Good advice to get through life:
Don’t count other people’s money.
Enough said.
Hope your dd has better grammar and spelling skills, or it is off to community college for her for sure.
We aren’t allowed to use that word that describes a small person who lives under a bridge, but it sure sounds like the clip clop of goat hooves to me. Which BMW are you eyeing? Maybe your dd can sleep in it and save the cost of a dorm room.
So people who get assistance should have a cap on the level of opportunity offered to them? Fortunately, neither colleges nor society agrees with you. The catch-22 for you is that if the elite schools to which you aspire offered need-based aid for your income level, your daughter wouldn’t qualify for acceptance because the cap you desire for everyone else would apply to her too.
You can rail against the system as much as you want. It doesn’t change your situation. If your daughter’s stats were higher, there are some very good schools that offer merit that would bring the net cost down to your ballpark. It’s not the schools’ fault that she doesn’t qualify for merit and you don’t want to pay their going rate. You need to focus on the kid you have and find schools where she has a good chance of acceptance and whose costs are something you’re willing to pay.
And drop the “brand name” thing. You want your daughter to get s good education at your price point. If you really wanted “brand name” recognition…Rutgers has that in your state.
Like I said upstream, you have made choices…many choices. They are yours to make. Your daughter will have plenty of acceptance options if she considers applying to the right schools.
The thing I find most ironic is OPs comment regarding his southern education and leaving to go back north before his children started school. Had he stayed put in the South ,his children may have been “entitled” to some of the merit opportunities through state run lottery programs and low instate tuition that he’s chasing right now.
When H and I were in college, the difference between private and public colleges/universities is not what it is today. Making the adjustment from a small town and being able to finish our degrees on time and in an env’t for success, H and I both benefited from private colleges. Not because our parents knew a lot about colleges, but dad learned from his friend about this college for this major; H was directed to his school because his mom got advice from a HS counselor for his field of study. H’s parents lived under a very tight budget, putting 4 through college, and he had student loans and grants. Parents did not sign for any additional loans because they knew they couldn’t afford to.
Ben Carson has discussed ‘no incentives’ for colleges to contain costs, as the government put in the loan situation - however we all know what has happened to people caught up in that and keeping their student loans around way too long for whatever reasons, including borrowing way too much for what their earning potential was going to be. A caller on Dave Ramsey had $210,000 in student loans and is earning $30,000/year.
Colleges ‘compete’ for students, so they have had to build nicer dorms/suite housing, recreational facilities etc. That all gets paid via student fees or overall tuition.
We also are caught with people living longer, that parents need to have saved well/invested well to fund their care and their living expenses in longer retirement periods. And sometimes they also feel the need to assist the grandparents.
Our society and some parents have ‘entitled’ kid messages. What we lived w/o growing up is a whole lot different than our kids growing up w/o.
There are some college financial situations that have controversy and differing opinions. For example a couple has stayed married and have a household income, that had they been divorced and the child only needs to claim the lesser household income for their aid, they may qualify for Pell Grants that the intact household is not. Yes it costs more for two households to run, but this is an example. Some states have a cut-off on keeping household income under (is CA $70,000 or $75,000?). So families follow the ‘rules’ to not disqualify themselves for college financial aid.
There is a paradigm for colleges/universities that doesn’t always make sense. The same can be said for some of the unusual things in our tax code.
It is hard to say if college was harder for my parents to pay or for us to pay. Dad had his own business, and he really realized he ‘made it’ when I was finishing my sophomore year in college. They paid for 4 for college, while H and I have 2. I know we as parents were very informed about colleges/costs/opportunities. Our kids were better prepared for college - we made the sacrifice for them to be in a college prep Catholic HS. Our kids worked hard on the standardized testing to improve their scholarships. They have been able to go away to the in-state school of their choice, one is at the state flagship.
Glad OP is happy where he is living despite his feelings with the available lower cost college options/ in-state public or flagship for his DD. Sounds like he had mixed feelings of where they were with the older sibling on college selection, and now have even more feelings with this college bound student.
I have no qualms at all for the very low income having the educational opportunities currently available for them. Some were fortunate to have some public magnet programs that helped them get an education commensurate with their abilities.
I do like HSs are having dual enrollment and AP opportunities. Some parents just do not help ‘shape’ their student for the many years under their roof. College is a big transition; some can soften the transition by utilizing CC or utilize a gap year if the student is not ready to go away to college.
I am not for ‘free’ CC for all - the students that didn’t apply themselves in HS will have an opportunity to continue to not apply themselves. Real world has to hit their parents and these students. I also believe free CC will lower the overall student body in CC and drag down other students. Students have to have motivation and some ‘skin’ in the game IMHO. We want CC to continue to have value for all, students and as an academic institution, and not be a glorified HS.
Wow where did Dave Ramsey find all these people? Unreal.
While I disagree with a lot of your statements and find them unnecessarily (maybe purposely?) provacative, I do agree with you that college has become too expensive, and not for the right reasons in many cases. That’s about where we part ways.
I don’t really understand where you are going from there. Your D has had a decent HS career. She’s an A- student with 80-85th% test scores and what sounds like a very large variety of activities, albeit not state or nationally distinguished. She will get into colleges that value this type of student. They will have various price points. You can decide which she will choose when all the offers come in. No need to choose or debate it now, other than to solicit suggestions for “fit” colleges, and then visit them. Time’s running out.
