On the free SUNY deal, here are the requirements as I understand them:
- your parent's combined income has to be under $100,000. That single requirement eliminates every family I know where both parents are working full time. It's going to go up slightly in the next few years, but not enough to make a difference to most 2 income families.
- you have to promise to live in NY for 4 years after graduation. If you don't, the "free tuition" becomes a loan at competitive rates.
- the program includes only tuition, not room and board. So it's a savings of approximately $7,000 per year.
Here’s what I suggest:
- As other people have mentioned, keep your grades up. Merit aid may make the difference here.
- Don't discount Nassau/ Suffolk community colleges. You can go there for 2 years, transfer to another SUNY, and your diploma will have the name of the SUNY school from which you graduated. In the meantime, you're not paying room and board for those 2 years. Both Nassau and Suffolk have Honors programs that have good reputations.
- When you become a junior, start talking to your guidance counselor about your choices. For what it's worth, a number of kids in the high school in which I teach made NYU, but are unable to attend because of finances. It's a fact of life. And living on LI is a problem, because the cost of living is so incredibly high. What looks like a NICE income on paper doesn't translate into a lot of "disposable income"-- money for extras like hefty tuition bills.