Sorry this is my short break at work so I can’t reply to all
Dad’s 11,000 monthly income is from current federal job. He is a retired officer and has a retirement pay from that job. Not sure how much it is exactly but it’s probably good (5k per month ish?) since he was a colonel.
Uh…I don’t remember how much the down payment on the house was. We bought a house so late because we had been living on military housing before dad retired
Why is a 62-year old lone earner, with a “large” mortgage a massive financial risk. Without seeing the complete picture, I wouldn’t say that. What’s the average home in the neighborhood sell for? What’s the appraised value of the home? Hawaii is one of if not the priciest states in the US.
wrt 200:
We understand. It’s ok for your family - but not to borrow against toward paying college tuition. 
The fact your dad has a federal job and a pension are very good, because those are stable (unless we have a government shutdown or his position is furloughed or something, but odds of instability are lower than for most jobs).
Look at the options in #191 and try to think about what you’d rather do. Some of the choices can be done one after the other or concurrently. Try to think “which is the worse for me/my sister” and cross that one out. Then, consider carefully each option and try to wrap your mind around it. It’ll be really hard. You’re doing a great job right now, dealing with what amounts to being knocked on the back of the head with a steel beam.
>>>complete picture<<<<
For sure. We don’t have that. In ANY way.
So without knowing net or gross, the OP’s dad earns about $192,000/year in salary. How about other investments? Rental properties, stocks, bonds, etc. Cash from side jobs, etc.
Again, net or gross salary, we don’t know. And we don’t know what the pretax deductions are. We don’t know the value of the home. We don’t know what’s in the bank for savings and retirement. How about car loans? Credit card debt or lack thereof?
And it’s all good, I wouldn’t disclose this financial info online, but I still can’t say anything is a massive financial problem. Yet. 
“She is saying that because of Berkley’s location and academics it will be easier to get a high paying job after graduation to pay debt. Is she right?”
No, not really. Berkeley’s reputation will help a little bit to get job interviews. However, given you stats up to now, if you keep doing as well in school, and if you graduate, then you are going to be able to get a job where ever you go to university. Whether you will be able to afford to finish university, and whether you will ever be able to pay off your loans after (or without) graduation, are entirely different and perhaps more relevant questions.
“Total loans over 4 years = ~$200k”
"I just spoke with them over dinner. Figured out that out of salary, my parents can pay $15,000 for each of us. So with the $39,000 cost for Rochester, it’s a $24,000 annual loan. My dad doesn’t want to use his retirement funds, so he says that he is going to second mortgage the house. With my $3,500 loan, it’s a $20,500 annual loan for the parents. Times two kids, times two kids, its 164k, not including inflation. "
IMHO that is way too much, and will make graduate school impossible.
“we bought our house exactly six years ago. It costed 750,000 but we owe more than that because of interest from mortgage. My dad pays 4,000 or so on it every month.”
In this case, there is almost no chance that your parents will be able to get a second mortgage to help to finance your university costs. If your dad is not able to get ahead quickly on the mortgage, then there is no way that he should take on any additional debt.
“At some point, the bank will say no… Debt with a degree is one thing. Debt without a degree is another.”
This is a very important point and is my concern also.
I think that many people have said the same thing over and over again. As such I will post this reply and stop. However, to me it appears that the finances don’t work for you. How this will play out if you go to Berkeley or Rochester is hard to predict. However, to me the four realistic “most likely” scenarios are approximately the following:
You go to Berkeley. You run up a large debt and run out of money to the point that you are not able to complete four years, probably do not complete three years, and do not graduate. At this point it might or might not be possible for you to afford to finish your degree at the University of Hawaii. You will be paying off debt for MANY years, possibly for decades.
You go to Rochester. You might still run out of money and have to withdraw before graduation. However there is some chance that you might be able to pull it off and graduate with a very large debt. Assuming that your grades continue through university (and noting that university is likely to be significantly more difficult than high school), you will probably be able to get a job in your field and eventually pay off the debt, but it will take a long time. There is no way that you will be able to afford to go to graduate school.
You go to the University of Hawaii. You graduate after 4 years with no debt. At this point you go to a “big name” university in the mainland 48 states and get a Master’s degree. The debt is much smaller than with the above options, and you have a prestigious Master’s degree (rather than just a Bachelor’s degree).
You take a gap year and apply next year to universities with “affordability” being a primary concern.
At this point it is up to you and your parents. In one of your posts you mentioned “Operations Research”. I will note that I personally took a path pretty close to option 3: A Bachelor’s degree in Mathematics with no debt, then a one-year Master’s degree from Stanford in Operations Research. I paid half of the cost of the Master’s from savings, and took on debt for the other half. Total debt was the cost of 1/2 year of university. This was a lot less when I did it, but even today a debt equivalent to 1/2 year of university is something that you can handle with a Master’s degree in a practical engineering or business field. I will note that to have a chance to get into a Master’s degree program (whether M.Sc. or MBA) at Berkeley or Stanford you will need to be pretty much the number 1 best student who applies to that program from the entire state of Hawaii that year. Given your stat’s this seems like it might be possible (and if not at Stanford or Berkeley, then very likely at another “big name” university).
