I doubt the second home is more than a small efficiency apartment for the husband to stay during the week.
Brings up a good point, all non profit schools should have a 2 or 3 tier system, with internationals paying more. In one form or another even the residents of Georgia support UIUC. For example, UIUC does not pay federal taxes as a corporation the way ITT Technical Institute does (don’t get me started on the real estate taxes it does NOT pay). So the residents of Georgia do support UI. Not as much as the local residents, but more than the residents of the Ukraine.
Yes but I do not see Direct loans as any great savings when home equity loans are offered at 3% and the 10 year treasrury is less than that. Those others are beneficial but are not available to OP
Real estate taxes are not federal so the only ones not benefiting from real estate taxes are state residents and they are getting a break on their tuition…
My BIL’s second home is not an efficiency apartment, it’s a 3 bedroom townhouse that they live in a good deal of the time. BIL uses his house as his primary residence, is registered to vote from there, has his car registered there, DL addresses there, considers it his home. Sister has her house, which she and kids consider their primary home. For many years they weren’t married and each took one kid as a dependent, so each filed HOH. Worked fine for tax purposes, but they decided to get married and, for their unique situation, they are penalized on FAFSA. They accept it.
If the OP and her husband rent an efficiency apartment, it is not an asset that needs to be reported as an asset. They are in a small percentage of people who have two homes and FAFSA is written and computed for the masses. Most people don’t need to own two homes.
@jhsiao , your son didn’t look up all of the costs to attend UIUC, otherwise, neither you, nor he would be surprised by the costs and fees.
Your son didn’t understand that it was a public college, funded by the residents of Illinois, and that the university cannot offer to pay for his education. Federal funding of the state public colleges is very minimal. They don’t run the state colleges. You also need to realize that large scholarship money comes from the universities, not anywhere else.
If you had lived in Illinois for his high school years, and paid their state taxes you may have qualified for instate rates.
So, your son’s options are:
To attend another school that he can afford like a school in your state,
Wait for one full year (GAP year), and retake his SAT, then apply to colleges next year, that will accept his stats for “MERIT” aid and work to earn money.
Go to community college for two years and then transfer, but Transfer student don’t get much, if any, scholarships.
In California, we have thousands of students who apply, to our public universities, from other states, but they don’t understand that there is no funding for students from other states. Only the very rich students can afford to go OOS if there are no merit scholarships offered by the schools.
Don’t go into massive debt for another state’s college when you have a second child who will also want his or her own education.
As everyone is saying, each state’s public colleges are primarily for residents of those particular states. They try first to support their own residents with aid- and even then, often can’t give each student enough.
OP, senior who hasn’t accepted admission yet? Please reconsider this. As stated, Out of State public is expensive. The money comes from state taxes. Generous financial aid for higher incomes is only private schools, and still doesn’t mean you can afford what the school says you can afford.
This is a good chance to discuss opportunity costs and economics with your son.
The family wanted GT (instate) but there was some mix-up in sending/receiving some info to GT, so he was rejected.
The family seems to be looking for somewhere for the son to go for 1-2 years, and then transfer to GT.
If that’s the case, apply NOW to UAH. He’d likely get a large merit award, excellent eng’g, and then he could transfer to GT and use his HOPE scholarship.
I can tell you this…I lived near UAH for about 10 years. It’s a high tech town. Many who live there are GT grads. When their kids graduated from HS, many sent their kids to GT…for ONE year. They soon realized that their kids could get an excellent eng’g education at UAH for a fraction of the cost…so their kids transferred back to the hometown school.
Mistakes were made but several parties in assembling your son’s college list. One of those parties was your kid’s guidance counselor. Same mistake has been made by some of the rookie guidance counselors in our part of New York. At least you have a in-state safety to fall back on.
@mom2collegekids, He has an acceptance to a GA college; he just doesn’t like it as much as GT. I don’t know if he applied to more than the 3 schools (UIUC, GT, & UGA). If not, an acceptance to UAH would give him a choice, so I think applying is a great idea.
Have you asked the financial aid office of the college?
If tuition is $50K, I would assume that cost of attendance is going to be in the $70K range. With a $90K income and no savings, it’s not unreasonable to think that some financial aid would be offered. If you don’t understand the calculations for a particular school, there’s no reason why you shouldn’t call and ask. In my experience, financial aid officers have been really helpful in answering questions, providing explanations, etc. whenever I’ve contacted them. There may even be some misunderstanding or missing documents that you weren’t aware of. Worth a call, IMO, though I would recommend not taking an accusatory or entitled tone.
@ScreenName48105 - This is a Georgia resident who applied to a public university in Illinois. There is absolutely no reason for them to expect state aid. Federal aid, yes. State aid, no. Most state universities do not offer financial assistance to out-of-state students.
@dodgersmom, my point was that if the OP has questions about a specific school’s FA package, they can easily call the FA office and ask and, frankly, they will most likely be treated with more patience and kindness than this OP is being treated here. It’s not a question about what “most” state school do or even whether the OP has reasonable expectations. For Pete’s sake, many of you are acting like he/she’s committing a crime just by asking.