<p>2010 – </p>
<p>glad to hear you will be headed to Brown next fall! Whatever trials and tribulations you go through to get there and to make it through will be worth it. you did get some good ideas and I think if you have a good long talk with Brown financial aid and your parents, all of you should be able to work it out!</p>
<p>I always thought if you applied somewhere and were accepted and decided not to go you just wrote them a letter saying “I will not be attending…I’ve decided to do something else…blah, blah, blah.”</p>
<p>Do your parents have a lot of assets, perhaps a second home? Your EFC seems high for $150,000 income. Is there any chance of liquidating some assets instead of taking out so much in loans?</p>
<p>bluealien that is the case if you haven’t signed an Early Decision agreement that says if they accept you, you will go. I didn’t want to bring up all of the consequences but I have heard that most colleges will not accept a student who broke this type of agreement, and that colleges may black list a high school if one of their students back out. Parents are required to sign these agreements and once you are accepted you are supposed to withdraw anyother applications. Fortunately the original poster is not planning to back out of his agreement. It is good to hear of students who’s word is their bond.</p>
<p>I will not second guess the parents here, but know that most of us support our kids education the best we can.</p>
<p>just a comment on the ED thing. i filled out the application online and there was nothing for my parents to sign off, or say that they had read. further when i received the letter in the mail, there was a card that I had to sign saying i agreed to the ED rules, but yet again nothing for my parents to sign. so to back up what someone else said earlier it seems to be a myth that parents sign anything for ED.</p>
<p>our EFC may or may not be high for a few reasons. they owe about half of the valus on our house. but i think the main kicker is the fact they have a good chunk of money saved for retirement (~$1/2 million) that they have expressly stated will not be drawn frmo in order ot cover my education costs.</p>
<p>2010, regardless, you signed and your parents should have known about the obligation to attend should you be accepted. Since colleges consider the parent as the one obligated to finance the education, and not the student, there you are.</p>
<p>With regards to retirement assets, if they are in IRAs, 410(K) or 403 plans, they are NOT considered in either the FAFSA or the College Profile when a family’s EFC is calculated, though some schools may consider them on their own forms. I don’t know how Brown views these type of retirement assets. Fortunately, they are parents, too, who do not want to see their retirement accounts raided for college tuition!</p>
<p>You have been given a lot of good advice and your postings sound a little more up beat. which is good. I am glad that you are committed to making this work and you are not adverse to rolling up your sleeves to make it happen. Hey if any one gives you any kind of gift money (graudation, birthday, holdiay, etc) just throw save it for when you get to brown (you will be suprised at how this can cover book money)</p>
<p>while you may have to bite the bullet, once you get to school, some of the things you could look into are:</p>
<p>Finding out if you can become a Residential Peer leader (RA) next year</p>
<p><a href=“http://reslife.brown.edu/rpl/forms/wpc/Role_Description_FirstYearRPLs.doc[/url]”>http://reslife.brown.edu/rpl/forms/wpc/Role_Description_FirstYearRPLs.doc</a></p>
<p>while you won’t get free housing (drats) it does come with a stipend.</p>
<p>You can do this in addition to maybe a workstudy job on campus (there are some postions where they will consider a non-workstudy applicant also and all jobs are not grunt work in the cafeteria. Although my D tells me that she has friends who like working for food services because they eat for free saving thousands of dollars in board charges for the meal plan)</p>
<p>when you get your class schedule, go to the book store (or log into it) and get your booklists then log in to the library to see if they have to books (the library will ususally have a couple of copies). If they do check the book out (ususally you can keep the book about 3 weeks and renew as long as someone else hasn’t requested the book.</p>
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<p>Is this money sitting in a 401K/ 403b plan or just in a savings/money market account at the bank?</p>
<p>This could be what is hurting you because if the money is part of their savings, the school is going to expect them to use it for your education.</p>
<p>“sorry i wasnt clear on that last point. i knew it wouldnt affect the EFC right now, i meant in three years. and to answer the question no she doesnt attend a private school, all public all the time.”</p>
<p>Having a sister attend college at the same time will help you a little, but not a lot. The colleges (rightly) feel that expenses are not meant to be covered out of current income alone, but past (savings) or future (loans). So having another sibling in school at the same time is little different than having one a year later or a year earlier.</p>
<p>What can they do if you renege on an ED agreement? (I know that is not what you proposed - another poster asked.) All the schools’ adcoms know each other. They prepare a list of ED admits and circulate it among themselves. If the admit appears in another college’s pile, they usually eliminate it from consideration, ESPECIALLY if they find out that the person renegged for financial reasons - the last thing they want to do is enter a bidding war with each other. You can, however, freely seek out a less costly, non-competitive (usually state) school.</p>
<p>I can offer sympathy, but at some time you have to face some hard facts. If the cost per year of attending a school is $x, then you have to figure out in advance how that money will be found. The first step is with an EFC calculator. ASSUME THAT THE MOST YOU WILL RECEIVE FROM A SCHOOL - THE MOST/THE HIGHEST/THE MAXIMUM - WILL BE THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN $x AND THE CALCULATED EFC. If the EFC is more than $x, then assume the aid will be zero. </p>
<p>Add up the following:
<p>If the sum of those things is still substantially short of the amount you need at that school ($40K, in this case), then it won’t happen and you should not be applying ED.</p>
<p>Some people will use their entire college savings in the first year or two, then put off the worry of what to do until later. But then they’re faced with a bigger problem.</p>
<p>But now you have a problem. If you have to decline the ED offer because there is no way to meet finances, then what is Plan B? Better start thinking of that as well.</p>
<p>((BTW, $15K per year in medical expenses is not all that high. As a consultant, my insurance premiums alone were over $1,000 per month!))</p>
<p>1 to 2 million $$ for retirement???:O</p>
<p>bluealien, I think that was half a million , not 1 to 2 million.</p>
<p>sybbie-- that residential leader program is a good recommendation, but it can only be done as a sophmore, junior, or senior. further that sounds like a huge time commitment and with the sports i will be playing, it would seem as though i couldn’t fully undertake all of the responsibilities. yet that is a very strong idea.</p>
<p>and yes it was a half million they have saved. but i believe a lot of the money is locked up in various investments, thus (if i am correct) they would have to pay heavy taxes if they made some major sales.</p>
<p>just too make it clear to some people. my parents have the credit and assets in order to take out all the loans necessary to cover any financial differences. i am just looking for some alternatives (on top of outside scholarships) that might lower the amount of money we need to borrw.</p>
<p>2010 I hope you see the difference between the plight of a student with a family income of $30-40,000 and no savings and a family with $150,000 income and a half of a million in savings. Colleges do, and they are inclined to consider the lower income situation more of a need, than not wanting to pay taxes on the liguidation of investments. For the most part it is a limited resource so what you can get, some one else can’t.</p>
<p>That doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be looking for scholarships. It just seems your postings have gone from I can’t afford to go to Brown, to my parents don’t want to sell their stock for my education. That of course is their decision. If I am reading this wrong, I apologize.</p>
<p>What about your college savings? Haven’t your parents been putting away a little every year to save for college? Surely this business of you turning 18 and applying to college didn’t come as a surprise.</p>
<p>Oh…sorry. I thought he meant 1 to 2 million dollars. LOL.</p>
<p>If your parents make $150k, have half million in savings & investments (I’m assuming your’e talking about in addition to Defined Contribution Plan and/or IRA/401k/403b retirement accounts) and you have just one younger sibling who’ll overlap just one year in college - then Brown is very unlikely to re-eavaluate your family financial situation. Going to have to bite the bullet …</p>