i would have her apply Miami, Clemson and TCNJ. I can pretty well tell you not to expect aid from Miami or Clemson.
That would leave TCNJ where she could customize a biz/bio degree. Your DD obviously will need to compromise.
But i can tell you there is NO stigma with TCNJ if anything it is just an underated school that will leave more dollars for possible grad school. Also you say she likes the new england style school but you’ve mostly speaking about large schools? Of those mentioned TCNJ is the closest to a new england style small school.
Miami (oh) would be affordable if she can get that score up a bit. I believe the best merit, which puts you in the ballpark, is at 32/1400 (half to full tuition)
30-31/ 1330-1390 gets 7-15 per year.
Tuition/fee/room/board is $41.5
Minus $26k you’ll pay
About $15k to cover! So get that test score up and this works for her. Great school.
[Fixes OP with a forbidding stare] And we now know we shouldn’t be talking that way about Rutgers, or any other school, right, OP? Not a good way to encourage your D to see the value in the place.
You might want to soften your stance on loans slightly to allow for federal student loans, which will be around $6-7k a year. Your D’s would finish with total debt of around $30k. A good rule of thumb is to take out no more than one year’s worth of salary of debt. It also means that your D’s would have skin in the game. Some parents will pay off the loans in a lump sum as a graduation present.
There’s also the option of working during the school year and the summer. All told, work and federal loans could give your D another $10k a year towards college costs.
Your D’s, like my D’s, are incredibly fortunate in that they have a very strong familial safety net. They will not be one medical emergency or car accident away from disaster, because there will be financial resources available. They can get help with the expenses of starting out in life. They get the benefit of advice and a lot of networking about workplace issues. My older D, a new grad, can push money into her retirement fund because she doesn’t need to be as concerned with rapidly building up an emergency fund. She’s benefitted from our credit rating. Etc., etc, etc. She finished with no loans, but if she had them and ran into difficulties, we could help. A student from a poorer family does not have that backup, and is therefore that much closer to financial disaster. They’re unlikely to be able to qualify for larger loans anyway, since outside of the federal limits those private loans must be cosigned, generally by parents. Poorer parents cannot qualify for those loans.
So no, children of poorer families should not have larger loans. Bad idea for them, bad idea for us, the taxpayers, who will end up on the hook if those young people end up being forced into bankruptcy and nonpayment of loans.
Oh, and by the way:
ALL houses need work. No sympathy, OP. 
OP Perhaps you just wanted to rant for a bit. OK, great. Done.
If $26,000 is the max that you think her college education is worth to you, then fine – that’s completely your prerogative. But no more complaining about it – remember, that’s the value that YOU placed on this service/commodity. So now go and find schools that she can get into that meets your price tag.
One other thing…in your original post, you made it sound like it was her frustration. In a much later post, you admitted that it was your own frustration. Before dealing with her frustration regarding the financial situation, you probably need to first come to terms with your own (that you have filet mignon cravings, but are only willing to pay for chuck). Recognize it, admit it, then move on. So what if folks on welfare are buying filet mignon in the checkout line? That’s not your reality. Get over it.
What’s her unweighted gpa? Which APs did she take? What score did she get on the AP tests? Did she take any subject tests? What scores did she get on those?
With a weighted gpa of 3.92, 4 APs, CR+M score of ~1200, SAT 1900, ACT 27, you don’t need to worry about not getting merit aid at Ivies and top brand name schools, because her stats (rigor, gpa, and test scores) probably aren’t in the ballpark anyway (unless she’s a URM). It doesn’t sound like she has any other “hook” (recruited athlete, overcame poverty or serious hardship) or “starry” quality at the national level to get her to the gate either. So she’s most likely looking at top 50 - top 100 colleges – NOT name brand/top 20 schools anyway. So that pretty much solves your dilemma about feeling angst over not being able to afford an Ivy-like school.
Now it’s time to get practical. If your daughter is a senior, she doesn’t have much time before app deadlines hit. It’s time to get down to business and come up with a list of schools that she can reasonably get into and pay for. Come up with a reasonable list of safety, match, and reach schools based on both her stats and affordability.
he mentions miami U not miami oh.
Doing “everything right” is rather subjective. In my book, if you are making 250K+ and you can’t afford college then you are doing something wrong. I mean, I can’t talk. We can only comfortably afford to pay 15K a year for our kids, but then, we live on a 3rd of your income in another one of the most expensive counties in the nation. I’m thinking we must do more “right” with our income than you do lol.
