DW, DD, and I had this discussion today and already made a decision, so I am asking out of curiosity what choice CC parents would make. To keep this a general question I will omit the schools. I will also add the caveat that you can afford the full pay school, but are not rich.
Does significantly reducing your retirement nest egg figure in for some of you? How about having to work longer? Would it matter if the full pay was an “elite school” and the other one was just good or very good? Would it matter in your decision if going full pay would probably mean that two siblings would end up paying for their own masters programs instead of getting help.
I will also add that one of the things we discussed was that while we could afford being full pay, we told DD that we aren’t rich enough to be full pay, and pay for a wedding, as well as helping out on a down payment for a house.
So, who would turn down $109,000, and who would say “you’re going there”?
Depending on her major, free ride especially if she is in an honors college. There is always grad school for an elite choice. Also I would look at the 10 year salaries of grads just to see if there is any difference. What is her major?
that would be a nice problem to have, but I would hope my Daughter would make the decision that makes the most financial sense, and I would do my very best to convince her what that amount of money really means. She would have to do an awful lot to convince her dad and me that school X is $109K Better than school Y - I don’t think it would be possible, but we would listen to her and help her make the decision.
Many students and families are currently weighing this issue over far less $$ - 50K, 20K, heck even 10K or 5K is a lot of money.
If you put it in terms of she could get 3 or 4 spanking new very nice cars with that difference, it may mean more to her than the elusive idea of a wedding (especially if she is not currently even dating) or thinking about a house someday.
I do not have children but there would have to be a very very compelling reason to get me to allow a hypothetical child to turn down a full ride for full pay elsewhere, assuming that the full ride is at a good school. Significantly reducing my retirement and having to work longer would definitely figure in - I wouldn’t want to do either of those things if my child had a perfectly good school on the table to choose.
Whether or not I could pay for my other kids’ masters’ programs wouldn’t really figure in, though. At this point in time, I’m of the mind that kids are on their own to pay for graduate programs although we might help with living expenses. (This mindset may of course change once I have actual children.)
I don’t think looking at average 10 year salaries would make much of a difference. It’s the ecological fallacy - just because School X has a higher average salary 10 years post-college than School Y does not mean that my daughter will make more if she graduates from School X. For one example, School X might be more heavily tech majors, but their history majors (and tech majors, for that matter) may make the same post-college as School Y. For another, salary isn’t the only important outcome here.
Presumably the conversation about money was held back when the list was being created, and the family was entirely on board about what the financial limits happened to be. If the full-pay was considered to be affordable from the get-go (as in enough money was sitting in the kiddo’s college account to cover the difference between four years at full-pay and what kiddo could expect to make during vacations and what kiddo could borrow with federal loans), then in the end it is kiddo’s choice to drop their entire college fund on it or not.
Unfortunately, too many parents who don’t have that kind of money set aside go into the whole thing with a bunch of wishful thinking, and then have to negotiate their way out of it later. Given that the OP has written “while we could afford being full pay, we told DD that we aren’t rich enough to be full pay, and pay for a wedding, as well as helping out on a down payment for a house” clearly the OP did not define how the money was to be spent for the child’s future until the final cost of college was determined.
Another interesting thing is that she did not get into Engineering at the “elite” school, and would probably major in public health (or maybe math). She isn’t convinced that she wants to be an engineer but would at least start out in that at the big OOS State School.
We did. We told her she could apply anywhere that she wanted but that we had budgeted for UVA for 4 years and that anything above that was her responsibility. She applied to a few other dream schools (Pitt and Cal Poly SLO) but didn’t get enough merit to make them realistic for her.
Would probably encourage going with the free ride but wouldn’t bring the siblings’ masters degrees into that. Parent contributions to masters degrees are nice if circumstances allow but shouldn’t be expected or cause one child to forgo some undergrad opportunity so that others can get a family-subsidized masters.
If you told your kid before she made her application list a price limit greater than or equal to $109,000, then you should be prepared to honor your promise, unless unforeseen adverse household finance events have occurred since then (loss of job, unexpected big medical bills, etc.). If the price limit you told her previously was less than $109,000, then the $109,000 school should be treated as a rejection due to being too expensive.
