You put down college deposit, covid19 happened, you got furloughed. What to do next???

I’m just curious how everyone is dealing with this uncertain time. We have two college students. Eldest son is going to be a transfer student from local cc to private university in the fall. D is a freshman at a small LAC. The unknown of whether schools are going to open in the fall for on campus classes, is making me antsy. There’s the health and economic (re:financial) aspects that we as parents have to consider. We live in NY. For now we are lucky our job is considered essential but our hospital is losing more than half a million daily and the federal money the organization is receiving is not enough to cover the loss of income. Lots of our community clinics closed. Only a quarter is open. Non-essential services are canceled. We prepared for the surge as mandated by NYS in preparation for this pandemic. Thankful our community is not as bad as the rest of downstate and western NY. Now we are starting a recovery plan. There’s a bit of income cuts for higher management (only temporary), furloughs, freeze hiring, review of vendors etc. Who knows who will be let go. Has anyone put down a college deposit and now got furloughed bec of the pandemic? What are your plans now? This is a surreal time for everybody. I hope everyone is safe and healthy.

If your financial situation changes, you can ask the Financial Aid Office for the Special Circumstances paperwork. This will allow them to adjust an aid package.

I believe some folks are choosing the most affordable option available because if unknowns, as you cite, plus unknowns about how much colleges will have to be able to offer extra financial aid.

In addition, some aren’t sure which campuses will be strictly online for fall term, until treatments are approved, especially since a COVID-19 vaccine will likely take 12-18+ months.

Have read of some families contemplating a gap year for their students (between HS & college).

Last week the NYC mayor said they were taking the opening slowly because they don’t want to have to backtrack and plan to have everything open by fall. I am going with that because at this point, I have to think positive and press on.

In NY I imagine the SUNY system will all do the same in the fall. That seems to be how the governor is hanging things. The entire state has to follow the same directive regardless of the huge variations in the state. Your kids are going to a private university and a small LAC so I would think there will be a little more hope there that those schools will be making decisions for their individual geographic area and population.

I think all we can do is press on at this point. It is so unknown. When I listen to Dr. Birx she talks about how flu season will be ending and that we will be much better to handle this going forward with therapies and testing. I’m afraid getting sick isn’t something our college kids will avoid, but deal with. I don’t think our culture is going to shelter in place past June. After that maybe hot spots around the country will get shut down.

I don’t see any reason to take a gap year. What is there to do? Work at a grocery store? Travel is out. Internships are gone. It would be a wasted year. The point of a gap year is to grow in some way.

Take comfort that we are all in the same boat. Everyone will do their best I’m sure.

There are tens of thousands of people who will have reductions or losses of income this year. I can’t imagine that colleges will be able to increase their financial aid awards for this huge number of students making these requests.

I think many people will be looking carefully at their finances and might be choosing the more affordable option to begin with.

If your kid has already made a commitment and you are finding it unaffordable, you can ask for reconsideration…or you can ask if the student can defer enrollment for a year in hopes that the financial picture will improve.

Or your kid can decline that acceptance now…and they can either attend community college, or take a gap year and re-apply next year to more affordable options.

I realize none of the above is what anyone wants to do or hear…but perhaps it’s the reality of the current college admissions cycle.

Many kids are going to walk away from their college plans, including the deposits. Many kids will now take up their local commutable 4 yr option. Many kids will now look at CC articulation agreements. Kids will be transferring out to local options, not returning in fall, not matriculating. Public schools are going to see a surge. What I amazed by is how optimistic parents are about there being magic money. If there is 20-30% unemployment, there will be no special circumstances, that will be the new normal. I think many adults assume they might not have a job next week, next month, etc and are making sure there is a plan b discussed.

I bet many colleges would refund a deposit if they are contacted before the original commitment date (May 1 or June 1). Because they still have a chance to pull another student from the waitlist.

Most Enrollment deposits are not refundable (i do not see this changing especially because many schools have pushed back to June 1). You may be able to ask for a deferment. The good thing is that there are SUNY schools that are still taking applications.

I think that parents will take a lot of things into consideration including how quickly they can get a student packed and out of the dorms. I think that a school with a driveable distance may get a nod over a school that requires a flight.

Room deposits are refundable if requested before commitment date.

