We did not go into an exact amount, but we did tell her what we had set aside for her. And we had told her we would not be able to afford more expensive schools like Ivy League schools. We are pretty frugal and had gone thru the whole college selection process with her sister who is two years older. Our older daughter did not go to her first choice because of the cost. We had already told her the schools that would probably be affordable and maybe she could get extra scholarships at other schools. So she already knew before she met with the recruiters that we were very concerned about the cost and that it would be a major factor.
But, she had a meeting with a representative from Yale at the high school and came home all excited telling us that the Yale recruiter told her that she would be able to afford it. She just had to get accepted and they would take care of the money. The first thing I did was to go on the calculator site and realized we would not qualify for very much if anything. Of course I told her that but it is hard to refute someone else especially when that is what your daughter is hoping for. I do not know exactly what the recruiter said, so that may have been my daughters interpretation because that is what she wanted to hear.
It would be great if the recruiters could just be more honest and suggest that the school does help with financial need but you may not qualify for anything and the total cost is 60k per year.
Once more I say…it does NOT MATTER what a college rep says. What matters is what the family decides they can pay. There are plenty of students accepted to very generous schools with good financial aid packages…who cannot attend. They cannot attend because despite the school meeting their need, the family cannot or will not pay the family contribution.
The single most important number is what the family WILL be able to pay each year…not the EFC, not what the net cost the college determines…but what the FAMILY will pay.
“came home all excited telling us that the Yale recruiter told her that she would be able to afford it.”
What the Yale recruiter said, what she understood that person to be saying in the moment it was said, what she later recalled the person saying, could be three very different things.
My guess would be that the Yale recruiter’s words were something like, “We are committed to making a Yale education affordable for all students who need aid.” This could sound like “Yale will be affordable” to a typical high school student, so it falls on the parents to keep the kid grounded.
For 95% of the population, what they are telling the students is correct.
It is best if you provide the input numbers to your kid and let her plug them in. OTOH as long as you have provided clear guidelines about what you are willing to pay, you have met your obligation to your kid.
I’ve sat through many college presentations (along with my kids) where college reps have gone on and on about how affordable their college is, but I always knew that they were not speaking to us personally. They obviously did not know my financial situation!, and it is the responsibility of the parent is to explain to their child the difference. This is a concept that all children need to understand - what applies to the everyone generally, may not apply to them personally. It’s not the fault of Yale that your child is disappointed - either you did not explain the specifics of your finances to her, or she chose to ignore what you told her, and instead focus on her dream school. This is a hard lesson, but one that need to be taught.
We did not visit all 14 schools. But we did visit some that we could not afford. One of the reasons I liked visiting as many schools as we did was that my daughter got a little bit different perspective on engineering at each school we went to. Also, these could be schools to consider for graduate school. My older daughter just finished her sophomore year but is already looking at grad schools for a PhD in mechanical engineering based on the research she has done her first 2 years.
OK, folks, many kids tend to be emotional, not fully mature (surprise!) and thus very susceptible to marketing. Also, many are at a stage where they automatically block out what the parents say.
It seems as though there are a lot of “process management” issues involved in the college selection process, and things didn’t go particularly well. What some reps said at school meetings should be the least of those issues.
Look, no matter who said H is affordable, when you ran the NPC and saw your bill would come in over 60k/year, you had choices. And you chose to let her apply. Or now you say it was beyond your control because she took the credit card and went wild on a H or Yale. ? And maybe you didn’t want to “ruin their dreams of going to an Ivy League school.”
You need a reality check. Somehow, you seem to think, a 60k calculation would what?, turn into some other number for you? It’s not like that.
Most of us know what sort of income/asset combo yields a 60k EFC.
Conversely, bjkmom, anyone who wants to go to a Harvard should be smart enough to a) do the research, b) freaking process it and c) not assume the NPC price of 60k is not what it is.
Sorry, OP, but before the NPCs were available, we got lots of “I didn’t know” threads from parents. We do tend to jump on those who miss the writing on the wall and get upset later.
Median US family income was about $54K/year in 2014.
Let’s check out Yale’s net price for a family with double the median income, compared to the net prices for one in-state public university and one out-of-state public university.
We could expect more than 75% of US families to have income less than double the median,
so the results we get should tell us something about relative affordability for most American families. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Household_income_in_the_United_States
I’ve chosen an OOS public university often recommended on CC for its big merit scholarships.
For simplicity, I’ll assume the family does not own a home, and that its financial assets (savings/checking only) equal half the family income ($54K).
The schools’ online net price calculators show me the following annual cost estimates:
$22,376 University of Connecticut
$19,235 University of Alabama (reflects Presidential merit scholarship) $10,652 Yale
Your Mileage May Vary (of course!)
As your family income approaches 3x the median, at some point Yale will become more expensive than UA or Connecticut. That’s how need-based financial aid works.
All 100% need-met schools decide what that need is, not just Ivys. My D applied to more than a dozen of these schools and the COA ranged from $12,000 to $35,000, same numbers submitted. Go figure. And every single one of them made it clear to us that “we will make it affordable”, I call BS. Our experience was that preferred packaging played a huge role, pretty evident by the offers.
COA is cost of attending, which is how much would it cost to attend a school.
EFC is estimated family contribution, which is how much a family is expected to contribute. The difference between COA and EFC is financial aid (FA).
Each school has their own calculation of what is EFC.
NEPatsgirl is correct. One near-ivy college gave S1 a bunch of loans, plus I had to dip into a retirement account. Another gave S2 a package that was so good I welled-up. I can’t believe that I just agreed with a Pats girl! Our corner backs are healthy…you won’t get past the second playoff game.
You realize colleges have their own particular formulas, right? One may or may not include home equity, etc. Some package loans, as a matter of their policy. And, the guideline is that any one college is supposed to treat all kids with certain family factors alike. Not that all need-based colleges calculate alike. One family, with 3 kids/X finances doesn’t get some special break from a needs-based FA school because he has, say, some more preferred attribute.
I’m a bit unbelieving that the rep said exactly what your D said he did. At my S’s school (need based aid only) when we toured they made it a point to tell us (everyone there that day, not just me) that the cost of our kids education was our responsibility. We knew going in that whatever FA we received might not be enough. Fortunately, we were pleasantly surprised when he got his package. The COA came in less than the cost of our instate publics. I didn’t know at the time that some schools give considerable aid even if one has a six figure income. I knew we would likely get some aid but had no idea if it would be enough for us to afford this school.
He did have schools on his list that gave enough merit aid where he would have been perfectly happy to attend if the FA package at first choice school wasn’t good.
Students whose family income and assets are so high that they’re full pay at the ivies aren’t “middle class.” And they got accepted to an Ivy, their stats are likely high enough that they can qualify for very good merit aid at some other elite schools too. They may have to “settle” for a $30-40k/year school, but that’s akin to saying you have to settle for a Ferrari instead of a Lamborghini.
Families who can’t, or won’t, pay $60k/year for college need to make sure their kids know that. And make it clear to them that any schools that come back higher than their budget will immediately come off the table. I don’t think it’s the schools’ fault if the children don’t believe the Net Price Calculators. I think the problem is that colleges are saying they’re committed to making college affordable for low and middle income families, but some people have a very distorted view of what middle income really is.
^Exactly. The idea that Ivy financial aid says to hell with the middle class is ludicrous. To not get much aid from them, you’d have to be at the tippy top of the upper middle class.