The issue is that USD and UDenver both have few scholarships and a relatively low endowment per student
You’re lucky in a sense because the coronavirus had upended everything, including college admissions, and colleges that would never think of growing their accepted student list now do: if you want to go OOS, look at the Nacac list. Select colleges in areas you’re interested in (west coast and Rockies, apparently) and systematically run the NPC on them. Add a few from the Midwest to increase your odds.
Apply immediately to all colleges within budget.
Hypothetical question: Would those upper middle class and wealthy families who object to helping pay for college for their “adult” children be willing to sign their entire estates over to the government in exchange for the state taking over the cost of college education for their children? If not, then they probably aren’t truly independent from their parents. In other words, exchange a 100% inheritance tax for free college?
I seriously doubt it. But if they children of the wealthy are expecting an inheritance from their parents, they aren’t truly “independent” are they?
@Camasite who said anything about an inheritance?
Folks…need based financial aid in this country at all colleges…for the vast majority of students who are under age 24 will be tied to FAMILY income…parent income being the big factor.
It’s the way it is…and really this discussion isn’t going to change that.
This student has said that his parents can afford $30,000 a year. He can attend ASU in the Barrett Honors program for $20,000 a year.
He has a lifetime to go out of state and his options to do so if he has NO undergrad debt will be much more varied.
@jerome38747 The fact is that the vast majority of colleges bound students do not apply to, or attend, any of these colleges.
Only 2.8 million students attend private colleges and universities compared to 13 million at public colleges and universities. So maybe 18% of all college students. Since 63% or so of all high school graduates attend college, that means that only 11% of all high school graduates attend a private college or university for their undergraduate studies.
Around 300,000 students attend need met colleges, where the average CoA is around $20,000.
So only about 10% of all families are dealing with high costs of private colleges and universities. Some can afford those prices (the top 4% or wealthier), some have 529s or other savings.
Also, about 10%-15% of the students attending these colleges and universities are wealthy foreign students.
Private colleges and universities are luxury items, not a necessities. Complaining about high prices for public universities or not having really good universities in your state, that’s one thing. But complaining that you cannot afford a name-brand private university is a bit entitled.
Nobody until Camasite, but it’s part of a hypothetical.
The thing is, high school students don’t manufacture this expectation on their own. They grow up hearing over and over and over, how attending Name-Brand Elite U epitomizes the success that they’re urged to work for. Then the time comes and they find out that there’s no path to affordability, for the thing they thought they were working toward. I don’t think it’s too much to ask that we validate the disappointment that they’ve been set up for.
That doesn’t mean that other paths and opportunities aren’t valid and worthwhile. A bright, hardworking student can succeed and have a bright future by attending their public honors college vs. their unaffordable dream school, and if they’re still nursing a grievance about it in a few years, then it may be fair to accuse them of being entitled. But a lot of kids get baited-and-switched by this process, and I don’t think we should begrudge them a little grieving when unanticipated realities set in.
It stinks to be in the proverbial donut hole, and have a gap between your EFC and your actual resources. Many are even worse off than the OP - for example, a comparable student in a state where public U’s are still expensive (lookin’ at you, Pennsylvania) or being actively gutted by the state (hi, Alaska) or just not of stellar quality in the first place. Barrett for 20K/year is a wonderful option; it’s just a hard pill to swallow for a student whose dream has been to spread his wings farther from home.
One thing that no one mentioned yet is that a bachelor’s degree is about 4 years (sometimes slightly less with AP credits, more commonly more for a variety of reasons). A master’s is only one or two years, and a PhD is usually fully funded by the university.
I do know multiple people (and knew loads more when I was in graduate school) who attended affordable in-state public universities for their 4 years of undergrad, and then splurged as full pay or nearly full pay for a one year master’s degree from a highly ranked private university. I know at least one person who did the public not-so-expensive route for both a bachelor’s and master’s, and then went out of state to a very good university for a (fully funded) PhD.
My daughters have certainly had friends who could not have afforded $30,000 per year for undergrad. Some went to in-state public universities. One of the stronger students that either daughter knew went to community college for two years and then in-state public university for two years. This was the only affordable option for this particular friend, who is doing very well.
The cost of attendance does indeed impact most of us when it comes to selecting which university to attend.
However you view this situation, it should be obvious that a high school senior’s college choices (or even the ability to go to college) is mostly based on his/her parents’ circumstances and choices, with the student’s own academic ability and motivation only affecting choices within the limitations set by his/her parents’ circumstances and choices. Most of the time, the limitations set by parents’ circumstances and choices are cost-related, but sometimes there are parental preferences that impose additional limits on the student’s choice of college, or even if s/he can go to college at all.
I like your sympathy, @aquapt. I agree that these kids have been led astray by their parents. I also think these kids are smart enough, mature enough, and resilient enough to let go of youthful dreams built on falsehoods.
I sympathize with the OP for feeling like he discovered the emperor has no clothes, yet I think it’s important to remember the emperor has $30K/year for four years. That’s not an impossible situation. Heck, it’s not a bad situation. It’s a great spot to be in.
