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<p>Mummom, did you interpret this as whining?!?!? I wrote this, and it certainly wasn’t written as such! (I’ll also note I have danced around the topic of where I stand on ED and/or breaking it.) </p>
<p>I was simply stating the reality for many families. That EFC number is always a shocker -and what PROFILE does with it can be an even bigger jolt. If a family <em>chooses</em> to take on an expensive school, unless they have done an admirable job of saving and investing, borrowing to make EFC may be an option they have to consider. </p>
<p>The reality is that many families believe colleges will take into account COL differences, the size of one’s mortgage, etc. when determining EFC. I’ve talked to parents with PhDs and good jobs who think that money will rain down from the sky and scholarships will materialize from thin air. I know parents who have saved diligently from Day One and are still shocked at how much this college thing costs.</p>
<p>Having dealt with two different high schools’s guidance departments over the past few years, I am fairly well convinced that counselors are advised to avoid talking about money. My hunch is that they don’t want to be seen as “directing” students to schools based on socioeconomic status and would prefer to leave that decision to the families. Fair enough, but there are still a lot of people who don’t discover the reality of the FA process until mid-senior year. Kind of hard to do much except retrench by then. The handouts the school does distribute are dated by the time they come out of the copy machine – and the weblinks on those handouts point them to our erstwhile friend, the EFC calculator. </p>
<p>As for college financing at our house, I went back to work part time, against medical advice, despite significant ongoing medical issues that had kept me home for five years, just so that we didn’t have to borrow a chunk of our EFC. (Not whining. Am happy to be alive and able to work, period!) We don’t have other family members who could help us. We were close enough to full pay that we knew substantive FA was unlikely, even with professional judgment for huge medical bills. We have no investment properties, trusts or other assets – just our home equity, retirement plan, two eleven-year old cars, three sewing machines and what’s in the bank. S1’s efforts have also added a substantial chunk (40-50% of COA/yr. between scholarship, Staffords and work) to paying the tution bill. We’re just grateful we can do it, and my S is more than willing to pull his oar.</p>
<p>My kids knew from about 6th grade on that we would help them go to the college of their choice, but that they would have to have significant skin in the game. Our philosophy is that this is a family effort. Other folks will have different ways of doing things. </p>
<p>ED was never on the table with S1, as he was not ready to irrevocably commit, and two of his top three schools offered EA. S2 would have seriously considered ED II had he not been accepted at one of his EA schools. We were willing to risk the tradeoff between FA and acceptance in that case.</p>
<p>I can also see how some applicants may feel shorted on ED FA packages this year; with the damage to endowments, packages may be slimmer (or packaged differently) than in prior years. Even folks who did their homework on affordability and a specific school’s track record on FA may have been surprised.</p>
<p>Note to teachva – Carleton and Macalester have a 1/15 RD deadline. Swat is 1/2. (I just checked their websites to be sure.)</p>