Anonymous wrote:Professor here: your kid can get an amazing education at the state flagship, and go on to fantastic, impressive things. If you truly can't afford it, let her grieve and then go where you can afford it. Life is full of hard choices and she will get over it.

Yep, hard choices like deciding whether or not to pull the plug when OP is elderly and on life support.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest DD is a senior this year and we’ve made so many mistakes.

Her dream school is a T10 that we can’t afford. We’ve been upfront with her about it being too expensive. She said she just wanted to see if she could get in. Well, she got in and it’s been emotionally exhausting to deal with. The school keeps sending letters and packages. They recently offered to pay for her and a parent to fly out for their admitted student day, which she desperately wants to do.

She applied to another school T50 and applied for a prestigious full ride scholarship. She started getting excited about it and saying she would likely go to the school because of the scholarship program. She made it to the final round, had an interview, took a test, etc. Tonight she found out she didn’t get it. She’s been in tears. Says she’s no longer interested in the school. I get it. It put a bad taste in her mouth.

It’s looking like her best option is our state flagship school. We actually live in the town with the school, so this is not exciting to her.

As a parent I feel like we’ve made so many mistakes and the experience has been pretty negative overall.

Pay as you go. Get an evening and weekend retail job. Get a personal care aid certification and work nights.

You cannot be serious!

No parent should work 2jobs to put their kids into a top 10 school. Find a place you can afford. There will be tons of them since they can afford to pay for in state pricing. I wouldn't work an extra job to bring in $50k more per year (after taxes).. my kid would attend a school we can afford

I am, but I'm not a wasp. We had the resources to pay for med school for our child, but I would have definitely worked a second job if we didn't. Education has always been a priority in my family.

Education is a priority in our family as well. That is why once it was apparent we would never get FA (make too much) we starting saving for college as soon as the kids were born.
We also have paid for our kids education. One was $40K/year (had merit award), the other $90K and is going to cost us $200K for grad school. But we have it saved. If we didn't my $90K kid would have attended a school they got $40K+/merit per year (~ranked 50) or our T50 State U for about $30K. And my $40K/year with merit could have attended several schools for under $20K (and they were a 3.5UW/1240/nothing spectacular EC kid). I wouldn't have gone into massive debt to fund their education because I recognize they can get a spectacular education for under $90K/year.

Anonymous wrote:To me, it really depends on the major. If the kid wants to go into law, finance, or something else where connections matter, then it might make sense to pay for the T10. For engineering, the ROI for the T10 school won't be there, and the kid will be fine at the state flagship.

It’s not the state flag ship unless the OP is from South Carolina. The state flagships with good engineering programs are all well above 150 rank.

The difference in opportunity between a T10 and T150 can be very large. If the T150 state school doesn’t offer ABET or isn’t strong in engineering or isn’t well connected to a local industry where the student can gain access to internships then finding employment could be rough. Your DD may need to go straight to grad school where she will incur more debt.

Look into the engineering programs at both schools. There are rankings for specific programs.Look into which type of engineering she is interested in and which program is strongest in that type. Electrical, Mechanical, Civil are the main three. Some schools offer further specialization in bio mechanical engineering or new cross disciplinary programs like environmental engineering. Look at the near by industries and how will the departments are connected to internships.

Public schools such as San Jose State, Cal Poly SLO and Cal State Long Beach etc rank in the 100-150 but have very good job outcomes for engineering grads. I’m not sure that James Madison or University of South Carolina do.

It may be smarter to bite the bullet and deal with 200 K in debt from undergraduate than even more debt from graduate school….or it may be fine to go cheap for undergrad and try to save aggressively for grad school.

To me, it really depends on the major. If the kid wants to go into law, finance, or something else where connections matter, then it might make sense to pay for the T10. For engineering, the ROI for the T10 school won't be there, and the kid will be fine at the state flagship.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest DD is a senior this year and we’ve made so many mistakes.

Her dream school is a T10 that we can’t afford. We’ve been upfront with her about it being too expensive. She said she just wanted to see if she could get in. Well, she got in and it’s been emotionally exhausting to deal with. The school keeps sending letters and packages. They recently offered to pay for her and a parent to fly out for their admitted student day, which she desperately wants to do.

She applied to another school T50 and applied for a prestigious full ride scholarship. She started getting excited about it and saying she would likely go to the school because of the scholarship program. She made it to the final round, had an interview, took a test, etc. Tonight she found out she didn’t get it. She’s been in tears. Says she’s no longer interested in the school. I get it. It put a bad taste in her mouth.

It’s looking like her best option is our state flagship school. We actually live in the town with the school, so this is not exciting to her.

As a parent I feel like we’ve made so many mistakes and the experience has been pretty negative overall.

Pay as you go. Get an evening and weekend retail job. Get a personal care aid certification and work nights.

You cannot be serious!

No parent should work 2jobs to put their kids into a top 10 school. Find a place you can afford. There will be tons of them since they can afford to pay for in state pricing. I wouldn't work an extra job to bring in $50k more per year (after taxes).. my kid would attend a school we can afford

I am, but I'm not a wasp. We had the resources to pay for med school for our child, but I would have definitely worked a second job if we didn't. Education has always been a priority in my family.

