Looking for small liberal arts college recommendations

[frankzane]

@ucbalumnus @intparent @gardenstategal @Midwestmomofboys @DadTwoGirls

@ucbalumnus

Both FAFSA and CSS Profile now use prior prior year.

https://studentaid.ed.gov/sa/about/announcements/fafsa-changes
https://professionals.collegeboard.org/guidance/financial-aid/applications/prior-prior-year

If you will be applying to start college in fall 2018, then you may submit financial aid forms late in 2017 using 2016 financial information.

Due to the one time circumstance of your father’s unemployment in 2016, you should run the net price calculators based on 2017 income and with the assumption of a full year’s income post-2017. Your second year in college financial aid will be based on 2017 financial information, your third year on 2018, etc., so you want to get estimates of future year costs.

Assuming this to be true (which I confirmed is a new thing for FAFSA 2017-2018 which took my parents by surprise), I ran my numbers on F&M.
Freshman year <5K
Sophomore year 10K
Junior year 35K
But my older sister is graduating this year, and my younger sibling will be in college 1 year after me.

1. How much debt is considered to be reasonable and manageable? $50K? I also have an additional 25K set aside for college
2. Could Franklin and Marshall reject me based on my first year’s need? Even though my situation will be vastly different over the coming years?
3. Is Franklin and Marshall a middle tier school in terms of my list and ability to provide financial aid?
4. What are other schools from my list good to run? I don’t want to be using too much of my parent’s time
5. Do I need to consider other schools? I also would like to have some backups in case I have a career-ending soccer injury. I’ve heard some horror stories about kids who had compound fractures and almost had their legs amputated, and not getting into the college they were recruited for.