<p>If the parents can’t come up with the cash and don’t wish to take a Plus loan…or any other kind of loan…the student will need to look at college options that are affordable for the family and the student.</p>
<p>Most parents have trouble facing the whole issue. It is painful and we are a generation of parents who have tried to give our children everything they wanted. It’s easy when the wants are toys, and other cheapies. Still doable with the designer stuff, and electronics. But college costs are whomping high. It’s a whole different story. And many families don’t have that money because of all of the things they bought like the forementioned for many years when to pay for college, the funds should have been saved.</p>
<p>*If the parents can’t come up with the cash and don’t wish to take a Plus loan…or any other kind of loan…the student will need to look at college options that are affordable for the family and the student. *</p>
<p>I agree. But, the parents should not be taking the attitude that the student can just take out huge loans pay for the costs. That’s not the answer. </p>
<p>I agree with cptofthehouse that many parents can’t come to terms with college costs.</p>
<p>m2ck…ill avoid private loans as much as i can…the interest rates on those are insane</p>
<p>i have a 670 SAT M, 660 CR, 640 W; and a 3.7 UW GPA
yes, i am looking at the university of alabama; you can probably tell that i read that forum a lot :)</p>
<p>cptofthehouse…our family’s quite frugal…we just have a lot of debt and too many “white elephants”</p>
<p>A frugal family with a lot of debt and white elephants? i don’t understand.</p>
<p>haha nevermind…it’s hard to explain</p>
<p>A frugal family with a lot of debt and white elephants?</p>
<p>I think he means that the family has mortgages on investment properties that haven’t been good investments so they live frugally to make the mortgages. Likely that the properties can’t be sold either because values have declined.</p>
<p>Siglio…</p>
<p>Try sitting your parents down and talking to both at the same time. Be patient and calm…upset emotions won’t work.</p>
<p>As you know, you have a 2/3 scholarship from Bama, but you’d have a full-tuition scholarship if you major in Comp Sci or engineering. Are you Comp Sci?</p>
<p>yeah i will be a CS major…well even with the scholarship and a unsub loan, there will be $3k-5k left for them to pay…</p>
<p>with $27k in debt i think i can barely squeeze it out as long as i get a job quickly…i might do that since i think they really can’t pay more than $5k/year (that’s what im guessing) and starting salaries for compsci majors are decent enough</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Oh, I forgot, in addition to full tuition, you also get $2500 per year. </p>
<p>If you go to Bama, then you can work as a university tutor. The pay isn’t high, but you get paid whether the students show up or not. And, you can do homework when no one shows up and still get paid. </p>
<p>Or, maybe you’ll get work-study if you request it when you file your FAFSA (file early, first come, first serve!)</p>
<p>Also realize that if you work a lot in the summer, you can probably save enough to pay for books and some other stuff.</p>
<p>I would think that your parents should be able to commit to somewhere in the $5k-12k range considering their EFC is somewhere in the $70k range.</p>
<p>There are many ways to reduce the non-tuition expenses of college.</p>
<p>For example, if you move off campus as soon as you can you can possibly save several thousand/yr over the cost of living in the dorms and being on a meal plan. If you are willing to eat cheaply the savings are even more. (You will probably be required to live in the dorm your freshman year, maybe sophomore as well.)</p>
<p>You can often save hundreds/year by being smart about your textbooks - buy used, rent, borrow from students who already took the class, use a library copy, etc.</p>
<p>If you are frugal with your personal expenses you can keep that to a minimum as well.</p>
<p>Borrow the max Stafford every year even if you don’t think you will need all of it, and put the extra in the bank. That will give you a cushion for future years, even though it will cost a little extra in interest after you graduate.</p>
<p>So you have to think a little outside the numbers on the college’s web site when budgeting.</p>
<p>$27K is debt should be easy to handle with a CS major.</p>
<p>In our case it was the bill</p>
<p>notrichenough said:</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>One simple way to save a whole bunch of cash that notrichenough didn’t mention: Do NOT bring a car to campus. And if you choose to move off campus in subsequent years, find a place close enough to public transportation, the college, and grocery stores to STAY carless!</p>
<p>
Or get a roommate with a car. It worked for me. :)</p>
<p>^^lol. I’d forgotten that very viable strategy!</p>
<p>*In our case it was the bill *</p>
<p>I don’t know what you meant with this?</p>
<p>Also, keep in mind that schools over-pad COA. </p>
<p>If a student is careful with money and can get their parents to pay for some things (like transportation and such), then a student’s actual COA can be much lower.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Mom2…I think this means that the only thing this family got from the college regarding finances was a BILL to pay!</p>
<p>Oh…LOL…</p>
<p>I see now…he was answering the OP’s thread question. :)</p>
<p>I thought he was responding to the post above his.</p>
<p>I think there are many parents (like us) who put themselves through school and expected that our kids would do the same. No one that we have ever mentioned that to in conversation said “Whoa, you can’t count on that these days!” or similar. In this small town’s school system, financial aid issues were never discussed. We had no idea that college expenses, etc, were going to cause this issue. Yes, I admit, we were clueless. We aren’t stupid people, we simply have been paying attention to work and raising 2 boys that we weren’t paying attention to the developing reality that kids can no longer be fully responsible for college.</p>
<p>In our case we have had 6 years of volatile business income (me), high medical out of pocket ($6,000-$9,000 depending on which year), elderly parent issues, and now my business is pretty much tanked. Only bringing in $250/week with my business, I’m taking full-time night classes that will allow me to enter a high-demand field in March working on my required hours for licensure as I continue with classes. </p>
<p>Because we financially were a slow bleed, we are worth very little not counting out meager 401K. Our EFC was “only” $13,000 so we sent in a Special Circumstances. We received notice that there were 4 categories that would give us another look at our situation, and have just received our new package info. They took away his work study and increased our parent loan expectation to $17,000. WHAT? It was our (the parents’) special circumstance that was considered, am I mistaken? Is this possible? That would be over 20% of our gross income…</p>