Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Straight A student, Junior, 1580 SAT. He will take 12 APs by the time he finishes school. 8 of them by Junior Year. 4 and 5 in all of them. He is just like 100 students in his school who have similar stats. Which means that he will not be going to big name schools and he will not get even merit aid because we are donut family and Asian-American.

Colleges are going to be an impossible dream for people who are not rich. We will eat Ramen but save for our kid's college. But, you do you, hoss!

What is a donut family?

Donut families can afford college if they save and be realistic on where they go.

+1
Donut hole families are not too poor to get need based scholarships and not too rich that college cost does not impact them. They are somewhere in between and they need to save for college and try and make the most of their education dollar.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Straight A student, Junior, 1580 SAT. He will take 12 APs by the time he finishes school. 8 of them by Junior Year. 4 and 5 in all of them. He is just like 100 students in his school who have similar stats. Which means that he will not be going to big name schools and he will not get even merit aid because we are donut family and Asian-American.

Colleges are going to be an impossible dream for people who are not rich. We will eat Ramen but save for our kid's college. But, you do you, hoss!

What is a donut family?

People who make a lot of money and scream poverty because of their lifestyle choices.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Straight A student, Junior, 1580 SAT. He will take 12 APs by the time he finishes school. 8 of them by Junior Year. 4 and 5 in all of them. He is just like 100 students in his school who have similar stats. Which means that he will not be going to big name schools and he will not get even merit aid because we are donut family and Asian-American.

Colleges are going to be an impossible dream for people who are not rich. We will eat Ramen but save for our kid's college. But, you do you, hoss!

What is a donut family?

Donut families can afford college if they save and be realistic on where they go.

You can expect merit aid, but what happens if she doesn't get it?

I had to pay for all of my college and law school. Parents did not give me a dime + I did not get loans. As a result,I do not think people should have kids if they can't pay for college.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We're kind of in between. We saved some in the 529, more in the Roth (my favorite) and DC will get $ from their grandparents. But most importantly, we can pay all the bills, max out the 401Ks and Roths and still have around 90k cash/year left, which should be plenty. Our kids are 6 years apart, so we won't get hit at the same time. They can also go to college in the EU as citizens, but I'm concerned about recruiting opportunities here and also qualifying as pre-med etc. We're lucky to have stable, well paid jobs and low expenses.

Can you tell me about the Roth? I'm also concerned about putting savings in an account that can only be used for education expenses when I don't know what the future holds.

THE Roth IRA is supposed to be for retirement. Any financial advisor will tell you that you should not raid a Roth for college expenses. Plus there are penalties before certain ages.

Anonymous wrote:Our RE agent told us her son got a huge merit scholarship at UVA. Her H makes good $, so it's not need based. Is this common? We're all in VA.

I’ve never heard of anyone getting a huge merit scholarship from UVA. Tuition is already discounted for in-state students. Whatever they have goes to financial aid. There’s the Jefferson Scholarship but that’s us separate from the University and one has to compete for it. I asked DS who just graduated - he doesn’t know anyone who had a huge merit scholarship.

Everyone thinks their kid is a genius when actually, they're just dime a dozen above average.

50% of 12th graders have an A-average GPA. Your kid probably isn't a genius and you can't predict the future. As someone upthread said, depression can surface, they can fall in with the wrong crowd, a broken heart over a relationship, a parent can have a health scare--all of a sudden your kid isn't 99 percentile (if they ever were in the first place), they're dime a dozen 80th to 90th percentile.

And if your kid is 99th percentile, it's really unlikely they'll be happy and fulfilled slumming it at some third tier toilet full of underachievers because mom and dad lease a couple of Audis instead of saving a little cash for college.

Anonymous wrote:My HHI is 105k. My expected family contribution is 24k. My son could take a 5500 loan (not Pell Grant), and then I was responsible for the rest, either through savings or a Parent Plus Loan.

That's the difference. If I hadn't saved he would have to take out private loans with huge interest rates. Your kid won't be playing on the same field as you did 30 years prior. State schools costs 20k with room and board. I'm not willing to tell him here's 80k debt for an average state school, with huge interest rates on top of that.

I thought the expected family contribution WAS what the parent could pay from income and savings? That's why they consider income and savings when calculating it. Right?

Or they tell you what they expect you to pay (24k) and then the amount they expect the student to take out in loans?

NP. Didn't realize it worked like that :/ I thought the rest was what they were giving in a "coupon" or "discount" off the sticker price, or whatever you want to call it.

Anonymous wrote:We're kind of in between. We saved some in the 529, more in the Roth (my favorite) and DC will get $ from their grandparents. But most importantly, we can pay all the bills, max out the 401Ks and Roths and still have around 90k cash/year left, which should be plenty. Our kids are 6 years apart, so we won't get hit at the same time. They can also go to college in the EU as citizens, but I'm concerned about recruiting opportunities here and also qualifying as pre-med etc. We're lucky to have stable, well paid jobs and low expenses.

Can you tell me about the Roth? I'm also concerned about putting savings in an account that can only be used for education expenses when I don't know what the future holds.

Our RE agent told us her son got a huge merit scholarship at UVA. Her H makes good $, so it's not need based. Is this common? We're all in VA.

We're kind of in between. We saved some in the 529, more in the Roth (my favorite) and DC will get $ from their grandparents. But most importantly, we can pay all the bills, max out the 401Ks and Roths and still have around 90k cash/year left, which should be plenty. Our kids are 6 years apart, so we won't get hit at the same time. They can also go to college in the EU as citizens, but I'm concerned about recruiting opportunities here and also qualifying as pre-med etc. We're lucky to have stable, well paid jobs and low expenses.

Anonymous wrote:Straight A student, Junior, 1580 SAT. He will take 12 APs by the time he finishes school. 8 of them by Junior Year. 4 and 5 in all of them. He is just like 100 students in his school who have similar stats. Which means that he will not be going to big name schools and he will not get even merit aid because we are donut family and Asian-American.

Colleges are going to be an impossible dream for people who are not rich. We will eat Ramen but save for our kid's college. But, you do you, hoss!

Merit aid has nothing to do income or ethnicity. It is usually based on academics, scores or talent.

We can afford to save and pay for in-state tuition for three years for each. Jobs, loans, and any merit aid will need to make up room and board and the fourth year. Also they could choose to go to CC for a year or two first.

Anonymous wrote:Straight A student, Junior, 1580 SAT. He will take 12 APs by the time he finishes school. 8 of them by Junior Year. 4 and 5 in all of them. He is just like 100 students in his school who have similar stats. Which means that he will not be going to big name schools and he will not get even merit aid because we are donut family and Asian-American.

Colleges are going to be an impossible dream for people who are not rich. We will eat Ramen but save for our kid's college. But, you do you, hoss!

What is a donut family?