<p>ergh Kajon…my sympathies. We all want our kids to have options and it must be infuriating to have him shut a door prematurely. On the bright side now he is closer to an ultimate decision. I don’t know, maybe you didn’t want to hear that but he can only go to one anyway and if he knew it was one of the top contenders… </p>
<p>Were you waiting on FA packages to make the ultimate choice? If that was the case it may be justifiable to string him up! ;)</p>
<p>I think historymom has it pegged just right.</p>
<p>Have completed the FA process & mailed out tax returns etc, so glad to be done with it. Even did my D’s stuff for her sophomore year. 
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<p>Congrats SLUMOM!
One hot source of debate on some threads is whether the FA process heavily penalizes those who have saved for college vs. those who have equal incomes, but have spent it. Some say it does; others that the focus is on income and dependents , not on savings. What do you think?</p>
<p>Well, I think if you have a high EFC, savings is important. We cannot afford to pay the yearly cost out of current income, and we did not save adequately to cover the difference. A healthy amount of savings would have given S more options, as our EFC means he is not getting much if any financial aid. And his grades will not garner him much merit aid at schools he’d like to attend.</p>
<p>I’m not sure how the savings helps or hurts for a lower EFC family.</p>
<p>Thanks Martina. Do high savings raise the EFC itself? For example, would a family with $100k in income, 2 kids and $200k in savings have a higher EFC than a family with $100k in income, 2 kids and $10k in savings?</p>
<p>yabeyabe, you can run numbers through college calculators to estimate various scenarios. Savings after what is asset protection allowance (goes up by age) is assessed at 5.6%, I believe (assuming assets are in the parents’ names). Income seems to be the biggest driver of EFC. Still, if you have 250,000 sitting in assets (primary residence is not included for fafsa only schools who do not take your home into consideration), and your asset protection allowance is about 50k, this is going to add a little over 11k to your efc in the first year. This is a lot of money!!! </p>
<p>Another thought: Some families had 2+ kids back to back. Their efc is cut in half, or by 40%. Parents with high efcs because of savings and income, OR because they have children spread out over many more years, OR only one child are funding that family too! This is not raised as often as the guy with the new BMW or Lexus with a heated pool. Families with higher EFCs are funding the decision of some families to have more than one child in college at the same time (lower efc for each child).</p>
<p>Another thought: If one’s parents die and leave you some money prior to college, you can see how the college gets a piece of a lifetime of savings. If one’s parents die after grandkids are finished with college, their lifetime of hard work to save that money does not
go to tuition. Same with parents who scrimped and saved for the last 18+ years for college. I can see why parents are angry. Why should they need to fund the family who lived lavishly and now has an efc that is thousands less than the saver’s efc? I know the story about “everyone is getting a discount”. Frankly, I don’t buy it. I do think that those with more money are financing those that do not have the funds to pay fully. I do think it is a redistribution of wealth. I also think that we must educate our society, whether mom and dad have the money or not. This is one way of doing it.</p>
<p>I definitely think that FAFSA and the whole financial aid process rewards people who either lived beyond their means or just didn’t care to save enough. It’s no different from the way our federal government penalizes people who work hard. The harder you work and the more money you make the more taxes you pay.</p>
<p>yabeyabe2, I was speaking about our particular scenario - as Northeastmom suggests, if we’d have had our kids close together, our EFC would look much different.</p>
<p>I’d always considered ourselves middle class. The cost of living where we are is high - we could have lived a bit more frugally, but we by no means blew our money on BMWs and exotic vacations. Three children is very expensive when it comes to paying preschool and everything else.</p>
<p>But for EFC calculators, for our income alone, our EFC is high and it shows they expect us to be able to afford to pay for most of the cost. And that just isn’t the case realistically. A healthy savings really wouldn’t have made much difference in what we’d get for financial aid.</p>
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<p>This is something that I find to be unfair. If you have children 9 mos. apart instead of 4+ years apart, your efc is cut in half or by 40% if 2 are in together, and you might be done paying college bills in 4-5 years instead of having them prolonged over many more years.</p>
<p>I do find it unfair that the family with a high efc and one child (by choice because raising each child is expensive) is funding, IN MY OPINION, the family with a lower efc/child because of multiple children that they chose to have close together. I am not including twins or triplets, etc., because giving birth to twins, triplets, are usually an unplanned blessing.</p>
<p>My older two kids are three school years apart so were in college at the same time for just one year - my daughters senior year and my son’s freshman year. The only difference it made was that son was eligible for a work study job that one year. Our daughters college didn’t have work study since they don’t get ANY federal money but she worked on campus all four years.</p>
<p>I was thinking about this, and apparently we did make an unwise lifestyle choice - we had a third child.</p>
<p>If we just had S we could make this work. With older D added, it would be a struggle and more loans than we’d like, but we could probably swing it. But second D? No way. Between the cost of raising her and the money we need to have available for her college (not bankrupting ourselves with the first 2), our EFC is a joke.</p>
<p>So S is looking at going to a state school, not what he originally planned or really wants, but it’s the best we can do.</p>
<p>But I can’t equate little D to a heated inground pool in terms of things we shouldn’t have done. She is an incredible person, and our family wouldn’t be complete without her.</p>
<p>Decision Time- any thoughts welcome.</p>
<p>The last letter came today and the results are my B student son got into every school he applied to. That is good except, thinking he would get a number of rejections, we went way over the top in the number of schools he applied to (11 in all). Now the choosing is overwhelming him (I just picked up the acceptance letters, merit aid stuff strewn all over the floor in his room). He says he is sick of college talk but is okay with doing visits to help decide. Money will play into the final decision but at this point, we are waiting on financial aid offers.</p>
<p>Info on son-quiet, loves nature, plays double bass (jazz and classical), waits to the last minute to finish work, gets along well with others but takes a while to make friends. He is undecided as to a major-history, environmental science, psychology, music or social work float around as possibilities. He is not a major sports kid but does like running XC and attending basketball games. He like hands on activities, particularly creating art. Not a party lover and not religious. His idea of fun is playing jazz with other musicians, going to concerts, roaming thrift shops, video gaming with the guys and haunting coffee shops and used music stores. Which schools in your opinion fit this kind of kid?</p>
<p>Anyway here is the list of where he got in. How challenging are these schools academically? I don’t want him in over his head!</p>
<p>Earlham College
College of Wooster
Hendrix College
Guilford College
Ohio Welseyan
McDaniel College
Allegheny College
Berry College
Lynchburg College
UNC-Asheville
UNC-Greensboro</p>
<p>Any thoughts/experiences with these schools would be appreciated.
