Reply to Financial Aid and Single Mom

Forum Index » College and University Discussion

Reply to "Financial Aid and Single Mom"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous]Hi. I haven't read every suggestion but I thought I would chime in.

I am a single parent and my kids attended top schools. In our case, there was a history of abuse (which I had legal paperwork to prove), no contact or support (which I had to prove with multiple letters) and, even then, at least one school refused to waive his CSS profile. In the end, only one of my three children attended a school that required a CSS Profile and that college did waive his forms.

I want you to understand that your children's situation will be no different from most people's. Most parents, especially in the DC area, cannot afford the contribution colleges expect from the. Also, most colleges do not meet full need and, when they do, it often includes loan amounts that are too high. When it comes right down to it, the overwhelming number of kids end up choosing a college because of costs. The kids may apply to lots of far-away schools with glossy brochures, but it's often the financial aid page and the parents' bank account that makes the final decision.

My absolute best advice-- especially if you are consistently receiving child support from a man earning $200k-- is to start a 529 and look at a variety of ways to pay for college. I'm going to list some. There are no right or wrong choices.

1. Get a job at a university or even a hospital connected to a university. Many of them offer some sort of family tuition reimbursement after you've worked a number of years.

2. If your child is interested in the military, there are a number of choices from West Point to joining as an enlisted person and attending college later.

3. Dual enroll at the community college while in high school. This can knock off as much as 1-2 years, especially if the student attends a state college.

4. Attend a top school that is FAFSA only. They exist. That will likely change by the time your child attends college but one of my kids attended just such a school.

5. Move to a state with a really good public state college system or even a state that promises to pay for college tuition for instate kids with certain gpas. Last I knew, Georgia and Florida had such plans.

6. Take AP/IB courses. This can cut off a good year or so but top colleges sometimes make students replace with harder courses so there's not much savings there.

7. Attend an HBCU. They are often less expensive.

8. Attend college overseas. This is often a savings for people who are paying fully out-of-pocket.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics