FAFSA tips with a lot of dependents

cptofthehouse
Wed, 09 Oct 2019 16:18:30 +0000

I’m curious where you think your son is going to come up with the $30k a year all by himself for the last 2 years of his college.

He is only entitled to $6500 in loans for junior year and $7500 in senior year. Unless YOU sign for more with him, he’s not likely to get more than that. How much is he going to be able to save to make a dent in those two last years of college that are going to come to about $60k? How much are grandparents gonna give him? Americorp isn’t going to give much more than 5% of that amount as a grant, and he’ll be hard put to save much on what they pay him. My kid did Americorp too. It’s not a moneymaker.

If he borrows the entire $60k with you the co-borrower and right on the front lines for responsibility of repayment, as each installment is paid to the school, interest starts adding up. He may not hit $100k in two years, but he’ll be well over $50k and may even pay back $100k with interest over the lifetime of that loan.

And you are going to co-sign 9x over if you do this with each of them putting you on the hook for nearly a half million dollars. Bear in mind, it’s your loans too. If anything happens to them, you owe that money, not even in death does that obligation part.

If your son got high test scores and great grades in dual enrollment courses, it was possible that he’d have found a school where he might have been able to go tuition free or for a lot less than UI for all four years., or even 2 and Cc. That ship has pretty much sailed for him as a transfer student unless he gets very very lucky instead of just lucky. Not much money for transfer students

However, you might want to look at that route for your other 8 kids. Like right now your junior in high school should be taking a PSAT this month if he hasn’t missed the deadline already , and possibly starting eligibility as a National Merit Finalist which can mean full rides.

I paid for every bit of my education with a full ride stacked on financial aid back in my day. That doesn’t happen much, if ever, any more. Also, my school cost less than $7k full with room and board and. living expenses back in that day. The costs today are over $80k for the same school, more than 10x that amount. It was doable back then in ways that the numbers do not make it so today.