FAFSA/aid and twins

Paying for College
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<p>Well, that’s depressing. Not even a quarter? Yikes. I guess some of that depends on how far away the school is and how often you visit. </p>

<p>There are 7 schools we’ve pretty much widdled the choices down to, based on cost and interest. The ranges for COA go from $15,000 to $27,000, depending on awards, what goes into COA, etc. If we stay on the lower half of this and use Stafford (even if we help them pay those off later), we’re looking at having to fund $12-18K/year per child after that. We will have maybe $20-25K per child saved by then. So we feasibly can have almost 2 years covered, after Stafford, and that’s with no help from my parents. </p>

<p>I sent my dad all this great info you’ve all provided. His response? “I don’t like having the boys have all this debt to start out their lives. Isn’t there any place that offers monthly payments, or do they all want all the money up front?”</p>

<p>As far as I can tell, best case scenario I’ve seen is paying quarterly or something, but everything must be paid up by year end, before year 2 starts. Correct? Or are there other payment plans out there?</p>

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<p>Most all schools do offer monthly payments. Some have a service that work with them, some do it in house. I pay monthly for my son. It’s always discouraging to see the bill; $3K a month, I have a special account where I dump all I can for college costs. I’m finally almost caught up as this is the first year I’ve not had two in college. My last one will be in college all by his lonesome if the current college kid finishes on time. My kids average 3 1/2 years apart so it’s been a long train. My BIL and wife have twins, like OP so they will get it done and over in short order if they kids make it through,but those will be some tough years financially. It’s been a long run for us and we still have a ways to go. We saved for college, but that has been depleted and we are down to hand to mouth though not as bad as things were a few years ago.</p>

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<p>Got it - we have a 3rd child 3 years behind the twins. But then that’s it. </p>

<p>So the twins 4th year will be her first year. We’ll be eating Ramen that year.</p>

<p>We also had a talk with our less focused son last night, as he is off to a very rough start this semester in HS. He said he feels overwhelmed with having to make a decision on what he wants to do. We told him to relax - he’s 15 1/2. We said just to focus on current classes - next year’s classes are already chosen as well. Just do your work. It will come to you later. Hopefully that will clear his mind and he can get back on track.</p>

<p>He said he is interested in natural sciences like his brother, but doesn’t want to copy him. Doesn’t want us to think he’s not original, etc. Says he changes his mind a lot. We said it’s perfectly fine to be interested in a similar field as his brother. Told him to pretend he didn’t have a twin, and follow his heart. </p>

<p>Being parents of twins is surely a unique and challenging job.</p>

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<p>I can give you some Ramen recipes.</p>

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<p>*Well, that’s depressing. Not even a quarter? Yikes. I guess some of that depends on how far away the school is and how often you visit.
*</p>

<p>Each child’s R&B will be about $10k per year (so $20k total). No way would you be saving $10k per year by having them “away”. You’d be lucky to see $2500 per year in savings. </p>

<p>*</p>

<p>There are 7 schools we’ve pretty much widdled the choices down to, based on cost and interest. The ranges for COA go from $15,000 to $27,000, depending on awards, what goes into COA, etc. If we stay on the lower half of this and use Stafford (even if we help them pay those off later), we’re looking at having to fund $12-18K/year per child after that. We will have maybe $20-25K per child saved by then. So we feasibly can have almost 2 years covered, after Stafford, and that’s with no help from my parents. *</p>

<p>This is the time to determine how much you can spend each year on each twin and TELL the boys that info (underestimate the amounts because you’re not sure.) Let them know that their efforts (grades/testing) will determine where they actually will be able to afford to attend.</p>

<p>Some parents simply state that they’ll pay the instate public rate and anything else the child will have to qualify for merit/FA or earn the difference with a summer job. </p>

<p>From the prices you posted, it looks like you have instate publics and OOS publics on your list. Is that right?</p>

<p>Keep in mind that you’re looking at CURRENT school year prices for these schools. Your kids are only sophomores. By the time they’re freshmen, those schools will have increased all prices THREE times. This next fall, the prices will already be higher. </p>

<p>As to your dad’s question. Yes, there are monthly payment plans that are interest free at most schools. I think you pay for 10 months. The difference is that you’re paying the entire amount with a year. Stafford loans allow repayment over 10 years and no payments are made while the student is in college.</p>

