Parents of the High School Class of 2017/College 2021

[TruBlu]

This is the part that's driving me crazy too... I just wish we knew already. We have to wait for 2nd round auditions to find out if he's even in, then there is the crazy high cost... sigh... Thankfully making the Grammy Band gives him (and the other 29 members) access to 2 million in scholarships to Grammy schools. 3 of his 8 are included.
So everyone throw some pixie dust on this post! LOL

 

[mamacatnv]

Does it seem reasonable to be willing to help out when a reasonable financial decision is made (instate with good merit aid) and not so willing when a very expensive school is the choice when that choice is based on "how it feels" or "geography" not because its a school with a specialty that is being pursued?

 

[gemini2727]

Does it seem reasonable to be willing to help out when a reasonable financial decision is made (instate with good merit aid) and not so willing when a very expensive school is the choice when that choice is based on "how it feels" or "geography" not because its a school with a specialty that is being pursued?

Totally reasonable, IMO.

When parents are footing the bill, they have an absolute right to have a say how their money is spent. My kids know if they choose a more expensive school, the difference in tuition will be their responsibility in loans, although this would be very much discouraged.

 

[punkin]

Does it seem reasonable to be willing to help out when a reasonable financial decision is made (instate with good merit aid) and not so willing when a very expensive school is the choice when that choice is based on "how it feels" or "geography" not because its a school with a specialty that is being pursued?

Very reasonable. However, geography may be a real issue. My DD chose a school based on academics, which are superb, but it's in a tiny rural town in the middle of nowhere, 6 hours from home. DD is very urban and attached to me. She feels she may have made the wrong choice.

 

[robinb]

Does it seem reasonable to be willing to help out when a reasonable financial decision is made (instate with good merit aid) and not so willing when a very expensive school is the choice when that choice is based on "how it feels" or "geography" not because its a school with a specialty that is being pursued?

It seems reasonable that you don't want your financial help to be squandered at a school that has no concrete advantages. I do think that there are advantages to one school over another that are not quantifiable if it means that your child feels that it is a better "fit". That happiness with the school and feeling of belonging will pull them through when things get tough.

I can attest to that from personal experience. I went to the college my mom wanted me to go to and did not do well. I quit and worked for a while. Then I chose the UW Madison myself (and paid my own bills) where I thrived. I really want my DD to go to the UW LaCrosse (it's really a great fit for her major and subsequent graduate work ... and it's super cheap) but she doesn't dig it. I plan on still gently talking it up but I won't force her to go somewhere she doesn't because that will just lead to trouble.

 

[AustinTink]

Does it seem reasonable to be willing to help out when a reasonable financial decision is made (instate with good merit aid) and not so willing when a very expensive school is the choice when that choice is based on "how it feels" or "geography" not because its a school with a specialty that is being pursued?

Absolutely.

 

[Poohforyou]

I know this isn't something any parent wants to think about but please be careful when taking loans out for college and beyond. Private loans offer more attractive rates than government loans but also come with risks.

A friend of mine suffered the worst tragedy a parent can imagine when her child died soon after college graduation. They had considered taking private loans but went with government ones. Had they gone private they would have had to pay back those loans. The government loans were forgiven.

 

[sksjasams]

Regarding the PLUS loans and net price calculator, the schools are required to show the net price somewhere in the results that does not include student or parent loans, or work study. Look for that number as your bottom line. Any loans or work study they list are suggestions for ways to pay.

Students can only borrow up to $5500 in Stafford loans freshman year. Alternative loans from companies like Discover would be an option if you do not have the funds to pay and do not want to borrow a PLUS loan. That is a lot of debt for a student to start out with though, so looking for a less expensive school is the way to go. And you would need to be a cosigner for the alternative loans.

I just noticed Poohforyou posted about alt loans while I was typing...alt loans are definitely a last resort!

 

[punkin]

In the same vein, if you do decide to go with loans that do not get forgiven in case of the child's death, I strongly suggest an insurance policy to cover all outstanding debts. No one needs financial problems on top of the unimaginable grief.

 

[mamacatnv]

I know this isn't something any parent wants to think about but please be careful when taking loans out for college and beyond. Private loans offer more attractive rates than government loans but also come with risks.

A friend of mine suffered the worst tragedy a parent can imagine when her child died soon after college graduation. They had considered taking private loans but went with government ones. Had they gone private they would have had to pay back those loans. The government loans were forgiven.

In the same vein, if you do decide to go with loans that do not get forgiven in case of the child's death, I strongly suggest an insurance policy to cover all outstanding debts. No one needs financial problems on top of the unimaginable grief.

