Holy. Crap.

[PrincessFiona]

Parents of tweens/teens huddle here.

Have you looked at the cost of college?

Andrew is 16 and we are starting to point ourselves in that direction. Lets just say that our savings will apparently get him through 1/2 of his freshman year!!!!!!

Holy crap.

And now I'm going to go join the Tea Party, if you'll excuse me. Apparently, my left butt cheek isn't enough, because not only do we pay taxes like nobody's business, we aren't going to qualify for financial aid much beyond what Andrew can earn in scholarships. That kid better make school his LIFE from now on. A-'s just won't cut it. Our neighbor, whose mom is an OB/Gyn has a high school senior. She got an above 30 ACT and has an A- average and was offered 10,000 in scholarships at Gustavus Adolphus. Cost of tuition/room and board for a year there? 45,000!!!!

WTF?

So I started going down the list here. Macalester that Andrew has been looking at for its science program?

Are you sitting? $51,417

For a YEAR.

You can't convince me that any bachelor's degree today is worth $200,000. No way.

I am floored.

There is no way that we can pay this. Now way.

Local schools? St Johns University is ~41,500 (and they require students to live on campus for the first year) and St. Cloud State? $14,790.

St. Cloud State is about the only option here ... and frankly, the school isn't that good. I worked there, remember? It is a huge party school and they have enormous problems with drug and alcohol abuse and academic quality. You get what you pay for?

Andrew told me that there is no way that he is "working this hard to just go to St. Cloud State."

I wonder where I can sell my other butt cheek for tuition money?

Kris

[peggyfromwastate]

*whimper*

Does he want to join the military? Free education? I wish one on mine would go that way. As it is, a lot of kids around here go to community college for years 1 and 2. In this area the community college is pretty good...

[mommax3]

It really is expensive. I kind of got a jump on the shock of it because I have a private voice student that applied to my alma mater. I went to the audition with her and have walked through pretty much every step of the process with her (and her mom). Neither of her parents went to college, so this is HUGE for them. She was accepted at Butler and received a 10K academic scholarship (grades + test scores). Due to financial need, she received some other Butler grants, and received loan offers for ~ 8K a year. Her parents (divorced, dad doesn't pay support regularly and doesn't work (construction) regularly; mom works as an aide at my school and makes less than 20K/yr) are supposed to come up with 12K a year. They think they can do it, thank goodness, but it has been eye opening for me.

Luke has no idea where he wants to go, but we are steering him toward small liberal arts colleges. The ones he likes best (most are in-state) cost between 40-45,000 a year. This is why I am working and why I am going to continue working, at least long enough to get the oldest two through. If they ever make me full time (fingers crossed), my salary will just about equal his yearly college cost.

[Vanquisher]

Gahhhhh!!! I had a thing typed out and I lost it!

Anyway, University of Florida is $5700/year for tuition. Stetson is over 30K, Miami is close to 20K. However, Miami has a BS/MD program that Ryan is interested in. If he decides he wants to do a BS/MD, and get accepted, he can do a more expensive program. Otherwise, I am thinking U of Florida is good.

Florida also has Bright Futures scholarships for any florida resident high school graduate with a 3.5 GPA (weighted) or higher, plus 28 ACT or 1280 SAT, and 75 hours of community service, $125 per semester hour of tuition assistance.

University of Minnesota is $4897.00. Have you thought of there?

There are more scholarships available than you think. Chad and I both got full tuition scholarships to college.

[corn poffi]

Minnesota also has a reciprocity agreement with Wisconsin. Minnesota residents can pay in-state rates for Wisconsin state schools.

ETA: It's hard for many people to get financial aid. I wasn't eligible for it either when I was applying for schools. My parents "made too much money"...their combined income was barely six figures.

[SoonerTexan]

Is he a soph or a Junior? If he is a soph, National Merit baby. College served up on a silver platter if he isn't too picky about where he goes. He is most definitely smart enough to do it

[PrincessFiona]

Oh, Sally ... you are my new guru .... Walk me through this! LOL

I really feel like Andrew does need a smaller setting. The U of MN would be too overwhelming for him. St. Cloud State is an option where we could pay .... but I don't think the quality is there ... I was really excited for him about the prospects of Macalaster. It's close enough that we could be available, but far enough away that he could gain some independence. It's a good size and offers the programs he is interested in. They are well-known in our state for their excellent science curriculum. Now feel like I have to steer him away from that.

