What do you mean when you say you "can't afford" a college?

[Anonymous]

This is a genuine question. It seems like different people mean different things when they say they can't afford to send DC to a certain school. What does this mean? You don't want to take out hundreds of thousands in debt? That you don't want to take out any debt and don't have room in your monthly budget for a tuition check? You have nothing saved toward college education?

[Anonymous]

In my case, my DD is a sophomore. I have no college savings for her. I don't really know exactly how loans work, but if I were a lender I wouldn't give me a loan - I don't really have room in my budget to be paying a few hundred dollars a month towards paying one back.

[Anonymous]

I work in an unstable profession, and DH is unemployed. However, we have savings and we've paid off our house. We saved for college, as much as we could, but our savings will not cover the $60K+ cost of private colleges.

We could 1) mortgage our house or 2) spend a huge chunk of our savings to send our DC to a private college. However, that wouldn't be prudent, and could be catastrophic if I were to lose my job and we had only our savings to live on.

So, no, we can't afford the college DC wants to go to. We can't and won't pay the price tag, even though the college thinks we can "afford" and gave us no financial aid.

We can't afford it. Period.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:In my case, my DD is a sophomore. I have no college savings for her. I don't really know exactly how loans work, but if I were a lender I wouldn't give me a loan - I don't really have room in my budget to be paying a few hundred dollars a month towards paying one back.

Oh yeah. And I rent. So it's not like I could take out a second mortgage or something.

[Anonymous]

For the average family earning between $30-65k, the net cost of attendance after all grants, scholarships, and discounts is about $23k. With some debt, a family might squeeze by paying 30% of their income for college, but 70% of income is just not possible for four years.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:This is a genuine question. It seems like different people mean different things when they say they can't afford to send DC to a certain school. What does this mean? You don't want to take out hundreds of thousands in debt? That you don't want to take out any debt and don't have room in your monthly budget for a tuition check? You have nothing saved toward college education?

In our case, it would mean something like "we COULD afford this, but there are much better options, in the US and abroad, for X amount of money."

[Anonymous]

For us, it means that although we've saved about 140K so far for college for two kids (older one in MS), there is no way we'll be able to save enough for private college, and we don't think lots of debt is a good idea. So for us, I would say we can afford public college but can't afford private.

[Anonymous]

Interesting question.

When I was college-age, I turned down the college I wanted to go to because I didn't have the money for tuition, let alone housing. I went to a jr. college and lived at home, then transferred to the 4 year. My brother started out applying to the local 4 year so he lived at home and started out there. It all worked out.

Nowadays, I can technically afford any college for my kids, but the way we use the term, it will depend on the college. I'll shell out $X for college 1 but not $X for college 2. Maybe $X-Y for college 2...

[Anonymous]

We will contribute only the amount we saved by HS graduation, which will be more than enough for in-state public, enough for some less expensive OOS public schools, and maybe barely enough for the cheapest private Catholics. Four years at the typical private school is out of reach and we are not planning to spend any money out of pocket. DC is a pretty average student, so a non-flagship public school should be a good fit and won't break the bank, even if she goes out of state as currently planned.

[Anonymous]

In our case, it will simply mean that we don't think it's a good value. Other than the obvious candidates of HYP/Stanford/MIT, I'm not willing to pay $65k per year for a school that is no better than UVA or Va. Tech. And we're too wealthy for any financial aid, so I'd rather pay the $25k for in-state tuition, and I'll happily set each kid up with an extra $100k or so in pre-seeded retirement savings.

They'll come out ahead.

[Anonymous]

our system is setup to reward the ones that don't save and have lots of family debt

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:our system is setup to reward the ones that don't save and have lots of family debt

Not true. Financial aid is mostly based on income. Savings and debt count very little.

http://www.thecollegesolution.com/why-college-savings-usually-wont-hurt-financial-aid-chances/

[Anonymous]

... only an Ivy or Stanford type school is worth it. And even then questionable.

[Anonymous]

http://www.forbes.com/sites/troyonink/2014/01/31/2014-guide-to-fafsa-css-profile-college-aid-and-expected-family-contribution/

[Anonymous]

I mean that it will impact retirement or put me in jeopardy of not meeting basic needs