Middle class families..where would you pay full tuition without complaint?

[Anonymous]

What these prices have done is caused everyone to delay all the big milestones in life. A student graduates from an expensive college with loan. Needs to work to pay off loans. Delays marriage/kids. Has kids later. Maybe needs to pay for IVF and needs to buy an overpriced house. Works to save a giant mortgage. Delays saving for college. Now needs to come up with $$$$ for college. Delays saving for retirement. Health care prices now through the roof. Has to work a long time to pay for all this. Maybe until they are 80. Something needs to change or people will be having kids when they are 50 and will never retire.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our expected financial contribution, per FAFSA, will be about $43k, leaving us about $20k per year short for HYP.

Actually, even $43k is too rich for my blood. We will have enough saved to pay about $33k per year for DC1, currently a junior. That would mean we would have to borrow $120k to make HYP a reality for one child.

Since there is no way on god's green earth we are borrowing that kind of money to send one child to college, we have pretty much eliminated HYP and any private or public OOS college that offers only financial aid. Regardless of their grades/scores/record, our children will go in-state public or second-tier private with merit aid.

I'm missing something here. HYP are committed to meeting full need which means that your child would pay $43K a year there. You'd cover $33K, your kid could presumably earn some money in the summer or part time, let's say $5K, that leaves $20K in loans max. Where are you getting the other $100K from?

You're right, I misspoke. We would need to borrow less per kid at a school that meets full need, but most schools that meet full need do so with a combo of grants, work study, and student loans. So if one of my DCs gets $20k in financial aid, it is likely to be, say, $5k in student loan, $2k in work study, and $13k in grant. We would still need to borrow $10k, for a combined $15k per year, $60k for 4 years, $120k for my two kids. Too rich for my blood.

List of schools that meet 100% need and whether they include loans in the financial aid package:

http://www.collegegreenlight.com/blog/colleges-that-meet-100-of-student-financial-need/

But again the specific schools you listed are all meets needs/no loans.

I was using the HYP term loosely to include all the colleges of this ilk. I personally don't draw distinction between Harvard and, say, Penn or Brown when considering the "value" of an undergraduate education. YMMV, of course. As shown by the link above, the number of colleges that meet full need without loans is small indeed. But even so, my point simply was that even at Harvard, we would need to borrow $40k for one kid to go to college, on top of having worked pretty hard to save more than $130k for that kid to go to college. We have much younger kid for whom we are saving $150k+ (because we are assuming inflation) as well, and if I agree to borrow $40k for the first, I have to be willing to do the same for my second. That is more debt than I comfortable taking on, especially given my and DH's ages. To meet our retirement savings goals, maintain our primary investment (our home), and continue to save for college for our younger child, we can't (IMO) take on education debt.

We are in the identical situation and I have the same views that you do.

Our HHI is about $200K and we have $250K (some of which will be taxed when we sell off mutual funds) saved towards college for our two kids, 16 and 13. We will not be able to pay full freight at the most expensive schools, and given our profile (HHI, home equity is high, good retirement savings) I don't think we will qualify for financial aid. So second-tier with merit aid, or state school are our realistic options.

I have a colleague who has saved very little and in recent years she remodeled her kitchen and a bathroom, then took her kids to Europe, in order to use some of the savings that would otherwise count against financial aid. I had to bite my tongue, listening to her talk about this strategy - we have scraped and saved in order to get our kids through. I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

Me again--yes, our HHI is similar to yours. We have 5 years between kids, so won't have 2 in college at the same time and have some more time to save for DC2. For DC1, we are focused on in-state publics and privates where DC would be in the top 25% of applicants in hope that merit aid will be offered. If not, we are okay with our in-state options, even the non-flagship ones. (Well, I should say, DH and I are pleased with the options; DC1 less so because he would like to be in an urban area, but c'est la vie.)

