<p>The day my son is off the parental payroll is going to be the most satisfying of my life.</p>
<p>College EFC for 4 years(total)= ~ $50K+
total cost to raise child from birth to 22 = ~ $250K+
The day the cell phone bill is in his name = priceless :-)</p>
<p>CountingDown, I think its generally good to document everything in applying for financial aid, but with the availability of PLUS loans I doubt that the colleges would care whether or not the family can get a home equity loan. The bottom line is that they have a large asset that could be sold if needed to pay off loans. I don't think the colleges care where the money comes from -- I just think they are looking at a family's overall net worth and financial strength.</p>
<p>I'd still document it, though, Calmom, just in case they hit a financial bump in the road later. That's what I did with all our medical bills on the PROFILE. I don't expect DS's schools will budge on the EFC, but if our numbers skyrocket even further at some point, we've at least initiated the conversation.</p>
<p>Actually, I have learned that writing things on the Profile isn't enough -- its better to send a separate letter to the financial aid department. I know that my daughter's grant was increased this year because of information that was clearly noted in the Profile.... but the college hadn't noted it.</p>
<p>parents!</p>
<p>on behalf of all your children, thank you for making so many financial commitments to our futures. we forget to thank you more than we should, but trust me when i say we really do appreciate everything you do. thanks to you, we don't really have to think twice when deciding which courses to take and have the freedom to stretch our wings and figure out where we want to go. you are giving us the opportunity to make you the proudest parents on the planet and we seriously intend to. </p>
<p>as a first semester freshman, i am just now starting to figure out all the financial burdens associated with getting a college education and am seriously starting to understand why so few people actually graduate with a degree. i am starting to realize just how fortunate i am to have parents willing to foot the bill for my schooling without too much complaint (they didn't particularly care for the $180 in parking tickets though...).</p>
<p>the sacrifice you are willing to make should not go unrecognized. </p>
<p>as to the OP, i do not think it would be out of the question to show your daughter this thread. i know it is a huge wakeup call to me to realize the lengths some parents are willing to go to in order to ensure that their kids get to go to college. if you haven't already had the financial aid talk with her (my parents didn't set any concrete numbers to my colleges until way too late--and it was devastating having to reject an admissions offer to my top choice based largely on financial aid package) you should definitely do it. </p>
<p>i know my parents are not very forthcoming with their personal financial information--which is probably very appropriate, though nonetheless frustrating on my part--but if you guys are, it could be beneficial to go through an EFC calculator with her too so she knows just how it's supposed to work. and if she can understand where the money is coming from, she is probably less likely to abuse it.</p>
<p>i'd say give her a solid number that is lower than what you are actually willing to pay--maybe just (!) by a few thousand dollars. then, tell her that she can go to whatever school she wants as long as she picks up the rest of the tab. then, you could either tell her last minute that you really are willing to kick in a few extra thousand (now that you know she's willing to put it to good use at a school she's dying to go to) or you could save/invest it and give it to her after she graduates. then she could use it as a nice downpayment on a house or to start repaying her student loans. </p>
<p>my friend's dad pulled off that last scenario and my friend was floored at her dad's generosity and thoughtfulness after she graduated.</p>
<p>just a thought! thanks again.</p>
<p>Last winter I was posting in panicked disbelief after we had true EFC numbers, and I practically made my daughter file a few extra applications at the last minute to schools that seemed like better merit bets than the ones on her list. The packages all came in consistent with the EFC, and she did get merit offers from those Hail Mary apps, but the final bottom line for us with all of them was about the same.....about $5000 more than we thought we could possibly afford out of current income. The good news is that D was awarded almost $10,000 in one-year local/outside scholarships, and her school did not deduct that from her package, leaving us a little cushion to apply toward the shortfall we would otherwise face the following year, and more time to save for the last two years.</p>
<p>We do not own a home, but it is comforting to know that if we continue to save for several years after D's college years equal to the amount we are now paying out for her, we would have a good down payment for a potentially good investment, since we would be buying a house valued in euro.</p>
<p>first of all, thank you all for your time and consideration. I think the numbers we got from finaid.org are wrongly higher than what ought to be. The question wife and me are discussing is the definition of "adjusted gross income" vs "taxable income".</p>
<p>I did talk to D last night about this. I told her that pending on how it was calculated, our EFC could be in the 40K a year range. She simply said that she will not expect us to pay that much.</p>
<p>Wife and I will down load the FAFSA document and read it in detail to understand the "adjusted gross income". At the mean time, we did a rough budget calculation. If I continue to work at current job and if we could control our total expenses to below $3500 a month, we should be able to afford $40K a year with max 401K contribution.</p>
<p>I have not read all the threads, but I have filed a FAFSA for 3 years now and it is my understanding you are not allowed to deduct your 401k contribution from the total income. They can not access your 401k value, but the yearly contribution is optional and it is money you could be using for tuition. I have a middle class income and one income, single parent with no paternal contributions and my EFC is generally about 15,500-16,500 per year. I am wondering what will happen this year with another one going and having two in school.</p>
<p>I was told not to expect to be able to make a contribution to IRA or other retirement funds during the college tuition years. I have continued at a reduced contribution rate but that has meant more sacrifices elsewhere.</p>
<p>If I could do it over, we would have tried to save more earlier. The biggest mistake was having two kids 10 years apart. You want all your kids in college at about the same time. Doing one after another is very costly and the FAFSA gives you no break on this.</p>
<p>Question: The schools all tell you to fill out the FAFSA, that you never know, more people qualify for aid than you think, etc.
