I’m so glad that we were pretty naive when we started the whole process and gave my daughter a budget lower than what we now think may be reality based on her (and our) expectations. We also told her that she would be paying the first two years and we would pay the 2nd two years (that way if she dropped out, it was all on her). And then we said that we wanted to target about 18k per year (which now seems too low for a decent private LAC). We started a spreadsheet where we plugged in tuition, room/board, books/expenses, and travel expenses (calculated $1800 for close drives, $3800 for longer drives with hotels, and $4800 if air would be involved). Then totaled that and put in merit aid guesstimates to give us projected net. Then as offers have come in, we put in the amount and highlighted the cell in green to show it was a true offer and not a guess. Once we sorted that all, we then added a differential from the lowest price college to see how much all the other choices would cost her x her two years of contribution. This helped to create reality. I had also insisted she had 2-3 safe schools on her list. This really pushed her to look for high quality but lower cost choices. On her list has been Creighton, Mercer, Drake, Cornell, Butler, Texas A&M, Colorado College.Some of these have had disappointing first merit offers, others a little aggresive, but none getting us to the 18k original goal. More economical choices: Truman State, Montana State, UW-Lacrosse, and several others. As of now, we are waiting on add’l Merit from Mercer & Creighton but are seriously considering Truman State as it appears to be a great value. We still need to tour as we have been behind in visits. Anyways, for those who have a D or S in the class of 2018, I say be super conservative with the kids from the beginning. Now if we do want to help her go to Creighton or others and have to increase our contribution, at least it’s more like $5 - 10k more instead of a $25k differential. She dropped some very spendy options that had originally been on her list because of the spreadsheet and expectations we had. She is a 31 ACT and a UW GPA about 3.4 but should hit 3.5 after this semester. And she won’t qualify for aid, but we have to be careful as my husband is self employed and I have some health issues to consider and don’t want to dip too deep as we have another daughter as well. Anyways, we were kind of naive and dumb at first, but it’s working to be an unintentional strategy that helped us get her away from pricey LAC’s without significant merit. She had thumbed her nose originally at Truman State but is now pretty pumped to think she will graduate with minimal debt and may be able to have a car at school.