How do you steer your dc from not getting caught up on private/$$ schools versus good in state public options?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t let him apply to pricey schools outside your budget. It’s cruel when they are accepted to top schools and parents say no.

He’s really not that fragile. I’m warning him of course

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Dc is a junior and really not very mature or focused on specific academic programs, but suddenly he is obsessed with pricey colleges (not necessarily the very highest ranked ones, either, but ones in nice areas and/or pretty campuses and wealthy students) as ‘better’ and dismissing basically every in state affordable option as ‘shit’. Yes, this is my dc. He has caught the ‘prestige’ buzz, and I don’t know how to talk him out of it. I’ve explained that I can pay for in state in full with some extra to give him when he graduates, but he will likely need to take partial loans for a private school. He’s got an athlete hook and otherwise is a good student but not top, and I doubt he’ll get much if any merit money. And we will get no FA.

This is maybe not the best crowd to ask this question of…

Thoughts? Ideas?

You and a lot of the people commenting here don’t seem to understand college admissions very well.

“Merit aid” at regular private schools is not usually genius aid. It’s just a discount nice kids get that’s designed to pry them away from their state flagship

If your son applies to a wide range of private schools, including several safeties as well as well as targets, he probably will get enough merit aid that he can afford at least one of the private safeties, as long as he has a job during the school year and a summer job and he takes out a guaranteed federal student loan.

Another important point is that the most selective schools tend to have better needs-based aid than less-selective schools. The odds that any given kid can get into Princeton may be low, but, for most students who do get into Princeton the net cost of going there will be low.

Finally, an obvious option for solid student athletes could be ROTC or the military academies. Trump might put those options out of bounds right now, but things could get back to normal pretty quickly.

Op.

Your post came off as obnoxious. I’m sure you didn’t mean it that way.

I do understand college admissions and in fact have an older dc. He applied to several private schools as well as various state schools and they did offer merit aid, but it was not significant enough to bring the cost down to instate. He ended up at a non instate public school. The cost is less than private but more expensive than what an instate would be. He could have gone to a private with merit aid for roughly the same cost, but chose the public.

Dc may have slightly better merit options as an athlete (yes I know d3 doesn’t give athletic scholarships per se, but they do seem to find a way to find some ‘merit’ for strong athletes who are also decent students, from what I’ve seen). He will not be able to have a job during the school year as an athlete.

ROTC and academies are possibilities, and personally no one I know in the military would recommend making a potentially life long decision based on any current administration, but dc is not sold on either of those for obvious reasons- post school commitment etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Did he go to a private high school?

Catholic.

So yes. Should’ve sent him to public school.

What a helpful comment! /s/

In addition to other things that were important to us, the Catholic school had the athletic program he wanted, so for us, it was worth the $. And not nearly the price of a private school.

And fwiw, I sent my other dc to a public school and it didn’t save me entirely from this situation. Dc 1 was also overly focused on ‘prestige’. We live in an urban setting in the NE and the college obsession is nuts.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You explain that to him, in direct terms. Tell him you're not going to pay extra for his snobbism, unless he can identify an academic direction he's interested in and why a major at X school has a better reputation in the profession than the same major of State U.

Second this. I told my kid she was going in State unless she had a compelling reason that another school offered something combination of things she couldn’t get in state. Prestige was one of those things. I gave her a list of private schools that I would pay for (based on a judgment that the brand was worth the cost: ivies, etc). I told her she could apply to other privates too but I wouldn’t pay much more than in state cost so she’d need merit. Easy. She got it. She applied to all kinds of schools. But she understood our agreement.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You explain that to him, in direct terms. Tell him you're not going to pay extra for his snobbism, unless he can identify an academic direction he's interested in and why a major at X school has a better reputation in the profession than the same major of State U.

Well I’m not paying for it. He’ll need to take loans. I’ve been clear on that.

Except, as an undergrad, his loans will only be $5500 to $7500 a year (you start as $5500 as a freshman and can borrow a bit more each year). The rest will be in your name as parent PLUS loans. You can tell him he has to pay them back. But you are ultimately on the hook if he doesn’t. We could pay a bit above in state public. As an adult, our kid was “allowed” to take out the loans they qualified for, although we discouraged it. We were clear that there would be no additional loans. We really stretched to save what we did for college. We cannot pay back college loans and fund retirement. And, I will not have a kid come out of college with their options limited to only jobs that can pay off large loans. That debt also follows them in decisions about grad school, buying a home, having children. I watched it with my peers from law school. Large loans drove every decision for years.

BTW— neither of our kids balked at the limits we set. And both have mentioned, unprompted, how thankful they are not not have the undergrad loans. DD is about to graduate from W&M and was just saying this week that her friends are freaking out about withdrawn job offers and graduating into a recession with loans, and at she doesn’t have that to worry about.