I’m sorry it very hard for me to explain the complete picture because I’m not even sure of the complete picture myself.
My dad makes 11,000 per month total from his federal job. However my FAFSA adjusted gross income is 190,000 annually, because he gets a retirement pay of 5k per month from his previous job (military) and we get all the military benefits too.
@sushiritto my house was 750,000 when we bought it, worth more now. I think 780,000 last time it was appraised three ish years ago? In my suburbs the smallest houses was around 500,000, most expensive houses over a million.
I think a gap year is the way to go. Are you or sis National Merit Scholars? Though I’m not sure eligibility for those awards carry over. But one thing to keep in mind is that a school that may be seen as at an average flagship level overall may be a giant and prestigious in some certain field. For example, MSU invented packaging engineering and more than half the people in that field are still MSU alums. With your stats, you’d likely be able to score merit scholarships that add up to full-tuition or even full-ride at MSU (also possible at Rutgers, which also has packaging engineering).
MSU evidently is also one of the top schools in the country for supply chain management/logistics.
Likewise, U of Arizona has some big national merit scholarship and they are among the top schools for geology and optics.
Also note, if you aren’t at all interested in packaging engineering, MSU and Rutgers offer a plethora of other majors from which to choose. And… Big Ten. Just sayin’. You’d get to play the Badgers a bunch of times annually – an honor. 
So your income is $190,000? I feel like this story is a moving target.
Sorry, but I still think any college that costs $60,000 a year, like Cal…is unaffordable.
The thing to remember, the other colleges aren’t exactly inexpensive either.
Only the family really can decide whether they have the resources to pay these college bills for the next four years.
My D2 will be applying to college this year. Before she comes up with a list of school to apply, I told her the number one criteria to put a school on the list is the affordability. I told her we will check the NPC of the school before even getting the application info unless there is a good chance of merit aid. Why waste the time and money on the application for a school that is not possible to attend. Even if it is possible for you to borrow $200k for a degree, it is not worth it and there are other affordable choices or paths. Since you have a twin sibling and your parents did not have a deep pocket to cover the cost, you should have look at some need met schools rather than OOS public.
This thread has been beat to death. :-@
There are a lot of posts on this thread, so I’m not 100% sure if this has been answered already:
Has the OP given a reason why she won’t apply to UAH? If they’re still willing to give her a full tuition award and R&B could be covered by her dad’s $15K contribution, why not consider this??? UAH is a great school and you could still escape Hawaii. Is it not “prestigious” enough…?
I’m guessing this student did apply to some schools that would have net full need IF she got accepted… it she didn’t get accepted to those schools.
But with strong stats, these twins should have been looking at merit aid potential as well. They didn’t do that.
And it doesn’t seem they are willing to look at lower cost options even now.
To the OP, I’m sure someone has mentioned it already, but I’d sit down with your parents and ask them if you can afford Cal or whatever school you and your sibling desire. Do your parents have a financially advisor?
Without knowing your parents true income, expenses, assets and liabilities, it’s just difficult to give you a definite answer. But I do applaud you for getting involved, asking questions and doing homework though a bit late in the process.
My D and I have had that discussion and I know our financial picture. And she knows what her parameters are for college choices for later this year.
University of Rochester is a 100% meet need school. Is there another school that would have been more generous?
Knock out pre requisites somewhere and then find a WUE school next year that will cost peanuts vs these options
@ClarinetDad16 has hit it right on the head. Each kid had an EFC of $35,000. The issue as I see it is that the OP thinks the parents need to take out loans to meet that EFC per year. That’s $70,000 in loans if you take both twins into account. And that’s a lot of loan debt on top of a $750,000 mortgage…even on $190,000 a year in income…(remembering that if this is the gross pay…the net will be far less).
Is it doable? Really, only the family can determine that.
Of the options being considered, my opinion is that Rochester is the most affordable.
It’s costly to have two kids in college at the same time!
@jql2017 : when you get home from your job, ask your dad if you and your sister could benefit from Yellow Ribbon from his previous job in the military. Yellow Ribbon schools give full tuition to YR students (which are often children of military personel).
@jql2017 could you tell us more about why you can’t take a gap year?
Do you realize that if you do take a gap year, live at home/work full time and save your wages, and if you create a good list of schools to apply to where enough merit money is guaranteed, you will have better options than staying home at UH (which both you and your parents think is not good enough) or going deeply and dangerously into debt at the other schools to which you were admitted?
The longtime CC posters can help you find good merit options if you would take a gap year, work to save money and apply to a different list of schools.
Sorry for reiterating what’s already been beaten to death, but I think it’s important. High achieving students that don’t qualify for need based aid need to apply to a wide range of schools. Have a conversation with your parents about how much they can pay for your college. If all of your schools have tuition over what your parents can pay, consider some cheaper public schools that give merit aid. As an example, I was accepted into Cornell and Columbia, and waitlisted at Princeton, but I’ll be attending Michigan state with a full ride. It does kind of suck, but a high achieving student like yourself will do well anywhere