Parent's Ability to Pitch in Depending on Income

Yes you should take that with a “grain of salt” (as suggested by above poster), unless you could somehow convince yourself that the #2 and #9 in that list should not change positions!

@Jpgranier Also if you are majoring in ME I highly recommend earning your degree at a school that offers Cooperative Education. During your co-op you could earn money to offset the cost of your education. I currently know of someone earning $30+ an hour between his sophomore and junior year of school. I googled co-op salary and the average is around $16 an hour.

I have mixed feelings about co-ops vs internships and going to a university that requires co-ops. We had this conversation with my DD who is a CE major. Many of her classmates are doing co-ops but it is not required, where she has done 3 internships instead. She did not know what industry or environment that she wanted to work in so she opted for internships at 3 very different places. Her earnings have been as good as above. The students that chose co-ops had a certain company in mind from the beginning that they wanted to work for and co-ops did get them in the door. I do think you need to do either co-ops or internships but I would not have wanted my DD in a program that required co-ops.

You would be competitive for merit money at Case Western.