Yeah trying to stay awake while waiting for them to fall asleep. Then creeping silently into the room and trying to locate the tooth under the pillow which of course had to be as far back as possible, lol.
@AmyBeth68 you might have a better chance for merit at Temple than PSU which is usually pretty stingy.
I am really rooting for a chance at Chancellor’s especially with your D’s major interests.
Merit aid is more constant as long as the required GPA is kept.
Need based aid well decreases if need decreases. So tax year 2016 is used for freshman year, 2017 is used for sophomore year, those two are known or can be estimated since the year is almost over.
So then what is the expectation for income in 2018 and 2019? Higher, lower, the same?
There are some schools that do this. It’s called front loading. It would be a good idea to google your school with “front loading” and see if there are allegations of such.
Also be aware of tuition increases…just got the letter from DD#1’s school raising tuition is going up nearly $2000 next year (jr) it went up about $1500 last year…so $3500 since matriculation in Fall 2016 and the merit aid does not increase. I am seriously annoyed. Happy Holidays!
Good point about merit aid not keeping up @labegg. Even if your student gets a scholarship as a percentage of tuition it’s important to read the fine print. If tuition is currently $30k and the award is worded as “half tuition” then aid should increase if tuition increases (best to confirm that with the college though), while an award worded as “$15k per year” may represent half tuition now but won’t go up if tuition rises. And fees seem to go up too, even if tuition doesn’t. S’s scholarship is described as “full tuition and all required fees” with no dollar figure quoted, and then a stipend on top of that with a named dollar amount. So he should be insulated from cost increases everywhere but room and board.
Excellent point @labegg my older D’s college tuition has risen significantly and her original merit award is no longer half tuition. However, thankfully they’ve been generous and have thrown some additional scholarships her way recently that made up for the tuition increase. But had they not we would have seen a rather large increase per year from what we originally expected to pay.
@daffodilpetunia I know people say the hit on assets is minimal but it doesn’t feel that way to me.
Since almost none of our assets are in the permitted retirement accounts as a result of living abroad (as teachers not highly paid expats), being too low income, and lacking financially savvy, it’s almost all fair game for that five plus percent hit, which will happen at least twelve times* since we have three kids left to get through college.
Meanwhile the schools I would like to see D apply to because she fits into their midrange almost all use the CSS Profile which takes our home equity into account as well. So then we would be doubly hit for trying to be responsible and paying our mortgage off as soon as possible.
@traveler98 This situation was so depressing that I have had to consciously work on being thankful for having the savings we have–which most people in our nation and the world don’t have–and having the choice to send our kids to college at all.
The really nice thing we did is buy H a new used car to drive to work and take the kids to school. It’s beautiful and not very old. There was a mess up at the car dealers and the car we wanted was sold to someone else, so rather than lose the sale they gave us a newer one for the price of an older. It is really sooooo great to see how happy H is with his new wheels.
And I estimate our EFC will go down a whopping $300.
I’m sorry, that’s a tough situation to be in! However, avoiding saving money for college would not help the situation. It’s a common refrain, people saying there’s no point in saving, it just replaces aid. I don’t think this is generally true. But your situation is different.
@daffodilpetunia You make valid points and as I said it was a conundrum for the upper middles with top achieving kids, but I would never advise folks not to save for college. It was just something that surprised me in this process.
As an experiment I ran my financial numbers on collegedata EFC calculator with my with my actual savings and 529’s and then again with using 10% of the savings and 529s and the EFC reduced by about 31%. In other words reducing my savings money by 90% reduced the EFC about 30%. So no doubt income counts a lot more savings but Savings still makes a significant difference.
Accepted at Barrett Honors College at ASU! :D/
Not unexpected, but it feels good anyway.
Now our eyes are on McGill. The first wave of results for Class of 2017 came out exactly a year ago yesterday. Not that I’m tracking it, of course. ^#(^
Count me in with the gang who saved for college. We could have been driving new cars around every couple of years and taking better vacations; instead, I happily still drive around in my 2001 Honda and we opted for staycations instead of more fancy trips.
So, we have a lot of money saved for college & I’m OK with that because we successfully saved the money while avoiding life’s other calamities over the years.
Same here with the house as well. We diligently paid down the mortgage over the years & now look “filthy rich” by CSS profile standards.
Oh Well. If I could go back, I wouldn’t really change the plan as you never know in advance if your kids will turn out to be great scholars or average students (that go on to be the millionaires according to the article referenced by @Veronica02). We take more of a financial hit having that money saved, but it also gives us more options in helping the kids with their schooling.
Lol Yes it is, @burghdad ! A mentor asked D recently which schools she has applied to. She told her: ASU, McGill, UBC, TrinityU, Grinnell, and USC. Mentor smiled and said, “Those schools have absolutely nothing in common!” ;)) I guess the common thread is that they all have something that D really likes. They also all are good bang-for-the-buck schools (or potentially so) for our situation.
@ShrimpBurrito congrats on Barrett @ ASU! Fingers crossed for McGill! Exciting times, and so great to have acceptances before the holidays. Love hearing all the good news. :D/
DD went on a student for a day tour today at her top choice school and really enjoyed it! Then we got home to a letter from her in-state safety school, which has awarded her a renewable $4,000K merit scholarship. Even though it’s not her top choice, she was still really excited to receive it since it covers about half of a years tuition for all 4 years. It was great to see her so happy because she’s having a tough time waiting to here back on her other applications.