<p>California residents can participate in WUE.
Tuition & room & board at University of Hawaii @ Manoa for example is under $20,000 for instate residents, with the western undergraduate exchange you are just paying a bit more, and there may also be merit aid.</p>
<p>[Western</a> Undergraduate Exchange (WUE) | Western Interstate Commission for Higher Education](<a href=“http://wiche.edu/wue]Western”>Save On College Tuition | Western Undergraduate Exchange (WUE))</p>
<p>Someone asked who could have known 18 years ago what colleges would cost today? Anyone with a calculator. The college inflation rate over the past 18 years is not much higher than the previous 18. And you can expect similar over the next 18 years. For a kid born today, private colleges will cost over $150,000 per year. </p>
<p>Best way to deal with it, the only foolproof college plan, is to be an outstanding student. From before first grade, stress that nothing is more important than school. Never settle for or be satisfied with a B. No excuses. Everyone can be a straight-A student if they put in the effort, and parents need to unconditionally demand and expect that effort.</p>
<p>The payoff is scholarship options and merit aid. There will always be schools, many of them excellent, that will pay a top student to come there.</p>
<p>My son is a top student because we wouldn’t allow it any other way. We are upper middle class, and fortunately have saved ample money for college. S was admitted to several top 20 schools, all full pay for us. He knows we would pay for whatever he wants, yet he has chosen to accept a full scholarship to the honors college of a top 75 OOS flagship. His hard work and grades earned him that option, and he is smart enough to understand the pros outweigh the prestige.</p>
<p>
So what would have happend if you son “only” had average intelligence but busted his butt but still only got B’s? Would you have disowned him and thrown him out of the house? Interesting comments by some people, thinking that they just have to “manage” their kid to be a top student. A tip for you, not all kids can be top students.</p>
<p>But, you should have pride since it’s really due to YOUR efforts that your son was a top student.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>COA at UC Berkeley = $30,874 (living on campus; including books & health insurance; not including transportation or personal expenses)</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, they track pretty closely. I’ve had clients who left CT and moved south to areas where they heard the cost of living was lower - they returned to CT because they found that minimum wage was lower too.</p>
<p>
Plenty of other state schools are that high for OOS students. Our flagship in Connecticut is about $23,000 in-state, $30,000 for certain New England students, and $41,000 for other OOS. Even if they meet need, we won’t qualify for much of any aid. </p>
<p>Other nearby state schools will be similar. Yes, there are other state schools that cost less, but they would farther away, and involve a certain level of culture shock. I don’t intend to send my child OOS to a huge campus where she won’t be comfortable - it’s a recipe for disaster. Having sent my kids o schools in 34 different school districts, with vary different “personalities” I know they do well in certain atmospheres, and not well in others. One move saw oldest DD immediately change from a C/D student to high honors - I won’t send her to college in an atmosphere similar to where she was a C/D student. UC Berkeley is off our list too - OOS Cost of attendance is about $55,000 living on campus!</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>By definition, not everyone can be a “top” student, not everyone can be above average, and if every student got straight A’s, straight A’s would provide no advantage. So if it works for you, great, but your approach is not universally applicable.</p>
<p>You should thank your lucky stars for the average kids and slackers who make your son look good!</p>
<p>Plenty of other state schools are that high for OOS students.</p>
<hr>
<p>That doesn’t surprise me, as I am from MI and UM is over $40k OOS. It’s the over $30 in-state that surprises me. Ouch.</p>
<p>I guess I think of other states flagships to be comparable to our own.
But the UW has twice as many undergrads as Berkeley!
However , tuition is similar, but living on campus @ Berkeley seems to be more expensive.
:(</p>
<p>Correction on the UCB pricing, thats also assuming the current state tax increase passes. If it doesn’t tuition is going up around probably around $1-2k</p>
<p>[UC</a> Berkeley Financial Aid and Scholarships Office Cost of Attendance](<a href=“http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/home/cost.htm]UC”>http://students.berkeley.edu/finaid/home/cost.htm)</p>
<p>$33k in state and $56k out of state. Nuts. We live right across the bay from there. sigh.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>14k tuition
100ish books if you abuse the library and international editions
5000 on rent
2-3000 on food.</p>
<p>No, it does not cost 120k for four years and that doesn’t even factor in the fact that most people get some sort of aid. Additionally, you can graduate in 3 years in most majors or do 1-3 years at a community college and then transfer.</p>
<p>I more or less self financed my education and am leaving with debt in the 4 figures range despite the fact that my parents made enough so that I basically got nothing.</p>
<p>Also - RENT OUT YOUR CHILD’S ROOM… THAT’s 300-700 * 12 dollars a year less tax.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Yes, as noted above, it is actually going to cost MORE than $120K at UCB . . . but it is true that the tuition at other UC campuses is significantly less.</p>
<p>And most students in the upper middle class do NOT get “some sort of aid.” That’s the point of this discussion, isn’t it?</p>
<p>Ucb’s budget seems kind of inflated. Direct billable costs on campus are about 27k. Still a lot but factor in Stafford loans and use the child’s summer and school earnings for books, extra food, etc and you’re down to only 20k or so a year. Again, still expensive but definitely more manageable.</p>
<p>Loans at Cal after graduation are about $16k.
