@itsgettingreal17 it was a color picture/blurb in the money section front page.
For some reason I now get a free USA today with my wall st journal subscription. I like free stuff!
@carachel2 “Heck, up until a year or so ago that was me. My brother and I both paid our way through school. Heck…why couldn’t our daughter? Because tuition in 1991 at Texas A&M was $18.00 an hour.”
So much this. I remember my tuition payment being insignificant compared to my dorm payment. Heck, I remember paying more for books one quarter than tuition. (At least books are one place that today’s kids have an advantage!)
@flatKansas …yes! I think my dorm did cost me more than tuition at one point! I found some old papers last night and my student loan payment on graduation was $50.00 a month. Total debt was less than $10K for sure.
H and I were walking and talking last night. My kid has busted her tail to get her ACT up to merit level so I consider her hard work now to be the 2016 version of “paying your way through college.”
I paid a lot of my own way thru school, but that’s because I went to school in Florida dirt cheap and got in state tuition for 3 years. I worked a little bit thru college and worked in the summers to save $$. My parents gave me money as needed. We weren’t poor or anything, I think my dad just liked the fact that I was able to figure it out on my own.
I think with the savings he bought himself a boat, ha. No lie. He must have been so happy, never really had the chance to talk to him about it, but that was around the time he bought his first sail boat.
@flatKansas Have you priced college textbooks? They may not cost the equivalent of 1/4 of their tuition, but that is about the only comparison that makes them seem affordable. What is really egregious is when schools require their school specific version of a textbook and it prevents them from buying used at a much cheaper price.
Fwiw, we have had semesters when textbook costs have been $1000+. (Some engineering textbooks are over $200 each.) We have been lucky somesemesters when books have been used for 2 semesters and costs have been lower.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I don’t know if its because of her school or her major, but D has been able to rent about 2/3 of her textbooks. Her Spring books were about $400 and her summer books were $30.
The scam with the loose-leaf textbooks makes me angry though. “Saving you money” my rear end.
Textbook prices can be insane! The worst so far have been calculus and one particular social sciences text for a cross-listed Psych/Woman’s Studies/Sociology class. I buy used whenever possible and choose rentals (if less than the price of used) for books the kid does not want to keep. I compare prices between the university’s bookstore (a B&N), a non-university bookstore in town, and amazon, because one site is not always the cheapest.
I was looking at possible dual enrollment classes at the uni for D. The intro to micro econ book is $281 because it’s a required bundle with online access 
Uh, no thanks. Looks like I need to prep AP econ syllabi this summer :))
On the bright side, older dd’s textbooks for first semester senior year will be less than $100 total: 4 new Folger editions of Shakespeare, a Norton rental, and 2 used French lit books =D>
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I feel so lucky with Arabic choices. To have two is a such a blessing. Russian options just stink 
@mom2aphysicsgeek, I haven’t read all of the posts here, but have you also looked at Michigan State U for Arabic? We visited there as well when DD was interested in Arabic, two years ago. Are they going to be a flagship? I think it was being discussed at that time. Russian: there are some schools listed in Barrons Profiles of American Colleges book, have you checked all of those? I see St Louis U, Reed, Syracuse, and others listed there. Forgive me if you have already done this. I have been looking for a slightly unusual major for my daughter, and the search engines and books all seem to have one more school I hadn’t considered…we are looking at ASL interpreter.
Have you all noticed that it is hard to find some majors listed in the college websites, the search engines like Cappex, or printed books because of the titles of the majors being varied from school to school? You really have to be a detective of some kind to track down some of these schools! And there are so many errors! For example, the Barrons book has a listing for schools under the heading “Interpreter of the Deaf” , but if you just look up DEAF, there is no listing. If you look up “American Sign Language”, at least two of the schools there should be listed as an Interpreter of the Deaf! Also, we are looking at Elementary teacher of the Deaf and Hard of Hearing, and this is hard to find on college websites, sometimes under Special Ed instead of Elementary Ed , sometimes under Deaf Education, etc. Tricky!
Michigan State used to be an Arabic flagship (I think that’s what I determined…it was on the flagship website). Not sure what happened, but their program is still very strong. Good scholarships if high enough rank and SAT score and they stack. It’s high on D’s list.