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<p>I agree that room and board is a lot more, but the savings are often not as huge as one might think. My son’s friends are commuting to NYU. They have to drive a car to the train station, pay for parking there, and have a monthly train pass into Grand Central, and then buy a monthly MTA pass for the subway to Washington Square. If they don’t eat breakfast at home, pack a snack and a meal, and get too tempted by the eateries in Manhattan, it can get very expensive. If you look at commuter COA vs on campus COAs, yes three is a big difference in cost, but it is sobering how expensive it can be to commute to college.</p>

<p>Two of my kids lived off campus in some truly slum like houses with about 6 of them sharing the costs. They were both in locales where the rents were very low as were their standards, so they really did save money going off campus. One worked at an eatery and had a girlfriend so his meal bills went to just about zilch. My current college kid is going off campus for the next school year and he is doing me no favors cost wise with his choice of off campus digs. But had he stayed home and commuted to a local school where he did get a full tuition award, he would have been in the gravy. He has work opportunities and the school is right nearby, so it wouldn’t have been much of an expense to have gone that route.</p>

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<p>I was not banking on saving R&B fully. I was thinking maybe 1/2 the R&B cost would be recouped by 1) not feeding them, 2) less water, electricity, etc. I mean, we are paying the school to feed them 3 squares a day, how could I not be saving costs at home?</p>

<p>My boys are both wrestlers and XC runners and eat a TON. </p>

<p>But if that savings is more like 1/4, I can accept that. </p>

<p>The 7 schools are:</p>

<p>1) Northern Michigan U (assuming $4k/year OOS tuition reduction for having 3.0/19 stats)
2) Wisconsin - Stevens Point (assuming Midwest Student Exchange)
3) Southern Illinois (in-state public)
4) Murray State (which has a reduced OOS cost for IL residents, and it’s pretty cheap)
5) Grand Valley State (higher end of the cost spectrum without award)
6) Ohio University (high end of cost spectrum, even with award)
7) Mississippi State University (only if son earns OOS waiver at 3.0/26 - there is a 1/2 reduction at 3.0/24, but that would put this one at the higher end of spectrum. No award = school is off the list)</p>

<p>I understand costs will go up. </p>

<p>The son that would be possibly attending Miss State has a 3.1 GPA right now and projects out to 23-27 on the ACT from his PLAN test. He is signed up to take the college prep test course next year - it’s a full semester class at their HS.</p>

<p>Found out the payment plan info from 4 of the schools above. They all have the same program. Monthly payments, so 4 payments each semester, 8 total. $40-$100 convenience fee each semester.</p>

<p>Regarding telling the kids what we can pay - some of this stems from what my parents can afford to contribute. I emailed my dad a very long email with hard dollars on what I think we will have saved by then, what the estimated gap is, what the Staffords do, etc. I need hard $$ from him before I can tell the kids anything.</p>

<p>Just for frame of reference, I am a retirement actuary, so inflation, time-value of money, etc, etc, is all a part of my calculations and info I’ve sent to my parents. I understand money well, I just haven’t been able to save as much of it as I would like. We had our boys pretty young, and moved 4 times in 5 years in our 20s/early 30s. Plus my wife just changed careers and is in the first year of her own business. So we’ve been swimming upstream for a long time. My current income doesn’t really reflect our financial status, unfortunately…</p>

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<p>You may ask why not other IL state schools, since they would be relatively cheap.</p>

<p>1) Western ILL - frankly, this is not a good school. Everyone in the state pretty much agrees it’s the worst compass school in IL</p>

<p>2) Eastern ILL - not a bad school, but it’s mostly for people going into teaching, and neither of my boys want to teach. Also, trying to be a teacher in IL is a bad career move right now. </p>

<p>3) Northern ILL - my wife went there. It’s 40 minutes from our house. DeKalb is an awful town, plus there is increasing violence happening there. I’ve heard it’s getting more and more dangerous around campus. Also, kind of defeats the purpose of going away to school when you can come home for dinner.</p>

<p>4) Illinois State - same issue as Eastern. Also, pretty unappealing campus.</p>

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<p>Kmanshouse, do look in the archives for an old chestnut of a thread, maybe two of them started by Momfromtexas about full ride scholarships. Old, but some good tips in there. Can’t find stuff like that anywhere else.</p>