Looks pretty affordable to me.:)</p>
<p>[10</a> Top Values in Public Colleges, 2012 - Kiplinger](<a href=“http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/best-values-public-colleges-2012/8.html]10”>http://www.kiplinger.com/slideshow/best-values-public-colleges-2012/8.html)</p>
<p>So, what I hear all of you saying is that you believe college is “affordable?” </p>
<p>Here’s what I think: I think college is and should be the responsibility of the adult who is attending, and I also believe that parental income should not be taken into account when pricing a product for adults.</p>
<p>And so, having put myself through college, I believe this should be doable for anyone attending college. I do not believe 120K is a reasonable price for a college when you consider the amount of that money that is going to fund the incredibly bloated salaries of administrators, not to mention the “state” funded pensions these later retirees expect to collect.</p>
<p>You guys are swallowing a nice paradigm, that parents “should” be responsible for the continuing education of their adult children. It’s nice work if you can get it. That’s like saying upper middle class parents “should” be fiscally responsible for their adult children, up to and above a quarter million a year? I think we’ve all been sold a bill of goods, and then we turn on each other, and we act as if some people are “doing this” to others, or as if we get to have an opinion on how others “should” spend their money.</p>
<p>Bottom Line: college costs are inflated. The real prices “should” reflect what the students themselves can afford to pay. Not what parents “should have saved” over the course of 18 years. what a joke. We live in a country which was much better off when kids could pay their own tuition. Think about it. Why is this better? For the students? For the economy? For anyone? Who benefits? Trace that question, “who benefits?” and you will figure out that education has very little to do with the ridiculous rise in costs.</p>
<p>Cost of college education is America’s social caste system.</p>
<p>Poet, I don’t think anyone has said the costs aren’t out of control. I agree that costs are ridiculous. I live in a state with some of the most expensive tuition in the country. The only thing people are trying to do is show how it COULD be done. Savings, cc, living at home, working and going part time, etc etc. It’s at least a start. </p>
<p>While I agree it SHOULD be possible to pay your own way like it was a generation ago, it’s almost universally not the case. That’s the reality.</p>
<p>Who in their right minds would spend $100,000 for a product or service that comes with absolutely no guarantees? </p>
<p>;)</p>
<p>Bottom Line: college costs are inflated. The real prices “should” reflect what the students themselves can afford to pay. Not what parents “should have saved” over the course of 18 years.</p>
<p>Voters should get involved with their legislators and work to elect those who represent their priorities if a priority is more funding for higher Ed.</p>
<p>We live in a country which was much better off when kids could pay their own tuition</p>
<p>For whom was it better off?</p>
<p>Fewer kids went to college. I didn’t. My husband didn’t. Virtually no one I knew did.</p>
<p>Poetgirl, I agree with most of what you have written. It is absolutely ridiculous that colleges are getting away with this parents being responsible for college costs until age 25\4 in a way that holds a lot of people hostage. If you are unlucky enough to have parents who are deemed able to pay but simply won’t, you are out of luck. If your parents refuse to fill out FAFSA, you have a problem. All the way up to age 24. What a crock!</p>
<p>However, if you want to get into the reality of the situation, those who have well to do parents who are willing to help out financially and with any/every thing, you are very privileged compared to those who don’t. THis goes from buying a car, home, medical care, your own children’s options, anything! THat is the reality of life. When it comes to private schools, they can have any requirements they want, just about, in terms of how they decide their aid and scholarships will be dispensed. I find it a shame that the publics also work that way and the federal government is complicit in this. As far as I am concerned, state and federal funds should not be going to private schools and those monies should be used to ensure that more kids can have more choices in the state schools. </p>
<p>The instant a person is born, and even before, the amount of care and resources the parents of that person has for him/her is going to make a huge difference in his/her life. If you are born to a crack addict in a dysfunctional situation living hand to mouth, your issues are going to be quite different from that of a much wanted child born to those having resources in wait for the child. </p>
<p>THere are many kids we know, and my oldest was one of them, and I hope my youngest will be another, who could go to any college that accept them. Money is not the issue at all. Just getting in. And so it is with about half, maybe more of those who go to the most selective and desired colleges even though they are only a tiny part of our population when you look at the allocation of resources and income. When you see half the kids at a $60K a year college are getting no financial aid, and that the average award is about the quarter of the cost, it does tell you who is going to these schools, doesn’t it?</p>
<p>
tuition is within a few percentage points at ALL the UCs, it’s basically 13k + 1k for health insurance. UCB does have higher rental expenses (about double from what I’m paying) from what I’ve heard from others A lot of minimizing costs comes down to having discipline, something most college students AND THEIR UPPER CLASS PARENTS lack. Frugality is a dying virtue. The reason I don’t get much aid is largely because my frugal parents amassed a small fortune in real estate by means of shrewd investing and fiscal discipline - not many college drop outs end up doing that.</p>
<p>I lived with 5 guys in a 2 bedroom apartment across the street from campus, and we negotiated the rent down by 20%. That’s around 450 a month including utilities. Food can be had for around $40 a week and it’s very possible to limit eating out/fun expenses to 10 a week. I worked during the weekends and often during the weeks, interned a number of times, maintained a high GPA and took on a hard major and two minors. It’s doable.</p>