These are very valid points. My DS and his girlfriend met in graduate school. Both of them had hefty loans with co-signors. My DS's lender had a death clause of forgiveness and his girlfriends did not, her mother who was the co-signor took out a life policy just in case. Now we are in the 12 month period of repayment before requesting the co-signors be removed. In my DS's case the co-signors are his grandparents and we now have a really good disability policy for him as well as life through his employer. We've all read the nightmare stories, sad but a reality.

 

[mamacatnv]

Very reasonable. However, geography may be a real issue. My DD chose a school based on academics, which are superb, but it's in a tiny rural town in the middle of nowhere, 6 hours from home. DD is very urban and attached to me. She feels she may have made the wrong choice.

I live in a really big state (Texas) with a ton of options but basically DD has decided she hates Texas and therefore refused to even consider Texas schools. She has applied to one as the safety school but it was last minute and based on its location, I don't think its a good fit for her.

It seems reasonable that you don't want your financial help to be squandered at a school that has no concrete advantages. I do think that there are advantages to one school over another that are not quantifiable if it means that your child feels that it is a better "fit". That happiness with the school and feeling of belonging will pull them through when things get tough.

I can attest to that from personal experience. I went to the college my mom wanted me to go to and did not do well. I quit and worked for a while. Then I chose the UW Madison myself (and paid my own bills) where I thrived. I really want my DD to go to the UW LaCrosse (it's really a great fit for her major and subsequent graduate work ... and it's super cheap) but she doesn't dig it. I plan on still gently talking it up but I won't force her to go somewhere she doesn't because that will just lead to trouble.

I would never "force" attendance but I will continue to speak up about costs, commutes (travel costs), location, weather etc.

 

[Poohforyou]

I live in a really big state (Texas) with a ton of options but basically DD has decided she hates Texas and therefore refused to even consider Texas schools. She has applied to one as the safety school but it was last minute and based on its location, I don't think its a good fit for her.

I would never "force" attendance but I will continue to speak up about costs, commutes (travel costs), location, weather etc.

My daughter received some generous offers to apply to a few schools in Texas. They were so good that we researched them and what surprised me was the small percentage of students from out of state. My daughter decided that wasn't appealing to her.

Maybe your daughter feels like she needs to get a different perspective. That's difficult when the majority of students are from the same state or even region. Just a thought.

Has she looked at state schools in other states? I know some offer scholarships that are equivalent to instate tuition. Many have rolling admission so she may not be too late.[/QUOTE]

 

[mamacatnv]

My daughter received some generous offers to apply to a few schools in Texas. They were so good that we researched them and what surprised me was the small percentage of students from out of state. My daughter decided that wasn't appealing to her.

Maybe your daughter feels like she needs to get a different perspective. That's difficult when the majority of students are from the same state or even region. Just a thought.

Has she looked at state schools in other states? I know some offer scholarships that are equivalent to instate tuition. Many have rolling admission so she may not be too late.

Yes, she has applied to: Univ of Minnesota Twin Cities, Hawaii and Berkeley - all out of state schools.
Instate she only applied to A&M Corpus Cristi - because of the beach

We've only lived in Texas since she was in 7th grade. I really wish she had applied to Univ Texas Austin but she doesn't like the feel and really would not consider much of anything else.

 

[Sanchez]

Does it seem reasonable to be willing to help out when a reasonable financial decision is made (instate with good merit aid) and not so willing when a very expensive school is the choice when that choice is based on "how it feels" or "geography" not because its a school with a specialty that is being pursued?

Entirely reasonable. Our philosophy with our now college senior (and current high school senior) is that selection of an out-of-state school is warranted if it offers something unique. That is a fairly broad standard and by no means leads to an easy decision.

Our older son had Clemson (in-state) and Georgia Tech (out-of-state) as his final choices. GT is a top 5-6 technical school. Clemson probably top 20. South Carolina has a scholarship program that applies to state schools and in the end the cost for GT was three times the cost of Clemson. He made it easy in that Clemson was his first choice but the question remains as to whether the cost to attend GT was warranted. Was there enough difference in the two schools to justify the cost?

Our current high school senior has applied to:

Duke
University of Pennsylvania
UCLA
Boston University
Georgia Tech
University of South Carolina (In-state)
Temple (I have no idea why other than he likes Philadelphia)

Let me first say that I understand the difficulty of getting into Duke and Penn and believe it highly unlikely that he will do so. However, given that these are top 10 national schools I could justify the expense if he makes the cut. UCLA, BU and GT are top 35-40 schools and the question is whether they are worth the expense (as compared to the University of South Carolina.) Of course, he also wants to get out of the state and I foresee a difficult discussion ahead.

