Does OP know how much colleges cost?
I’ll help.
A community college where a student can commute from home can sometimes be less than $5000 a year.
Instate public universities are usually in the $20,000 a year range, give or take a few thousand dollars. This includes tuition, fees, room, board.
OOS public universities vary from under $24,000 total to well over $50,000.
Private universities are in the $40,000 to $70,000 range.
All prices are PER YEAR.
I have gone through this process twice.
With my first DD, in my pre-CC days, I had her come up with a list of schools which we then toured. After the tour we only dropped one off the list. Late April she finally made a decision. She never had a dream school. I did eliminate two of the higher cost schools that made the short list because she didn’t like them any more than the low cost course. She ended up at SUNY Binghamton which is a great OOS value.
WIth my second DD, I know she is indecisive by nature. She is also not into searching online for info…so I got her requirements for a college (not too far away, not too big, no reaches) and came up with a list. We visited about 6 schools…but when it came time to apply, there was a clear favorite. I told her to consider Early Decision so she wouldn’t be in late April trying to decide. Decide up front! It was a smaller public school (TCNJ) that is also a great value.
OP, save the tour money and spend it on an SAT or ACT prep class instead. If there is any chance the kid can get merit money*, test scores are important.
*or accepted to a school that meets full need
As others have said, “1 1/2 years of college” is way too vague. Can you give us a dollar figure so we know what that means to you? Then we could be more helpful.
OP: I am sure you feel bombarded! My son never had a “dream school” and liked almost every school we toured. He did not like the very artsy culture at one, thought one was too small, and did not like the trimester system at one but all the others stayed on the table. Even once he picked, he couldn’t really articulate the reason.
Finances are very important. Since she has not shown a strong preference for a type of school, as the parent I would be researching schools that off a lot of merit (make sure she is near the top of their applicant pool) and/or who meet full need (assuming your income does not make you full pay even with 5 or 6 kids). That is much more important than visiting at this point. As others have said, the Net Price Calculators for each school can really help determined affordability.
If she has the stats for a realistic chance at Notre Dame, she would be a good candidate for lots of money at many schools.
Many of us on CC ask/require our kids to apply to a “parental choice”. That doesn’t mean they have to attend, but we know that with admissions and financial aid so unpredictable and with kids who can change their minds between October and April of senior year, having lots of affordable options is a good thing.
Paying for one year and study abroad (if chosen) and that is it? Not really looking to have your contribution match what DD can pay for or borrow through to a degree.
Maybe your H and you financed your own education, or had tight finances. Then you figure, you could do it, DD can do it.
With 6 kids, I understand you are busy and may not have absorbed a really workable plan.
If DD is a scholarship level student, it may be that she can accept a scholarship to a four year program. I am not as verse as some on CC with a high stat kid’s options based on family income and what profile is used by particular private schools. However there are public schools that offer great options for high stat kids.
If you share DD stats, recommendations can follow. Any AP, dual enrollment?
It may be that due to room/board, if there is a more local community college or UW. Room/board drive up the cost of attending, for state schools more than tuition or close to tuition (so doubling the costs).
What is DD wanting to study?
Have you looked at any of the school net price calculations?
Even with a smart student, throwing all this financial stuff solely on their shoulders is overwhelming IMHO.
H came from a financially very tight family situation (H and I are from WI). All four kids went through college, all had some student loans, but it was a ‘team’ approach.
Study abroad is a ‘luxury’. My plan to be see how DD can get through college on a tight budget and with as low student loans as possible.
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- Set a dollar amount you will pay for all four years…and divide by four. That will give your daughter her ANNUAL budgeted amount from YOU.
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Along with other good advice upthread, ^^^this is very important. To say that you’ll pay for 3 semesters could be confusing. I doubt that you mean that you’ll pay 3 full-price semesters at - say - Columbia (which would be about $90,000), but if she goes to your instate public, you will only pay $40k for those 3 semesters.
There’s a big difference between $90k and $40k.
If you can pay $40k total, then just say you can only pay $10k per year. THAT gives a better sense of what else is needed to cover college costs. $10k from you, $5k from a student loan, means that each of your kids will need a full tuition merit scholarship. Any earnings from jobs can go towards books, personal expenses, travel costs, study abroad experiences, etc.
Please listen to the parents here. Many of us not only have already been thru the whole “paying for college” experience (and some here have large families, too), we’ve seen many tragic stories of people not approaching the “paying for college” process in a logical manner.
