How do you grapple with the cost of expensive colleges?

[Anonymous]

Our oldest is going to be a sophomore and we expect to have to start talking about college. We make 220K and can't really fathom paying over 60k for his college. I doubt we would get any aid as we we have decent equity in our home, no debts, and college savings (120k for him). But how can a school possibly be worth more than the median income for a household? I went to Michigan for grad school, and even that's 50k out of state without room & board. For people that put a limit on how much they are willing to pay for college, how did you have this conversation with your child? Any tips? We have another kid too whose three years younger, so I having trouble imaging the tuition bill for the year they overlap.

[Anonymous]

Are you planning to use just your savings to pay for college? I don't what other expenses you have but 30k per year from savings and another 30k from earnings is affordable for us and we have the same HHI.

We are also URM and will pay for our kid if she gets into a top school. I think how you handle it is based on what you value. Plenty of people don't think it's worth it. For our family, it is.

[Anonymous]

^^And depending on the schools, you should see a break financially when they both attend. However this would vary.

[Anonymous]

What is URM?

Our DS is a rising senior. I guess what we grapple with is the unknown of actual costs. We see the "sticker price" if higher cost schools, but then read and hear about how they can make it affordable, about how x% of students receive aid, etc. How do you know the actual cost before actually applying and getting real numbers?

We have not been saying to write off any schools due to cost, but have told him that if the bottom line is too expensive we'll hVe to go to option B or C. We are still in the process of looking.

[Anonymous]

You have the conversation once. And then again. And again. And reinforce again. One thing we did was print out a list of popular colleges with prices in descending order. Drew a line separating the list into what we could and could not afford. DD looked at it several times but I remember the day that she paid attention and said, "wow! college xyz costs $zzz, that's 3x's the cost of college zyx. Eventually merit aid significantly reordered her list of possibles. But she didn't apply to any college that we couldn't have - perhaps - paid full fare.

[Anonymous]

Re: visits, DC said, "Don't show me any school we can't afford."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You have the conversation once. And then again. And again. And reinforce again. One thing we did was print out a list of popular colleges with prices in descending order. Drew a line separating the list into what we could and could not afford. DD looked at it several times but I remember the day that she paid attention and said, "wow! college xyz costs $zzz, that's 3x's the cost of college zyx. Eventually merit aid significantly reordered her list of possibles. But she didn't apply to any college that we couldn't have - perhaps - paid full fare.

Merit aid reordered the list, so how did you draw a line? Might merit aid have made some affordable that were below the line?

[Anonymous]

Op, make sure the older one doesn't eat-up more than their share of money available for college. Keep it equitable. Above all else you don't want to say, "no" to a choice because too much was spent on the oldest sibling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
You have the conversation once. And then again. And again. And reinforce again. One thing we did was print out a list of popular colleges with prices in descending order. Drew a line separating the list into what we could and could not afford. DD looked at it several times but I remember the day that she paid attention and said, "wow! college xyz costs $zzz, that's 3x's the cost of college zyx. Eventually merit aid significantly reordered her list of possibles. But she didn't apply to any college that we couldn't have - perhaps - paid full fare.


Merit aid reordered the list, so how did you draw a line? Might merit aid have made some affordable that were below the line?

50% over the cost of in-state public. We didn't phrase it that way but that was our comfort level.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What is URM?

Our DS is a rising senior. I guess what we grapple with is the unknown of actual costs. We see the "sticker price" if higher cost schools, but then read and hear about how they can make it affordable, about how x% of students receive aid, etc. How do you know the actual cost before actually applying and getting real numbers?

We have not been saying to write off any schools due to cost, but have told him that if the bottom line is too expensive we'll hVe to go to option B or C. We are still in the process of looking.

Under Represented Minorities - Blacks and Latinos in college app game

[Anonymous]

We said we will pay $30K per year and they will get loans for any cost above that.

Most people I know got merit aid to $60K schools,

We will apply in state and out and private then do a cost benefit analysis.

Also one child is looking at the Naval Academy and we told home we would give him $40K if he goes there.

