Should a parent cosign for a private student loan?

cptofthehouse
Fri, 22 Jun 2012 10:32:30 +0000

Lerkin, it can really depend on the schools that you research. I know some young men with your son’s stats who got $30K awards or half or more tuition awards at private schools like Fairleigh Dickinson, Iona, Widener,etc. Now that still left more than $25K to pay out of pocket, which is close to what many state school if your kid goes away, will cost. However, those schools might be a better environment for your son. I have had two (one still there) at good state schools, and the bureacracy and the fact that there are simply so many kids there, make it so that the kids do have to be proactive about a lot of things that might be better covered at a smaller private. My son who did go to a small LAC had classes and get togethers at professors’ homes, and if a kid did not show up to class for a couple of days, he is liable to get a knock on the door from someone at the school going above and beyond in terms of finding out what is happening. Everyone knows everyone else’s business is what my state school son said upon visiting his brother, and he was just amazed at how insular and non private things were there. He was used to a school where you did not know the vast majority of the students, staff, etc.

My dear friend had 3 in college at the same time, and for her it came down to about a wash between going to state schools and paying full sticker or going to privates and getting some money, either through financial aid or scholarship, and that’s what a lot of familiies find.

I can tell you that my one son had below average test scores and slightly above average grades, and did get some “discounts” from some smaller Catholic schools where “a good man is hard to find”. He could have commuted tuition free at a local private option. The state school did not offer him a dime, and his brother who had nearly perfect SATs, was offere a mere $2500 in merit money from that same state U, so it wasn’t as though the lack lustre test scores cost him a whole lot in that venue.

Look for schools that do have good support systems. By the way, Fairleigh Dickinson, I believe is such a school, as Indiana U of Pennsylvania, from what I have gotten from parents whose kids were in
the same sort of situation as yours. Honestly, I think you will have a wide range of options for about the same cost as your state school, and it will be a matter of what school will best fit your kid’s social needs and still have the academic courses for his interest.