I think I’ve just about about got our youngest D into college and the process won’t be complete until we get her out. However, it made me realize just how complicated the process is when determining what college will cost. Here are just a few of the things I would say to a first time college parent.
Everyone's situation is different. You can't compare costs.
Three things will determine what you pay for the school
A. Cost of Attendance
B. Your family income
C. How well you child does in HS
Then it gets complicated
Save, the more you make the more you save. You'll need it. The more you make the higher the cost will be until you are paying full price. After that it doesn't matter. ... Unless you get scholarships.
Pick a safety and make sure your student likes it. (Explain what a safety is).
Check NPC for the schools you are interested in but understand that if you are self employed or own rental property (or have a lot of other assets it may not be accurate.
Explain the FAFSA and the CSS Profile.
Explain EFC
Talk about Scholarships and financial aid
Talk about public, OOS public and private schools
Talk about selectivity and ...chances for acceptance, scholarships, need based aid etc.
Talk about COA. EFC and Need and how they are related.
Talk about when to apply
Talk about understanding the time line ie. acceptance, scholarships, competitive scholarships and financial aid.
Running out of time feel free to correct me or add to the list.
Explain “self help”. Even the most generous, need only schools expect your kid to work summers and if eligible for Federal Work Study, during the school year. This is not a bad thing- this is a good thing.
Explain the difference between schools which use modest amounts of merit aid to give kids and parents bragging rights: “They wanted Joey so much they gave him a merit scholarship!” (5K discount off of a 60K price tag- so the only kids who are benefiting are likely upper middle class and very wealthy kids since the others can’t afford it) vs. the schools which can give big merit awards and make the school actually affordable to kids in the “donut hole”.
Explain how to use a loan calculator/pay off chart (I find that nobody understands what these numbers mean). Show that if the loan will require an $850/month payment for 10 years, and your kid wants to major in early childhood education (and will make- what- $28K as a nursery school teacher working in a private school in a big, expensive city) that your kid will be 32 years old before he or she can afford an apartment, a car, or a vacation.
There is no such thing as a free lunch or a free ride. Parents need to educate themselves and their kids on the tax implications attached to the “free ride” and plan accordingly
It isn't about how much you think you can comfortably pay; it's about what they think you can.
And to revise your point B) Your family income and assets.
D) Whether or not the school has money to give, in the first place. And if they are willing to give it to you (eg, recent discussions about crappy or no aid for OOS publics.)
@blossom - Can you point me to a resource?
“Explain how to use a loan calculator/pay off chart (I find that nobody understands what these numbers mean). Show that if the loan will require an $850/month payment for 10 years, and your kid wants to major in early childhood education (and will make- what- $28K as a nursery school teacher working in a private school in a big, expensive city) that your kid will be 32 years old before he or she can afford an apartment, a car, or a vacation.”
I am having a hard time explaining this to others. 850 a month backs into how much in debt?
If the parents are divorced, then most colleges with good need-based financial aid will use both parents’ (and new spouses’, if any) incomes and assets to determine financial aid.
In another thread, Chicago, Albright, and sometimes Vanderbilt were the only private colleges mentioned with good need-based financial aid that do not require the non-custodial parent information. Some (not all) public universities qualify, but only for their in-state resident students (note that many public universities have poor financial aid even for their in-state resident students, and some public universities do use both parents’ incomes and assets).
If you know a school is unaffordable, don’t waste the money you’d have to spend to visit it. There’s no special secret fund that the financial aid staff can use to cover the gap for students they “really want” no matter how much you want to think it exists.
Ivies don’t give merit aid. And they won’t match another college’s merit award by creating a special “need-based” award (wink, wink) for your kid. The majority of the time, they aren’t competing for a particular student.
If you won’t pay, do NOT let your kid apply with the secret hope that the school will do your dirty work and reject them. It rarely ends well. Tell your children up front what you can afford to pay and outline any conditions you have before apps go out. If you won’t let your kid attend, don’t let them apply.
Understand the fine print of awarded scholarships, is it renewable or one time, what are the requirements to maintain the scholarships (GPA, number of credits per semester) what can the scholarships be used for. Know the difference between a “tuition waiver” and cash scholarship and as @sybbie719 said know the tax implications of scholarship money.
If your parents are divorced, the FAFSA is completed with data from one parent BUT the CSS Profile typically requires data from BOTH parents AND any current spouses. Don’t procrastinate in dealing with because if you have an uncooperative non-custodial parent, the process is going to take that much longer. Understand, also, that most schools have a waiver process available that you can request.
Don’t believe the gossip. The nephew of the brother-in-law that your neighbor claims got a “full-ride scholarship”? Maybe… but probably not. (See the advice about understanding the difference between merit scholarships and financial aid.)
I would add: Talk to your kiddo about money and what you can reasonably afford per year and, as others have noted, “loans are not free money.” Try at all costs to avoid student debt, especially for majors with not-so-great immediate employment prospects.
Having reached spring of freshman year, I’m finding timing of the bill is an issue. We have a prepaid trust account and for me, there was a definite learning curve in requesting college bill payment from the account to pay the school .A lot of it has to do with communication between my child and myself as well as the account and the college. Fall payment was easy. Spring payment required some movement of monies to cover the prepaid trust amount temporarily.
I definitely second the cost of transportation. While we can cover it, distance did affect the number of times my child could come home. I’m not so sure she minded the way things turned out, but I did.
Find out about non-work study job opportunities on campus if you know you don’t qualify for financial aid.
Also when researching costs of a college, look at tuition for the particular major/program. Net price calculators usually give basic tuition numbers. Engineering or nursing or business school tuition can vary widely from Arts and Sciences.