Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not fun being the poor kid at a rich school. Can he join his dormmates to fancy restaurants a few days a week and blow $500, or $5000, on a saturday night out without breaking a sweat? Will girls be interested if he cannot? Will he have the poor car that cannot be parked in front of the frat house? Will the frat ask what his father's occupation is during rush week, will it be good enough?

This is definately something to consider. It's more challenging to find friends when you simply don't have any extra spending $$ in college and 60-75%+ around you are full pay, and have an open ended Credit card/cash flow to do whatever they want.

exactly. and these kids talk about who is "poor," meaning middle class, laugh about it, laugh at cars that are like toyotas or fords, girls won't want to ride in one, they expect very nice jewelry gifts regularly. It's so much. Just forget it unless you are rich.

What?! This is not the mean girl movie. My UMC DS is not getting a car in college unless of course he can make money and buy himself. It is college; the whole point is to learn how to be an independent adult.

Spring for it. Kid will benefit from a private.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not fun being the poor kid at a rich school. Can he join his dormmates to fancy restaurants a few days a week and blow $500, or $5000, on a saturday night out without breaking a sweat? Will girls be interested if he cannot? Will he have the poor car that cannot be parked in front of the frat house? Will the frat ask what his father's occupation is during rush week, will it be good enough?

This is definately something to consider. It's more challenging to find friends when you simply don't have any extra spending $$ in college and 60-75%+ around you are full pay, and have an open ended Credit card/cash flow to do whatever they want.

exactly. and these kids talk about who is "poor," meaning middle class, laugh about it, laugh at cars that are like toyotas or fords, girls won't want to ride in one, they expect very nice jewelry gifts regularly. It's so much. Just forget it unless you are rich.

DP. Some of you are so insecure and weird. I was MC and went to a top private college with many wealthy kids, but I found my way. And there were plenty of other middle class kids. If anything, many of the wealthy schools trend very liberal so the rich kids are almost a little embarrassed of their privilege. LMC and middle class kids who made their way there based on merit had extra cred.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t let him apply to pricey schools outside your budget. It’s cruel when they are accepted to top schools and parents say no.

You actually have no idea the cost until the offer comes in. We are in the financial position of being able to pay full ride in state. My DD got several offers with merit that brought very expensive schools down to the same cost as in state.

For us, we had been clear for years what our budget was. We also made it clear that we aren’t assisting with loans. Our kids are stuck with whatever they can borrow on their own. We agreed to the number of applications we’d pay for (10). And I put no limits on where applications went even though our budget was limited. Our DD got into several schools that were out of budget and she survived just fine when those schools got crossed off the list. Most kids aren’t that fragile.

You know for T25 schools they basically don't give merit. So unless you are going to get full FA (and OP said they won't), you know you are full pay. So don't apply to many and know going in that "yes you can apply, but we are only paying $X, so you cannot attend unless you get merit"

Well since T25s account for less than one percent of all schools in the US, point still stands.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's not fun being the poor kid at a rich school. Can he join his dormmates to fancy restaurants a few days a week and blow $500, or $5000, on a saturday night out without breaking a sweat? Will girls be interested if he cannot? Will he have the poor car that cannot be parked in front of the frat house? Will the frat ask what his father's occupation is during rush week, will it be good enough?

This is definately something to consider. It's more challenging to find friends when you simply don't have any extra spending $$ in college and 60-75%+ around you are full pay, and have an open ended Credit card/cash flow to do whatever they want.

exactly. and these kids talk about who is "poor," meaning middle class, laugh about it, laugh at cars that are like toyotas or fords, girls won't want to ride in one, they expect very nice jewelry gifts regularly. It's so much. Just forget it unless you are rich.

Anonymous wrote:We were open about the college budget we can afford and strongly advised DC against student loans.

+1. And refused to take out Parent loans, because we could afford $55k without them. That left a lot of good options.

Making large financial decisions based on what the peers of a 17 year old have convinced him is cool is a bad idea.

