<p>I have been pondering this for a while... S and I worked real hard on this whole college selection process. I did not want to widen the field too much, he did not want to narrow it so as a result seven colleges were on our list. Now that the results rolled in, what do we do with the admittances to those schools that are not financially feasible without huge loans on everybody's part? Should we have seen it coming and not even tried? After all, most top schools do not give merit aid, and we are not a need-based family: solid middle class. So here is a question to all CC parents out there, since I have a sophmore in the wings. Do we just plan to visit and consider only those schools that can be financially possible? Senior is holding a grudge that we are not willing to go in huge debt so that he could go to the school that was second on his list (he did not get in his top choice).</p>
<p>With the middle class initiatives that some of the top schools have in place, even being solidly middle class could score you some financial aid. So I see no problem with applying to these schools with the understanding what limits of debt the family is willing to undertake. It’s all about managing expectations.</p>
<p>As for senior holding a grudge that you aren’t willing to go into huge debt so that he can go to his school of choice–you’ll have to remind him of this when HIS kids are getting ready to go off to college. LOL!</p>
<p>Every family’s situation is different. If you and spouse are healthy, 48 years old, good and steady employment history, have been putting money into your IRA and 401K every year without fail, and have disability and life insurance through your employer, you may feel that taking on debt is comfortably doable. You may have a fully paid up whole life policy you can borrow against; you may be living in your starter home and are only a few years away from paying off the mortgage. You may have healthy parents who have long term care insurance. Or have a small business on the side which could increase your cash flow if you put a little more time into it. Etc.</p>
<p>Only you know your borrowing capacity, credit history, health issues, possibility of needing to pay for long term care for an elderly relative, etc.</p>
<p>It is fashionable to bash college loans here and in the media- but simply put, I know many highly responsible kids in their 20’s who are paying off their loans, working good jobs with solid prospects for the future, who just could not have gotten to this point without taking on some debt.</p>
<p>But for sure you should not take on loans you cannot afford, either with Senior or Sophomore.</p>
<p>I have a soph in the wings too so I am thinking the same things. After I read the schools that give great merit thread, I added two to ds’ list and they are two great schools (UMiami and Pitt) which ended up rivalling the in-state public for lowest sticker price. Are they cheaper than the instate public? No, but they are not insanely more because he did get great merit from them. Will that be the case in 2 yrs when our sophs are applying? God, I sure hope so. I think that thread is one of the most useful ones I have read. I think given what I have learned, I will ask dd to cast a wider net, mostly focussing on privates that do offer merit. I have 4 kids so I am hoping I get the hang of this eventually!</p>
<p>The approach we’re taking with our hs freshman is right in line with what I’ve learned on cc. Have at least one financial safety that she would be perfectly happy to attend (likely a small state college in a neighboring state with a “neighboring states” rate). Then, we will tell her how much we are able to pay each year. she can apply wherever she wants, but needs to know upfront that it may not be financially possible for her to attend. We will encourage schools that would give substantial merit aid for her stats (whatever they may be). Dh and I both found “better deals” at small privates. D1 did, too.</p>
<p>In the planning phase, I don’t think you rule out a school based on sticker price. However, you do need to look at the liklihood of merit aid. If the college has it, especially guaranteed aid, make the visit. If the college doesn’t give much, and you know you can’t afford it, I’d say, yeah, don’t even apply or visit.</p>
<p>This is very individual. S2 didn’t apply to any school we couldn’t afford the total COA OR the published merit aid (read non-competitive) brought the COA into the same range. Many people include financial reaches on their list and apply to specific scholarships at those schools that would make it affordable. I believe the key is to be proactive in knowing the financial variables at each school, and being very open with your student about any schools that are included that carry a caveat of receiving scholarships. You can not completely eliminate the emotion, but it helps to lay everything out first (ie. IF you receive X scholarship at Big State U, THEN it can be an option).</p>
<p>Lastly, as we all know hindsight is 20/20. You did the best you could with the information you had at the time. Apologize to your older son once if you feel you need to, but then move on from any guilt your student may be placing on you now. He’ll loose the grudge eventually unless you feed into it with continual apologies. As for your next student, most of us rely on lessons learned when younger children go though the admission process. Do what feels right, while being very open about the financial aspect with your student.</p>