My room and board bill at the sorority was definitely more than tuition. Books were about 1/3 of tuition, that ratio has definitely changed! Even with that, working close to full time while in school, a trust that covered room and board and parents that covered books if the GPA was at a certain level, I had a small amount of debt when I graduated and that was just covering tuition and all “other” expenses.
I think it’s many things. Parents do not realize the current costs of college and are absolutely shocked. Beyond shocked. They may expect to help but then realize how that their idea of help is a very small drop in the bucket. They also assume that a child can put themselves through school, as they did. Most do go local, state schools or CC to keep costs down. Many of the students live at home.
Families have been hit with a recession, often one or both parents out of work during these prime saving years for these kids and the savings just may not be there. Many may have gone through bankruptcy, lost their house, etc during those times and while they look good on paper and have high EFC’s, they are still in recovery mode.
There is also the reality that while scholarships are out there…unless you are a top student, they cannot cover the gap that most families are facing. I find that incredibly frustrating. The B student has a donut hole all of their own. Certainly so does the C but it kills me that the B student is really left out cold for the most part, even the B+/A-. Get a student at that level in a family that won’t qualify for aid who simply hasn’t saved enough for whatever reason and the options are depressingly limited.
@payn4ward whew, glad it’s only 2 books although that’s a lot to slog through over the summer. It would have been nice to have one that was a bit happier in that mix!
@HiToWaMom did she survive the precalc final? Ugh, I can see where that is a bit stressful for you although I know for college apps, the Calc will be better for her than Stats. S17 will not continue FL, he did his 3 years and is done. S19 is registered for French 4 but I am really questioning that one to be honest.
@snoozn how is your D able to be done with English? Did she double up one year?
@2kidsinky yes, I have noticed that, it is incredibly frustrating. Google “energy” on a schools website and it’s interesting what I find. Sustainable, renewable, GAH. Occasionally though I get the right hits. I’ve taken to scrolling through the entire list if it’s done easily as that often works much better. There are probably a dozen different titles for similar majors on S17’s list.
Expectation of paying for college I agree with @Mom2aphysicsgeek that CC is a non-representative bubble. Our HS is closer to the general population, though part of the high end is skewed higher. Our school profile says 54% of kids plan to attend our local 2-year college. That’s not so bad, since our community college recently announced that through private fundraising they will be offering 2 years of free tuition to any local HS graduate. (You still have to fill out the FAFSA to get any Pell Grant / Cal Grant money you are eligible for.) If a kid lives at home, gets free tuition for 2 years, rents used textbooks, and works some on the side to save for transfer to a CalState, it’s doable. It will probably take more than 4 years, but lots of kids do it.
@262mom The way I’d interpret that message from the UC system is that they have provided this option for getting around specific requirements, but that the 9 individual campuses manage their own admissions within the constraints set by the UC system. So, they can’t say which campuses might or might not be willing to overlook a missing VPA to admit a high-performing, full-pay OOS student.
The different campuses have their own admissions quirks. Cal and UCLA look more at the uncapped weighted GPA, while the others look more at capped. UCSB bases 50% on essays and ECs – more than the others. They all can’t look at race, but some give more preference than others to low income & difficult family conditions than others. So, I’m sure admission by exam carries different weight at different campuses, and I don’t know which ones.
Anyway, the different roles in setting admissions policy for the system vs the campuses is the reason for the opacity you see. There is certainly a lot of red tape involved in attending a large public university, and the UC system ranks high in the amount of red tape involved. It is something DS will consider when he looks over his choices in April, because the UCs generally make it difficult for a physics major in the College of L&S to take CS classes in the College of Engineering.
Son17 is now done with school and officially a Senior. He somehow managed very solid scores on all of his final exams and should end up with a decent Junior year transcript. I think he’ll get 5 A-, 1 A, and a B+. 1st B+ on his transcript thru 3 years, so pretty good. He’s usually good for all A-, but he just couldn’t master math this year. His overall GPA for the year should move him up in class rank a bit so that’s good.
He was working on his brag sheets to give to LOR teachers this week. We’re going to take a break from school stuff for the next week or so, and then we’ll start looking at essay ideas. I’m going to try to get him to do a weekly ACT study session over the summer. Maybe that will help push him over the edge in Sept. His scores for the schools he is interested fit in the mid-50 percentile or above, but 2 of schools would like him to be at 30 or above for 75th percentile, and he’s stuck at 29. I don’t know how much it matters really. His grades are OK, scores are OK, EC’s are OK. Nothing awesome though, just pretty consistent and normal teen boy stuff. Hopefully it’s enough.