She will not get into an elite college, barring some fantastic good luck. She just won’t. And, she probably wouldn’t be happy at one anyway. They value the kids who busted their butts getting 4.5+/2300+/national recognition ECs.
That said, I also don’t understand why anyone is criticizing this girl…at all. She sounds like a social butterfly who has really enjoyed her HS career in a positive way. So what if she didn’t tailor her time towards taking 30 practice exams to get an elite test score? So what if she didn’t work round the clock to get an A in every AP known to man? So what if she wanted to scatter her activities broadly and dabble in lots of things rather than achieve national greatness in one? Assuming she even could have spiked that high in some area of talent, had she tried.
Should the goal of every 14-18 year old kid be to get into an elite college? Or should the goal be to be yourself, explore lots of things, and if that means attending directional U, then attend happily and carry on. The elite colleges do reward those kids who not only buckled down and achieved academically, but were also lucky enough to be very, supremely talented in a particular area, and who had the opportunity to develop that talent at an early age, be it in science, sports, arts.
Not everyone can or should attend an elite college, despite their VERY BEST EFFORTS. So what? That leaves about 3,000 other colleges out there for the remaining 90-95% of American students to attend. This girl will be one of them. I would never say she “didn’t do everything right.” Sounds to me like she’s done just fine.
OP needs to quit the whining about it. College is expensive. That s**cks, we all hate that. Your daughter will attend the college that’s right for her. You will find one you are willing to pay for. And on and on. I also happen to respect your hard work from middle class beginnings, and your decision not to sacrifice retirement on an expensive college. Many here agree with that philosophy. So, I think you did “everything right” EXCEPT for post ridiculous and provocative statements about lots and lots of other things on this board.
I do think last post is provocative particularly the part about attending school that costs $60k. Not every parents think that paying $60k is the right solution even if it’s a small fraction of their income or net worth. And no, it doesn’t mean we don’t value education.
@prospect1 I don’t see where people on this thread are criticizing OPs daughter. What I do see people criticizing is the poster’s belief that she deserves something better because she’s “amazing” ,not because she’s earned it. I commend her for having a full HS experience ,full of experiences and not feeling the need to “work around the clock to get an A in every AP known to Man.” That said , you reap what you sow. My son worked hard, did not do crazy test prep ,or load up on ECs just because they looked good on a college ap. He worked hard, studied a reasonable amount of time , etc. When his test scores initially came back one point lower than what was needed for a larger merit scholarship, his response was not “I don’t want to take anymore tests or it’sso close I should get the scholarship anyway .”
His response was to retest one more time
because it was a mature and responsible decision. He earned it, and he got it. The OP has criticized others for being "given privileges " that they didn’t earn, but he’s asking for the same thing. No one is telling him to spend more on an education than he wants to or is comfortable with. That is his family’s decision. All anyone is saying is actions have consequences and that you need to be willing to accept them , and not complain about it when you get an undesirable outcome.
@carolinamom2boys, you are so right. Some kids are just driven in that way as teenagers, and some aren’t. Mine were a mix, and yet have all been successful by any yardstick - so far, knock on wood. That shining star as a teenager isn’t always the most successful 25- or 35- or 40 yr old. I know two Ivy flunkouts from the past two years alone, both due to emotional strain.
There’s something to be said for NOT burning out as a teenager, which can happen when the achievement is parent-forced rather than kid-driven. If your kid wants to study for, and take, many tests to try for perfect scores and multiple APs, I think we can all admire that effort and hope it’s amply rewarded. This OPs D was not driven in this way, and I suppose I’m disagreeing with people who think he should have forced her to be higher achieving. Yes, some level of parental insistence on studying/working hard is good, but this D took four exams with prep, has an A- average and is involved in her HS. She is interested in colleges and has goals. I think dad and mom did a fine job.
Sadly, I have seen a few snarky comments about the achievements of OPs D on this thread, although I do think they have been largely directed at OP’s description of the D rather than the D herself, and due largely because of his initial claims that she deserved elite schools and would run a company one day. I think he backed off a lot of those initial statements.
@prospect1 I agree that he shouldn’t have forced her to retake tests. My point is if she was uncomfortable or unwilling to retake the tests that he should accept what that entails. I do believe that it’s more Dad’s issue than daughter’s. Full disclosure here. A huge part of my frustration is his daughter very much wants to go to one of the school’s my son has applied to and earned merit awards from. I would have never asked for or accepted merit at a higher level that he didn’t earn. He would’ve gotten what he earned because he earned it, not because I expected it. Therein lies my frustration. I guess I’m human.
Stop digging OP - you are just getting in deeper.
“I will blame who is at fault. I consider the government at fault because as with most things the unintended consequences of government getting involved is higher prices - in the case of a college education - way higher prices. The free market is not at work here, therefore prices have gotten out of control. I have to make certain that I have enough money through my retirement to not rely on anyone else.”
@carolinamom2boys, point well taken. I would be very annoyed by that too.
I have no doubt OP worked very hard to get where he is, same with his wife. This is how our world works, for the most part.
OP’s D has worked hard too, in her own way. She will get what she deserves for her work, and if she’s lucky, maybe a little bit more than she deserves. If she’s not lucky, maybe a little bit less. It will not be what YOUR son deserves, nor should it be.
I think the OP has received sufficient points of view from posters and don’t think the discussion has progressed for a while. If anyone has a new or related topic to discuss they can start a new thread. Closing this one now.