Surely there is a ballpark figure that tells you to not even bother?
Is it ALWAYS a good idea to fill out FAFSA, even if someone has over $150,000 in income and owns a home? What about income between $80,000 and $120,000?
Or are the variables so great that each case is different?<br>
Just trying to get a feel here.</p>
<p>edad, that baby timing was our problem too:) college freshman, HS freshman, elementary schooler and preschooler.....only one(two at most if grad school counts) at a time...for the next 18yrs...... guess retirement is a loooooonnngg way off. :)</p>
<p>I must be the out of whack parent. If D gets into a couple of the schools on her list, I will sacrifice retirement. I know that the connections she will make and after graduation economic returns will make up the difference in dollars spent within the short run. There are other schools on the list that better come up with a merit package that puts the school into in-state range or I have told D, they are too proud of themselves (their placement does not meet their cost).</p>
<p>These were the lessons I learned in college. You really have to look at where the graduates end up and what the pay their graduates are offered compared to another school.</p>
<p>Perhaps it is having the law school experience in my 30s. Just like college awards that the NMSFs are offered more sometimes than students who a year later pull higher SATs and have higher grades, so do the students who made law review in law school often get better offers that students who ultimately graduate higher in their class who publish in some of the other journals.</p>
<p>The single thing I can say about certain schools programs and honors programs, is that the offers at the end of the day, job, professional, and graduate school programs can be day and night. If you are going to go into debt for your child, make sure that the Emerald City is at the end of the yellow brick road.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Question: The schools all tell you to fill out the FAFSA, that you never know, more people qualify for aid than you think, etc.
Surely there is a ballpark figure that tells you to not even bother?
[/quote]
We filled out FAFSA and PROFILE for each of our D's four years at Smith but never qualified for any need-based aid. (This despite my husband's period of unemployment during her first year! Smith told us we could re-mortgage our house, which was paid off.) We did have D take out the modest Strafford loans in her name as we wanted her to have a financial stake in the education she was fortunate to have. But we went through the motions of the FA process with nothing to gain but the small non-subsidized Strafford loans. We knew that going in as the FA calculators pretty much clued us in.</p>
<p>We have "two only children" LOL so are now going through this with kid #2. Again, we know we will not qualify for need-based FA but kid #2 has been offered some merit money. We are not sure at all that the final decision will be based on finances, although that will get some consideration. </p>
<p>I think for those whose income is mostly conventional W-2 stuff (no owned business, etc.) using the calculators is the best way to be proactive in your process. </p>
<p>We and are our kids are very fortunate that we are in a position to pay for the college choices without taking more than the Strafford loans. H and I always lived below our income and saved for retirement from our early years. We pay college costs out of savings. It is a lot and we are not very far away from qualifying for aid -- as a matter of fact we would qualify if both kids were in undergrad school at the same time -- but so far we have no regrets re how we have handled it. And we do appreciate that we are in a fortunate minority to be able to do this and only hope our kids do not take it for granted (another reason we do have them take the Straffords). We do not buy our kids cars or other expensive items so their education is our main luxury.</p>
<p>To be 100% honest, it was those couple of threads about why should or shouldn't parents pay got me start to calculate EFC again. I was perfectly o.k. either way before that. </p>
<p>We were at dinner table last night and my D again was at school doing one of her things. The grandparents kept worrying about if she would have dinner or not. It just hit me so very hard that a few months from now, our D could be away very far from home. She could be a way for a long time w/o coming home. </p>
<p>We have always been very very poor and only recently we are getting some money. Paying out $160K for one child's education means we going back being poor again. If it were $80K for 4 years, it would be a much easier decision.</p>
<p>I guess I should give big thanks that we could even have the opportunity to consider paying $40K a year.</p>
<p>
[quote]
I will sacrifice retirement...If you are going to go into debt for your child, make sure that the Emerald City is at the end of the yellow brick road.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>You are the one sacrificing retirement, but it is not you headed for Emerald City.</p>
