Most likely due to FA/ scholarships which make it just like paying in state which is a smoking good deal, otherwise no.
We are totally in our right minds…and so are many others who choose to pay for more expensive colleges than their instate public universities. BUT…we planned ahead…and could afford to do this.
I won’t go into the details of why we allowed our kids to make these college choices…you can read all my past posts of you so choose.
But I will give you the Thumper Family way of paying…and it’s been posted by me…many times on this forum.
Both my husband and I worked full time. We paid for college at two expensive private universities out of current earnings. We had NO college savings. My husband’s income paid all of our regular bills, and living expenses. My entire income for 7 years (we had a one year overlap whole our kids were in undergrad) went to pay for college costs…every penny except my retirement contributions. We called it the mystery money. It went into my account direct deposit, and out auto withdrawal to some college payment plan…10 months a year for seven years.
One of my kids had a $10.000 a year performance award which at the time was a huge amount (his college was $38,000 a year in 2003…same school is now $70,000 or so). The other kid had $6000 in scholarships but her school was more costly.
We made it work…because we were both fully employed and had been…so our earnings were enough to support the expense.
We also asked our kids to take the Direct Loans…unsubisidized. And our graduation gift was their loan payments. Those loan payments are a drop on the bucket compared to the costs we were paying while they were in college.
This plan won’t work for everyone…because some families have only one wage earner, or insufficient incomes to make this work…or very high expenses, etc.
But it worked for us…and really…we are totally in our right minds!
We pay OOS tuition ( nothing close to $60,000) and to the best of my knowledge we are not out of our mind. It works for us and my daughter is very happy. She has had incredible opportunities at her school.
For UMich, some OOS students may rely on a combination of need based and merit aids. The latter is very competitive though. For need based aids, they will meet the need of OOS students with lower than $90k family income and typical assets starting this year. It is among the most generous public schools for OOS students considering also the large population of OOS on campus.
Nope, it’s due to Wyoming having very low tuition and costs and Colorado having high tuition and high room and board. My nephew at CU paid about $27k full price, and her bill would have been $24k full price. With scholarships (and they are plentiful at Wyo), Wyo was much cheaper. Maine allows students from many states to pay their state’s instate rate, so it is basically the same cost as going instate. Wisconsin and Minnesota have tuition reciprocity. Some schools give instate rates to those earning any scholarship. Lots of ways to play the OOS tuition game.
Keep in mind…Michigan is a school that uses the CSS Profile for calculating need based institution aid. The Profile delves much deeper into your finances than the fafsa does.
Your FAFSA EFC really isn’t what matters,it’s what the school calculates based on the Profile info.
It is true that CSS profile provide more data to the school, but it really depends on how the school use the data and the family’s asset…UMich actually gives a pretty generous asset protection in their formulation. To me, the EFC for my D at UMich is actually very similar to the FAFSA calculation in freshman year. For FA renewal, they only use FAFSA anyway. Afterall, the EFC matters only when the need is met.
I think from a “omg anti academia” standpoint anybody with a grain of financial sense could argue 60k for UG is inane and borderline UNWISE PERIOD.
Do the math:
Child 1 …20k x 4 @ local public & put 160k in a trust for the student.
Or Child 2 …pay 240k for the same degree.
Do you really think the future earnings of one degree will overtake the other.
Child 1 would have 1.09 million at 40yrs old contributing 5k/yr in a roth/similar after graduation.
Child 2 contributing 20k/yr after graduation in a combination of assets would have 741/k a 268k deficit while he/she was contributing a extra 1250/month.
I guess you can feel good about going to a better ranked school.
Edited for language
ED
My son chose an out of state private school for a number of reasons. Our state flagship was not a good fit for him, the state flagship where we get reciprocity was an OK fit but at 40,000 undergraduates felt too large. The private where he is going gave him enough merit aid to be costing about $6000 more/year than our state flagship would have cost but it’s a much smaller undergraduate body. He’s been working and saving for years for college, as have we, and the rest will get paid out our cash flow All are ranked fairly equally so the extra $6K is worth it to us. He also is entering with about 25 college credits so hopefully can graduate in 3 years!
Hi @hannuhylu. There are many better word choices to use in making your point. That word has long been associated with those with intellectual disabilities and is incredibly disrespectful. Using that powerful word is a habit for many people and likely said without thought or intended harm, but it is a habit worth breaking. Thanks for considering.
Merit, outside scholarships, student loans, need-based aid plus cash flow. A package to make it work. Looking at it all, even if DS had a trust fund, he would still end up at the same school, so it worked out for him.
There is more to life than financial ROI. Nobody would have children if it were a decision based on finances.
Did I not post clearly? I said paying $60k plus is “out if your mind” not paying $20k because I got scholarships etc. If you can go to UCB for 30k or less a year, that’s a smoking good deal. Taking on $240k of debt to go to UCB is “crazy”. JMHO
Again read the post top privates and LACs are worth it, but not public FULL OOS tuition for public schools.
PS if you have the money and it’s no big deal then spend how you like. I had two go in state and one go to a top 10 private.
DD has a friend going to Cal Berkeley - the price tag is staggering as will be the debt - Kid is going to have staggering debt as parents are doing a combo of Parent Plus Loans and Co-Signed student loans. Family doesn’t have money and its a large family without college savings plans. IMO Kid got in and Mom and Dad got sucked into the emotion of the acceptance and again IMO all making bad decisions saddling themselves and their kid with huge loans.
IMO this family CANNOT afford Berkeley but the easy to obtain Parent Plus loans make it easy to finance.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
More to the point, please do not use that word out of respect for everyone on both this site, and IRL. Another mod has already edited out the word in question.
MODERATOR’S NOTE:
To be fair to the users who responded, no, you did not post clearly, IMO. There is a difference between “why would anybody in their right mind pay OOS tuition” and “why would anybody in their right mind pay full-sticker OOS tuition,” which is where I think you were headed.
We paid $28,000 a year for our first kid in 2003…and by the time that same kid graduated, we were paying $38,000 a year. He had a $10,000 a year performance award.
Second kid…we paid $45,000 a year for freshman year, and by the time that kid graduated, we were paying $50,000.
We are not out of our minds in any way, shape or form. Kids had the Direct Loans, but we had no additional debt…because we were BOTH employed professional parents. We planned it that way. We always knew that MY total income would be going to college costs by the time our kids went to college.
Carry on.
There are a number of kids from my D’s high school who pay full freight at OOS schools, both public and private. It’s a choice their families can afford. Some families pay out of pocket from current income. Some have family money. Some have saved for college since before the children were born. Others have lived well below their means for years to afford it because sending their children to certain schools is a priority - more so than big houses, new cars and vacations. Some families are comfortable borrowing and paying a portion of the cost in the future. We chose NOT to pay $250,000+ for our daughter’s education - she went to an OOS public with a full tuition scholarship - but I certainly don’t think anyone who chooses to pay that amount is out of his or her mind. I know many families who have done so. It’s all a matter of priorities and values. Everyone is different, and families have many different financial circumstances. I find it best not to judge one way or the other.
I stand by my advice $250K is too much money for a state school, but anyone can spend there money however they want. Telling prospective students and ghee parents that they should mortgage there home for the $250k is irresponsible.
Did anyone here say that mortgaging their home for $250,000 was a good idea?
Please…you are digressing in a huge way. I’ve been posting in this forum for a LONG time and honestly…I’ve never heard someone say that taking $250,000 in loans for undergrad school is a wise move…for ANY college.