<p>It does not really make sense to apply to schools that do not give merit aid, if you are not willing to be full pay and you do not qualify for need-based aid. There are lots of schools below the tippy top that give merit aid.</p>
<p>With my first, we didn’t really understand the process and it wasn’t until after the applications were sent that I realized 2 of the schools did not offer merit aid. Several others that offered merit aid did not offer it to my son. He got nice packages from several schools, although not his top choices. We showed him how unrealistic it would be take out large loans (he still had to take out the $5K per year loans), just to be in a “better” location. He is very happy at his current school, even though it wasn’t his top choice.</p>
<p>For S2 we targetted schools that give merit money and where he was within or above the stats. Once he was in at Big State U, we dropped some lower ranked schools as he would prefer the State U. As it turned out, he was admitted to 5 out of 7 schools and waitlisted at the other two. However, only 2 schools gave enough merit aid to be bring the price to a reasonable level. Merit money is a bit of a lottery, unless you drop down in rank to a point where your child is well above all of the stats. Right now he is still deciding. </p>
<p>My advice: Be up front with your d and let her know how much money she would have to get to make certain schools affordable. Be sure to have finanicial safeties. Don’t apply to schools that give $0 merit money. However, it is possible that with 2 in school you may be eligible for at least some need-based aid.</p>
<p>Nobody knows what finaid package will be offered until the acceptance come thru so the application process is somewhat of a black box. However what you as a parent should do is to layout the financial criteria before the application process even begins. This becomes a filter in deciding what colleges to apply to and a final filter in during the acceptance period. If the financial criteria are made crystal clear from the beginning the angst at the end should be minimized.</p>
<p>@amandakayak… We are IS for Pitt and did get a full merit offer, too bad S wants to leave the state :-). Keep in mind though, that PA had slashed schools budget. I had a talk with an adm rep there just the other day, basically they are themselves unsure about what would happen next year. However, there is already a thread on CC that discusses the whole politics of it.
DH is adamant about the whole loan business. I think what throws a wrench in the whole process is the fact that we are not on the same page here. I am trying to be reasonable, and H believes that S can’t go wrong with a full tuition paid and loan free, and refuses to go in debt for anything else besodes room and board. Basically S sees it as blackmail, hence the grudge. Meanwhile my soph is just processing all the controversy in his head. Hopefully, it will be less stress for him. My lesson is probably more middle-tier schools on the list, less top reaches. I have to second somebody else’s thread about toning the expectations down a bit. Oh well, live and learn.</p>
<p>One of the big questions we made our kids answer about schools is: why THIS school. They had to have a reason, and a good, academic reason at that. "Because I like the area, because the girls look hot, because it’s “cool” didn’t cut it. They had to have a concrete justification why they were even applying. At one point, DD was enamored in a couple very expensive privates in very expensive cities. So we pressed: “what can this school give you that school X can’t?” If she was short of a good answer (and she was) the school didn’t make the short list. When she did have a good answer we followed up with “and is this alone worth the extra, say, $80,000 over the course of 4 years?” When put that way, the choice becomes a little clearer - at least in our case it did.
Of course SOME schools – like the Ivies – do offer advantages that can’t be measured in “worth.” But that’s a whole other discussion.</p>
<p>
Simply put, yes. The emphasis is on the “can be financially possible”. If it’s not financially possible to attend being as optimistic as you can be about FA, do not apply. </p>
<p>Do your FA research and set the parameters going in. Affordability should be a driver in any well-crafted app strategy. And remember, if the number you are willing to pay depends on other factors (perceived value of X college over Y college , big merit scholarship at Z changing the amount you are willing to pay for another school) be sure to mention that part of the formula ;). </p>
<p>BTW, in some families there is a difference between “can pay” the freight for a particular school and “will pay” the same freight for other schools . At least, there was at our house. ;)</p>
<p>The NY Times has an article about this:
Quote
Student loan debt outpaced credit card debt for the first time last year and is likely to top a trillion dollars this year as more students go to college and a growing share borrow money to do so.
Quote
In the coming years, a lot of people will still be paying off their student loans when it’s time for their kids to go to college,” said Mark Kantrowitz, the publisher of FinAid.org and Fastweb.com, who has compiled the estimates of student debt, including federal and private loans.
