Is anyone not saving to pay for all of their kids' college?
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Anonymous
| Most people can't afford to save anything. I'm a single parent and a teacher and I took on 2 second jobs just to save anything at all. I might have around $20k saved by the time she starts college next year. |
Anonymous
If you pick the right school, with your income, she will get a ton of financial aid. So pick a school that fully meets need, ideally one that uses grants after the basic ~$5k in student loans, so you don't need to do parent loans. Find a school where she is at 75% and the acceptance rate is over 50%. She will likely get grants/merit so that you only need to pay a minimal amount each year (ie. probably less than $10K). You can also target more elite schools with an income level like that, unless the other parent has to be considered on Financial Aid (which may be the case). Either way, pick a school that meets need/good merit aid and where you DD is at 90% (and acceptance rates over 50%) and your kid could get significant merit aid. So affordable college is possible, it just may not be a "T20" school. There are affordable options for everyone, you just have to search and not be obsessed with rankings. Find the place that will pay for your DD to attend. |
Anonymous
The schools that meet full need are largely elite, low acceptance rate, schools. If you are going to be very constrained in your budget you should make it clear to your kids early on that if they want more options than CC/transfer or live at home to go to a local college they need to do all they can to be a great applicant. |
Anonymous
Agreed that they need to strive to be the best applicant. But there are plenty of choices beyond elite schools. Seriously, pick a school with more than 50% acceptance rate where your DC is at/above 90% for gpa and sat. Have kid show demonstrated interest, apply for extra scholarships at the school. Your kid can get 60-100% merit for tuition this way. Heck my own kid got 65% merit award with a 25 ACT at a T140 university. If your kid has 30+ ACT (or corresponding SAT) and high gpa with rigorous courses, you can get nearly full merit awards at some schools. Similarly, if lower scores, then pick a "lower ranked school" where you are at the 90% for scores. They may not be elite schools, but there are choices; there are great choices. My own state has 2 instate schools that are less than $25K per year for instate schools, both ranked in T140. Between the 2, basically every choice of a major are offered. (on has 15K students one has 30K---so different options). It is not hard to get $4-6K of merit at either school with decent grades. With minimum wage in our state at $14.50/hr, it is definately feasible for many students to get thru college without much loans. They can earn $10K in the summer and breaks. Earn another $4-5K working part-time during the school year. That leaves $10K or less before any merit/financial aid (one school is $22K "all in" for fall 2022, so that includes books and travel). Take $5K in loans and hope parents/family can assist with the other $5K or take parent loans for that. DC also has option to do Running start and get an AA degree while in HS (this does require student have transportation to the CC and can pay for books, but otherwise it's free). Plan it well and you only need 2-2.5 years at college (unless engineering, that might be 3 years). So you just cut out ~$50K of expenses. Now you only need to pay $50K for school. So there are plenty of affordable options. You just have to realize there will also be options that are not affordable and have to give up that dream possibly or take major loans (and that's your choice---just plan to pay them back). |
Anonymous
Well, but then you're low income and have no savings. Which isn't fun for other reasons. I agree that there are many schools where almost no one pays the "sticker" price. My DC is going to one of them with substantial merit aid. However, even with substantial merit aid, we'll still owe @ $50k a year, all in. And this assumes that your kid has the grades and test scores to attract merit aid. The people who really get stuck are those who didn't make a lot of money early on (or had medical bills, whatever), so didn't save, and then have a salary increase right as the kid goes to college. It doesn't take a lot -- anything over $200k will disqualify you from financial aid at most colleges. Then DC gets admitted to a very elite college that doesn't give merit aid. This isn't a very large group of people, but they're very noisy, because it's not fun to tell your kid that you can't afford Harvard/Yale/Stanford after they have an offer of admission in hand. |
Anonymous
She isn't that good of a student for an elite school and the schools where she is above 75% of crappy schools with low graduation rates. I won't take out any parent loans. |
Anonymous
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College is starting to feel like a big scam. The cost is ridiculously high. Parents and students complain but don't realize that they are part of the problem.
