I want to go to Skidmore College which is nearly $70,000 a year, and also ranks as one of the best schools for financial aid by the Princeton Review. My parents make about $200,000 a year (which doesn’t go that far in New York) and I have a sister attending a college that costs about $45,000 a year. I also think they have quite a bit of money saved up for retirement, but I don’t know how much. They can’t really afford to pay $70,000 a year, though.
Did you run the Net Price Calculator from the Skidmore website? That is your first step. You should run the NPC for all the colleges you are interested in.
Put the numbers in and see what pops out. The Net Price Calculator, available for (I believe) every school, will estimate what it will cost. Only you and your parents can decide if the number it gives you is feasible. https://skidmore.studentaidcalculator.com/survey.aspx
Is that $200,000 a year income before or after taxes? Does it include any contributions to pretax IRA or TSA accounts…all of this for year 2016?
Are your parents self employed? Do they own any real estate in addition to your primary residence?
There are two relevant numbers here- one is what the NPC spits out from Skidmore (and I suggest you fill out the form with your parents so you are using real numbers, not guesses). The second number is one from your parents- what they can actually afford to pay, how much is coming from savings, from current income, from loans (if any).
Then you and your parents have a discussion. But just finding out how much financial aid you might get from a school without knowing your parents ACTUAL- “we have 20K per year saved for you” number doesn’t tell you much.