My own kids worked summers and during the school year (except fall frosh semester…for adjustment purposes, we didn’t have them work that first semester). My kids had very challenging majors, Math and Chemical Engineering (also premed), so while they did work during the school year, their hours were limited (8-10) so as not to hurt their GPAs. My ChemE premed son only worked 2-3 hours a week during the semester he had Ochem II, because protecting his GPA for med school was very important.
Both of my kids got large merit at their university, so their remaining costs were very low. I think that with 6 kids and a tight budget as to how much you can (understandably) pay, looking for schools giving LARGE merit would be the way to go!
There is a mom here on CC with 8 kids. Her son is attending the same school as the one my kids did and his merit awards have covered nearly or all of his costs.
Assuming that your children will also be pursuing demanding majors, there will be limits as to how much they can earn towards college.
I kinda think this is a bit of a mistake. Frankly the need to tour before applying is a bit overrated and in some cases can really skew a school (incorrectly) one way or another.
Visit a school on a bad weather day, have a bad tour guide, etc. and you can walk away with a bad impression that the place does not deserve.
Schools with particularly nice campuses obviously do better on visits than schools with “plain” campuses, but frankly once you’re there for a few months, the architectural aesthetics of the campus really don’t matter much.
Another thing to be aware of on the subject of paying for a year and a half is that that is not the way college FA works. The EFC is an annual thing, and goes up and down from year to year depending on your income, your age, and so forth. It is split between the number of children you have in college. You can’t tell your D’s school after 1 1/2 years, “That’s it: now the money is all going to school #2 for child #2’s year and a half.”
And of course, different schools have different methodologies when it comes to calculating EFC. There can be a big difference between FAFSA-only schools and Profile schools. Some schools are more generous than others. You really HAVE to run some NPCs.
Please, give us an overview of your D’s stats, coursework, and ECs. We can suggest schools where she can get maximum $$, whether that be merit or FA.
We don’t know what the income/assets are for this family. Yes, they may have 6 kids, but their income/assets may be high enough that the kids still may not qualify for enough aid…and/or the kids’ stats may not qualify them for admittance into the schools with the best aid…or the kids may want to attend a school that gives lousy aid.
We also don’t know if the family is instate for Wisconsin. There may have been a time that alums’ kids got discounts, etc, but that is not the case today.
I wonder if the OP and her H “worked their way” thru Wisconsin-Madison themselves when doing so was easy to do. Many of us were able to do so because back then, public univs tuition and R&B was often about the amount a young person could earn over a summer…maybe supplemented with a small student loan. THAT option is no longer the case, unless the student also gets large merit or qualifies and is awarded large need-based aid.
OOS publics rarely give a lot of need based aid. They charge high rates for a reason…the parents don’t pay taxes there. It makes little sense for these schools to charge high OOS rates, and then cover those high rates with need-based aid.
HOWEVER, there are some OOS publics (not Wisconsin) that are trying to raise their profile, and therefore they are awarding large merit to entice students with high test scores to attend. UAlabama is one of those schools. I don’t know what your D’s test scores are, or what her major is, but if she has an ACT 32 or 1400 M+CR SAT, then she could get free tuition at Alabama. Bama has roughly 4000 students choosing that option. If your D is a CompSci or eng’g major, then she would get the same award with an ACT 30 or 1330 M+CR…plus she’d get an additional $2500 per year. Her remaining costs would be within the range of your budget.
My younger son was an engineering major, and he got the free tuition, plus $2500 per year.
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So far, out of what we’ve toured (our main rule is that she can’t apply to a school she hasn’t toured) the only schools she’s dead-set against are Madison (which she only agreed to tour in the first place since it was our alma mater) and Notre Dame.
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I’m guessing that if you considered ND, then your D has strong stats and maybe that you’re Catholic. If you’re Catholic, then you may be considering the other Catholic schools, (Marquette, Loyola Chicago, Creighton, etc, etc…there are so many), but really only ND and G’town give great aid. The rest may give some merit for high stats, but they mostly gap big-time.
OP I know this must feel like piling on but what the above posters have written about finances is crucial. It’s an incredibly complex situation that isn’t even the same from school to school and the posters above really know what they are talking about.
We truly have your daughter’s best interests at heart here.
On the bright side, it’s a very good thing OP posted now rather than after kid started applying! There is lots of time for course correction.
I wonder if this is why we haven’t heard back from the OP. She came here with one question and has been met with a thousand questions in return as well as advice she didn’t ask for. I’m sure it’s overwhelming, but hopefully she will digest it and realize the wisdom the posters are trying to share.
