@MotherOfDragons we are fortunate enough to have money put away for our kids to fully pay for any college. My D16 applied wherever she wanted and she got into some great schools OOS but decided on the full ride to UF (due to NM) She was told if she went there, she could use the money for grad school or just save it for her future, down payment on a house etc. I think she chose wisely. D17 is struggling with that now…should she apply ED to her favorite school that costs 65,000 a year or opt for merit schools and have some extra money down the road. She didn’t qualify for NM but she has great scores and I know she can get good merit scholarships. She is struggling with the decision
S asked last night if Rice was a good school. I said “I think I know what you just got.” I guess he might as well apply if the essays aren’t too time consuming.
QOTD: Your question actually puts our college expenses in perspective. The answer is a $500,000 trust fund would not change a thing. That works out $15,625/yr/child. That is pretty much their budget now.
The Rice fee waiver is working. :))
Okay, I change the question for you @Mom2aphysicsgeek… 
… what if you had $2M (a number MoD pulled out of the air) for your kids that was just set up for school, and you didn’t have to worry at all about them graduating with debt (or you living in a cardboard box). Would it affect where your C’s are applying?
Thank you @itsgettingreal17 that sounds like a great idea.
I still have to say that $2million would not change D’s decisions on schools! (It would take a ton of pressure off of us) We have really focused on her and what schools she feels she fits at first, then the programs and the cost.
Well, as of this morning my daughter has now gotten recruitment emails from all of the Ivies. (Harvard had been the holdout. I’d figured they just didn’t send them out—I mean, why would they need to go to the bother, what with their name recognition and all? But apparently they do.)
I have to admit that I’m kind of baffled by this, though. I mean, she’s decently high-stats, but not spectacularly so (ACT 33, 3.92 UW GPA, 2nd in her class of 27)—she’d have a solid shot at making it past the initial filter at at least some of the Ivies, but her ACT places her distinctly middle-of-the-pack at any of them (except maybe Cornell). Are even the Ivies that desperate to keep their admit rates so low?
@dfbdfb she has good stats and she’s from Alaska. 2 good things.
Parents, good to hang in with your students getting a full perspective on things. Also, there are students at HS that want to brag about a particular school they will be going to (which may or may not be true). Good to handle situations with little information given out. Lots of trash talking between now and the end of April. It is your student, your budget, what is best for your student and your family. Don’t need to impress anyone.
@payn4ward LOL! If they had a 2M trust fund, our lives would obviously be very different. The answer would probably be they would apply to many similar schools as to now, but the reach schools dependent on being awarded top scholarships could probably be afforded without them. Some of the schools would probably drop off their lists, and a few others added on. But, some of the schools would stay the same.
@MotherOfDragons While my kids don’t have a trust fund… they do have generous grandparents & parents who did save money years ago. Not quite the same thing as a trust fun. My kids are defiantly privileged, in that we expect to play for most of the college costs. (But there are other places I could spend that $$. Say renovating my kitchen. It badly needs it. Heck I could renovate my whole house for less than college will cost. 
) And while some of the $$ has been saved as a college investment in his name, most of it has not. So cost isn’t quite the issue it is for many kids on the board. But the money isn’t infinite & has strings attached. It’s not a trust fund. Instate UC costs are what is within budget.
This does affect S17’s choice of schools because he can apply a lot more broadly for his GPA considering he isn’t chasing scholarships. Anything to keep costs down would still be helpful, but he isn’t being restricted to only the cheapest schools or ones that he could get money. But hey isn’t currently looking at any private colleges in the $60K range. We are talking cost, S17 is very aware and it does affect his choices. I’m pushing one last school and the argument that will probably get him interested is it is WUE and therefore is a lot less expensive. Two schools on his list are very expensive out of state schools (UofO & UC Boulder) though, and those costs do make me cringe. I do want to encourage him to apply and if either of these become the best option we will find a way.
**If I had $500,000. I don’t think this would affect D’s list much. She might add back one reach school – Northeastern. They have an interesting deal where students with a bit lower stats can get in if they agree to do a semester abroad in the fall and then start school in the spring. I don’t know if she’d want to do that, but it would be nice to have as a choice. We would also have made visits to all the schools she’s really interested in and would go back in the spring to any she was trying to decide between. We’d still look for merit, but it wouldn’t be a worry. Same deal for S18 of course. For oldest D, we’d probably pay off her (reasonable) loans which she’s had to take out because she’s gone over the four years we agreed to pay for. Sadly I don’t think $500,000 will fall from the sky or be wired to us by a Nigerian prince.
My sister has set up a 529 fund for her grandkids, which I think is great. She’s let all the relatives know that the three kids have a houseful of too many toys and that if anyone wishes they may want to contribute to the fund for birthday gifts instead. This is a family that can really use it too – they live paycheck to paycheck right now. I will definitely put money in the college fund in lieu of birthday gifts.
Anyone knowledgeable about the Houston area: Is the weather at Rice appreciably different than The Woodlands or is it about the same?
If we had a couple million for college: Yeah, it’d influence my daughter’s college search a bit—Wellesley would still be on the list, for starters. (She gets to apply to one and precisely one non-merit-aid school “for fun”, and it came down to Wellesley or the one she picked, Colgate.) A couple of her safeties probably wouldn’t be, since they’re not the greatest fits but are on the list for money reasons. (Sorry, Alabama!) Some WUE-region-but-not-participating schools (e.g., Washington) might still be on, though that’s not a certainty—it’s quite likely, though, that there’d be at least a couple more expensive LACs (some set from, e.g., Lafayette, Bucknell, Barnard,…).
Most of the list would probably be the same, though.
(And @RightCoaster, you’re right—I’d forgotten about the Alaska hook. Gotta be able to boast about students from all 50 states plus DC and Puerto Rico in the incoming class!)
D is already applying to 5 UK schools at which no aid will be available. Luckily they are not quite as expensive as US private schools (about 40K/year all in) Those are her first choice and more money wouldn’t change it.
No Rice fees waiver for us. Only fees waiver we got was for Case Western. You all know how much we saved by that :)) Not sure how colleges dole out these. DS is high stats, perfect GPA kid.
@youcee … I don’t live there but have been there quite a bit. Woodlands seemed a bit less humid and dank as downtown Houston.
I once (naively) posted about how much I hated Houston weather and wouldn’t want to live there and got a kind of scathing response from lots of people who live there and love it! (so I don’t do that anymore lol!)
$2M? as in $2,000,000? A two followed by six zeros?
Is it an option to disown both kids and just keep the money? They would get a fine education at our local CC, and I could get that condo in Boca! ;))
I*
@carachel2 More humid than The Woodlands? Yikes. Thanks