Anonymous wrote:It's not fun being the poor kid at a rich school. Can he join his dormmates to fancy restaurants a few days a week and blow $500, or $5000, on a saturday night out without breaking a sweat? Will girls be interested if he cannot? Will he have the poor car that cannot be parked in front of the frat house? Will the frat ask what his father's occupation is during rush week, will it be good enough?

This is definately something to consider. It's more challenging to find friends when you simply don't have any extra spending $$ in college and 60-75%+ around you are full pay, and have an open ended Credit card/cash flow to do whatever they want.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Why was it OK to pay for 4 (7? 12?) years of private school but not college? Especially for a family that can easily afford it?

I don't understand the thought process at all, and I understand why the kid is so confused by your mixed messaging.

DP: Private Catholic schools can be "only" $10-15K/year. Many parents can afford to cashflow that.
And yes, had they gone public and saved that $10-15K for 12 years into a 529, along with the In-state they are willing to pay/saved for, they likely could now afford the elite schools. But it's a financial choice they made years ago

Huh? 40k saved for public school versus Catholic does not make up 25k in state tuition to private 90k per year.

Originally thought he'd done private catholic for K-12. So that would be 13 years of $10-15K, or $130K-$195K that would have been funneled to a 529 and invested for the last 13 years. That gets you to the $50K/year price difference with with minimal investing in stocks required.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Please don’t let him apply to pricey schools outside your budget. It’s cruel when they are accepted to top schools and parents say no.

He’s really not that fragile. I’m warning him of course

Then you have done your job.

You tell him "I can afford to contribute $X per year for college for 4 years. Anything else and you have to figure out how to finance it. Also, anything over $5.5K/year requires a parent loan, so go ask your dad".
Also, you sit down and go over how much those loans will cost when he graduates (the ones that dad wants to take and then make him pay back/take over). Do an itemized budget for a 22-25yo in your area or where he wants to live. Include rent, utilities, internet, cell phone, car, car insurance, food, toiletries, "fun money", saving for retirement ($7K Roth and at a minimum getting your company match), travel, etc. Don't forget the monthly student loan repayments (federal and the Dad's parent loan). Then help him realize how impossible it will be to have a $1-2K loan payment for 10+ years when you only make $70K (or less).

Teach him how to budget and what life will look like for the next decade if he does this.

Then do a budget for the state U where he comes out debt free

It's not fun being the poor kid at a rich school. Can he join his dormmates to fancy restaurants a few days a week and blow $500, or $5000, on a saturday night out without breaking a sweat? Will girls be interested if he cannot? Will he have the poor car that cannot be parked in front of the frat house? Will the frat ask what his fathers occupation is during rush week, will it be good enough?

Play it out with him. Ok, so he goes to private school X and graduates with $25,000 in student loans.

He will have to start paying those back (six?) months after graduation.

What job will he have? Where will he want to live? What will the monthly loan payment be?

If he sees after rent, utilities, car insurance, phone, gas....he only has $500 left and $400 of that will be used for student loan payoffs, maybe he will change his mind. And what does that mean he has no money for? Movies with friends? Vacations? Cool new shirt?

Ultimately, yeah, it's his choice, but I think having a realistic conversation about the financial burden he's putting on himself might change.

We Sat DC down and had a very transparent conversation about funds, budget and tuition ranges over the summer and we plan to hold a follow up in June when school is out.

But the long and short is, we have “X”, you need to get the delta in merit if schools cost more than “X”.

So DC not applying to schools that don’t give merit (we don’t qualify for FA).

Anonymous wrote:Physical violence and threats so severe they don't dare disobey. Yes, my kids were the well behaved ones standing to the side watching while your kids had meltdowns in grocery stores.

Well, the 1950s are over. That stuff doesn’t fly anymore.

Physical violence and threats so severe they don't dare disobey. Yes, my kids were the well behaved ones standing to the side watching while your kids had meltdowns in grocery stores.

We were open about the college budget we can afford and strongly advised DC against student loans.