OP- I’m as confused as everyone else here seems to be. I’m not sure why you are spending so much money to visit campuses that your D may not even be able to afford when that money could be put towards college expenses. Without knowing her stats, it is impossible to say if they are good enough to qualify her for any merit awards anywhere. If so, I hope you are limiting your visits to those potential schools. If not then I can definitely understand your D’s indecisiveness. From my own experience with my children I would be surprised if your D has much of an understanding of how the financial end of college works. It is impossible to come up with an realistic list of colleges without knowing what her expected contribution to those schools will be once your contribution runs out.
You say you will pay for 1 or 1-1/2 years of college for her. Is that still the case regardless of whether she ends up at a $60,000/year school or a community college? If you will flat out pay for 1-1/2 years of the college of her choice with the understanding that she gets to choose which years you will pay for, then my advice to her would be to attend your local cc and live at home while she pays for this portion of her college, and to then transfer to the school of her choice and let you pay for 1-1/2 years of that school. That leaves her responsible only for the costs of cc plus 1/2 year of the more expensive school, a debt she might be able to handle. If you are expecting her to take out loans for 2-1/2 to 3 years of a university (for which you would have to co-sign) then I can certainly understand her confusion as that is a huge amount of debt for any student to graduate with. The criteria you have set for your D is too vague for her to be able to make any informed decision.
“She knew this going into the process and with her having a job, we feel she has a healthy since of fiscal responsibility to know what shes getting into. She did consider cost into her search without applying any scholarships or financial aid she may get. Some of the schools she’s considering certainly are not cheap, and she knows that’s something for her to consider. Ultimately costwon’t be a major factor until after she’s seen what schools are willing to offer her.”
OP, the above is a quote from your post #14. Apart from what other wise posters have said about the potential impossibility of your daughter paying for 2.5 years of college herself, there are few high school kids on the planet who could truly grasp the meaning of owing so much money (even if she was allowed to borrow it). Especially if trusted mom and dad say, essentially, “Go for it, honey, a wonderful experience is worth any amount of money” - not even getting into the issue that many experiences don’t turn out as expected. No matter how smart and mature your lovely girl is, she can’t possibly “know what she’s getting into”.
There are some very sobering threads here about being in serious debt.
If you are in WI, you can also consider state schools (like MN) as long as reciprocity paperwork is in and approved. My niece went to a small public in MN and got a BSN - Winona State (for clinicals there are two locations, niece did hers in Rochester). She now works in the hospital system there (Mayo affiliated).
Also does DD want to live reasonably close to home, like small/med/large campus, big city/college town/ college town w/o rural setting, whatever - anything to narrow things down?
Cost sounds like it may be a big limitation, so need to see how those parameters will limit. If you have gone to one campus, may be similar to another - for example I found LSU to be similar in some ways to Auburn University - so if DD/family live in LA, LSU might make DD happy if she liked AU.
Try to ascertain probable major - that can be a big factor in school choice. If undecided, be at a big enough school to allow student to complete degree at that school.
Can always make a trip to campus much later (before final selection). So if OOS offers great merit, put it on a list for now.
RE<<my eldest="" is="" a="" junior="" in="" hs.="" like="" every="" other="" the="" country,="" we’ve="" been="" touring="" schools="" since="" early="" october="">> Seriously?? Your’e in for 18 months of severe heartburn if you’re taking this decision to this level of seriousness this early. We visited a few schools early, but didn’t really get serious about where to apply until October-November of Senior year. And even then, we didn’t bother visiting the top contenders until AFTER acceptance / scholarships / aid / etc. There is no reason in my opinion to get started this early in the college process, except to decide WHAT to study. There is no reason to get you kid’s hopes up if they don’t get accepted / you can’t afford it, etc. etc. What is the point? I think you can get good enough information on the internet if a school meets your kid’s criteria for size/location/weather/etc based on general opinions of others and any travel you kid has done previously.
To dispute your statement “that every other junior in the country” is alreay touring schools is ridiculous (maybe a small percentage of Ivy bound students where money isn’t a factor, or where schools are in driving distance anyhow). I know a couple of juniors who haven’t done anything yet this year.
We don’t want to put too much pressure on her, however it’s coming down to the point where she needs to know where she’s applying,
^^^^^ From OP’s first post
I think it’s putting way too much pressure on her to be told this before the end of her 11th grade year in HS. My DD is a junior and we’ve visited a lot of different schools but she still has at least 4-6 months to make up her mind about where she is applying (depending on early or regular). Life as a HS junior is stressful enough without manufacturing artificial parental deadlines that do nothing but pressure a student - and this is without the financial piece of it which should be considered when she makes her list.
As an aside, can someone explain to me AGAIN how to get the quote to appear in blocks? I’ve tried removing spaces and adding the { } but can’t get it to work. Sorry to be so obtuse …