All ribbing aside, I think you’d get a better response to just say you don’t WANT to spend more than 26K and that is TOTALLY OK. 26K is a lot of money and it’s a kindness to your daughter to offer even that.
You’ve already said your D is not Ivy league material. Well, those poor kids in name brand schools ARE and that is why they are getting the money to attend those schools! Top tier schools want them and for good reason. They NEED them if they want any breadth of discussion and learning to happen in their classrooms. The reality is, they don’t want your kid as much. They don’t need her because they’ll have higher stats kids with parents who made college more a financial priority. It hurts but it’s just the truth.
Your D is likely not to get what she wants this time around. It’ll be a good life lesson for her that poor kids have been living for 18 years.
@SlitheyTove - not sure I agree with the loan part… that 30k could buy a new car… a good headstart for her…
Again I have nothing against poorer families needing assistance (except for illegals)…but we have to remember we are giving them public money (yours and mine) and an opportunity, not the same opportunity. Our job isn’t to completely level the playing field… it’s to give an opportunity… and if the student is ready and willing, they will seize that opportunity…
No, Miami OH is correct
My D was a very good student in high school, challenged herself with Honors and AP classes. Was busy with a few EC she really enjoyed.
Her first PSAT which the school said was “practice test for SAT” she took in 10th grade. Got a 186.
Junior year she took it again and got a 195. First SAT after a prep class she got 2060, after more prep she ended up with a 2200+
So have your D prep and take SAT one more time.
OP - I hear your aggrevation (although I am not sure I am on board with your whining about low income families getting $…) We are in an very similar position. We will likely get very little in merit $$$ for our bright, well rounded D16 to attend college. She is not Ivy material for sure. We have saved enough money to send her and her sister to their school of choice (max $70K per year). But we have always told them your job is to get the grades and scores to merit that cash outlay. Her good but not great grades and scores limit her options both from an admit level and a parental spending level. Basically if you wanted to attend that brand name school you have to earn it, and well…you didn’t…
You are the parent, if you are asking for permission to tell your kid, who likely has gotten whatever they wanted in life with little trouble or effort, that you are only willing to pay $26K for college per year, it is your money and your prerogative to spend it how you chose. Is it a bit unfair that you have saved and jumped through all the hoops to be moderately successful in life and you are going to have to pay more to educate your kid, yeah but I am sure your parents told you…life ain’t fair. Sure you are stuck in the middle and yes you are getting squeezed, but it is not like you didn’t know that it coming for the past 18 years.
You need to sit down with your kiddo and find out the reason that she wants that name brand school, more than likely it’s simply for the prestige. Let’s face it who doesn’t want to say that “I was accepted at Princeton” or “My kid got into Yale” but that is no reason to attend a school that will, in the end not do all that much more in the job market. Yeah those kids that go to the Ivies get great jobs and maybe a few more doors are open to them but like you said it’s the merit of the person and their accomplishments that wins the invitation to step over the threshold. I read somewhere on CC that upwards of 50% of students at an Ivy are from a private HS background. Their job prospects are not so much related to attending an Ivy but more the result of whom they are related to and who is in their circle of friends long before they got to the Ivy.
My engineer husband works for a major corporation and some years ago he had the opportunity to read resumes and select who to interview to hire. Well, he was actually given a list of preferred universities and told if the candidate did not come from one of the schools on the list there needed to be something really outstanding to warrant an interview. BTW, my husband’s alma mater (CWRU) was not on the list…and he was hired, go figure. Anyway, most of the schools on the list were not Ivies. Most were large state flagships. In my own experience looking for a job in the legal field in the late 80’s early 90’s, My undergraduate degree was in International Studies: USSR & Eastern Europe with a post graduate certificate in paralegal studies, I can’t tell you how many interviews began with “you have to tell us about why you majored in soviet studies that is so interesting.” The unusual degree opened the door, I earned the job offer, not the school I attended.
If you have taught your daughters anything, they will know the value of a dollar and she ought to be able to appreciate how to best spend her/your college money. Have her consider…she is likely to attend graduate school, if she wants to spend the $$$ to go to a brand name university, save it for grad school.
I would say you are being a bit cheap by only offering $26K that is really limiting. Most of your “second tier” school are going to run around $40K. Also if you have such confidence that she will be a future CEO, why not offer to loan her the $$$ over the minimum amount you are willing to pay. Have her sign a loan contract with you. She can pay you back by the time you are ready for retirement. It should be a good investment.
@stones3 Miami U actually is Miami in Oxford, OH. U of Miami is in FL. That is why ppl often qualify as Miami of OH.
