Do you not let your kid apply to certain colleges based on tuition?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents told me way back that my only option was to live at home and go to UMBC and if I wanted something more expensive, I was going to have to come up with the money myself. UMBC turned out to be an excellent school and I got so much out of my experience there. I went on to get a masters degree at a big-name school which was paid for by my employer. I have never felt that my state school degree was not good enough. I have already told my kids that UMBC or UMCP will be their likely school.

Honestly, if your kids want that big name on the resume, save it for graduate school. A masters only takes a year of full-time work (took me 3 years part-time).

This is a sensible approach, but bear in mind that merit aid at some private schools, or out of state publics, can bring the cost down to what UMBC/UMCP cost. My DC was awarded merit aid that brought our annual costs down to just about $1K more/year than UMCP.

If you don't mind my asking, where did your DC receive such a nice merit aid package?

DD applied to many schools, public and private. She got merit aid at most of them, but the private merit aid didn't come close to the price of in-state public. She also got merit aid at public, so she ended up there mostly due to price. She would have liked to go to one of the private schools, but they cost two times what we're paying for public.

We have to go through this again with three younger siblings. They are only going to be allowed to apply to schools that offer generous merit aid and to publics. Both DH and I went to selective private colleges, but we can't afford either school for our kids. We're not eligible for FA, but we absolutely cannot afford the tuition.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:DC will apply to HYP (high school '17) and is highly competitive. Based on the college monies we have stashed now (started saving late), I am willing to sacrifice and give up 50% of my annual salary (after taxes of course) to pay the tuition.

For DC, this would be a wonderful opportunity if accepted. However, I will not pay full tuition for an out of state public university but would strongly considering paying for another good private.

My money, my choice, my kid.

*consider*

[Anonymous]

We will pay for private if DD doesn't get accepted into one of three public universities. We would much rather not pay for private or out of state but we will scrape together the $ if needed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think a better strategy than banning kids from applying to certain schools is to be upfront about how much money they have for college. They can apply to any school, but in order to accept it has to fit the budget. Some school give generous aid to wealthy kids, and you don't know until you apply.

But why apply to schools that do not give merit aid, which the parents know they cannot afford based on their budget?

It is not a blind exercise, it is a strategic one. Some schools give no merit aid, period.

This. I told my kid not to even look at schools that don't give merit aid. Don't waste our time (or money with application fees). We will not qualify for much, if any, financial aid and we can't afford full price. DC applied very strategically to a mix of schools that are generous with merit for students with similar stats and state schools where we knew we could afford sticker price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I DID take some schools off the table for DC based on tuition; I would pay full price for Stanford but not Carnegie-Mellon

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My parents told me way back that my only option was to live at home and go to UMBC and if I wanted something more expensive, I was going to have to come up with the money myself. UMBC turned out to be an excellent school and I got so much out of my experience there. I went on to get a masters degree at a big-name school which was paid for by my employer. I have never felt that my state school degree was not good enough. I have already told my kids that UMBC or UMCP will be their likely school.

Honestly, if your kids want that big name on the resume, save it for graduate school. A masters only takes a year of full-time work (took me 3 years part-time).

This is a sensible approach, but bear in mind that merit aid at some private schools, or out of state publics, can bring the cost down to what UMBC/UMCP cost. My DC was awarded merit aid that brought our annual costs down to just about $1K more/year than UMCP.

If you don't mind my asking, where did your DC receive such a nice merit aid package?

DD applied to many schools, public and private. She got merit aid at most of them, but the private merit aid didn't come close to the price of in-state public. She also got merit aid at public, so she ended up there mostly due to price. She would have liked to go to one of the private schools, but they cost two times what we're paying for public.

We have to go through this again with three younger siblings. They are only going to be allowed to apply to schools that offer generous merit aid and to publics. Both DH and I went to selective private colleges, but we can't afford either school for our kids. We're not eligible for FA, but we absolutely cannot afford the tuition.

I would rather not say, because there aren't that many DC- area kids there, but it is one of the Colleges That Change Lives. We are in the same position as you - we don't qualify for need-based aid but cannot pay full price at the kind of selective private schools we attended.

The book The College Solution was very helpful to us in strategizing wrt finding right-fit schools where DC might get merit aid.