<p>hornet: I am dear friends with the wife of the men’s soccer coach at Hendrix. That is the extent of my knowledge. They are recent transplants to the area but I can find out about the community from her and report back. PM me if you would like me to do that.</p>
<p>re EFC and close together kids. I have twins and the third is 4 years younger. Our EFC wasn’t cut in half but almost. That meant our girls did receive some need based aid. The boy wil likely get nada because the girls should be done with undergrad by the time he enters and we will have saved more and be earning more by that time. I never thought of him as a poor lifestyle choice though LOL…an incomprehensible goof ball but never a poor lifestyle choice. :D</p>
<p>Re smaller more affordable schools - S wants a larger school, and he’s looking to major in Chem-E. And he doesn’t want to be many states away. So this limited the search. At his safety, he got a generous merit offer, but they have no Chem-E, just Chemistry in the Arts and Science college. The engineering department offers ‘Engineering Technology’. Some of the privates that offer Chem-E would probably accept him (he has one acceptance already), but the stats requirements tend to run higher in that major. So the merit aid just isn’t there.</p>
<p>He is very keen on majoring in Chem-E. His senior year effort/grades have been good. I don’t want to tell him to major in something other than what he wants to get the merit aid, I’d rather he pursued his major at a state school, and if he does well he can go to graduate school wherever he wants.</p>
<p>NEMom, I agree with your opinions on EFC and how it works out with only one child or many spaced.<br>
My opinion is :
It’s the kids that are going to college, not the parents. The kids are broke. If grants or reasonable loans are being given out, they all should qualify for a small grant and a subsidized loan.
And then it’s up to the parents/students to make up the rest. But that’s just me…</p>
<p>It is what it is, but on the good side, if you’ve saved, as we have, atleast your child will get to go to college without racking up overwhelming debt. </p>
<p>But there is another thing I’m looking at - It’s tax time and I have been looking into tax credits for when S (who has worked hard to reverse senioritis, thank goodness!) goes off this fall. I do hope that we’ll be eligible for some sort of break, anything.
I see there are income limits and restrictions on what charges can be considered for each (tuition vs room and board) - and it appears there’s 3 specific things you could go for in your taxes -
Has anyone used these?
Oh also, is merit aid of any tax consequences?
If this should go to another board, please direct me - thanks - peps</p>
<p>hornet - my son has many of the same schools on his list. Have you visited Hendrix? I was amazed at what a wonderful, warm place this school is. On our last tour, we were introduced to a lot of kids and everyone stopped what they were doing to talk to us about the school. The new student center/cafe is great. (The mac & cheese is also really good.)</p>
<p>A parents’ assets are only assessed at about 5.6%, and students are assessed at about 20%. That is why the advise is not to put anything in your child’s name. </p>
<p>If a parents assets are so great, that they exceed any of the asset protection amounts, then those assets do become part of your EFC, as in contribution from assets, contribution from income. (Check out the Collegeboard EFC Calculator) We don’t seem to have any assets under the FM & IM formulas, so our EFC is strictly from income. </p>
<p>If you have overlaps, it is somewhat of a break, that is true. Refer to “Paying for College Without Going Broke” by Kalman Chany, 2010 Edition. I feel that being an educated consumer is the best way to help pay for college, so I started buying this book when my oldest child was in the 8th grade. With financial aid always changing, the book even has a website where you can go view the latest changes, as the book is just published once a year, it comes out in October. The 2010 Edition goes with your 2009 Tax returns, so you can calculate your EFC’s with the worksheets in the back of the book.</p>
<p>I think I may be one of the few on this thread whose kid wants a big school experience, although big at 35,000 kids and big at 4,000 kids are probably two very different things! I remember that, when he visited Indiana, he thought it was too big…although being his laid back self, he still insisted that he would go there if that was the only place he got in, and he would like it just fine.</p>
<p>At any rate, we will not qualify for aid and I do feel bad that my son has had to pretty much instantaneously take a couple of private schools off the table that he got into (Tulane and University of Miami…both about 4,000 kids I think), although he hasn’t visited either one of them (doesn’t want to if he can’t go…why fall in love? Plus, he does have a friend at one of them who isn’t having the best experience anyway.) He actually does not seem to be that concerned with the idea of going to a state school…in fact, I think he <em>likes</em> the idea. But with several kids to send through college and some other special circumstances, we are even struggling with the idea of him going outside of our state flagship, as it costs about $18,000 more per year. I think he would be happy at our state flagship, and certainly there are a bundle of kids going there from our high school, but he would really prefer to go to the University of Maryland or maybe Penn State. From the time he first toured Maryland, he has said it would be his first choice, so this isn’t anything new. And I personally think that the school is in a much better location than our state flagship (UConn), which is in the middle of nowhere. </p>