Don't fret too much about your colleague. THE biggest impact on financial aid is HHI, not savings or other assets. When I run the estimated expected financial contribution calculator, there is a surprisingly small difference between the number it spits out with zero savings and the number it spits out with our actual college savings. If you make $200k, it is going to be assumed you can devote at least 20% of your income to college. I would rather have an EFC of, say, $45k per year and have saved $130k than have an EFC of $40k and have saved $0. Run Harvard's very simple net price calculator and see:

https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator

Additional links of interest here:

http://www.dcurbanmom.com/jforum/posts/list/370818.page

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
I have a colleague who has saved very little and in recent years she remodeled her kitchen and a bathroom, then took her kids to Europe, in order to use some of the savings that would otherwise count against financial aid. I had to bite my tongue, listening to her talk about this strategy - we have scraped and saved in order to get our kids through. I guess no good deed goes unpunished.

We could be living a much more swank existence if we weren't putting so much money into our kids' 529s, and maybe when they graduate from college, our kids will say, "I'd rather have been more limited in where I went if it had meant I got vacations in Europe and a car of my own." But my siblings and I all graduated debt-free from colleges we fell in love with, and I am happy my parents made the choices they did. (They also saved a ton for retirement, for which I cannot thank them enough, ever.)

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What these prices have done is caused everyone to delay all the big milestones in life. A student graduates from an expensive college with loan. Needs to work to pay off loans. Delays marriage/kids. Has kids later. Maybe needs to pay for IVF and needs to buy an overpriced house. Works to save a giant mortgage. Delays saving for college. Now needs to come up with $$$$ for college. Delays saving for retirement. Health care prices now through the roof. Has to work a long time to pay for all this. Maybe until they are 80. Something needs to change or people will be having kids when they are 50 and will never retire.

I think you exaggerate the current situation (although perhaps not the future). Most parents of today's rising college students faced far lower tuition costs when they were younger. I attended a top-rated state school and graduated with student loan debt of $7500. My loan payments were less than $100/month. They had no impact on my lifestyle or decision making whatsoever. My DH had no student loans. I married at 24, went to grad school, bought a house before I was 30. I delayed kids a bit because I wanted to, not because of money concerns. We bought a house at a relatively low point in the market. Our big budget killers were our choices of career (civil servants; I could have made much more money over the course of my career in the private sector, although DH likely could not) and daycare. But we have saved diligently for retirement and will have decent pensions.

So things have been good for us, and I would like to make sure my kids don't face the scenario you've laid out. The only way I can see to ensure that is to pay cash for college and avoid burdening them with debt (and be open to them living with us for a time after college while they find a job and get on their feet). The only sure way we can pay cash for college is to send the kids in-state. Happily, I have no qualms or concerns about doing that. I consider us among the lucky ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Rich grandparents : )

Yup - FIL set up a trust fund for DD, this was a dodged bullet. I figure I'll just start setting aside $ for DD's grand kids now.

[Anonymous]

Glad I said no to high tuition cost. But I had a reason. I did not have the money. My son will graduate from UMD with no debt, he worked to pay his share. He has a ball at college too. I can't tell if his diploma will look any different since it came from a state school, but I bet not.

[Anonymous]

Harvard,Stanford,MIT ,Hopkins ,naval academy.


That's it.

[Anonymous]

Any out-of-state public ranked higher than what my kid can get into in the state of Virginia.

[Anonymous]

^ well, not UMichigan. There are just a couple that are too expensive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Any out-of-state public ranked higher than what my kid can get into in the state of Virginia.

Hmmm. So what does this mean? According to USNWR, the top public schools are:

UC Berkeley
UCLA
UVA
Michigan
UNC Chapel Hill
W&M
GA Tech
Penn state
UC Davis
UCSD
UCSB
Wisconsin
UC Irvine
Florida
OSU
UT Austin
Washington
UConn
Georgia
Clemson
UMd
Pitt
Purdue
Rutgers
Texas A&M
Minnesota
VA Tech
Michigan State
Iowa
Indiana
Miami Oxford (OH)
Delaware
SUNY Stony Brook
UVM
SUNY College of Environmental Science
Alabama

I dunno, after the top 15, this list gets pretty quickly in the weeds for me. GMU is #72. Not to cast aspersions on a place like Rutgers, it's a perfectly fine school. But you'd really pay $39k for Rutgers over $20k at GMU or JMU? $41k at Delaware? $52k at UVM?

OTOH,

[Anonymous]

I would pay if I had the income. Any school that my child wanted to go to, I would pay $60K. I don't think any school is worth that much, but my child has special needs, a learning disability, etc., and I would be so happy if I could afford to send her to a SLAC that meets her needs.