Some schools won’t honor special circumstances that occur in this year. In fact, even last year. Some will. There is variation so find out from the particular schools you are dealing with. I would just call the financial aid office and ask.

Honestly, I am holding off deposit for my son’s admission. He only applied to this school for transfer. We have until June 1 to do that. Taking a gap year or even a deferral does sound good but then, like Empireapple said, what does one do during the gap year when work is limited? Even doing some volunteer work to occupy kids time, I find worrying with our health crisis still raging on. Challenging times indeed !

I think like many institutions/systems, Covid-19 will make society take a very close look at how College is funded. We realize now that health insurance being tied to your job is a horrible way to do things when you are in a pandemic…those who have to still work (e.g., cashiers) get no health care but are exposed. Or many people lose their jobs and have no healthcare during a pandemic.

Colleges have been having tuition that is going up at hire than the rate of inflation for years now…it is based on the assumption that middle class family’s will take out huge loans. But now that jobs are gone or tenuous, that house of cards may fall.

I don’t think colleges can say “no you have to pay the same tuition”…who will give loans to parents with no jobs? They will have to change the paradigm or find themselves with many less students in the fall.

Unfortunately there will probably always be enough FP families that the more selective schools will not need to make many adjustments. In difficult economic times they can simply take a higher percentage of FP students, holding funding for only top FA candidates.

Who will give loans to parents with no jobs? The US government! There is no requirement that you have a job to get a PLUS loan.

Taking a PLUS loan, or any loan, may not be a good idea, but they are available.

My husband and I don’t want to take out any PLUS loan to help the kids. We’ve made that decision early on. We will take out any fed subsidized loan if we have to just so it will not be too tight on our budget. Although we were not able to open any college educational plan, we lived frugally over the years with the exception of occasional vacation here and there while the kids were growing up. We were able to save a bit to help two kids in college this school year. I’m crossing my fingers that the country will slowly go back to business as usual by fall. As of this writing though, our hospital organization has furloughed 20% of our employees (800) from 3 campuses. The CEO, and other people in upper management are getting a 15% pay cut for 6 months, freeze hiring are in place and vendor contracts being evaluated. Really some though times ahead.

We have a lot of kids; all went throyfg this college process. We were fortunate enough to be able to afford full freight by every measure, with the reality being that we would feel those financial hits, not only when they were being made but in the future as well in retirement scenarios. The main driver of this ability to pay was a high income thát could disappear in an instant. We saw it happen a number of times. Companies change directions, markets change, crises happen. 9-11 demonstrated very clearly to us what could happen in a matter of a day.

And so when each of our kids applied to college, we made sure that there were affordable options in the mix even if things fell apart. That part of the college search was actually the most challenging because we did not qualify for financial aid and we did not have the Wunder Kinde that we see so often on these boards. We weren’t going to get any full ride merit awards or chancellor scholarships, etc etc. so we had to dig a bit deeper and wander into unknown territory where CC rarely ventures.

Those schools are out there. Every last one of mine found very low and even no cost choices that were not untenable to them. Also some mid range cost schools with some very good deals and excellent programs to meet their goals.

Had this been my youngest’s season, and had family members not generously stepped up to contribute to his college expenses; had there not been a death in the family that left unexpected funds to us, we would have chosen differently.

Also, had something like this happened (not ever did I think such a scenario would happen!) , even just half way through his process, son had some very good low cost choices. He could go tuition free to a SUNY if he studied STEM, had a full tuition award at a local Catholic college , and he had some other awards in the works that may or may not have come to fruition. He was my best student candidate of my kids.

But one of mine with low test scores (under 1000 SAT) found low cost options. There are local schools that are willing to come up with awards for good students who seriously check them out. I found that the smaller Catholic schools had good low cost options. A cousin in Texas who went to an alternate but still residential state school invited him to check out Texas A&M, a satellite campus. Cost then under $10k. Interest in a specific rare program brought a pricey private school down to close to SUNY. And we are grateful to the SUNYs that provide affordable options to most everyone in state.

So, I know what we would have serious,y considered, had we been facing job loss and furloughs. Actually, when one commits to a school, one should do so with a realistic plan on how to pay for it for 4 years. We would have needed a reality check, I believe to go to the lower cost alternatives. We just didn’t have the discipline to take the more affordable 4 year routes most of the time. But, these alternatives exist. I’ve seen them, researched them recommended them, seriously considered them.