Question: those who send their kids to slac or oos schools..

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you pay for slac? Or oos state schools? Like Michigan tuition is 50k out of state. My DS was accepted but we couldn’t justify the cost to attend Michigan when he could just go to UMD for a fraction of the cost. Just curious how do families pay for schools that are over 70k .

Do you have such little imagination that you can’t imagine that someone might think differently than you?

No need to be snarky here. Just wanted to understand other people’s perspective

Your responses (if you're OP) don't seem like you want to understand. You started by asking how we paid, but then you shifted into "How can you justify it?" which is a significantly different question.

I used to spend a lot of time on a travel forum, and one poster could not wrap her mind around the fact that some people would rather stay in an OKish hotel but really wanted their meals to be special. To her, what mattered was the special hotel. That's what gave her a sense of the place she was visiting. And I don't understand that at all, but I didn't try to tell her that she was wrong and expect her to justify her preferences.

Financially, the most sensible thing to do is to live in a small house, never remodel, drive beater cars, have no hobbies, take no vacations, shop at thrift stores/freecycle, live on potatoes, send your kids to whatever college is least expensive, and put all that money you're saving into index funds. Is that how you live?

+1

Financially, having kids is a huge mistake. ROI On kids is a huge negative number. They are resource sinks. Yet, most people will have kids, unless they want life to pass them.

Cars. Pizza. Beer. Terrible ROI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:How do you pay for slac? Or oos state schools? Like Michigan tuition is 50k out of state. My DS was accepted but we couldn’t justify the cost to attend Michigan when he could just go to UMD for a fraction of the cost. Just curious how do families pay for schools that are over 70k .

Do you have such little imagination that you can’t imagine that someone might think differently than you?

No need to be snarky here. Just wanted to understand other people’s perspective

Your responses (if you're OP) don't seem like you want to understand. You started by asking how we paid, but then you shifted into "How can you justify it?" which is a significantly different question.

I used to spend a lot of time on a travel forum, and one poster could not wrap her mind around the fact that some people would rather stay in an OKish hotel but really wanted their meals to be special. To her, what mattered was the special hotel. That's what gave her a sense of the place she was visiting. And I don't understand that at all, but I didn't try to tell her that she was wrong and expect her to justify her preferences.

Financially, the most sensible thing to do is to live in a small house, never remodel, drive beater cars, have no hobbies, take no vacations, shop at thrift stores/freecycle, live on potatoes, send your kids to whatever college is least expensive, and put all that money you're saving into index funds. Is that how you live?

Got it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:As a full pay parent of a kid at a SLAC, I will say that the cost really sucks and comes at significant consequence to our family, such as significantly reducing retirement savings, deferring needed home repairs, driving a 13 year old car that desperately needs to be replaced, limiting travel to visit my and our ability to care for them in the future, reducing and limiting extra-curricular activities for our other kids, limiting our college savings for our other kids, and significantly limiting our ability to financially help our college kid in the future. In other words, it really sucks.

We made this decision because our college kid smart and intellectually curious, but really struggled socially and emotionally in high school. I can tell you as a couple who went to ivy league schools, my kid's education is superior in almost every way (better rigor, interaction with faculty, course availability, course advising, student team work, etc.) to our experience.

Every financial planner out there will tell you that you should never ever forgo or reduce retirement savings to send a kid to college. Ever. You can take out loans for education, but not for retirement.

My kid is also smart and intellectually curious (1600 SAT, 4.8 weighted GPA), and is at a Tier 2 school with significant merit scholarship (but not financial) aid. We are unwilling to reduce retirement savings in order to send DC to a more prestigious school, and in any case there will not be any appreciable difference in either the experience, or the outcome.

[Anonymous]

If you live in DC itself, you don’t have a choice since there is no state flagship. The $10k you can get from DC to attend OOS helps but doesn’t bring tuition anywhere near in-state. But I guess that’s one of the costs of choosing to live in the city.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Save in 529, have cash, have kid do work study/get a job to help pay.

And again the question. How do families save enough money to pay for their kids to go to OOS colleges?

Maximize your earnings; Spend less than what you make; Live on one spouse's salary; Stay in the first house you buy; Own vehicles for at least 10 years, if not more; Prioritize your kid's education over vacations, etc. Luck plays a role obviously.. With getting the right job, spouse with the right mindset, kids that are smart enough to be able to get admissions to the right school and willing to take advice, etc.

Our first is applying for college now. His ED will cost us 80K+ a year; His safety will be $0 - $15K/yr (Merit aid); Instate (UVA) will be about $35K. Most likely will be around $50K/yr (OOS state flagship). If he makes his ED, it will end up costing us $120K more. We are OK with paying for what we believe is the best possible education for him. He has the stats for all these schools but has several structural factors working against him (race, competitive school, wrong sex for area of interest, etc.) so we hope for the best. Will deal with Grad school expenses when we get to that stage. Not going to Med school, so it won't be terrible.

Your kid is not getting into UVA.

This subgroup of DCUMers are so incredibly immature and tribal. i wish they were teen age boys but fear they are not.

[Anonymous]

Our kids picked smaller oos slacs where they got huge amounts of merit money bringing the cost down to what we'd pay for in-state. They desperately wanted the experience of living somewhere else so this was a win-win. Vary happy with their decisions.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Our kids picked smaller oos slacs where they got huge amounts of merit money bringing the cost down to what we'd pay for in-state. They desperately wanted the experience of living somewhere else so this was a win-win. Vary happy with their decisions.

Can you share where they went to school?

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous]If you live in DC itself, you don’t have a choice since there is no state flagship. The $10k you can get from DC to attend OOS helps but doesn’t bring tuition anywhere near in-state. But I guess that’s one of the costs of choosing to live in the city.[/quote]

It should NOT be. That $10k was originally supposed to bring down the public college costs down to in state cost, but Congress has not ever upped the funding since this went into place. Yet another way DC residents are left out.

We live in DC and the merit from a SLAC made it much more affordable than any of the state schools, even with scholarships and the measly $10k. State schools are often a ripoff.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Save in 529, have cash, have kid do work study/get a job to help pay.

And again the question. How do families save enough money to pay for their kids to go to OOS colleges?

Op here- no that was not my question. My question was how do you justify spending 70k per year on one kids education when you can achieve the goal of educating your child at in-state school for a lot less money? My question has been answered by some helpful and some snarky comments

At the top-tier SLACs (and frankly even at some regionally prominent ones, if your child will stay in that region) the networking benefits are off. the. chain.—and last for a lifetime.

[Anonymous]

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]If you live in DC itself, you don’t have a choice since there is no state flagship. The $10k you can get from DC to attend OOS helps but doesn’t bring tuition anywhere near in-state. But I guess that’s one of the costs of choosing to live in the city.[/quote]

It should NOT be. That $10k was originally supposed to bring down the public college costs down to in state cost, but Congress has not ever upped the funding since this went into place. Yet another way DC residents are left out.

We live in DC and the merit from a SLAC made it much more affordable than any of the state schools, even with scholarships and the measly $10k. State schools are often a ripoff.[/quote]

You can go to UDC.