<p>This is a timely topic for me and I have a question. I had a conversation with daughter last night. She applied, I THINK, pretty sensibly. Here’s the gist of the conversation, please let me know if you think this is reasonable: I told her that there are four schools on her list that we can afford to pay for. One of which is a five-year master’s. If she choses to attend that school we will pay through her master’s. There is one school that we can almost afford, that would leave her with about $5000 in debt at the end, but she’s on her own for her master’s unless she lives at home and goes to a CUNY school to get debt forgiveness as a high school science teacher. We consider that a valid option and entirely up to her. The third group is three schools (one of which is hands down her top choice) that we simply can not afford. She would be coming out of undergrad with $80,000 in debt and a master’s to pay for on a beginning teacher’s salary. I think that will make for a life unlivable. We chose to allow her to apply to those three schools because she is a good candidate at all of them and MIGHT qualify for enough merit aid to bring the cost in line with the school in the second category, which then would be doable. Is it wrong to allow a kid to apply to a school that you can’t afford without help? She has been told what our budget is, but who knows if it sinks in? I hope we didn’t do her a disservice.</p>