weatherga

That plus taxpayer revolt, in my opinion. Public colleges have to be funded somehow. If we are going to cut or hold the line on taxes, then students (and their parents) have to pay more. Extending access to more people, rising healthcare costs, salaries, etc. all contribute to the problem as well, of course.

CaliMomof5

My D has a 2360 SAT score, a 4.0 unweighted, AP classes with 5s and 4s, great ECs, and is ranked number 1 in her class. No one from her high school has ever had her stats. Her counselor was not even familiar with the Common App or the CSS profile. We were on our own.

She is my youngest. All of my other children are very bright, but had had nowhere near her stats. I have been putting her siblings through public colleges for the past 15 years or so. Needless to say, there is no savings for her for college, but her sibs have graduated with no debt. Her dad and I make about 145K before taxes in a high cost state. But, with all of her sibs graduated, we felt we could afford to send her to a good school with a little bit of financial aid. (I know, naïve, right?)

The financial calculators were handy. We plugged in what was asked for, and the result from most of the calculators came out the same- about 18k a year would be our family contribution. Seemed reasonable to us based upon our income and assets. (What did I know?)18K would be a stretch, but do-able with some loans and the rest out of current income. A quick check at the same public universities that her sibs had attended showed that the COA including room and board was more than that now. (As for the "stay away" debate- there are no 4 year colleges near enough for her to commute to).

We began the college search. She did not apply to any state colleges or universities in our state because not only did their cost seemed high in comparison to the result from the calculators of the private schools, but also, because of cutbacks, students were not getting the classes they needed and were taking upwards of 6 years to graduate.

We ruled out some privates because the calculator result was significantly higher than the 18K. We did not want her to apply anywhere that we could not afford for her to go.

We visited schools. We did research. We found some great matches for her intended major, her academic level, her personality, and our finances. (or so we thought. . .) In the end, she applied to Smith, Wellesley, Barnard, Vassar, Scripps, Brown, and Yale. We were so excited! We poured over information. She labored intently on her essays, all while keeping up her studies. She even worked straight through Winter Break.

She also applied to one OOS University on a whim because they mailed her information about their honors college, and they seemed to offer a quality program. They were financially out of reach, but indicated that many of their students receive merit awards.

We then waited for the results. Sooooo Excited! D got accepted to Brown, Smith, Wellesley, Scripps. Waitlisted at Vassar. We love all of those schools, and each has many wonderful things to offer our D. Then we saw the FA packages. Range for family contribution was 29K-39K per year! Because this was consistent between the schools, we went back to the FA calculators. H had made a critical error by including 2 of our children as college students- they are in graduate school. Only undergrads count. We should have checked and double checked. Again, we never had dealt with financial aid much because we sent our kids to public colleges, including community colleges, and just paid the bills. We were babes in the woods. And now our hard-working daughter’s options included some great schools, arguably worth the money, but only workable for our family by completely stretching our budget (the original 18K that we already felt was a little bit of a stretch) PLUS another 80K in loans. For her undergrad.

I see now, too late, the many errors of my ways, and I share this story because I want to warn others who may be in the same situation. I was inexperienced with privates and how they work, how much they cost, and how much aid they give. I was also inexperienced with the financial aid calculators. (I also see now that even had I known this ahead of time, since our EFC turned out to be much higher than what I thought it was, FEW, if any, financial safety schools in the 18K range exist except our local community college!)

But there is a happy ending to our story. Remember the OOS school with the honors college? Well, they offered her a 4 year full tuition merit award. I told D that I was willing to pay for any of the others- they are great schools worth their price. Other people borrow to buy fancy cars, cabins, RVs, vacations, etc. Why? Because they want to and see value in those things. I see value in my D’s education, and I am willing to pay. I have great credit and can borrow. But my D said no. She visited the OOS school and fell in love with it. She told me to save my money and use it to pay for her grad school. I will. I am already looking at prices and programs so that I don’t get sticker shock again.