I am loathe to have him take out loans for the amount of money that he would have to in order to supplement what we could afford to help him with. At the end of the day, unless he ends up as a radiologist (LOL) I can't see how it would be worth it. He is talking about becoming a high school physics teacher. Definitely not worth $200k then in educational costs.

What are your thoughts on helping to steer Luke in the general direction ... and how are you making decisions on this as parents?

I feel like we really need to step up our savings over the coming 2 years to much higher levels AND we need to make some smart choices about where to send him ....

Kris

[MissCrabette]

Kris, don't despair. If he's looking at private colleges, they offer substantial scholarships... to pretty much everybody. I got $50,000 just for good grades. In my 4 years there, I don't think I met a single person who didn't have some sort of scholarship. My parents weren't drowning in cash, but I also didn't qualify for much financial aid outside of a measly state grant. My parents paid as they went, and I took a loan for what they couldn't cover.

I would really advise you to get Andrew involved in the process. Don't try to be supermom and take it upon yourself to put him through college at no expense to him. That's more or less what my parents did (other than a small loan), and I wish they hadn't. I might have made different choices had I been more involved in the financial aspect. It's not that I didn't appreciate their sacrifices at the time. I just wish I'd known more.

[PrincessFiona]

Heidi,

The cost of U of MN is ~ $13,000 without room and board. It is certainly more reasonable cost-wise but it's pretty big. U of MN Morris might be an alternative.

Hmmmm.

Kris

ETA: I thought National Merit Scholars only get about 5k nowadays? Are they still eligible for free rides?

[PrincessFiona]

Cristina,

Thanks for your input.

Andrew is pretty involved so far. He is looking at summer jobs and wants to save 1/2 of what he earns for college, so I think that's a good goal ... and keeps him involved.

DH is actually a hindrance here. He doesn't want Andrew "flipping burgers" all summer and ruining our summer vacations, etc.

Kris

[oceanchild]

National Merit itself is not much money, but the Sooner's talking about the title, which some schools will give you money for.

Have you looked at Carlton? My dad went there.

With a combination of scholarships, loans, and perseverence, my parents got three kids through private college. I still don't quite know how. We all worked while at school, for starters.

ETA: There are a lot of small-dollar scholarships out there. They won't get him $50k/year tuition (what my alma mater is up to!), but they do help. I got a decent amount of money out of speech contests, which aren't terribly popular due to their being more work than filling out an application.

[MissCrabette]

I know nothing about National Merit, but National Honor Society members got an automatic scholarship of $12,500/year at my college. I got in the NHS after my college offered me my first scholarship. I tried to get them to double up, but it was a no go.

Oh and I never flipped burgers once during college. I had office jobs and I once worked for one of the professors, helping him with his lab.

[corn poffi]

Cristina brought up a really good point...private colleges do offer waaaaaaaay more scholarship opportunities than public schools. I'd do some more research on what the schools offer. I don't know many people who paid full tuition at any of their private schools...except for the one person I know who went to Macalester (sorry!).

Macalester might offer a little less, just because it's such a good school, they know people are willing to shell out the dough, but that's just my guess.

[alison]

Do your states offer the GET program? You basically buy credits towards your child's education for a certain price (what tuition would cost right now at an in-state school), and then when your child enters college, you redeem them. This way you aren't affected by the rising cost of tuition; you just redeem your credits.

If they go to a private school, you just get whatever money the credits are worth when your child starts college.

[Pollyanna]

Right there with you Kris. We are working on dd's college list and I ditto the holy. crap. sentiment. We also have the added excitement of dh trying to find a job the year she graduates so she doesn't really have that in state safety school option. Her top choice is Sewanee, a really good small LAC in TN. Price tag is $43,000/year. On the plus side, they offer lots of merit scholarships. We told her to apply broadly and we will look at her acceptances and financial packages offered by each school, then we will make a decision. We have also told her that her debt load will determine her career path in many respects. If she has a ton of debt load that will pretty much force her to continue in a career path in which repayment is possible. We are regulars on the college board and college confidential websites