Financial Aid UMC with multiple kids

[Anonymous]

You should take a seminar about where babies cone from and learn the ways not to have so many if you can't afford them.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Don't act like a beggar because the rich people are not acting like beggars. It would be traumatic for kids whose family get labeled as the poor ones at the rich kid school. Go to public schools and take alittle pride in what your tax dollars already pay for. You could also volunteer which instills character and pride.

We’re not acting like a beggar-we’ve never asked for aid nor planned to even with kid 3. So thanks for the advice-it’s so very helpful.

Our IB is Dunbar-are you sending your children there currently? Granted things could change in 4 years, but I’m not too hopeful.

Don't let the trolls get you, OP. They have nothing better to do.

With four kids, you are likely to get some financial aid. It will really depend from school to school how much that amounts to. Is your current private a K-12? Could you ask the FA office for an estimate?

As to the PP's comment, our DS is in a "Top 5" competitive school. No one is treated as "the poor family," so please don't let that be a concern.

Congratulations on your new addition!

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You should take a seminar about where babies cone from and learn the ways not to have so many if you can't afford them.

And you should find a dictionary and learn the meanings of “adoption” and “secondary infertility”.

[Anonymous]

Sorry if people here are sounding judgy. I would have loved to have 4 kids. Congratulations on your little one. We did a few years at an independent K-8. Tuition in our last year was over 40. With increases I’d assume it’s easily 50k. We got FA for 3 years (3 kids at home, one SN, and HHI was probably around 150k but I don’t remember exactly). Each year they increased tuition and reduced our FA. We knew we couldn’t afford to continue. There was zero chance we could have paid for 3 kids. We are Jewish so a parochial school was not an option. However we do know many families who have shared that they give large sibling discounts and tuition is already reasonable compared to non-religious privates. You might want to consider only placing your oldest in private to save money since the HS seems to be the biggest concern.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Sorry if people here are sounding judgy. I would have loved to have 4 kids. Congratulations on your little one. We did a few years at an independent K-8. Tuition in our last year was over 40. With increases I’d assume it’s easily 50k. We got FA for 3 years (3 kids at home, one SN, and HHI was probably around 150k but I don’t remember exactly). Each year they increased tuition and reduced our FA. We knew we couldn’t afford to continue. There was zero chance we could have paid for 3 kids. We are Jewish so a parochial school was not an option. However we do know many families who have shared that they give large sibling discounts and tuition is already reasonable compared to non-religious privates. You might want to consider only placing your oldest in private to save money since the HS seems to be the biggest concern.

I realized my post is unclear. We could only afford private for one child so we did it for the child who needed it most at that moment in time.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:So you bought in the Dunbar cachement. No doubt a larger, cheaper house than if you bought in the JR cachement or in one of the surrounding counties with a solid path from ES through HS. And no doubt knowing Dunbar was unlikely to satisfy. Esp at the time you decided to have a FOURth child. And now you want other families to pick some of your tab because you like your neighborhood too much to move?

Seems your poor planning shouldn’t be someone else’s issue.

All that said, you are likely to get FA because privates don’t give much to truly poor people.

Not sure I would classify our 1400 sq ft 2 bedrooom row house just south of FT Totten[u] as “larger and cheaper” than NW, but it fit the budget at the time we bought and I don’t think we could have gotten the same thing over in NW. We didn’t think about high school, no, but also didn’t plan on a fourth surprise kid due to secondary infertility after adopting siblings, so maybe poor planning, or just what ended up being and we are trying to make the best of it with what we have.

My feeling is we make too much and should not qualify, but maybe we don’t, so no harm in a general inquiry to try to make a more informed decision on what to do moving forward. We’re not sure the schools would even give us the light of day since we’re not seriously looking yet at the hii of there tuition levels.

Your current home (2-bedroom row house for 6 people) and location are not ideal at all. At that HHI, I would definitely move to a nicer suburb. Your quality of life will be so much higher, as the suburbs are more family-friendly and you can find good public schools.

There are private schools in the suburbs too, if you are adamant about private schools. (Maybe you'll qualify for financial aid because your HHI is not particularly high for a family of 6.)

In any case, I would move ASAP.