<p>Wouldn’t that be nice!!!</p>
<p>My D is currently looking at colleges but before we began this we spelled out to her what we would pay and what this might mean for decisions she made. We have said that we will pay a set amount (room, board and tuition at the public University I work for) no matter where she goes or what kind of aid she gets. So if she selects a college that costs considerably more she will have to make up the difference - we might help her with ‘parent loans’ but it is responsibility. If she selects a college that coast less, or get scholarships and/or aid that exceeds what we would pay, the money will be invested for her. This leaves her with choices and responsibility for making the choice.</p>
<p>This probably cannot hold for a BFA, where entry to a program is highly selective, subective, and a “crap shoot” but for those of you just starting the process, I suggest if your child is looking at a BA opton as well that you should research because a fair amount of excellent private colleges do offer to meet “100% of designated need”, where designated refers to the EFC on FAFSA. My husband is a federal attorney - read civil servant salary- and my son is about to graduate from a wonderful private east coast college that cost $52,000 this year (started out at $48,000) but he has been able to attend for less than the cost of our in-state Midwest university. Just a thought in these rough economic waters. We did make him accept the small loan offered to make him vested in his education, and he is graduating with a total of ~$12,000 in debt, which we will be forgiving as his graduation gift.</p>
<p>I agree with ttmom, that if one is chasing merit aid, there are a lot of schools that offer that but may not be a BFA school. If one is trying to get better need based aid, there are many selective private colleges that meet 100% of need. And some of the highlly selective schools, such as Ivies, have really great deals now for middle and lower income families.</p>
<p>There is a perception that those of us who live in lower cost areas of the country and earn the median wage always come out ahead in the college financial aid game. I can state from personal experience that it is not true. Too many people get hung up on the EFC figures. My family had a very low EFC; my D, in fact, qualified for a very tiny Pell grant a couple of times. However, we have spent FAR more than our EFC putting her through school. </p>
<p>Very few schools hand out enough scholarship and grant money to make it possible for families to pay only their EFC. I knew when my D was applying and auditioning for MT programs 5 years ago that there was likely to be a sizeable gap between our EFC and her actual cost of attendance at most schools. She was made aware that some programs would be out of our price range. We were fortunate that she was accepted by Florida State and that she decided to attend. FSUs costs were much lower than many other schools D was interested in. Despite their relatively low cost, my H and I still spent around $20,000 per year out of pocket, Grandma helped out with $5,000 per year, and H and I are now paying off Ds $17,000 in student loans. We hope to have all of her loans paid by this fall. (D graduated one year ago.) </p>
<p>We were able to cough up a very large percentage of our income because we paid off our mortgage before D (our youngest child) started college, we have no car payment, and we have further tightened our belts. (We actually started the belt tightening long before Ds freshman year of college.) We were aware many years before D was to start college that she would probably pursue an MT degree. We also knew that there was no program in our state that offered a BFA. We saw out-of-state tuition looming on our horizon and tried to plan ahead as best we could. </p>
<p>Like most parents, we didnt have a clear idea of what our costs were really going to be until we actually read the letters from the financial aid offices of the schools to which D had been admitted. We did assume that college was going to be very costly and that some programs would simply be unaffordable. We knew that a low EFC does not guarantee that a school is going to make up the difference between the EFC and the actual cost of attendance. I wont name the school, but one state university offered D nothing but a Stafford loan in her financial aid package. That schools MT department did offer her the largest talent scholarship that they could award. D probably would have also received an honors program scholarship from that school, but she notified the school that she was going elsewhere before that award would have been made. Of course, the merit awards helped to make that school more affordable, but I was a little surprised that the school offered nothing but loans in Ds aid package considering how low our EFC was. I later learned from my reading here at CC that that was typical for OOS applicants to that particular university.</p>
<p>I know of no one that is making out like a bandit in the paying for college game. As someone said, some people are starting at a lower point on the wealth ladder than others. Students who come from very poor families deserve a helping hand. Without help they cant afford an education at any college. The rest of us more choices. We can decide to spend more and give our kids a Rolls-Royce education that may take years to pay off or we can spend less and give them the Ford education. It would be nice if the Rolls Royce was equally affordable to all of us, but sadly, the world just doesnt work that way.</p>
<p>That’s right…most of our kids who did get need based aid, still have many loans to take out (or in our case, we are paying them as the parents). It is not like the scholarships covered it all. It is still a big hardship to fund both the out of pocket and the substantial loan costs even after scholarships.</p>