<p>babyontheway,
"Ah, but having college savings won’t hurt chances at Merit scholarships, only need based financial aid. "</p>
<p>I am not sure about that. D’s school is advising to file FASFA to “receive full range of Merit scholarships”. We have followed advice every year. Her tuition and part of R&B have been covered by MERIT Scholarships (about 10 of them ). We are nowhere near to have need based aid. Not only both of us have professional jobs, we do not have any debt either, no mortgage, and D. is only dependent. We do not have any savings on any name, hers or ours, no college money, everything is in 401K. I believe that this resulted in max Merit scholarship package (besides her hard work, without which she would not qualify at all). I believe that if we showed any college $$ stashed away, results could have been not as good.</p>
<p>You’r correct that 529 is not the “terminal choice”.<br>
Owner can always withdraw the money. The remainder of the 529 (2005 initiation) is now 60% of original. We were done in 2006 and hope that this remainder will be very good in 25 years. :)</p>
<p>I am confused, MiamiDAP. Sounds like you are agreeing with babyontheway. I have always wondered if parents should fill out the CSS (private schools) if not requesting/needing need based aid-- as to whether it affects, one way or the other, consideration for merit aid. Some schools say it doesn’t matter, but I never quite know…</p>
<p>We will have significant assets in 20 years time (barring unforeseen problems) and I won’t be attempting to hide my money in an effort to qualify for need based financial aid. As another poster said, it’s my responsibility to pay for the bulk of my kids college education.</p>
<p>I’ll certainly encourage her to apply and take advantage of merit based scholarships, but only those that do not consider the parents financial situation when they are awarded.</p>
<p>And we won’t be filling out the FAFSA form. Nobody, including my children, needs to know how much my family earns or has in savings.</p>
<p>You sound just like my DH, babyontheway. He is very private about our finances and will disclose as little information as possible to as few people as possible. He filled out the FAFSA, begrudgingly, only because it is REQUIRED if our kids had chosen to go to an instate school and got our state HOPE scholarship. If you dont fill out FAFSA, you dont get the guaranteed instate tuition scholarship for a 3.0 or higher GPA. He gave as little info as possible on it. I can’t recall for sure if he filled out the CSS for older s, but I am pretty sure he didnt. Did it affect merit $? Older s applied ED so we will never really know if he might have gotten more (he got national merit and then some departmental scholarships later) if he’d applied EA (which was available then, but no longer) or RD. I know DH didnt fill out the CSS for younger s, and fortunately younger s got a very nice Merit scholarship (required a separate application). It is not supposed to be tied to financial need, so I am guessing they were telling the truth on that one!</p>
<p>I expect my kids to earn the money for their share from summer jobs in high school, mowing lawns, scholarships, summer jobs in college, and possibly part time jobs while in college.</p>
<p>Perhaps since it’s a girl I shouldn’t expect her to mow lawns. She can if she wants. But she might enjoy babysitting or something else instead.</p>
<p>jym626,
Make sure to read all coomunications from kid’s college and more carefully so from FA office. Yes, every school is different. If school says, file your FASFA for all possible Merit scholarships, do not question them, do so. If they use another form, do that one. Follow school advice is your best bet. </p>
<p>We are not hiding any $$ by having them in 401K, this $$ are used by banks to loan to businesses and unfortunately to gov. I do not care if the whole world knows my financial situation. It was very profitable for us, resulted in over $100K, so be it. However, at least on paper, this info is confidential and should not be reseased to public. I am just advising based on our very positive outcome. Everybody is entitled to their opinion and have their own family values.</p>
<p>I am pretty sure I checked it out with the school older s attended, MiamiDAP. If they had said we had to fill out the CSS to be considered for merit $, I’d have ridden my DH’s butt about it. It was a while ago that older s was filling all that stuff out (7 yrs ago, yikes!!) so I honestly can’t recall, but I do recall wondering and looking into it. I do also recall my H being very unhappy about having to share any financial information outside the family. Thats just the way he is.</p>
<p>He has, however, gotten much more open with the boys, showing them exactly what is in savings for them, etc. He has turned all of older s’s $$ over to him already as he is entirely off our payroll! We have been using this to teach them about savings and investments. We have put $$ in Roths for the boys, when they did work for my business (mostly computer work). Younger s laughs (in a happy way) that at 20 yrs old he already had a decent chunk of change in a retirement account.</p>
<p>Just reading babyontheway’s many posts about investments and long term financial planning, he strikes me as very financially savvy, and no matter what path he takes, barring some catastrophe, he’ll have a nice nestegg for his kids (one or more) college educations. Its hard to say what decisions he and his family will make in 18 years about HM personal contribution he’ll require his kid(s) to make. Things change. We have encouraged our kids to work (paid and volunteer) and save as much as they can. We see that as an investment in their future, so will pay for their education with a reasonable allowance as well. They do make personal purchases from their savings but they are not big spenders. The only thing younger s has discovered, much to my chagrin, is his aptitude at on-line poker! Don’t even get me started on that! Grrr!!! But its his time and money. I was hoping he’d lose, but so far (and he <em>claims</em> he has stopped) he was quite good at it, with winnings in the 4 figures. Its enough to turn my hair gray.</p>
<p>Thank you. Yes, finances are one of my strengths. We all have strengths and weaknesses, one of mine is having a good amount of savings while still allowing us to do at least a few fun things each year.</p>
