ImperialZeppelin

The other "dirty secret" about financial aid is that loans are counted by schools AS financial aid. So when a schools says that 90% of its students get financial aid, some of them may only have had loans offered to them.

That one really gets my goat. When S was considering a school, he was offered a loan. I never acted on the loan since the interest wasn't great. Anyway some lackey from the financial aid office started chiding me for not getting the loan. I shut her up really quickly when I said, "The only reason you want me to get this loan so you can inflate your BS numbers on how many students get financial aid, don't you?" Needless to say she didn't reply to that.

I'm from the old school, it ain't "aid" unless it's a grant, period! Did you ever consider your mortgage financial aid?

Chazmire

Spelmom, that was a great suggestion about SFJazz. I logged on just now and found that the players are the same he competed with when he made the County Honors band this weekend. So he can definitely hang with them and we will look into it. Thanks so much!

Singersmom07

ImperialZeppelin you're right. And some are downright deceptive about it, too. DD was so excited with the package she got from NYU until she read it to me (I was on travel) and we realized all but a minuscule amount was loans. I don't think of $40K a year in loans as financial aide.

spelmom

Great, Chazmire,

Sounds like you are now on a roll. I also wanted to mention the Stanford Jazz Workshop as a summer program. That one always looked good to me, but I couldn't get my son to venture that far away from home.

-Allmusic-

My son knows two musicians who did Stanford Jazz and really enjoyed it.

There are actually a lot of great programs out there.

shennie

A word about loans - I agree that they are certainly not in the same category as grants or scholarships. However, the subsidized Stafford is certainly worth a look. The interest is not that high and the goverment pays the interest while the student is enrolled in school. This means if your child attends graduate or professional school, the payments are deferred until after they finish their schooling AND the gov. pays the interest on the loan at that time. If the student works for awhile after undergrad and then decides to attend grad or professional school, payments are suspended on the loans and the gov. continues to pay the interest until the student is no longer enrolled in school.

The maximum amount of a Sub. Stafford loan increases as the student goes through school. If a student takes ONLY Stafford loans they will graduate with about $18,000 of debt. We agreed to fund our kids undergrad education and they are on their own for graduate school. The Stafford loan has helped it be more managable for us, especially since my middle son has always attended school at the same time as a sibling.

Vieuxtemps5

What I find strange is that no one here is talking about sending their kids to Europe.

German schools are paid for by the state. Your fees for the year would be like 500 euros. Your expense would be the flight and living expenses, which in several cities is not bad at all. The level in Germany at most of the schools is super super high and they all have great reputations in North America as well.

Something to look into if you like free school.

binx

Well, I think the biggest problem is that most of the students on this board aren't fluent in German, which is a pre-requisite for admittance at the German colleges I am familiar with. And a general lack of knowledge about the specific schools. Not to mention the difficulty of trial lessons with teachers, or campus visits!

German universities are tuition-free to German students holding the Abitur (German college-prep diploma). They don't have dorms. I have no knowledge how they handle foreigners. I do know there is one application for Germans, another for other European Union students, and another for non-EU students.

Vieuxtemps5

Binx,

There's a lot of english kids there. I don't know a ton of american/canadians who went (just a handful), but everyone I know who went (Koln, UDK, Leipzig, Karlsruhe, Berlin) spoke English the whole time. I do know 4 kids from U.K. now studying in Koln, which is probably one of the best ones. They all speak english to their teacher.

I was admitted to a few in germany last year when I was interested in that, and they all said I'd only have to pay like 500 euros, which is the experience of all the americans I know as well.

No dorms is no big deal... living in an apartment is really cool and a lot of fun. I love dorm living but I also like living in an apartment near school.

binx

This is from Leipzig's website. It was one of the least restrictive, language-wise, of the ones I've found:

I was only pointing out that "free" applied only to tuition, since you have to rent an apartment. (And at the current dollar/Euro exchange rate, that will end up costing quite a bit.) The student housing is fine - except none of the landlords speak English, so that's always interesting. One son was at the Leipzig music school for a couple weeks (at a summer festival - his teacher spoke English); another son studied at the university in Munich for 9 months (his teachers did not speak English).

My music son had been invited to study at Hamburg (he knew the teacher there), so that was his back-up plan. Since we lived in Germany at the time, it was easier. I think it would be a lot harder doing it from the US. But if there is a teacher you really want to study with, it's certainly do-able.

Chazmire

Vieuxtemps, this is an intriguing possibility. He is taking German now and we have relatives near Munich. We will look into this as well, thanks!

Vieuxtemps5

I think maybe 10000 for a year compared to 40,000 at most schools is a pretty good deal.