As long as they accept to pay these ridiculous prices, schools will keep increasing. Prices will only stabilize or drop when parents and students will refuse to continue to play this game and find alternatives. Simple basic economic principles. College isn't the only path to education. 5 years ago, my son dropped out of college after just one year. He did a programming bootcamp and a certification. He got a job at Google making over 6 figures. |
Anonymous
Then I guess she needs to look at CC for the first 2 years. Work part time during the school year, live at home those 2 years and work full time during summer and all breaks. Then transfer to a state school for the final 2 years. Or other choice is "where she is above the 75% of crappy schools with low graduation rates". I agree that you cannot afford to take out parent loans. So in order for her to do this, she needs cheap, affordable college. So that means CC and transfer or continue to look for lesser known schools where the graduation rate is acceptable to you and find one that will give financial aide and/or merit. Just curious, what is her GPA (W and UW) and SAT/ACT? And what might she want to study? There is a huge range between "elite qualified" and "really crappy grad rate schools". You'd be surprised that there are a ton of colleges out there, so with a bit of searching you might find the right one. And with lower income, you may be able to get application fees waived, which would allow her to apply to a few more schools in the search for the right financial aid package. Don't give up---there are affordable colleges out there. As far as "crappy graduation rates", be sure to look into the "real graduation rates". What is the 5/6 year graduation rate vs 4 year. For a school that has a high rate of first generation or lower income students (not mutually exclusive), their rates are often somewhat lower, as those kids might take breaks to help family, because they need to work to have $$ for the next semester or for whatever reasons as navigating college when you don't have family to help you can be challenging. Most schools provide the data somewhere and if you delve deep into it, you find that there can be a 5-10% difference in graduation rates for first gen students and everyone else at many good schools---no matter how much assistance the school provides, there are still issues outside of their control (finances often being a large part of it). Since you are not first generation and your DD has you at home to help her navigate, her experience would be different, I suspect. |
Anonymous
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Nope. We can pay for state school tuition and fees out of pocket. If they get into Harvard, we'll hash something out, but I'm not paying any more than the 12K/year tuition+fees UMD costs. Honestly, that seems like a good deal, not sure why people think college is extraordinary expensive.
Living expenses are on them unless they want to live at home - I'll be OK with that. Heck, the purple line may built then and they could ride that to school. |
Anonymous
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It’s a fact higher education is getting increasingly more and more unattainable for the majority of Americans, not to mention the crazy competitiveness in high school drumming up pressure for teens to excel in order to get a chance at top colleges. No wonder our society has become a simmering pressure cooker for highly stressed lifestyle.
It really boils down to economics and proper planning with hopes that our kids will have to passion to succeed. |
Anonymous
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My parents were poor so I got to go to college for free. I had a mix of financial aid and some merit.
I have friends who had lots of debt and did not want their children to start their lives with school debt so it is a priority for them. If you don’t have much money, retirement savings should be first, not college. This country is terrible to the middle class and I would put OP in that category. BIL got to go to college and med school for almost free. His mom got laid off right when he went to college. Because his mom’s income was 0, her contribution was zero. He had a girlfriend who went to the same college and med school. Her family made $200k. She had 400k debt when she graduated from med school. |
Anonymous
We thought we were going to do that, but have spoken to an accountant and we’ve decided to use our 529 money supplement with w2 income. Why? 1. Capital gains tax is significant 2. Recovery of depreciation is significant . 3. The rental market is gang bangers and in not giving that income stream up. Instead we are using are rental properties and rolling them all into a 1032 exchange for our eventual retirement home and will take the cap gains exception on our primary. |
Anonymous
Her GPA is a 3.3 unweighted and maybe 3.5 weighted. She goes to a private school on a mostly full scholarship. I pay a few thousand per year. Her school only reports unweighted. She's interested in business. We will look at the in-state options (Towson, UMBC, SMCM). I don't want her to go to community college. |
Anonymous
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Famous people who went to Community College (to name a few) Tom Hanks Elizabeth Warren George Lucas. Ross Perot, Sr. Morgan Freeman Steve Jobs. Eileen Collins - received her Associates in Science from Corning Community College in 1976. Eileen Marie Collins is a NASA astronaut and first woman Space Shuttle Commander. She was selected by NASA in January 1990 and became an astronaut in July 1991 |
Anonymous
I'm curious what you have against community college? MD has some great CCs and it is an awesome way to get part of college completed at a much more affordable rate. If you won't take parent loans, she just might not be able to attend college without other financial aid/merit aide. An 18yo cannot take more than the ~$5K in federal loans. It just isn't a possibility; and that's a good thing as no 18 yo should really be signing away more than $20K for college. However, could she live at home and attend Towson or UMBC? Or do you want her to have the "full college experience"---because that will cost a lot more. |