<p>And yes, the exact expected contribution for my kids will change over time, I have many years to determine that. I want my kids to have enough skin in the game that they aren’t going to college on the Bud Light Scholarship or Medical Marijuana Scholarship, but provide enough for them that paying for college is realistic as well.</p>
<p>babyontheway – it sounds like you’re well prepared. congratulations. I wouldn’t worry about issues such as whether or not to fill out FAFSA forms. In 18 years the whole college funding process may well change dramatically.</p>
<p>More than likely, there are certain merit scholarships that are only open to those students with demonstrated financial need. You say that there is no savings in either your account or your D, and it’s possible that the school considered that financial need.</p>
<p>In my case, we won’t qualify for financial need so there is no reason to share my financial information with anybody.</p>
Older s applied for some tire scholarship. Wrote a clever essay. but didn’t get it Thank heavens no Beer or Weed scholarship, though his roommates taught an online bartending class from their room! :eek:</p>
<p>Hey, if she wants to mow lawns for extra money, that’s fine with me. </p>
<p>I’m not joking in that the extra money that is earned through odd jobs gets saved up for college or something else in the future. I was kidding that I need to be careful when listing more gender specific jobs. I think mowing lawns is more of a boy thing and babysitting is more of a girl thing. But if my daughter wants to mow lawns, or my son (should I have one) wants to babysit, that’s fine with me.</p>
<p>My s’s babysat, and had male babysitters when they were older. It pays pretty darned well. As younger s said, he got paid quite hansomly to play video games with the next door neighbor’s kid. What could be wrong with that?</p>
<p>One thing to note about the total cost of college, the first quarter is always more expensive than the other quarters–more costs are factored into that first quarter, like health insurance. So you really can’t just multiply Quarter 1 by 3 to get the total cost for the year.</p>
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<p>I have no problem with my college kids knowing how the family finances stand. How else are they going to learn about investments and how to craft an economic foundation, etc.–from magazines (like I did, but I wish I had started a lot sooner)? </p>
<p>My parents never spoke of family finances until just recently. Now that my father is getting older, he has had to let us in on his financial situation in case he dies. I have never understood the need for secrecy about personal finances within the family…</p>
<p>Glad to hear it was just an issue of a missing smiley face. </p>
<p>Earning 25% of in-state is possible but requires dedication. Working 15 hours/week at $10/hr for the 30 week school year for four years of college = $18k. Earning $3k/summer for four summers = $12k. Current COA for UC is $30k/year, so that would work. But it assumes that work is available, which is not always the case. Your child, with all the best intentions, might not be able to find part-time employment, in which case there’s no choice but for him/her to take out a loan. You’ll have to wait and see what shakes out before saying you won’t fill out any FAFSA-like forms. By that time, there probably won’t be a FAFSA, the info will just be drawn from your tax returns. </p>
<p>I worked through high school and college (public), and still couldn’t have managed without some loans. Luckily, they were relatively small and were of the nice no-interest-charged-till-you-graduate variety.</p>
<p>Fortunately there are lots of creative ways to earn income, even before kids get to college. My s’s made good $$ fixing computers as well as babysitting. Younger s worked fast food and then as a camp counselor at a science camp. Quickly realized those were not going to be major income producers. Older s did SAT tutoring during his college years at a nice hourly rate. Summer internships pay pretty well too, depending on the field. So, fortunately, there are decent ways to earn $$, even for the HSers as well as for the college kids. Older s made more at his summer internships than I made during my entire year as a grad school intern many moons ago. ( and please do not let them discover those #%#$+%^&#$+& on line gambling sites!!! – see post # 69)</p>
<p>One thing to be realistic about is that there may be times in our economy when a high school kid can’t really get a job that will pay enough for your kid’s portion of their college expenses. My DS worked all year at a pizza place here on the West Coast and his boss would only give him one shift per week where he cleared about $45. His boss said that “adults with families depending on them need the money more so that is all your getting.” My son looked for additional work all spring and summer and could not get anything. In speaking to other parents of my son’s friends they too were in the same situation. The economy in California was so bad this past summer that there were no jobs for high school students available.</p>
<p>Fortunately our son got a full merit ride to a great school. At many schools (my son’s included) we had to fill out the FASFA eventhough our EFC was 63K. (did fasfa know about some money we had that my husband and I were unaware of??) Whether you want to discolose it or not be prepared that some schools want that info for merit scholarships regardless of a parents finanical situation.</p>
<p>Another thing to consider is that you child may not get into schools on the west coast due to schools being impacted by the economy. Schools in California restrict their enrollments due to budget cuts so where a student with a certain GPA could get in in the past that is no longer the case. Plus with such an impact kids can’t get their classes and therefore it takes longer to graduate which means more tuition expenses. </p>
<p>I agree kids should have a stake in their educational expense but sometimes that can come in other forms. For my son’s freshman year we told him he did not have to get a job and we would send him an allowance because his merit scholarship requires a certain GPA in order for him to keep it. What he could earn during the school year would never come close to what he gets from his scholarship.</p>
<p>Either way I think it is great you are thinking about it now and saving. Good luck with whatever route you decide to go.</p>
Thank heavens no Beer or Weed scholarship, though his roommates taught an online bartending class from their room! :eek:</p>
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