[Anonymous]

We have prepaid VA 529s for our kids. Before DS started high school, we sat him down and explained that we could pay for 4 years of in state college, including room and board (most of which we would pay for out of our annual income). And that if he wanted to go to OOS or private, he would need merit aid that made up the gap, or came close. (Kid is at TJ, so this is a legitimate possibility for some non-Ivy STEM heavy private and OOS schools). We also told him that he could not take out undergraduate loans, and we would not either. He will likely continue to grad school, and we don't want him in debt before get gets there.

I think this is where a lot of parents in the DMV are. Too much money for need based aid. Not enough to fund 4 years at a private school. I also think it would be unfair for DS to go through HS without knowing that the parameters for us paying for college are. He now knows that if he has his heart set on an OOS or private school, he will need to work hard to make himself an attractive candidate for merit aid.

This also means the we are putting his college list together carefully. He is lucky in that UVA/WM/VT engineering are probably safety schools, given his GPA/SATs. For OOS and private, we are looking at school that traditionally give significant merit aid to TJ kids, that have strong merit aid in general, and/or where his GPA/SATs are on the upper end. He will probably also apply to a couple of schools that are long shots for merit aid, or reaches in general. Butwe are being very clear that even if he gets in, it is not likely he can attend.

I think the important thing is to make sure your kid has realistic expectations. I have known people who have been in our financial situation, not been upfront with their kids about what they can spend, encouraged them to apply to Ivys or super expensive private reach schools without a real possibility of aid. And waited until the kid got in to tell them they couldn't afford the school, and the kid needed to go in state. That seems wrong to me.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We have prepaid VA 529s for our kids. Before DS started high school, we sat him down and explained that we could pay for 4 years of in state college, including room and board (most of which we would pay for out of our annual income). And that if he wanted to go to OOS or private, he would need merit aid that made up the gap, or came close. (Kid is at TJ, so this is a legitimate possibility for some non-Ivy STEM heavy private and OOS schools). We also told him that he could not take out undergraduate loans, and we would not either. He will likely continue to grad school, and we don't want him in debt before get gets there.

I think this is where a lot of parents in the DMV are. Too much money for need based aid. Not enough to fund 4 years at a private school. I also think it would be unfair for DS to go through HS without knowing that the parameters for us paying for college are. He now knows that if he has his heart set on an OOS or private school, he will need to work hard to make himself an attractive candidate for merit aid.

This also means the we are putting his college list together carefully. He is lucky in that UVA/WM/VT engineering are probably safety schools, given his GPA/SATs. For OOS and private, we are looking at school that traditionally give significant merit aid to TJ kids, that have strong merit aid in general, and/or where his GPA/SATs are on the upper end. He will probably also apply to a couple of schools that are long shots for merit aid, or reaches in general. Butwe are being very clear that even if he gets in, it is not likely he can attend.

I think the important thing is to make sure your kid has realistic expectations. I have known people who have been in our financial situation, not been upfront with their kids about what they can spend, encouraged them to apply to Ivys or super expensive private reach schools without a real possibility of aid. And waited until the kid got in to tell them they couldn't afford the school, and the kid needed to go in state. That seems wrong to me.

Our HHI is ~$170k, so we're in that situation.

We are finding that some of the OOS schools our DS has interest in really aren't any more expensive than in state. As far as more expensive schools I don't know how one knows about the end cost (after merit aid and/or scholarship) unless you apply.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Op, make sure the older one doesn't eat-up more than their share of money available for college. Keep it equitable. Above all else you don't want to say, "no" to a choice because too much was spent on the oldest sibling.

This is OP speaking. We are very aware of this and we intend to have around 140K saved up for each before they start. We might let the younger one a few thousand more a year because college seems to go up 1k a year. Someone suggested 30k from savings and 30k from income but that's not going to happen because we have to continue saving for the younger one while their older brother in in school. It's refreshing to see how common this problem among posters. It's seems like of people are infatuated with the expensive, name brand schools in this area. My son hasn't really thought much about colleges, though he's been to Maryland for camp a few times and liked it. I'm secretly hoping he ends up there, it's close to home and leaves money for grad school!

[Anonymous]

With an income of 220K, you will not get aid. With the 120k you have saved, that will be 30 K per year. Are you willing/able to squeeze some additional money from your annual income each year? Show those numbers to your child and explain what your limits are. Next, do some Net Price Calculators for a few schools and see what YOU will have to pay. Frequently, your own state school is the the most economic choice. Talk to your child and the earlier, the better.