We already forced away the fullpay option early in the process. We could swing fullpay, but totally don’t see the point, especially since S1 has grad/professional school ambitions. So we put our foot down early and would not support any applications to non merit schools. No ivies, no kumbaya schools.
The outcome:
S1 has the choice between a number of attractive options at half-ride to full-ride. We can do fullpay for professional school (that would be the time to pursue the stratospherically elite schools). We haven’t set an expensive precedent for S2. And we can stay on track for retirement before age 90.
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Does anyone know what the stats are in terms of how difficult it is to become an RA? How many apply vs openings, etc? Min GPA? etc
DD wants to go there but it is quite a bit more than UVA (where she was accepted, but not in Engineering). We might be willing to pay more if we thought there was a good chance she could lower her costs by being an RA.
She was wait listed at the Naval Academy, but accepted into her other schools: UVA; Cal-Poly San Luis Obispo; Pitt; Alabama; GMU. She got some merit $ at CP-SLO, and full tuition plus partial room and board at 'Bama.
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Full pay for UVA (OOS) , but didn’t get into eng’g…vs Cal Poly SLO, Bama Pitt, or GMU. Or are you instate for UVA???
How is SLO a lot more than UVA if she got some merit from SLO?
Is GMU the free ride?
I don’t know why this is a “free ride” vs " full pay" discussion when there were other “in between” choices as well.
We did not force S2 to take the nearly full tuition plus Honors at our large in-state urban flagship. His older brother was very happy there, but the university did not appeal to him at all… For a variety of reasons: too urban, a little too big, wanted a warmer climate…
He chose to attend UNC-CH full pay. He has taken advantage of every opportunity available there. Applied for, and was given, grants to fund summer travel to South Africa, two years of summer research at a clinic in Malawi, and another research summer in Honduras this summer (Technically after he graduates). The grants were from different UNC departments, including a research group with the medical school.
We wouldn’t have changed a thing for him. He graduates in a few weeks Phi Beta Kappa, with honors and highest distinction.
‘Can afford it’ doesn’t mean giving up significant retirement income does it? But I agree on not withholding funds from the undergrad to pay for others Master’s probably. I think weddings are a terrible waste of money for a pretty crappy time, but that’s just my values.
Keep your retirement fund intact, don’t work longer than you planned, but ditch the expensive wedding for a sweet and modest backyard one, keep a little aside to help with a house downpayment, then recalculate what you can afford to contribute. That should be the budget, period.
I never considered sacrificing my retirement finds or plans for my kids. If one kid requires a reduction to the retirement contribution, then what happens when the second (third?) child goes to college? As for the weddings, down payment on a house, grad school - those are all nice to haves.
I wouldn’t necessarily force a child to go to the free school. It looks like there is a range of choices. What happened to the others?
Add to my post above: we would never touch retirement funds, and did say, “No” to Vanderbilt once he got in and we saw that we would be full pay there.
Two of our kids turned down full tuition offers for pricier schools. One chose a full-pay OOS public, and one a T20 school with generous merit aid which was still pricier than in-state or a free ride. Both schools fit within the budget we set when we started the college search.
I think the answer to @TV4caster’s question depends on the conversation you have when your kid starts looking at schools. It’s up to the parents to set limits on what they’re willing to pay, run the EFC/NPCs, and inform themselves about how finaid works. If parents want to say “you’re on your own for college” or “you’re going to the least expensive option,” that’s certainly their right - but they should make that clear going in. If they want to say “we have x dollars to contribute to your future, including a wedding, grad school, and help with a house. When it’s gone, it’s gone,” they should make that clear, as well.
Or parents might say, "we can give you x dollars but that’s dependent on our jobs and our health and no family emergencies coming up, " which is also fine. I feel strongly that parents should NOT require the kid to choose the cheapest option AFTER letting the kid think he/she can attend any school that fits the budget.
Obviously parents should not risk their retirements, homes, credit, etc. to pay for school. But we all know the future is coming and there’s no excuse not to think about whether, or how, to pay for college before the search starts.