Moral: Have a financial safety or two. Make sure you know realistically what your family’s contribution will be. I wish I had called and asked the FA offices for help. And if your kid is a high achiever, there are many high quality Us with honors colleges that offer merit aid. Many are discussed in CC. I wish I had looked at them BEFORE we started applying. I would have felt much better had she been able to choose between several. In the end, she is happy where she will be headed in the fall. I am happy because she is happy. And I will start saving for grad school immediately!

diana3

CaliMomof5 --

That is dreadful, and I feel you... The problem with leaving California is that nothing is cheap and taxes are so high. I hope it all works out for you and your high-achieving daughter.

romanigypsyeyes

diana, it did work out for her. Her D applied to somewhere where she got merit money. Same as what many have encouraged you to do.

Congrats on that, cali.

CaliMomof5

Thanks Diana and Gypsyeyes for your kind words. I do feel that in the end, our family is blessed with the option D has chosen. She is excited because she will be able to take advantage of unpaid internships and study abroad without worrying about the money too much. They will accept all of her AP credits, giving her advanced standing. Their academics are outstanding. It could have ended so differently!

As for the 6 year graduation number, of course that is not the case for all students and all campuses. But just last week the CSU system announced a 13 unit per semester limit! It makes me sad because I love the CSU system! I am a life-time Cali resident and a CSU (and CA community college) alum. It's tough out there for kids! California is lucky to have the Community College and CSU/UC system that we do, but budget cuts have taken their toll.

romanigypsyeyes

Sorry, cali. I deleted my comment because this thread has already gotten off track numerous times!

HImom

Congrats, Calimom! You and your D have done well to come up with a great college that your D is in love with and have a LOT of wonderful opportunities at. It's great that you will be able to save to help her with grad school!

mom2collegekids

Congrats Calimom! Thank goodness that you had a financial safety!

I do have to wonder what calculator gave you an EFC of only $17k with an income of $140k? That is unusually low. EFC would be about 1/3 of income at that point. Was that an NPC from a school that gives "super aid" like Stanford or HYP?

romanigypsyeyes

M2CK, If I understand correctly, it's because that was split between 3 kids I believe. The H thought that he could count those in grad school as being students.

emeraldkity4

I wish that were true. We haven't qualified for aid the last couple years although oldest is in grad school.
Our EFC is about $14,000 more than it was when the oldest was getting her BA.

mom2collegekids

Thanks Romani! Missed that the H had counted the grad students.

Since this seems to be a common mistake, I don't understand why the NPCs and such don't REALLY spell that out when they ask how many are in college??? Why can they all just include a little note stating that you don't count parents in college and you don't count siblings in grad school???


By not being clear on the NPCs, you have these unfortunate situations...people spending money visiting schools and students spendiing countless hours on perfecting essays and doing supplementals. Ugh!

CaliMomof5

Mom2Collegekids- I am both saddened and relieved that it is a common mistake! Sad because you are right- LOTS of time wasted, money wasted visiting schools and paying for apps and CSS profiles, countless hours on apps and essays and interviews. In the end we have an excellent result. I have told my daughter that because she aimed for Ivy and elites, worked so hard on her essays, polished up her Common App and resume, did interviews for all these elites, etc., she positioned herself to be competitive for an honors college tuition scholarship--so it wasn't wasted at all. But, ideally it would have been better had we known ahead of time what we were facing so that we could have made an informed decision and avoided all the disappointment when we saw the FA offers!

But I am also relieved that it is a common mistake, because H and I feel like real dummies and that we let our D down. We learned a BIG lesson and I wanted to share. It was pure serendipity that it ended well for us.

I agree that the calculators need to be more specific and give explicit directions. Not everyone is a FA expert. If we made this mistake, I can't imagine what others might be going through!

somemom

You really have to check with each school about this, UCs and some other schools WILL count grad students if you are providing support.

CaliMomof5

Great tip somemom! Again, it would be nice if each institution's calculator gave more explicit instructions. Wish I had asked for advice here at CC last fall! I hope my experience will help someone else.

sylvan8798

Since the proposal that aid should not be provided for the student who can commute appears to limit the choices available, I'm wondering who would decide whether or not a given student has a "commuter" option? And on what criteria and how rigid?