She's gifted, so one of the top schools might accept her, but no way can we pay. We are like you, OP. We have too much income/savings to qualify for financial aid, but we are not willing to spend our retirement savings and do not have the income to pay even $20K!!

DH almost lost his job last year and, I'm not sure how much longer my job will last. Without retirment savings to rely on, what would we do if DH lost his job? It's crazy to spend down your nest egg to send your child to college, so we won't do it.

But I truly wish I had the $60K to send her to Williams or Middlebury, where I know she'd fit in and be happy, despite her disabilities. Don't know what we're going to do. Hope for decent merit aid from somewhere, but am not hopeful, so she'll probably end up our state school, which won't be a good fit, but at least we can manage the tuition.

I don't think any school is worth spending $250K for four years! That is completely insane! Only a very small percentage of the population have the money to do this, especially for more than one child. But when a child struggles so much as ours has, we would be willing to spend the money if we had it. But $250K would gut our retirement savings, so no way would it be prudent for us to do so.

And we are not saddling ourselves or our child with debt either. The way college costs have spiraled out of control is the fault of our government, which has refused to stop them. Go on any college campus and look at the extravagant facilities they have, even the less-selective schools. They are pulling in loads of money, so they spend it on prestigious faculty, huge buildings, crazy, crazy.

If we refused to pay, they'd have to stop, but parents dutifully pull out their wallets, and dump their savings into colleges, which use the money to build up their campuses and their endowments, but are they worth the money? Half of college graduates aren't even employed!

Simple answer: No, not a single college is worth $60K per year.

[Anonymous]

we have decided that we would be comfortable doing in state. If they got in somewhere super impressive, we would try to make it work, but our kids know for something like that, they need some scholarships or they are going to one of the many awesome Virginia state schools.

FWIW, my DH and I went to state school and are doing great in our STEM fields, so we support state schools 100%!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Harvard,Stanford,MIT ,Hopkins ,naval academy.


That's it.

are you saying you'd be willing to serve 5 years active duty?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I would pay if I had the income. Any school that my child wanted to go to, I would pay $60K. I don't think any school is worth that much, but my child has special needs, a learning disability, etc., and I would be so happy if I could afford to send her to a SLAC that meets her needs.

She's gifted, so one of the top schools might accept her, but no way can we pay. We are like you, OP. We have too much income/savings to qualify for financial aid, but we are not willing to spend our retirement savings and do not have the income to pay even $20K!!

DH almost lost his job last year and, I'm not sure how much longer my job will last. Without retirment savings to rely on, what would we do if DH lost his job? It's crazy to spend down your nest egg to send your child to college, so we won't do it.

But I truly wish I had the $60K to send her to Williams or Middlebury, where I know she'd fit in and be happy, despite her disabilities. Don't know what we're going to do. Hope for decent merit aid from somewhere, but am not hopeful, so she'll probably end up our state school, which won't be a good fit, but at least we can manage the tuition.

I don't think any school is worth spending $250K for four years! That is completely insane! Only a very small percentage of the population have the money to do this, especially for more than one child. But when a child struggles so much as ours has, we would be willing to spend the money if we had it. But $250K would gut our retirement savings, so no way would it be prudent for us to do so.

And we are not saddling ourselves or our child with debt either. The way college costs have spiraled out of control is the fault of our government, which has refused to stop them. Go on any college campus and look at the extravagant facilities they have, even the less-selective schools. They are pulling in loads of money, so they spend it on prestigious faculty, huge buildings, crazy, crazy.

If we refused to pay, they'd have to stop, but parents dutifully pull out their wallets, and dump their savings into colleges, which use the money to build up their campuses and their endowments, but are they worth the money? Half of college graduates aren't even employed!

Simple answer: No, not a single college is worth $60K per year.

I think there are lots of small LACs where your DD could qualify for merit aid. Tell us your DD's gpa, scores, activities and we can help you brainstorm. Also, what about small state schools like Mary Washington in VA or St Mary's in MD?

[Anonymous]

OP - My list is very short, and it only includes schools that suggest my kid worked his ass off and got terrific grades.


I owe my kid an education. I don't owe him the better part of my retirement fund.