 

[robinb]

I would never "force" attendance but I will continue to speak up about costs, commutes (travel costs), location, weather etc.

No! Of course you would not! I guess I was just saying that there are other intangible reasons for a child to choose one school over another.

FWIW, we did not allow my DD to apply to any school that we could not afford. It turns out that there will be more money coming from her grandmother for college so we opened up her options to include other State Schools that charge out of state tuition. Once given the OK, she promptly applied to the University of Iowa which we had previously nixed. My DD has a good GPA but only average ACT/SAT scores so she is really not eligible for merit scholarships so we're paying it all ourselves.

ETA: IF she does get admitted to the University of Iowa she will have to come up with a very good reason why it is a better school than the other places she's been admitted. She said the application was very easy .

 

[mamacatnv]

No! Of course you would not! I guess I was just saying that there are other intangible reasons for a child to choose one school over another.

FWIW, we did not allow my DD to apply to any school that we could not afford. It turns out that there will be more money coming from her grandmother for college so we opened up her options to include other State Schools that charge out of state tuition. Once given the OK, she promptly applied to the University of Iowa which we had previously nixed. My DD has a good GPA but only average ACT/SAT scores so she is really not eligible for merit scholarships so we're paying it all ourselves.

ETA: IF she does get admitted to the University of Iowa she will have to come up with a very good reason why it is a better school than the other places she's been admitted. She said the application was very easy .

I know exactly what you were saying, I apologize if my verbiage came across as something harsh, not my intent, I totally heard what you were saying.

My DD decided to ignore what we were saying in regards to what we were willing to spend. Now that we are getting down to the wire, reality is setting in and its hard because I "want" her to go to her "dream" school but the reality is we can't all have everything we want.

 

[punkin]

I live in a really big state (Texas) with a ton of options but basically DD has decided she hates Texas and therefore refused to even consider Texas schools. She has applied to one as the safety school but it was last minute and based on its location, I don't think its a good fit for her.

I would never "force" attendance but I will continue to speak up about costs, commutes (travel costs), location, weather etc.

My Niece made the same decision bout the only in-state school she applied to (which I forced her to apply to). It's just as good (academically and fit) as some of her other choices, but she wants OUT of the state. I think it's very shortsighted. Their financial aid package was very nice. Her next cheapest option (which also gave her a nice package) is out of state and affordable. Her current top choice is out of state and not affordable without taking on serious loans. She has two schools we are still waiting for and I doubt she'll get merit aid if she gets in; they are simply unaffordable!!! I will not mortgage my future for them as in my view, they are not sufficiently academically superior.

 

[robinb]

And ... my DD just got accepted into the University of Iowa! She applied on Sunday night and just got the email .

She's going to the Speedo Championships at Iowa City in March so we'll spend an extra day there visiting the campus.

 

[mamacatnv]

And ... my DD just got accepted into the University of Iowa! She applied on Sunday night and just got the email .

She's going to the Speedo Championships at Iowa City in March so we'll spend an extra day there visiting the campus.

Yeah!!!! Great to have options!
Have Y'all heard from Minnesota????

 

[Mrs. Ciz]

Does it seem reasonable to be willing to help out when a reasonable financial decision is made (instate with good merit aid) and not so willing when a very expensive school is the choice when that choice is based on "how it feels" or "geography" not because its a school with a specialty that is being pursued?

We told our kids from a very young age that college at an in state university would be paid for with no loans. We did the pre paid 529 tuition plan for our state. It 100% covers tuition and mandatory fees at schools in our state. We've saved enough and budgeted enough to pay room, board and books with cash. We live in Virginia and are very fortunate to have several top ranked public universities to choose from. Older DS applied to University of Virginia and Vanderbilt (among others). At the time UVA was ranked #22 and Vanderbilt was ranked #16 in the country. Before acceptances came through, we talked with him about whether a difference of a few points in ranking was worth the thousands of dollars in loans he'd have to take out to attend the more expensive school. He decided that Vandy was not worth the extra money/debt and set his sights on UVA. Turns out he didn't get in to Vandy anyway, and he is very happy at UVA.

We've had the same conversation with DD. She got in to University of Tennessee and in to several state schools. She is waiting to hear from 2 more state schools, but she has already said she is definitely going in state. She doesn't want to graduate with debt!