Thanks!</p>
<p>hornet, I won’t comment on whether he’ll be over his head or not, since I don’t know your son. </p>
<p>These comments, make me feel as though UNC-Asheville is a great choice:</p>
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<p>I say that because many of the other schools are more rural, yet there are plenty of ways to find a coffee shop, and some of the more rural choices also have a few nearby. That said, look into UNC-Asheville’s graduation rate because it seems very very low to me. I don’t know why it is so low. Additionally, I have visited a few campuses that are on the list, but not all of them.</p>
<p>Thanks. This is all very thoughtful, on a topic that elsewhere is debated with slogans, rather than data. After one quick pass at an EFC calculator, I knew I would get nothing, so I did not get into the % of assets. It seems to me that the impact of saving vs. spending has been overstated by many, but is still a hit you feel.</p>
<p>I had never heard mention of the savings from having kids closer together.</p>
<p>The more I learn the insides of college costs, the more I think that, for something good parents obsess about, it is the subject of widespread ignorance and confusion. </p>
<p>A neighbor whose son would be on this thread told me his son was going to our state flagship, although he had wanted a smaller school, because they “knew” they could not afford it. I did not have the heart to tell him at this late date that kids in this category can find schools where merit aid will make the cost comparable to our flagship, which is among the most expensive for in-staters.</p>
<p>Another thought-his results support the observation that has shown up over and over on this thread-there are lots of great choices for a kid with lots of C’s. Second truth- a D (both semesters) from freshman year doesn’t ruin your chances for a great educational experience. I wish I had known this four years ago…</p>
<p>Thanks to all of the parents that posted here. At the beginning of this past year, I was not very encouraged. Your results gave me the energy to help S wade through the great possibilities and to push him on the applications.</p>
<p>Congratulations Hornet on all of these choices! I just sent a PM to you.</p>
<p>Thanks Northeastmom. I was concerned about the graduation rate at UNC-A as well and the freshman retention rate at some of the schools on the list. We visited UNC-A. Asheville is wonderful (I’d love to live there). The campus was warm, small, friendly. The food was great and the classes are all taught by faculty-no TA’s. It really did have a small liberal arts school feel and the price is right (10k instate and 23K out of state). Many of the parents/kids in our tour group were from out of state and were attracted to the low tuition and faculty attention. A number of the students did appear a little older (mid 20’s). I wonder if to low grad rate contributes to that. My son was a bit uncomfortable with the older student presence (funny what they notice to not like).</p>
<p>We toured that school, and I tried to get to the bottom of their graduation rate. I was not entirely satisfied with the answers that I came across. If he is uncomfortable with the older students, if you are OOS, I would not push it. If you are instate, you might want to push that second look without making him attend. There is no point to saving money, and having him not graduate, or graduating in 10 years!!! Definitely get staight answers about the graduation rate first!</p>
<p>hornet, congrats on the many fine choices! Not knowing the $ situation, I would look hard at graduation rates; how far your son wants to be from home (you have a lot of states covered, and note that some have much colder weather than others); where he feels he fits in best; and which schools do best by their graduates with job/grad school placement.</p>
<p>For example, my guess would be that the kids who pick Earlham or Guilford or Wooster over their less expensive but well-regarded in state public school options have some clear reasons for doing so. How does the typical student there compare in personality with the Asheville and Greensboro kids? Does either Asheville or Greensboro have a reputation for kids going on weekends or trying to transfer to Chapel Hill?</p>
<p>Do any of these schools offer a student jazz club (video gamers are everywhere)? Have you scoured the reviews of schools on students review, college ******* and princeton review?</p>
<p>Best of luck</p>