Looking for a great fit LAC

bobo44
Tue, 06 Feb 2018 00:01:12 +0000

OP, your daughter has an opportunity to attend a high caliber private college like St. Olaf for less than $2000 out of pocket (acknowledging the federal loan that most students accept). And you are dithering about whether she can swing it? Are you kidding? I am a very very hardworking single mom of an adopted daughter and I have worked for well over three decades as a public school teacher and I will be working eight years past the typical retirement that my colleagues are taking. My daughter has almost the exact same stats, plus she’s a state level varsity athlete, gifted musician, people-person, positive spirit, etc. Equally deserving and special as your admittedly lovely daughter. She would kill for that opportunity! We are expected to contribute $35,000 a year (EFC) and she has been working her butt of since the week she turned 14, saving like crazy. The modest inheritance my mother left us has been invested and will be fully tapped to help pay for her education–not used to buy three new cars. My daughter will not have a new car of her own until well after she graduates and puts a really good dent in whatever loans she takes on to allow her to attend college (.Although I’m sure my mother would have loved for her to have a nice new set of eco-friendly wheels.)

Please count your blessings. Urge your daughter to get out there and drum up some cash for college. Snow shoveling, babysitting, dishwashing, whatever is out there. Sell that car if necessary and split it up over four years. Plenty of bus fare! Cover that $1200 shortfall! Really, this will help with growing up and overcoming anxiety. Put herself out there with the diverse population she looks forward to meeting in college.

I know you have suffered emotional trauma and are struggling financially. I know you are a loving and devoted mother. But I want to pull my hair out when you don’t recognize how very very fortunate you are to be impoverished enough at this particular point in your life that your daughter will be given a $250,000 gift of an education.

Most of us are making sacrifices for our children’s education. We are not getting a nearly full ride.

Yes, I’m venting a bit. I don’t mean to offend you. I don’t resent the hard work my daughter and I are putting into achieving a college education. My daughter too will have an opportunity to attend St. Olaf. But please acknowledge: you got the Golden Ticket. Most of us have to work hard for it.