<p>Where there is a will, there is a way.
More years ago than I would like to count, my father informed me that he had 5 sons and so, I, his daughter, was on my own to fund college if I cared to attend. He assumed I would just be getting married anyway and his sons would have families to provide for. </p>
<p>And this news was delivered in June before the September of freshman year.</p>
<p>But I worked, I borrowed, I got through it. I went to a state school. And I am the most financially successful child of my family…</p>
<p>So our current aspiring students should just remember there is always a path to success – some just have to look harder to find it.</p>
<p>I was told for college I would only be allowed to go to in-state public schools. I knew the limitation and accepted it. I still have a lot of debt because I ended up in pharmacy school, but I’ll pay it off.</p>
<p>What the heck were the students thinking? When I was picking colleges I didn’t even <em>think</em> of going to a private. Most kids generally know their parents financial condition (or they should, really).</p>
<p>I don’t think it’s that obvious. First, a lot of parents think finances are intimately private, even when it concerns hiding such things from their own children. Second, credit has made people of vastly different incomes have very similar lifestyles for a while now.</p>
<p>How many kids really understand what a lifestyle commensurate with a family’s financial situation would look like?</p>
<p>We have friends whose S was accepted at a number of schools, a couple of places with decent merit aid. But the parents said explicitly, “We wanted him to make the decision without regard to money.” Not surprisingly, S picked his first choice school which was also – as you can imagine – the most expensive (by far). Parents are dipping into retirement funds to pay for it, because this is “what Son really wanted.” But now parents have sticker shock, and are worried about funding (esp. with the market downturn), and Son is puzzled about his parents’ money worries …</p>
<p>If one hasn’t been somewhat upfront with kids about how decisions about spending and saving money are made, without necessarily going into all the details, is it surprising that this child also made the decision to spend about $200,000 of his parents’ money on his college education? Nothing told him to do otherwise, and his parents said “go where you want.” He did.</p>
<p>We’ve been very upfront with our kids that choice of college does depend on the COA; and we picked schools to apply to accordingly. There are some schools we simply can’t – or, perhaps better, won’t agree to – pay for. We also believe that good educations, rich college experiences, can be found at a lot of places. Some things money can’t buy … and unfortunately, even MasterCard doesn’t cover all the rest!</p>
<p>my parents told me that i can apply anywhere this fall because they never planned to pay for it in the beginning. the freedom is great but also stressful. my parents just always assumed i will take loans and somehow make it through. But i want to go to med school
I mean, i had a small college fund, but it’s now laughable after the stock market crash. </p>
<p>We are stuck in the weird middle class place. I’m a only child, parents made decent living (dad just lost job), but we can’t afford a house in this neighborhood, and my parents are immigrants who are worried about retirement as is.
My grades and scores are good but no superb talents, and i really don’t have that much “need” as colleges define it, and i’m worried. Colleges call it “expected FAMILY contribution”, so what happens if my parents don’t expect to contribute but colleges assume they will? Will I get the short end of both sticks?</p>
<p>We’ve been upfront about our living expenses, but we’ve never really sat down with them and showed them where all the money disappears to. I don’t always understand it myself! But we do talk about how much the mortgage is, and what real estate taxes are in our town.</p>
<p>We were very lucky that we inherited a tidy sum just before the oldest went off to college. Even though our income is not that high we have enough to pay for the undergraduate expenses and we will. It’s possible we may not be able to afford the house addition I’d really like to do because of recent financial events, but I think 4 years of college for both kids should still be on the table.</p>
<p>I’m worried about what’s going on, for sure. I’m at Northwestern and both my parents and I will be swimming in debt when I come out. </p>
<p>Honestly, I’m not really sure what’s going on- what we can afford, what we can’t. I know a lot of you are saying that kids should know what their family’s financial status is or at least have an idea of it, but my parents never really shared it with me. And I’m still not sure what all these terms really mean. I never had an allowance and I never really spent that much money on my own- my mom still buys most of my clothes. When I ask for things, it’s usually in moderation, and even then, I feel guilty asking. </p>
<p>It really is confusing. On the one hand, it’s okay for me to ask to go shopping for a new dress for a formal I plan on going to in a couple weeks, but at the same time, my parents keep telling me to take “good” classes and to plan intelligently for a marketable degree because I have to support them after I get out of NU. In their eyes, I should be making definite plans for the future right now. None of this “exploring” silliness…they don’t have the funds for that. </p>
<p>I don’t know, I really don’t know. I don’t understand fully my own parents’ financial situation and I truly doubt I will ever really be privy to it unless something disastrous happens to us.</p>
<p>Heh, I usually never ask my parents for stuff, so when I need it, I usually get it (if it’s something reasonable, like some shirt or a calculator).</p>
<p>Rhapsody – Supporting your parents as soon as you get out of college is quite the burden. I’m not sure any young graduate could do it. I hope that only means your parents are feeling anxious and stressing their belief that you need a good job after school. Most young people take a few years to get fully on their feet. Good luck to you!</p>
<p>I’ve been so scared about this myself lately. I’ve known since I was very young that my parents would be able to afford very little for college (they’ve had a long running joke that I’d be going to the closest community college if I didn’t get substantial scholarships) and so until I got older and started doing research and understanding these things I just assumed that since we knew we couldn’t afford most private universities, that they’d realize this too and give me aid/scholarships. Now that I am old enough to understand how these things work I’m terrified. All the schools I’m looking at except the State U are 45k+. I’m almost certain I’ll be able to afford the State U if not be able to go there for free (I think they guarantee at least half tuition to any state Val or Sal) but that’s last resort. My reach schools average financial aid for families in my families income range is enough that we can probably be able to pay for one of those too (though I guess you never know until the full package comes in) but those are huge long shots. I’ve been so worried about the middle schools, the U’s that still cost 50k but can’t offer majority of the tuition to people in my income range. So I’ve been so afraid of what to do if it comes down to the State U or one of those. I mean the State U has very good programs in a lot of things but a really weak one in what I want to do but at the same time I know I don’t want to put any financial stress on my parents at all. It sucks because our families income is high enough that we’re not considered to have a high need yet we’ve never really had much spare money to save up for college. I won’t know what to do if I won’t be able to get like 80% of COA at the private schools as either need or merit scholarships. This is just so frustrating and my parents are saying don’t worry about it now focus on getting into those schools and then worry about which ones we can afford but its so hard not to worry about it.</p>
<p>I feel bad for the naive people who worked their asses off for four years thinking that they’re going to the university of dreams, only to be told last minute that they’re going to the local state college that admits every joe shmoe with a 1200 SAT and 2.9 GPA. I could see why someone in that situation would be angry.</p>
<p>I for one can say that “Rhode Island College” isn’t really the type of place I’m thinking of when someone brings up school. If that was the case, then I could have just slept in my classes and done the minimal amount of work needed to pass for last three years.</p>