<p>He says he is willing to borrow the difference, but that’s a lot of debt for him to take on. Friends tell me not to worry so much, because who knows what will happen in a couple of years, but they don’t know all the details, and some of them are pretty well off and I think assume that everyone is in their position.</p>
<p>It’s hard because I know that my son has the kind of personality that will likely help him do well wherever he goes in life…but I also don’t want to penalize him for the very traits that got him where he is now.</p>
<p>R2R, don’t feel badly. We are in the same boat as far as finances. This was one reason that my son did not apply to out of state public schools (we knew that the FA would not be there as an OOS student). 18,000 multiplied by 4 is just a huge difference!!! You are fortunate that he wants a large school. UCONN has a lot of school spirit, and it is a very good school. I agree with you that you cannot compare UCONN’s location to UMD, but for us it would not be worth 18,000 per year more! If my son wanted a large school and I felt that he could navigate and be successful in the large school environment, I would not hesitate to send him to UCONN. YMMV</p>
<p>Ready to Roll, Our situation is similiar. We don’t qualify for FA and both boys wanted rah,rah big state u. We did not want our kids to come out of college with big debt as both are planning careers not known for paying high salaries.</p>
<p>With all that in mind, we told them up front that we could only afford to pay instate (NC)public u. costs. DH and I are both grads. of instate publics and had great experiences</p>
<p>Guess what? S1 got a scholarship (NROTC) that could have been used anywhere in the country that he could get in…and he still chose to stay instate. He had the time of his life there,loved the ACC sports, loved having friends around that he knew from home, never regretted staying instate.<br>
S2 is a soph. this year at a different sch. than S1. His in-state u. is four hours and a world away from home. He has a few friends there from h.s. but has met dozens more from other places. He might as well be three states away. He wouldn’t think of being anywhere else now.</p>
<p>Please don’t feel bad if you end up deciding that UConn is the best decision for your family. Your S will likely thank you for it later when he graduates without a ton of debt heaped on his head. S2 told me just last week of his roommate’s financial aid issue and said to me " I really appreciate what you and Dad are doing for me so I don’t end up with all those loans". They really do bloom where they are planted.</p>
<p>R2r, your son seems very well-grounded (like you), which is great. I agree the UMD location is better, but know a lot of NJ UConn parents (so they are paying OOS) and they and all their kids are very happy. I suspect he would find that his weekends are full of fun things to do on campus, os unless he loves DC and politics, he would be fine.</p>
<p>RtoR - Personally, if my son liked UConn even if it was not the top choice I would send him there. My niece is there and she said that there is so much to do on campus that noone cares about where it is located. Your son sounds like he will be successful wherever he goes. Also, there are a lot of UConn connections if he plans on staying around here.</p>
<p>There really is a lot to do at UCONN and their new Student Union Building is wonderful.
My D never came home for weekends & were OOS, but not too far away. We liked going down there just to go to the Dairy Bar for ice cream or eating at Willington Pizza in Willington.</p>
<p>Yeah, I’m trying to decide if it’s better for him to go up on an overnight with one of his friends next month, or wait until admitted students’ day in April, which is supposed to be pretty fabulous there. I think he will likely make up his mind during whichever visit and then that will be it. Problem is that admitted students’ day is way after the ones for the other schools…</p>
<p>Why not do both if he would like to? He would prob. see a different perspective with each trip which would help him to see the big picture of what life is like there.</p>
<p>Packmom…I think that he will make up his mind at the first visit, whichever that may be, and not be interested in attending a subsequent one. Ah grasshopper…must choose wisely…</p>
<p>LOL RTR, the psychology of visits … we are on our way this week to a couple of schools and I am feeling the pressure to make them equally enjoyable on the non-academic end so that I don’t inadvertently sway the decision-maker.</p>
<p>Wow!!! I had to dig to find this thread… I had to share with my CC friends. After all my son’s acceptances and lots of revisits, one school continued to be his top choice. Well the good news is that today he got into Franklin and Marshall and is very excited to be a diplomat. I just can’t believe that this process is over. (Of course, son #2 has started to recieve college mail, so I’ll be doing it all again very soon.) </p>
<p>The support of everyone in this thread has been amazing. Now I have to write up a lot of visit reports… Can’t wait to hear everyone else’s good news!!!</p>