No financial aid for middle class at public college???

[Anonymous]

Your house has to be at least $600K for that [$3k] mortgage.

I rounded up to $3K - to be exact it is $2,773 -- principal balance of $227K with only 15 yrs left to pay off.

There is no way I could afford or would even pay for a home over $600K.

That being said - we are lucky in that we have a lot of equity so could easily get an equity loan or cash out refinance....the issue there is DH refuses to do this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they are really excellent students, there are public colleges and universities that will give them full tuition, and cover some of their room and board costs as well. Your kids are only freshmen so you have some time to do your research on this and figure out the requirements.

I’d like to know which colleges do this, i.e., FULL tuition. I know some that cover a large chunk for high stats kids, but the FULL tuition awards I’ve seen were for one or two highly competitive scholarships.

Alabama.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Your house has to be at least $600K for that [$3k] mortgage.

I rounded up to $3K - to be exact it is $2,773 -- principal balance of $227K with only 15 yrs left to pay off.

There is no way I could afford or would even pay for a home over $600K.

That being said - we are lucky in that we have a lot of equity so could easily get an equity loan or cash out refinance....the issue there is DH refuses to do this.

That makes no sense as that's much higher than ours.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:At OP’s income, no FA in California. Not even at half that income. People are still able to pay tuition including R and B.

But they are out of state for CA and tuition is much higher. Something is off if they have 29 years on a mortgage. What is going on?

Oh sorry, I was talking for CA residents paying instate. At around $100,000, there’s almost no aid. Full pay. Yet people do it. About $35000 per yr at UC system (includes R & B) and about $25000 per yr at Cal State system.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If they are really excellent students, there are public colleges and universities that will give them full tuition, and cover some of their room and board costs as well. Your kids are only freshmen so you have some time to do your research on this and figure out the requirements.

I’d like to know which colleges do this, i.e., FULL tuition. I know some that cover a large chunk for high stats kids, but the FULL tuition awards I’ve seen were for one or two highly competitive scholarships.

I'm in Illinois, so different state, but any student with a 1450 on the SAT and a 3.75 unweighted GPA gets an automatic full tuition scholarship to several of our lower level state schools.

[Anonymous]

So you need to make up $15,000 for each student

-each kid takes out full subsized and maybe some unsub federal loans. This will be a manageable debt burden for a young person with a moderate work ethic and a family safety net.

+$5,500

-each kid works full time in the summer and lives at home to limit expenses

+$5,000

-each kid works 10 hours a week during the school year to cover their own expenses (they won't qualify for work study because your family is wealthy)
+$3,500

So you need to cover an additional $5,000 for each kid. A good student who is diligent about applying for scholarships should be able to come up with at least $1,000. They could take out some additional unsub federal loans (these loans do have good protections for borrowers). You could take out some parent plus loan money. Do you have nothing saved for them? Even if you don't have any money saved, I think you could cover the balance with some minimal belt-tightening.

Other options would be attending a college where they can live at home, doing a 2+2 degree where they start out at a cc and then go onto a state college. They should be applying to some private colleges that give generous merit aid and where they will be in the upper range of candidates.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Your house has to be at least $600K for that [$3k] mortgage.

I rounded up to $3K - to be exact it is $2,773 -- principal balance of $227K with only 15 yrs left to pay off.

There is no way I could afford or would even pay for a home over $600K.

That being said - we are lucky in that we have a lot of equity so could easily get an equity loan or cash out refinance....the issue there is DH refuses to do this.

That makes no sense as that's much higher than ours.

So your husband refuses to do the normal things people do to pay for expensive items when they haven't saved... and you think the federal government should step in? Good to know.

[Anonymous]

OP, another issue financially is that your kids should not be encouraged to go to the same school. First, there's no guarantee they will both get into the same school, and second, there's no guarantee that schools will be equally good for both their interests and personalities. And third, you may be looking at mix-and-match in terms of balancing the schools that are the right fit for each child as an individual with those that are the right fit for your family as a whole financially. You will need to target in advance the schools that are affordable enough in their own right with no financial aid, those that are doable if there's merit aid, and those that are doable if there's any financial aid (or a blend of all three). If you or your kids lock yourselves into thinking that they have to go to the same school, you're not going to have the full amount of flexibility to play with, especially if one is a super high-flyer academically and might earn full rides or significant merit aid somewhere and the other might not.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You aren’t middle class.

Two-years of CC and transfer to 4-year.

Many privates offer merit to bring cost down to that of in-state public.

You really should have been saving all along. Make your money work for you rather than try to play catch up.

DP. In this area with three kids, $200,000 is middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Community College does not offer the same quality of education as a well respected 4 year institution. If your goal is just to get a degree that is fine, but don’t kid yourself that a student is learning critical thinking or leadership skills. Both my MIL and aunt teach at different community colleges and it is a very different student body. Community College fills an extreme important niche, but don’t kid yourself on the quality of education.

A lot of 1st year and 2nd year classes at Ivies, UVA, CMU, etc... are NOT taught by professors. Those classes are taught by TAs. Furthermore, a lot of 1st and 2nd year classes at those universities have at least 100 students per class. Some even have like 200+ students. Quite frankly, those classes do not need to be taught by professors. 1st & 2nd classes are not that difficult to begin with.

At CC, classes are actually taught my professors and the class sizes are ten times smaller than at Universities.

yes, the student body at CC is very different than Universities and there are much more "less motivated" students at CC. If your kid is motivated and self-driven, he/she will be fine. The smart kids from CC will end up @UVA, VT, UMD, Ivies. CC is just a springboard to better things.

First year classes at Harvard and MIT are taught by faculty members.

[Anonymous]

How about military academy- West Point, Naval Academy etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:First year classes at Harvard and MIT are taught by faculty members.

Be careful what you wish for. My daughter is a 2nd year professor at one of the Ivies and she doesn't care about teaching first year classes. She spends all of her times doing research and teaching first year classes is, in her words, a distraction. All of her colleagues think the same way.

You can't provide a quality education if you think teaching first year classes is a distraction.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You aren’t middle class.

Two-years of CC and transfer to 4-year.

Many privates offer merit to bring cost down to that of in-state public.

You really should have been saving all along. Make your money work for you rather than try to play catch up.

DP. In this area with three kids, $200,000 is middle class.

Schools don't care which "area" you live in. 200k is not middle class as far as schools are concern

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You aren’t middle class.

Two-years of CC and transfer to 4-year.

Many privates offer merit to bring cost down to that of in-state public.

You really should have been saving all along. Make your money work for you rather than try to play catch up.

DP. In this area with three kids, $200,000 is middle class.

That is not middle class and you choose to have 3 kids. You could have stopped at 1-2 kids if you could not afford to send three to college. Some of us think about those things when we plan our families. We live comfortably on less and heavily saved for college. But we live in a tiny crappy house to do that.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You aren’t middle class.

Two-years of CC and transfer to 4-year.

Many privates offer merit to bring cost down to that of in-state public.

You really should have been saving all along. Make your money work for you rather than try to play catch up.

DP. In this area with three kids, $200,000 is middle class.

Schools don't care which "area" you live in. 200k is not middle class as far as schools are concern

I understand that schools don't care about "area", I'm just pointing out that in this area with both spouses having student debt, three kids and the high cost of housing, child care etc., maybe OP really didn't have the income to save as much over the years. That doesn't change her predicament, I'm just willing to show more empathy and not lecture her about financial responsibility.