Reply to As schools near $100K/year when will that affect the pool of students?

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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]I don't think its a tipping point. This question has been asked every year when tuition rises. The answer is that it affects a few more families every year, which is why you have also seen a much larger interest in merit-award giving schools than you did in the past. But its incremental.[/quote]

I think the tipping point is long past.
All of my children attended or attend in-state schools for one reason only: Price.
My children are top students, but they were not eligible for FA at top 20 schools that interested them. When we did the FA calculators, we got zero FA. Our accountant told us in no uncertain terms that to take out loans to send our kids to college would be insane given our ages (we are older parents) and income.
Those competitive colleges lost out on our kids because of price. We refused to pay the outrageous prices of these private schools, so our kids did not apply.
The price of American private education will continue to rise as long as wealthy parents continue to pay it. We dropped out.

[/quote]

Even as Top students, there is a good chance your kids would not have even gotten into a T20 school---acceptance rates are single digits for most.  Majority get REJECTED.  
And your accountant is right, taking PPL would not be smart.  Your kids are smart, they got a great education and will do just fine in life.  Once you realize it's much better to graduate debt free or at most with the $27K of student loans, you can be much happier in life.  Your life is not over if you can't attend a T20 school---fact is majority of top students will be turned away even if they are full pay. Too many smart kids, not enough spaces.  But [b]there are plenty in the 30-60 range that give great merit and if your kids had wanted a smaller private school, they could have chased merit and likely found a great school that cost same or less than your instate schools[/b].  [/quote]

This is 100% wrong.
My kids did chase merit aid at some lower ranked SLACS. They got $25-$30k in merit. But in-state was cheaper (and my kids got in-state scholarships), so that's the choice we made. My kids did not want to go to large Southern universities that would have given them a free ride. 
My kids did not apply to any T20 schools. They did not apply to any NESCAC schools. Their stats put them squarely in the running for most of these schools, but they did not apply. Yes, many smart kids are rejected from these "top" schools, but my kids' friends with similar stats got in to at least one or two of them. [/quote]

My kid turned down CWRU and it only would have cost ~$40K/year (school costs ~$80K/year).  Very similar to cost at UVA.

I agree I would not go to Alabama to get cheaper college---but it's available if you wish to do it.  But there are great choices out there with merit that are not in the South, and if needed expand to the 50-100.  My own 25ACT/3.5UW had two schools in the 80-100 that would cost us only $40K/year and attended one of them.  Imagine what merit one would get with a 1400+ at those schools (I know kids doing it---they would only pay $25-30K/year).  There are excellent options out there to get merit---my kid did it because they knew they would struggle at a large state u and wanted a mid size school (5-10K).  We were not chasing merit, but were definately not complaining.[/quote]

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