Surely there’s something between the unaffordable T10 school and the school in her hometown.

Anonymous wrote:Making 200 or even 225 doesn't mean that you can afford a high priced college. For starters, no one knows when you started making 200.

No it doesn't. However as long as you have been making it for 5-7+ years, you likely had the choice to save. As you went from 125k to 200+, you could choose to save 75-100% of the increase for college. Whether that is a good choice is up to you. But you were living on less before and could have chose an not toet live style creep happen, if top schools attered that much for you

Making 200 or even 225 doesn't mean that you can afford a high priced college. For starters, no one knows when you started making 200.

Professor here: your kid can get an amazing education at the state flagship, and go on to fantastic, impressive things. If you truly can't afford it, let her grieve and then go where you can afford it. Life is full of hard choices and she will get over it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest DD is a senior this year and we’ve made so many mistakes.

Her dream school is a T10 that we can’t afford. We’ve been upfront with her about it being too expensive. She said she just wanted to see if she could get in. Well, she got in and it’s been emotionally exhausting to deal with. The school keeps sending letters and packages. They recently offered to pay for her and a parent to fly out for their admitted student day, which she desperately wants to do.

She applied to another school T50 and applied for a prestigious full ride scholarship. She started getting excited about it and saying she would likely go to the school because of the scholarship program. She made it to the final round, had an interview, took a test, etc. Tonight she found out she didn’t get it. She’s been in tears. Says she’s no longer interested in the school. I get it. It put a bad taste in her mouth.

It’s looking like her best option is our state flagship school. We actually live in the town with the school, so this is not exciting to her.

As a parent I feel like we’ve made so many mistakes and the experience has been pretty negative overall.

Pay as you go. Get an evening and weekend retail job. Get a personal care aid certification and work nights.

You cannot be serious!

No parent should work 2jobs to put their kids into a top 10 school. Find a place you can afford. There will be tons of them since they can afford to pay for in state pricing. I wouldn't work an extra job to bring in $50k more per year (after taxes).. my kid would attend a school we can afford

If your HH income > 200 k say 220 k and you have 3 kids then you are worse off than HH with 150 k income and 1 kid

Senior and adult care on evenings and weekends pays a lot. Esp for Asian families.

Anonymous wrote:Our oldest DD is a senior this year and we’ve made so many mistakes.

Her dream school is a T10 that we can’t afford. We’ve been upfront with her about it being too expensive. She said she just wanted to see if she could get in. Well, she got in and it’s been emotionally exhausting to deal with. The school keeps sending letters and packages. They recently offered to pay for her and a parent to fly out for their admitted student day, which she desperately wants to do.

She applied to another school T50 and applied for a prestigious full ride scholarship. She started getting excited about it and saying she would likely go to the school because of the scholarship program. She made it to the final round, had an interview, took a test, etc. Tonight she found out she didn’t get it. She’s been in tears. Says she’s no longer interested in the school. I get it. It put a bad taste in her mouth.

It’s looking like her best option is our state flagship school. We actually live in the town with the school, so this is not exciting to her.

As a parent I feel like we’ve made so many mistakes and the experience has been pretty negative overall.

Pay as you go. Get an evening and weekend retail job. Get a personal care aid certification and work nights.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:OP here.

Flagship ranking is around 150. She got a scholarship so cost is 5K tuition plus housing (10K). 15K total.

T10 school. She got 20K in financial aid which would bring tuition down to 50K. Housing is about 15K. 65K total.

Engineering major.

The difference is only 50k!

Of course she can work part time to pay for the difference. Waitress, tutoring, etc. I can’t imagine how difficult it would be to earn 50k per year.

If you are willing to pay additional 10k, that really helps.

OP, I’m sorry you are getting weird belligerent responses like the one above.

Did she only apply to 3 schools? For engineering I would not take out $200k+ in loans.

Do your local school and then see about transferring. Or the one that puts a bad taste in your mouth, assuming you can afford it.

OP here. Thank you for your kind response. I agree that an engineering degree cannot justify 200K in loans.

I’ve talked to her about potentially transferring schools after two years. She wasn’t open to the idea. I think she just needs some time to be sad.

yes she does need time to be sad. But that's because you led her to believe she might get to attend. If you ran the NPC and you would know you only get $20K, and T10 schools don't give Merit aid (maybe a few but in reality it's less than 2-3% who get any). So you explain that and don't let her apply. If she's truly smart enough to get into a T10 for engineering (or anything), she should be able to understand finances.
It's our job as parents to set realistic expectations for our kids.

We let our kid apply to Syracuse. DC's number one choice. Did NPC before they applied and made it very clear that we would not get aid AND that Syracuse is in no way worth the big bucks that they charge. DC was accepted and knows there's no way they will attend if we don't receive more money. So we are focusing on other schools that gave generous merit, ranked a few pegs lower than Syracuse, and are prepared to jump at Syracuse if they offer more money (which they probably won't).

As long as you properly prepare your kid for the expectations that "unless it only costs us $x you won't be able to attend. And the reality of that is less than 10%" then let them apply. But don't let them think they can attend if they get in and then tell them in March no. Better to put efforts into finding great schools that do give merit/you can afford.