Sometimes you have to live within a budget. We all want a $3 million house in Arlington or whatever. That didn’t happen either.

We did a ton of research and chased merit. One kid graduated from a well regarded SLAC (with merit). One is set to graduate from W&M. Both have had fabulous college experiences. Neither has any student loans.

You’re the parent. The larger loans are in your name. You can say no. I realize everyone wants to give their kid their dream school. But there is just an economic reality at play. Set expectations early, be clear, and work with your kid to find great school you can afford. They are out there. In state, some OOS public, some privates with merit. Maybe it’s Case instead of JHU for pre-med. not a bad outcome. Or Grinnell/Macalaster/Kenyon/Oberlin instead Colgate or Hamilton. Not a bad outcome. Instate VA, UVA, W&M, VT— all very different and appeals to different kids— none are bad outcomes.

I love this poster. I have a kid headed to W&M after going through exactly this process. Thanks for voicing how I feel!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You explain that to him, in direct terms. Tell him you're not going to pay extra for his snobbism, unless he can identify an academic direction he's interested in and why a major at X school has a better reputation in the profession than the same major of State U.

Well I’m not paying for it. He’ll need to take loans. I’ve been clear on that.

First, he won't be able to take more than $5.5K in federal loans per year. So he won't be able to fund an expensive school without parental/some adult signing for the loans.

But you sit him down and explain why you won't take on massive debt, what that means for the 10+ years after he graduates that he would need to pay them off (since you are not).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t let him apply to pricey schools outside your budget. It’s cruel when they are accepted to top schools and parents say no.

You actually have no idea the cost until the offer comes in. We are in the financial position of being able to pay full ride in state. My DD got several offers with merit that brought very expensive schools down to the same cost as in state.

For us, we had been clear for years what our budget was. We also made it clear that we aren’t assisting with loans. Our kids are stuck with whatever they can borrow on their own. We agreed to the number of applications we’d pay for (10). And I put no limits on where applications went even though our budget was limited. Our DD got into several schools that were out of budget and she survived just fine when those schools got crossed off the list. Most kids aren’t that fragile.

You know for T25 schools they basically don't give merit. So unless you are going to get full FA (and OP said they won't), you know you are full pay. So don't apply to many and know going in that "yes you can apply, but we are only paying $X, so you cannot attend unless you get merit"

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why was it OK to pay for 4 (7? 12?) years of private school but not college? Especially for a family that can easily afford it?

I don't understand the thought process at all, and I understand why the kid is so confused by your mixed messaging.

DP: Private Catholic schools can be "only" $10-15K/year. Many parents can afford to cashflow that.
And yes, had they gone public and saved that $10-15K for 12 years into a 529, along with the In-state they are willing to pay/saved for, they likely could now afford the elite schools. But it's a financial choice they made years ago

[Anonymous]

"We have $xx,000 per year for your college tuition."

Let him chase merit, but make sure there's at least 2-2 schools on the list that you can swing without any aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not exactly the same situation, but we are currently going through this with our junior. We can easily afford private colleges, but we are not willing to pay the full price except for a handful of colleges (T15-T20ish). We have made this clear to them. If they want to go to OOS public or expensive private outside of the list, they need to figure out how to find merit to bring the cost down to in-state.

That is what we did, private only if same or better than the in-state options mine considered, uva and wam, which is basically T20ish privates. We also would have done UCB for engineering over uva but they chose ivy which is much better than ucb anyway

[Anonymous]

UDenver has all your white bruh dreams.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You explain that to him, in direct terms. Tell him you're not going to pay extra for his snobbism, unless he can identify an academic direction he's interested in and why a major at X school has a better reputation in the profession than the same major of State U.

Well I’m not paying for it. He’ll need to take loans. I’ve been clear on that.

He probably can’t take on most of those loans himself. It would require parent loans. Run net proceeds calculators and tell him what part of that you will pay, then find out what the federal student loans would cover.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why was it OK to pay for 4 (7? 12?) years of private school but not college? Especially for a family that can easily afford it?

I don't understand the thought process at all, and I understand why the kid is so confused by your mixed messaging.

DP: Private Catholic schools can be "only" $10-15K/year. Many parents can afford to cashflow that.
And yes, had they gone public and saved that $10-15K for 12 years into a 529, along with the In-state they are willing to pay/saved for, they likely could now afford the elite schools. But it's a financial choice they made years ago

Huh? 40k saved for public school versus Catholic does not make up 25k in state tuition to private 90k per year.

[Anonymous]

^^ oops I meant for HS only. Dc went to public until HS

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:UDenver has all your white bruh dreams.

Sorry, what?