Any student bright enough to earn the grades/scores necessary to get into Barrett Honors is bright enough to reassess his situation with his newfound understanding of the facts.
Grieve? Okay, but only for a moment, and don’t go into self pity. Take that $120K and figure out the best way to put it to work. @DadTwoGirls had a great take on the situation. That was just one of several great ideas offered here.
There’s no great disaster being a doughnut family. The disaster is thinking that being a doughnut family is a terrible place to be.
@Dustyfeathers we earn more than $55k a year. Our Expected Family Contribution is about 55k. However, we can only realistically afford 30k per year.
@Mwfan1921 See my updated post. All of the schools except for Elon are now affordable after my appeal. I am by no means complaining, I understand I have a better situation than many other kids. I just want to seek some truths
There are actually OOS unis that you can afford at $30K/year. Top-ranked ones. (Public) unis in Germany (and other places in Europe) are free (granted, the major/degrees in English may be limited). Some degrees at McGill would fit in your budget even as an international.
@aquapt, I agree that there seems to be a decent amount of bait-and-switching going on in this country with teenagers. In some cases because the parents are equally clueless about how insane college costs in the US have gotten.
But I think part of it too is that American society/school/culture infantalizes more than people in other countries would expect. There are some Americans who are more comfortable sharing their sexual history and exploits (even within the family) than info about their finances, for instance . An attitude that would be incomprehensible in some other cultures.
It’s not just parents creating unrealistic expectations. Colleges do. I’ve read assurances from the very top colleges asserting that no one will be denied a spot at their colleges for inability to pay. Full need met. However, they do not make it clear that they determine inability to pay and need. I’ve corrected AOs making statements of those sorts. No one wants to say that it is up to the students’ ’ parents to have to pay what these schools determine they should be paying.
These schools miss the entire category of students whose parents can’t or won’t pay what the schools deem they should be paying. Get accepted to HPYSMC, and the they say you gotta come up with $30k a year, and your parents say “no can “, have some special needs at home, bad years of business, owe debt etc etc., just too bad. I read about kids on these forums who are highly qualified for these schools, so qualified they are accepted but parental inability or unwillingness to pay makes it not possible to matriculate.
@cptofthehouse, good point. The disingenuousness is a part of many colleges’ marketing scheme.
Let’s be real. No college can let applicants’ parents decide how much they can or willing to pay for college. For colleges that claim to meet full “need”, some are more generous than others. And a few are very generous. It’s up to the applicant (or his/her parents) to determine how affordable the college is based on the college’s NPC and other publicly available information. Don’t apply ED or ED2 if the applicant is highly sensitive to the actual family contribution as determined by the college, especially if his/her family’s financial situation is less than straightforward (at least contact the college’s FA office directly for clarifications beforehand in that situation).
One of the issues that contributes to this problem is financial illiteracy.
I have always thought that every high school should have a year long class called “Personal Finance” where students learn among other things how to balance a checkbook, investment returns, the concept of compounded interest, basic accounting and economics, what’s a 401K, home ownership, what’s a mortgage, how does insurance work, and most importantly for this discussion, how to save for college.
We ask our high school students to read and learn about 15th century painters and yet these students have no understanding real world issues like what is the actual cost of college and how can one pay for it (either with scholarships, 529 plans, work study, Stafford loans, etc.)
And then you have people, like a CC mom last year who said that she always expected her daughter to attend a New England private college but had not saved a dime for her kids college education. Sigh…
We need to educate our youth early about these financial matters so we don’t have these financial surprises when it’s too late and another generation of parents wondering how the heck do we pay for a great college education.
In the US, social status in many contexts seems to be heavily tied with the appearance of wealth and income, which is perhaps not surprising given the high and rising wealth and income inequality.
But since many people falsely signal either higher or lower wealth and income than they actually have, they may not want the true numbers to be available for comparison. Someone who falsely signals higher may not want others to know that their status symbol house, car, etc. are financed with heavy debt. Some others may falsely signal lower to avoid being targeted by scammers for their wealth.
It may only take a year to cover the material if it needed to go at a pace suitable for the D- students who will barely graduate high school. It should take a lot less time than that for stronger students, particularly if they have reached the math course that includes exponential functions (compound interest is an obvious application).
But then knowing these things does not necessarily mean making good financial decisions. An analogy is that most people know that smoking, obesity, lack of exercise, etc. increases the risk of health problems and disability in the future, but many people still smoke, become obese, and/or do not exercise.
A half-year financial literacy class is now required for high school students here in New Jersey, which I think is wonderful. That said, ucbalumnus’ skepticism probably isn’t unwarranted. One of my kids took the class as a freshman, and she reported that there were several students who were not taking the class seriously. Most of them seemed to be seniors who had waited until the last minute to fulfill the financial literacy requirement; maybe they didn’t care much about the class because they already knew the material (a couple of them were already 18 years old), but I’d wager that some of them are doomed to make the financial mistakes that the class is meant to prevent.
Still, I don’t see why a course like this isn’t required everywhere.