Flashback to my college days - tuition at the UC (Calif) I went to (UC Santa Cruz) was $250/quarter the first year and ballooned to $450/quarter when I graduated! That was a whopping $1,350 PER YEAR for in state tuition. I think it was +$5,00 for OOS tuition. That didn’t include fees, and living expenses were pretty hefty for the day. Housing was tough because the vacancy rate in town was 0.1%. My books exceeded my credit card credit limit at $125 for science books. D15’s books this year (many with the on-line component, so couldn’t get used) were probably ~$800 for the year. She is mainly social science and language (but not like the language kids on this thread!!).
With that said, S just reduced his college list on Naviance to 3 (YES 3 !!) schools. Two of which he will be admitted to their honors college. One school (Cal Poly engineering) is the only question. He is happy with his choices and the fact that he will only need to write 2 essays. I am wondering what his counselor will say when she see that. She likes to see at least 6 schools, preferably 9 schools. But for us, the reduction in cost for applications will come close to paying for the school visits over the past year. And, like I said, he is totally happy.
@RightCoaster – this is just my own opinion…but I felt that it was important to attempt to achieve that needed 75th percentile so as not to give the AdComs an easy reason to reject. I think unhooked applicants need that 75th level of scores. The school does not have any other institutional reason to admit my children (White with college-educated parents and attended top-notch high schools). They do not check any box, so their application can not be one that requires additional consideration.
Again, just my opinion.
Timed repetition of the standardized tests really can help. Just a tough sell during the summer months!
Re: textbooks, $200 custom paper packets and the annoying on-line access code for Micro & Macro Econ…so frustrating!
National Society of High School Scholars: It’s a money grab just like the various “who’s who” lists. Stay very, very far away.
New drivers: I just got back home from two weeks away, but my daughter got her license near the beginning of my trip. While I was gone, my wife very much enjoyed the convenience of having someone else run kids around—my wife has a boss who’s quite understanding of needing to take care of family stuff, but her schedule isn’t really flexible enough to make it work easily. Having another driver around, though, does make it work easily.
1 July apps: Kansas opens that day, too, which is one of my daughter’s safeties (but one she quite likes). That day she’ll still be at her summer camp, but she’ll be sending in the (very, very short) application within a week of that date.
Alabama scholarship requirements: This whole discussion makes me more and more glad that my daughter’s qualifying score is via the ACT, not the SAT. (Also, I just looked on the UA discussion forum here on CC—one and a half threads dealing with it there, and nobody there really knows how to read what the policy actually means, either.) My daughter got a 33 on the ACT this past spring, so even if they raise the requirements she should be good, knock on wood.
Summer reading/homework assignments: Neither of my high school kids (well, nor my middle and elementary school kids) have any. This makes me more than happy.
Common app essay prompts: Mine hasn’t decided (and won’t have a chance to properly begin until early next month, anyway), but the early lean is #3 (challenging a belief or idea) or #4 (solving a problem)—she had some interesting moral-quandary experiences last year with one of her ECs that could fit either of those nicely. I will say, they all look like “safe” prompts—nothing that tries to push beyond comfortable stuff, and certainly not Chicago-style. (Best college essay prompt, ever: “Explain Dennis Rodman.”)
Children paying for their education: It’s easy to forget here on CC that the vast majority of students who attend college go to non- or minimally-selective schools, quite often community colleges or the four-year equivalent, and so someone paying for their own college education is actually feasible, particularly if they’re, say, attending half-time while working full-time.
My D’s GC did the same thing. My D’s first choice considers course rigor, especially the senior year, very important. GC says they value how students progress through subject areas, so if you took Pre-calc you should take AP Calc. If you took AP Lang, take AP Lit, if you took three years of an FL take the fourth. Once you start down the high achiever track you need to finish with a very rigorous senior year.
Her senior year looks harder than my first year of college!
@CaucAsianDad –
I agree with your comments about staying the course.
Our school does not offer AP English until 12th grade so students take Lang or Lit. I suppose they could take both in lieu of an elective, but I haven’t heard of any.