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<p>I just looked at the cost of U of IL and wow, I can’t believe it mjissed the most expensive state schools list. They must be using the low end of the range in tuition/fees numbers. Penn State is supposed to be the most expensive state school for in staters, but Uof I does not look like any big bargain either and could surpass PSU costs, IMO.</p>

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<p>U of I is notoriously expensive. Plus probably a reach academically for my boys. </p>

<p>IL really is a terrible state to live in for college. It’s in such financial turmoil, plus, there’s no need to draw people in because of the huge pool intellectual talent in the Chicago area. If you’re gifted, that’s another story. There are some nice privates around.</p>

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<p>Found that momoftexas thread - geez, what’s with the haters?</p>

<p>Unfortunately, I don’t think it helps me though. My kids stats aren’t good enough.</p>

<p>I anticipate focused, conservation LE son to be around 3.0-3.2 and 25-26 ACT.
And the lesser focused one to be around 3.2-3.4 and 23-24 ACT.</p>

<p>They could surprise me on the ACT side, but 3.5 will be really tough for either of them.</p>

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<p>Give the search methodology a try. I believe one of her sons did not have such high stats. </p>

<p>Yeah, some nose in the air haters. Never got that either. Forgot about that. But that was before the recessions and I think some of those folks are dealing with some big time student loans.</p>

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<p>Does your conservation twin have any thoughts about where he’d like to live and work after graduation? If he worked for the federal government it could be anywhere but if at the state level or in private industry, graduates are more likely to wind up in the area where they graduate. Some schools are recruited from nationally but most have a more regional recruiting focus and regional academic reputation. This is primarily regarding Mississippi State as the others are in the midwest.</p>

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<p>Great question. We are visiting Mississippi State and Murray State in March. We’ll see how he likes it. That kid will live just about anywhere as long as he can work in the outdoors, and carry. But we’ll see how he feels after visiting places.</p>

<p>If he had his druthers, he would live in Colorado or maybe Wyoming. We actually considered Wyoming because it is relatively cheap, but the program there doesn’t match up very well with his specific interest. Colorado State’s costs were too high.</p>

<p>His favorite show is Alaska State Troopers. He thinks Alaska would be awesome, but he’s not sure about the people up there - and he realizes how far it is from everyone he knows.</p>

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<p>Kmanshouse, here in NY, we have the SUNY Environment Sciences and Forestry school with a current price tag of about $32K for OOSers with an opportunity for an $8K merit award. I don;t know where that would go on your list, if at all.</p>

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<p>I’ve seen it. To be perfectly honest, from what I read it looks like it might be too competitive/difficult. And at the very upper end of the financial range we are trying to stay within. But it appears to be an excellent environmental sciences school.</p>

<p>I should probably give it a closer look though. Thanks.</p>

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<p>I’d be interested to hear what the reaction is to those schools after visiting. Don’t know if you have traveled much in the ‘real’ South(not most parts of Florida) but it is a little different. There could be a bit of culture shock. I would also check into the extent of Greek life. From what I read on CC it seems to be a lot stronger in the South than the midwest. Sounds like your son may not be into that but it’s also possible to find a non-Greek circle anywhere.</p>

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<p>Thought of this. My wife and I are fairly liberal people in a conservative suburb. We’ve taught our kids a level of acceptance for all people. But we can’t stand the whole leeching off the government thing :)</p>

<p>My son goes to a diverse school and is multi-racial himself. Mississippi State, or even Murray State, would be culture shocks for sure, although I’ve heard a fair amount of Chicago people attend Murray State.</p>

<p>But he loves guns, would love to hunt (we don’t), the outdoors, and would probably love hanging in the outdoors with southern folk, amongst deer and birds. Loves the woods, etc. And he is physically very tough, could handle outdoor ruggedness, etc. </p>

<p>So while I wouldn’t want to be in that environment for college, he may absolutely love it, just like he’d probably love it in the woods in Wisconsin. </p>

<p>We have been to Hilton Head Island and Savannah, GA.</p>

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<p>Regarding Greek life - I was very anti-Greek in college. But if it floats his boat, that’s fine. As long as there is plenty to do outside the Greek life, he’ll be fine either way.</p>

<p>My guess is he would either LOVE Greek life by meeting the right couple of friends off the bat, or, he would absolutely hate it. I know my other son would hate it with a passion.</p>