What classes and extracurriculars does she have in summer that prevent her from earning $2k-$4k for college (or for her Roth IRA)? What does she do all summer?
This last summer she traveled to Germany as a (sort of) exchange student. Prior to that she had that exchange student to our home. She babysat a lot. But again, it wasn’t a matter of $$, it was a matter of ROI.
@labegg on that same note - comparing $26k to $40k ($14k per year difference)… the simple math tells us we save $56k … thats a great deal of money for most people… what would be the ROI?
i have to say when it comes to ivys and higher tier privates i find nothing wrong in calling for a meritocrocity.
i don’t mind if a student doesnt have the scores and grades and is declined but its when the standards arent the
same across the board for all . Be it ethnicity, atheletics, legacies etc. Too many students of high quality not treated the same. That is NOT equality. Heck make money avaible to those who need but i think it is 100% wrong to base admissions standards differently for different kids. And that happens all the time.
Yes, this IS equality to consider such things as ethnicity, athletics, legacies, etc.
Legacies pay $$ and offer the campus “connections” that are so prized by the other students; this is one of the attractions of such schools - meeting and interacting with connected people.
Athletes make the teams competitive. Take away athletics, and watch the alumni clubs and donations and overall school spirit dry up somewhat.
Ethnicity brings diversity to the campus. Do you want your kid to go to a college where everyone is the same? What is to be learned from that? The best colleges offer a diverse environment so your kid will be confronted with people, ideas, situations that they have never faced in their own little corner of the world. This is a good thing. With limited spots, and an overwhelming majority of applicants presenting with a background of homogenous privilege, a college needs to try to manufacture this diversity.
True. So that’s an option for her to consider once she has acceptances and any merit aid offers in hand: pay more now, or go for the less expensive option and save the money for a car/travel/grad school/professional school/support while pursuing a low paying internship/etc.
I read a suggestion in last week’s WSJ to take your kid to see two apartments, with a difference in rent payment equal to what their loan payment would be so they can see in physical terms what that money difference will mean to their lifestyle.
At private schools, the money isn’t public–it’s institutional aid, coming from the schools themselves, by way of donations and endowment. You could quibble that there is a “public” component because of the tax writeoffs for the donations, but it’s not direct-to-the-student federal aid…and of course it’s those same kinds of funds that would give your D merit aid. Yes, there are Pell grants and Federal loans where no interest accrues during school for the poorest kids, but at private four-year schools those amounts are far outweighed by institutional aid.
A 27/28 with a 3.92 weighted gpa isn’t going to blow any top college away, but a big thing you have going for you is that you have the means to cast a wide net and spend the (relatively) small amount of money sending off these scores/grades/application fees to a LOT of colleges to see what rolls in.
You can sit at the blackjack table a lot longer than many people. Sometimes, it is very surprising to see what hits and what misses. This can be a very unpredictable process, particularly when the grades and scores are kind of vanilla, but the EC’s are great…if you target the right colleges and cast a very wide net.
My D was too busy until senior year to work, but started a parttime job in March of this year (tennis was in first semester), and made $2,000 by August.
I prefer a meritocricy. Find smart athletes, plenty of kids out there that want to play and have the grades. Having a
few fewer neanderthals won’t hurt and will probably improve campus life for most. Certainly less discipline problems.
I dont wan to get irid of sports , i love sports .
Are you saying a school can’t be diverse if it holds it standards high for all? I disagree, you can certainly be diverse
but it is out right 100% wrong to base one childs admission ahead of another due to something like ethnicity. Take the
student with the higher scores. Plenty of diverse smart kids out there. You want to provide aid to some and not to others fine, but admissions should be 100% blind and we all know that currently its not. Serioulsy it it the middle class kid that needs loans and whole family has to kick in to pay tuition fault that he/she isn’t ethnic too? Take the best highest scoring students period. I love alumni, they should support their schools assuming they had a good experience while attending, why do they need to determine admittance standards in order to be almuni . Dont see how that is mutually exclusive.
Lastly, i want my child around like minded driven students who are in attendance due to 100% merit. I don’t care if they are rainbow, rich, poor, parapalegic , blind , deaf etc. Buy i want them to be equally driven, competitve, curious, thirsty.
@wppdf2 So what advice are you looking for at this point…schools that are good that cost less than $26K or justification for only spend $26K? Apparently your ROI = your daughter’s “happiness” and not having a guilty conscience because you were too worried about the ROI to recognize that you are being cheap.