<p>I know all about sacrificing for the sake of my children, but ignoring your own retirement situation seems like a bad deal for all concerned. My parents didn't think about retirement, and I now send a big, fat check to my mother every month to keep her out of destitution. We also paid my MIL mortgage when we moved her closer to us so we could help her, because her retirement package kept her in a devastated neighborhood. If your children end up married to someone who does not feel an obligation to help you because you sacrificed your own retirement, this could be a problem.</p>
<p>As for paying for prestige, I'm sure you know there are no guarantees. Many of my husband's colleagues have way bigger college names on their diplomas than he does, but he is the one in charge of hiring and firing them.</p>
<p>midmo, there is no guarantees in life. However, I am thinking in terms of opportunity. If I pay to send our kids to a "prestige" learning institution, at least that afford them the opportunity to enjoy the benefit of such back ground. </p>
<p>I do agree with you 100% about pay our own retirement first. I have been putting max into my 401K since my first job.</p>
<p>Just an FYI...having two kids in college at the same time isn't exactly a cakewalk financially. We have had two in college and this is the second year of that (next year as well)...and the big increase in DS's need based aid was $500. Total cost of attendance for both kids $84,000 per year. Total aid including student loans: $26000 per year (mostly merit aid for both kids). HUGE gap...not fun to pay. Like I said, when my kids graduate from college, I will feel like I've won the lottery.</p>
<p>Dad II, I'm not an opponent of spending the money for a great education, but very little is black and white. Is Ivy worth great sacrifice, but other "top 10" not? Is "top 10" worth a lot of financial pain, but "top 20" not? Then, there is the question of the individual student's personality. I've read enough about your daughter, I think, to conclude that she is like my son in some important ways; i.e., she will shine, stand out, and make her own opportunities wherever she goes to school. If she passes on Ivy and attends another great, but not quite so prestigious, school, I suspect she will do extremely well, in all respects. </p>
<p>Whatever the end of your daughter's search turns out to be, I hope no one in your family treats the outcome as a disappointment. Her attitude going in will be crucial to her enjoyment of her new opportunity.</p>
<p>Side note: Last night I took my high school daughter out to dinner for no other reason than I wanted her to meet the owners of a small restaurant (they are refugees of civil war who escaped their country by crawling through mine fields.) I considered it a learning opportunity as well as a special time for the two of us. While there, I thought "thank goodness her older brother took that merit scholarship for college or I couldn't afford to go out to eat for no really good reason". Just a thought.</p>
<p>Midmo - We will qualify for zero under FAFSA, current income is so far enough over the threshhold that filling out FAFSA is a futile exercise and only being done because it is required even for purely merit scholarships. If my #s are correct we hit the $50,000 EFC. Family health already cashed in all 401ks, IRAs and the college accounts 6 years ago and we just became totally financially healthy in time for the big Kahuna. Since all our current contributions and reinstatement of retirement funds are counted toward EFC, no matter what we spend on college we are now sacrificing our retirement. </p>
<p>For me, it just depends on how many more billable hours I wish to put in while the Ds are in college. If you are asking for aid at some schools and you are self employed or 51% or more owner of your business, they make you provide your 1120s as well. Cheeky. </p>
<p>Bottom line, if we have the serious health issue while Ds are in college, the private schools do a lot more to keep top students in school than the public institutions. They do not allow this to be the reason a kid drops out and many are so well endowed that they can find scholarships mid-year if necessary (based on personal experience).</p>
<p>By the way to name some people who managed to get to the top without wasting time in school: The CEO of Tandy Dave Edmundson didn't even have a degree...(oops said he did, and from a seminary no less...) Was very charming and charismatic... wasn't caught in the lie until company started having financial difficulties...</p>
<p>My sorta son makes a good 6 figure income and never graduated from college...went to school of Bill Gates and Steve Jobs...supervises IEE PhDs and knows a heckava lot more than they do. </p>
<p>Name brand degrees don't always buy things, depends on apptitude and drive of the student as well. Lots of factors.</p>
<p>Well, as they said, there is always exceptions to every rule. One can't use few isolated successful stories to throw the whole education system down the river. In general, highly educated people do better than those who were not. That is why most of us here trying to get our kids into the best institutions they get in and we could pay for.</p>