What is your budget? Do you qualify for need based aid?
If your budget is limited, I’d suggest removing all three OOS publics. None will give your C any need based aid or much merit scholarship money (if at all).
Also note: if your C does apply to these publics, they should apply EA. That won’t conflict with Columbia ED.
Some schools fill the bulk of their class in EA, and also will only consider students for merit and honors college in the EA round. I’m not sure about the policies of the publics on your list but your student should check!
How did your child select this list of schools? I have a hard time drawing any conclusions about your child’s preferences.
Are you referring to federal student loans which max out at $28k total for an undergraduate degree (starts with $5500 for the first year, I believe)? Or are you referring to loans that you will need to cosign for and be responsible for? If the latter, I would strongly urge you to meet with a financial advisor that has a fiduciary responsibility (i.e. that has your best interests in mind).
Your child has a strong academic record that will interest many schools in providing generous merit aid. Additionally, your student can be successful from many colleges, including your in-state publics. Nobody, however, will be willing to provide you with a loan for retirement, and unfortunately many families have unexpected situations arise that leave them unable to continue working as long as they had anticipated.
Law school is expensive. Avoiding undergraduate debt before even getting to law school should be a high priority.
UCSD will not be affordable. Full stop. The UC application is a lot of extra work, and the cost if admitted will be around 75K/year. I would eliminate UC’s entirely.
Have you run the Net Price Calculators for Columbia, Tufts, BU, and USC? What is the resulting net cost - are all affordable?
Consider Honors Colleges at less-pricey OOS publics that give merit. ASU Barrett Honors, for example, allows undergrads to start taking law school classes for undergrad credit: Pre-Health and Pre-Law | Barrett, The Honors College | ASU
Truman State in Missouri is basically a free-standing Honors College. It’s an amazing bargain, with an OOS “sticker price” around 36K and automatic merit that would take another 10K off that amount. Pre-Law Studies | Truman State University
U of Oklahoma isn’t on the list at all? Pre-Law Or Oklahoma State, which participates in the National Student Exchange, through which students can do a full year at another participating campus elsewhere in the country: National Student Exchange - Campuses / Location
If you give more info about your budget, I’m sure you’ll get lots of great suggestions for strong programs that would be affordable.
She is interested in primarily East Coast and wants a school with a good poly sci program. She wants to minor in Mandarin and has done some research on schools with good study abroad programs in China. She is much more interested in large schools, as that is the experience she wants. She also would like to be in a large city. She has no interest in the Greek system and doesn’t want a school where the Greek system is massive
Thanks; this definitely gives us some direction. Have you run the Net Price Calculator (NPC) at schools like Columbia, Tufts, BU, and USC? If so, were the prices affordable without loans?
In terms of looking at other schools, what is the budget excluding any loans?
I have and the sticker shock is a little crazy. I’m just figuring out budget This is my first child going through this. I’m a widow and feel pressure to give her opportunity but also not blow a huge chunk of my savings
My condolences to you and your family. That is a hard situation for sure.
Since you’re indicating that this is your first child, it leads me to believe that you have younger children as well. If that’s the case, I would give strong consideration to making a financial plan that will be equitable for all of your children. I have seen and heard of numerous situations where a family has overextended itself for an older child’s education, and then when younger children prepare to go to college, the family can’t overextend itself again and the younger children have a substantially different budget. That type of situation can cause significant familial strife.
Meeting with a certified financial professional might be useful for you. Additionally/alternatively, you may want to think of a reasonable limit that you think you could provide for each of your children. For example, some families will indicate that they will cover the costs for in-state room and board at the state flagship. If a child wants to go elsewhere, then they will need to earn enough scholarships and/or money (via jobs) to go to a different institution. Since that is not an uncommon practice, many schools will provide merit aid packages that will try to compete with a state’s flagship price.
That said, the types of institutions that are more generous with merit aid are not necessarily the ones with the lowest admission rates. Those colleges already have a lot of demand from students who have families that are willing and able to pay their high sticker prices, and many of those colleges do not offer any merit aid. At the same time, many of those colleges will be generous with need-based aid which is why it is important to run the Net Price Calculator to see if the school will provide enough need-based aid to be affordable.
Even though Princeton is not on your child’s list, I would recommend starting off with that calculator. It is generally amongst the most generous schools and if you don’t qualify for sufficient need-based aid there, you are extremely unlikely to receive sufficient need-based aid anywhere else. That will then let you know that your daughter will be hunting for sufficient merit aid to meet the budget.
@kelsmom, would universities look at a widow’s accounts differently than they would for a family with both parents alive? I am wondering whether OP should consider reaching out to a financial aid office to discuss the NPC results and her family’s situation, or if that situation wouldn’t impact the school’s analysis of the family’s assets.
I’m so sorry for your loss. There are some scholarships available to kids who have lost a parent. I’m not familiar enough to really help but you may want to do some research.