There is at least one example of a parent poster promising to pay for whatever college their kid gets into and then wanting to back out of the promise after the kid gets into their expensive top choice college (with no unexpected change in the family’s financial position).
But there are also examples of student posters who seemingly have difficulty getting a clear answer on the cost constraints from their parents, which makes it appear that the parents are trying to avoid a small letdown early, at the risk of a big letdown later.
Last year my son’s best friend in HS applied to an expensive school ED with parents’ assurance they could pay. He was accepted, parents were surprised not to receive aid, surprised at how much it cost, and there was apparently some scrambling around trying to figure out what to do and it was unclear for a while if he would be able to go. He attends the school now but I believe loans are involved.
The parents never looked at the school’s cost of attendance or tried its net price calculator before assuring the student that they would pay? Or was the net price calculator way too optimistic?
I do not know the whole story, because at the parent to parent level, they are only acquaintances that I know socially. I only heard about it after their son was accepted to the ED school and was telling my son about how he might not be able to attend. But yes, I think they did not run the NPC or look at COA. There is an older sibling attending a less expensive school, so they may have simply not paid attention to cost before their son applied ED.
It’s possible this might have been part of the problem too… maybe the older sibling received a merit scholarship at their college, and the family assumed the younger sibling would get something like that too, without checking to see whether the ED school actually had any merit scholarships (it doesn’t).
In general, I think there are MANY pitfalls in this process if families don’t actually decide on a budget, check COA, and check NPC before applying.
I think the current FA forum wouldn’t be the place for a “Paying for college” set of sub forums because as it currently appears on the main cc page, it looks largely like top scholarships and a FAFSA thread. Posters looking for pointers like tamagotchi mentioned above IMO would be more likely to find/read a forum called “ How do I pay for college” or something similar. The FA forum as it appears now I would think attracts the tippy top students applying for the mega scholarships and people with FAFSA questions. Not really those needing to understand the nuts and bolts of how to pay for school.
Other Paying for College strategies outside of Financial Aid are savings and 529s, education tax credits, earning credits in high school like dual enrollment, earning credits through tests like AP or CLEP, using college payment plans to spread payments over the year/term, taking co-op/internship semesters off for students to earn income, part time employment during school, full time or multiple part time summer jobs, parent tuition discounts through employers, employee tuition benefits (Starbucks, UPS, etc), taking some credits at lower cost institutions to transfer and probably other stuff I don’t even know about.
I’d add the seemingly obvious suggestion to make sure you’re comparing apples to apples on cost? I say seemingly because I’m new to paying for college and it took me a few weeks to recognize that the aid packages looke very different. Like is the bottom line number inclusive of loans or not? I’ve seen it both ways. We got two packages this past week which I thought were very similar but not. Both got us to $X, but one was net of loans and work stuff, the other was not. They were actually about $9000 apart.
I also like to parse out direct costs (tuition, fees, dorm, meal plan) since some schools also add indirect costs like personal expenses, estimate for travel, books and those amounts vary widely.
Figuring out whether or not parent insurance is sufficient or if additional school health insurance is required for an out of state schools can be an unexpected cost.
How so? You, yourself said you were supporting the student. Many other students come on to CC without that benefit. Are you really able to make this an apples to apples? I think you have a compromised sample.
Maybe start over with a new student who is truly going it alone. Then would could see the results of this experiment. That would be clever and not what I would consider to be basic.
They almost all get questioned. I know it’s well meaning, but more times than I can count have I seen a thread completely dominated by this sub-topic when it wasn’t introduced by the OP or even after the OP has tried to put it to bed. Being unequivocal does not always, or often, keep the inquiries and admonishments at bay. If there is one area of discussion on CC on which people tend to get very stuck, it’s that one IMHO.
Most people are not going to start out the post with, “[My parents] [we] are absolutely loaded and will not miss the money, so please don’t bring up affordability.” Without something that firm, the topic will be brought up, and God help the poster who has an option with merit $$ but wants to attend a private at full pay.
I think it would be HUGELY helpful to unpack this post in another thread (if there is one, I’ve missed it).
This is a really important topic, for many reasons. One of them is that you can’t go back and redo high school, and while for many kids it’s a place they want to escape, many kids really enjoy those years. And when you are packed with work and ECs, it’s hard to fully enjoy it.
My kids were a combo of IBD, heavy IB, heavy AP, and I get asked all the time if that’s necessary, and I honestly don’t know the answer. For us, getting that “most rigorous” box checked on the counselor letter was the goal because that’s the advice we were given.
I think IBD is fabulous as a prep for college. But I really hesitate to recommend it because it’s not for everyone and I think at least one of my kids missed out a little bit on just being a regular high school kid.
Because many students receive support through the college process. My support may have been better than some parents and english teachers - and not others. It may have also been worse than many paid counselors. Who knows?
Not interested in failing to help someone to see if you are correct. You could find someone who claims they turned a blind eye to all the free and paid resources and post that. I would be interested.
Nobody can 100% say their advice is solid/worthy or not. In fact, some that give advice might have the best of intents and give the worst of advice.
If people have the best intent, that’s the best we can do.
I read some guidance and shake my head. And I know people read my guidance and some shake their heads.
In the end, there’s no 100%, assured, this is the best thing - short of bribes that had agreeable parties on both sides.
So one does the best they can - and hopefully it’s good enough.
It has to be.
I keep reading how some people write - so and so goes off on a tangent that isn’t needed or it derails.
That’s their opinion - and may be others opinion too. But the writer believes in what they are writing and that it’s relevant and pertinent to an OP, then that’s what matters.
If we all start thinking the same way - then we do have Group Think.
And as always, anyone is free to ignore what they don’t agree with, etc.
I don’t think this has been discussed separately (that I know of). My observation (and it is just anecdotal) is that, like with test scores, once you pass a certain threshold of rigor they move on to other components of a student’s application. That is certainly true at our school where several students (not athletes) got into T30 schools without maxing out the AP offerings. The common wisdom here is if you aren’t taking some form of AP calc, you won’t be a competitive candidate at the most selective schools. In practice that doesn’t seem to actually be true (and, yes, our school offers it). I’ll add this - if I had to go through the process again (and thank god I don’t) I’d probably tell a student who is looking at T20s to focus a little more on their packaging/story instead of hyper focusing on adding yet another AP class.
Wouldn’t it depend on whether the student is unable to take calculus due to middle school math placement, or was advanced in math starting in middle school but opted out of the main math sequence before taking precalculus or calculus?