<a href=“College Loans Weigh Heavier on Graduates - The New York Times”>College Loans Weigh Heavier on Graduates - The New York Times;
<p>Honestly if you can’t be a full pay and need to borrow alot of money explain to your child just how long it could take to pay back before you apply. Big debts are a huge burden!!</p>
<p>The “middle class” distinction isn’t helpful. Median household income in the U.S. is around $54k, and the middle quintile is roughly $43k-$67k. If you are “middle income”, many schools have tons of need-based aid. If you consider yourself “middle class”, with income of $120k, you likely have assets rough 4x that of “middle income” folks, and need-based aid will be very much more scarce.</p>
<p>I think many parents hear news about financial aid initiatives at schools like Harvard and Stanford and think other privates will be as generous. It is staggering to see some of the financial aid award letters from schools like NYU, with thousands of dollars of unmet need.</p>
<p>Often you have no clue if you would not be able to afford a college until you see the aid package. One we thought would be a big stretch financially actually gave daughter a financial grant we didn’t expect as well as merit aid. This put it in the ball park of the other colleges and jumped it to the number 2 spot. It really does seem like a shell game.</p>
<p>The “black box” that many can’t see into is how much FA most [non HYPS level]Profile colleges will offer. The Fafsa college FA indicators can be of no help in giving an indication of likely FA awards from many Profile colleges who do their own FA calculations, especially for the self employed.</p>
<p>*S and I worked real hard on this whole college selection process. I did not want to widen the field too much, he did not want to narrow it so as a result seven colleges were on our list. Now that the results rolled in, what do we do with the admittances to those schools that are not financially feasible without huge loans on everybody’s part? Should we have seen it coming and not even tried? *</p>
<p>there’s nothing wrong with applying to a few of these schools just to see if they will surprise you with some merit money or something. Some top schools give merit and some others have super aid policies (HYPS).</p>
<p>If you’re in that gray area (say $100k-160k) then apply…you might get aid/merit. But, if you’re in that higher range where you won’t get aid with one child in college (say $200k+ or lots of assets), and you can’t pay, then don’t bother with pricey schools that won’t give any merit. </p>
<p>However, if it’s a school that doesn’t give merit and doesn’t have a super aid policy, and you know FOR SURE that you won’t qualify for aid, and you can’t afford the price, then applying is a waste of time/money.</p>
<p>A friend of mine’s S applied to 16 schools…lots of supplementals/essays…what a waste of time. The only affordable schools are 2 UCs that he got accepted to. None of the other privates or OOS publics are affordable. The son now feels like he wasted hours and hours for nothing…not to mention the stress/worry waiting for acceptances to come in. He could have applied to like 6-8 schools (including his UCs) and be in the same place as he is now.</p>
<p>*I think many parents hear news about financial aid initiatives at schools like Harvard and Stanford and think other privates will be as generous. *</p>
<p>Yes…people are misled by those schools’ generous aid formulas.</p>
<p>I think kids apply to colleges that are outside of their financial reach for one of three basic reasons. #1 - they want a trophy acceptance, even if they know they’ll never attend. #2 - they have magical thinking (something not uncommon in the teen years). #3 - the parents have failed to sit the child down and tell him or her exactly how much they are willing/able to spend for college, and to point out things that kids ignore, such as the fact that the very top schools don’t offer merit aid and certain other schools are stingy with their need based aid. I’m sure there are other reasons, but those are probably the most common.</p>
<p>I would not visit or waste an application fee on a school that could not be within our ability to pay. I do think it’s worth applying to schools where adequate need or merit based aid is a possiblity, even if it’s not a sure thing.</p>
<p>I was angry at my child’s GC for giving her a list of 50K plus schools to check out. However, what we found is that financial aid can be very generous at those schools that have middle class initiatives (probably only about 20 schools in the country). The cost may be less than your in-state public. But cast your net wide as the differences our offers from 100% need met schools differed by as much as 15-20K/year. Just make it clear before the application process how much you are willing to pay for college.</p>
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<p>No. I set reasonable expectations from my children from the outset. I told them to expect for us to fund only what we would pay at one of our state supported universities. If they chose to go to a different school they would be responsible for the difference. That allows the child to dream within the limits they have. If they find merit aid or can piece together loans they can make it happen. I think discussing financial limitations (if there are any) just needs to be done ahead of time.</p>