really don’t know what our economic situation will be like (so it goes in banking). So we decided if our daughter was accepted to a roughly equiv school but for 15k rather than 50k due to merit than it wouldn’t be fair to not take advantage of that scholarship and potentially impact where our son might be able to attend. </p>
<p>That sure helped us see the reality of the situation and make a choice that was right for everyone in the family.</p>
<p>I also wanted to really avoid the potential feeling of parental entitlement that might have happened if the $ became a real issue later. </p>
<p>One final note: OP-If you have the 100K to spend and you aren’t going to in anyway shape or form feel some amount of entitlement to then determine what your child majors in, or how they perform, or hound them about their grades or be upset about the choices they make after college, or if they come home over their first christmas break complaing about the school and how much they hate it, or ladaldaldal…if you still after all of that think “yep I’m happy we spent the extra money” well then spend it.</p>
<p>OP said: “We were not hoping for financial aid. If it was available great, but we didn’t expect any and that’s NOT how were going to make our decisions.”</p>
<p>Two things:
1- understood that is what you did; my advice to you to have that money talk was basedon that understanding</p>
<p>2- the rest of the advice - include financial ad safety schools in a family’s college application process - wasn’t directed to you; it’s too late, so feel free to ignore it :-)</p>
<p>Kei</p>
<p>P.S. It seems your family is wobbling about what you can pay for college, and that was my main point for others: be clearer about what you will pay than OP was</p>
<p>Just a note from a college junior: in evaluating my post-graduation plans, I have been incredibly glad to have no debt and the financial backing that my parents have been able to provide as a result of choosing a scholarship-school.</p>