I understand I took the reins on college search due to my employer benefit. But it always shocks me how out of touch he is. Ive given him so many links to web pages. He isnt a stupid man (has his mba and runs a company). I told him the COA numbers of her top choice to instate public. And he says she needs to consider “other options.” What options other than living at home? How is it fair to allow her brother to move away and experience college life but force her to live at home and commute (as thats the only cheaper option at this point)? The double standard baffles me yet its always been this way. Stereotypical narcissist father and his golden child son. (This is the dad who didnt talk to his oldest son for over 5 years because the kid didnt live up to his standard. When he finally divorced evil wife #2, dad started to try to repair relationship with oldest son). My daughter will openly tell people she doesn’t remember having a relationship with her dad until she was 12 (again, evil stepmom interference really bad.)
Senior night tonight for D25’s main sport. 4 year varsity starter. Sad this era is coming to an end, but she had one of her best games ever tonight so it was fun to watch.
My kid is flip flopping all over the place. One day to the next can mean drastic differences in which schools are in their top 2-3. No way are we withdrawing most of the acceptances right now. My kid didn’t apply ED, so no moral/ethical reason to withdraw anything. They earned every acceptance/scholarship they’ve received and deserve to sit with their options until May 1.
We did withdraw 2 absolute NO’s that in hindsight we shouldn’t have wasted time applying to, but I’m not having them withdraw any more until late April.
This is such a brutal process in ordinary times. I’m sorry for your and your D’s added personal stress on top of the not at all ordinary times we’re currently experiencing.
How frustrating and it sounds maddening! Kids and these basically kids verging on adults are at a time of really noticing what feels fair especially with their first venture out into the world.
Yes, that’s a little like I’m feeling. My kid is at six left, with three of those on deferral or pending. I’m not completely thinking applications were wasted, some were good. We missed a few though that I now think may have really got interest at this stage and nearly six months later think may have been a good fit.
A lot changes first semester of senior year with growing, interests, seeing the senior year wind down and the kid is now starting to see that it really is a leap. It’s hard to prepare for that back when you still have a whole high school year ahead! Just the length of the whole process mine didn’t want to pursue any RD applications. It’s really making us think what is now the best fit.
Snort. Toppers were… fine. They were stickers that you had to put on either side of a plastic pick. I discovered (1) I had to make the picks upside down so the narrow point was in the stickers and the wider part went into the cupcake because the wider part was so thick that the stickers looked like there was a big stupid lump in them if I did it the way intended; and (2) I 100% do not have the steadiness of hand or depth perception or whatever needed to line two stickers up. EVERY SINGLE ONE was lined up wrong so that there were parts of white sticker backs showing somewhere on an edge.
But whatevs, the cupcakes tasted great, and likely only OCD me and my mom (yes, she commented) noticed that I can’t stick stickers together.
I am so sorry. I have also foregone much higher salaries to work my heart out for the Federal Government. I am now very much regretting that decision. And it is so affecting my kids and what school we can afford. And unfortunately- looking at our financial situation when considering scholarships lags by over a year.
I’m sorry for you and all the other federal employees who are dealing with the current situation. If you’re referring to financial aid, however, many colleges will allow you to appeal a decision if there has been a significant change in the family’s financial situation that is not reflected in the prior year’s return. (Not sure if appeal is the right word, but it’s something like the school taking a look at the latest info.)
Very sorry to read this. Such a hard time right now for fed employees. I’m a state employee–prof at a state flagship university–and we are wondering how we will fare. Hang in there!
Does anyone have any thoughts on public vs private colleges for the next 4 years? Not the super wealthy privates but the mid range no immediate fears of shutting down one’s? D has the affordable offer from Susq and waiting on UD and West Chester. If they are all similar prices I would still be worried about the cuts in the gov and how it’ll affect these schools.
Without getting into politics, most public schools are funded primarily through state governments outside of student loans and certain grants. I have faith that student loans are not going anywhere and if they did it would equally impact both private and public schools. I would personally not let it impact my decision.
Some of this will depend on whether the school in question is in a red or blue state. Some red states are using the current climate as a chance to severely cut finding to their state higher ed, largely on ideological lines, cutting specific programs and budgets for humanities/arts/social areas.
My take is that as long as the publics you’re looking at are in states with governments that aren’t overtly unfriendly to higher education, publics and privates will likely be affected by all the turmoil around education pretty much equally.
asking you specifically because you have some expertise here:
Which do you think is a safer bet financially, an average state flagship (not UMich level) or a smaller private school that has a financial grade in the C+ range?
What about full tuition merit from a mid-tier private (value ~$60k) vs. full tuition merit from a flagship (value ~$20k)?
Forbes’s financial grades (and similar A–F metrics) are, as far as I can tell, universally badly figured. A D+ institution may be in no danger of failure, while a B institution may be teetering. I’d look at their form 990s instead, though that is resource/time-intensive.
And as far as scholarships go, the most important thing isn’t the size of the scholarship, but what the resulting net price is.
The reason I included the size of the scholarship is because of the possible change to make tuition scholarships taxable.
Would you please explain exactly what an unsavvy parent should look for on a form 990? Yes, I truly am that clueless and need it explained like I’m a kindergartener. Is a form 990 public information?
990s are public information and exist for nearly all nonprofit colleges, though a few religious colleges (most notably, perhaps, the BYUs) refuse to file them on religious grounds (and that refusal has never been tested in the courts).
You need, at the most basic, to look at inflows and outflows. They’re required to list the amount of money coming in and the amount of money going out, and the list of assets gives an indirect window into the strength of their endowment. (Though it gives no clue how much of their endowments are unrestricted—I’ve been unable to find that anywhere, unfortunately.) I will say that the one thing to be careful of is a false positive—very occasionally a college will have a large net-negative year, but that’s because expenses (maybe paying off a bond) were lumped together. If the preceding couple years were decently net-positive, I wouldn’t worry about a single negative year.
