<p>Wow. This is frivolous, but sobering. I just calculated the difference between my kid’s most and least expensive schools and it is a whopping $32,474 per year. Hmmm…</p>
<p>Last yr. ours was $48,000 after scholarships.</p>
<p>My daughter’s difference is $31,000</p>
<p>The difference after all packages were in was 12,000/year from the most expensive to least expensive.</p>
<p>Right now, it’s $25,000.</p>
<p>sax: You must have had a full ride at one end!!!</p>
<p>Blessed with the luck of a full ride and he got to keep outside $$$</p>
<p>last year - spread was about 35K per year. But it could have been more if we pursued free ride NMF scholarships (we did not). One pretty good state school out West offered an automatic free ride PLUS 2k spending money.
Of course, the difference between most expensive and least expensive is even more sobering when you add it up over 4 years!</p>
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<p>Which is also why when a student receives a 10,000 scholarship they usually add it up to tell you that it is 10,000/year for 4 years for a total of 40,000. The problem with that is that they do not disclose the % of students meeting the minimum gpa to keep the 10,000 for all 4 years.</p>
<p>$25K/yr for us. D got merit aid at her merit schools and the $25K was Yale and Amherst who had the lowest FA package by far of the need schools.</p>
<p>The spread is in the $24,000/yr range</p>
<p>$47K (over four years) for us, all from 100%-of-need schools.</p>
<p>The real dilemma I guess is probably the spread between the schools that we’re willing to pay for. So that ranges from $10K to $28K. At $10K that is less than we pay for high school plus music lessons. (Visions of trips to Italy dancing in my head…)</p>
<p>Well, we are trying hard to not influence our son (he knows our financial limits, but still has too many choices) - and we must be succeeding because after visiting Northeastern the other day my husband and I had a moment alone to discuss the schools and we realized that we really didn’t even know what each other was thinking. (Which turned out to be similar thoughts - we are so boring.)</p>
<p>Anyway, I wish I had a crystal ball right about now.</p>
<p>weenie, funny you should say that. We went out to dinner with another couple for New Year’s Eve. The other couple was talking about taking a trip to Italy and wanted to know if we would like to join them. My H and I just looked at each other b/c we don’t have the spare change for that right now. Their kid is going to a private that is costing 19,000/year more than we are paying. They just got back from a ski trip. Wife does not work. It must be nice, but now she tells me that kiddo is not coming home for spring break b/c she cannot afford the airfare. Hahh?? Something does not add up. I am jealous about that trip to Italy ;)</p>
<p>For last year, there was a $26,000 spread. There was no need based aid.</p>
<p>northeastmom - methinks they just got their Amex bill from the ski trip! ;D</p>
<p>We’re still waiting on a couple of decisions, but I’m virtually certain that our spread is going to come out to around $25-26K.</p>
<p>I think our spread will be about $22,000; free vs $22,000 with financial aid - but we won’t know until we get all the packages.</p>