Holy. Crap.

[SoonerTexan]

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

Yes. It is worth a (pretty much) a full ride at Florida, Arizona State, and Oklahoma. There may be others. A significant number of schools wont give you a full ride, but they will give you a nice chunk of change.

Here's an example:

http://admissions.tc.umn.edu/costsaid/schol_campus.html

[MissCrabette]

Here's something else I thought of. Room and board is outrageously expensive. Sure, there's something to be said about the true college experience of living on campus and socializing in the cafeteria, but you pay dearly for that. I just checked and they charge nearly $450/month for food alone and around $500/month for the opportunity to share your room with a (possibly) stinky and annoying roommate. Maybe with a boy $450 for food is not THAT bad, but he can do much better. I don't think our friends who lived off-campus were any less involved with whatever we had going on. If anything, they got a better deal because they still got to hang out in the dorms, attend all the parties, and crash there with us quite frequently.

As for vacations, jobs do get in the way of those. What I did was work only during the summers, and I had my winter and spring breaks wide open. I know you'd like to be able to pick up and go on a fun vacation during the summer, but think of it as practice for adulthood. Or you can plan the vacation at the beginning or at the end of the summer so as to not interfere with a possible job. That's also something I did.

I think I am getting off easy. My brilliant nearly 8th grader has aspirations of going to Cosmetology school. Ahhhh, it just makes a mother proud.

[corn poffi]

I actually think that the percentage of schools that require you to live in the dorms is smaller than widely thought.

[diggitydot]

Same boat, here. DD1 was determined to get into the Notre Dame's music school, but that isn't happening unless she can swing a serious scholarship. On the upside, she attends a performing arts magnet high school that works as a feeder program for ND's band. Several current ND band members (who are also former members of her band) help them out on a regular basis with various fundraisers, tutoring, band camp, etc. It's pretty cool.

She's also looking at a LOT of other programs -- some private, some public. Her dream would be Reed College in Portland. Again, not happening sans scholarship. A kid can dream, though.

The only thing I can say definitively is that she will NOT attend Arizona State. 1.) She hated living there. 2.) DH rotated through the Tempe ER and saw an insane number of ridiculously drunk students. Far more than typical for a school their size. He vowed that the stooges would consider attending that school only over his dead body.

Truly, I see nothing wrong with kids attending a JC/CC for a year or two prior to shipping off to a bigger school. The JC/CC near where I'm from was a really great school so maybe that skews my view, but I think it's a good choice for a lot of people. Certainly not everyone, though.

[mommax3]

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.

This is definitely something to keep in mind....it has been my experience as well. All you can do is try. Yes, it costs money to apply to colleges, but not a ton, and you don't really know what is possible until you research (and in the case of my student, she really didn't know if she would be able to go or not until she received her financial aid package last week).

Since Luke doesn't know what he wants to do, and is extremely bright, I figure grad school of some sort is in the cards for him. If he still doesn't have a firm idea of what he wants to do in two years, I believe that a solid liberal arts education will serve him well AND prepare him for grad school, no matter what he decides. I also believe that small class sizes and accessible professors will be beneficial to him as he considers his options. Luke tests really really well, and his "practice" PSAT score was the second highest in his grade. His grades (mostly As, a few Bs) don't always reflect his abilities (he is *42nd* in his class, unfortunately) although he has been working on that a little more lately. He needs to be in a small place where he will be forced to engage, because it is easy for him to zone out and still do okay.

We are going to do some college visits this summer and next fall, and hope that he starts expressing some preferences as we go through the process....I think he will. DH has talked about saying that we will pay X amount/year, and the rest is on Luke, and that may happen, but if our financial situation stays the same, I think we will be able to pay for all of it if we have to, even if I stop working (although if I did, our lifestyle would definitely have to change). We have focused on getting things done (landscaping) and paid off (car, the last of DH's student loans) before Luke graduates so that DH's "bonuses" (money he earns above the salary he draws) can be freed up for college costs if need be. One plus is that we will only have one kid in college at a time, with the exception of one year....but the drawback is that we will have a child in college for 11 years. :/

I feel fairly confident about going through this process with Luke. I feel a lot of apprehension about going through it with his younger brother, though, for a variety of reasons....mostly because he is not an intellectually curious kid and doesn't really enjoy school, although he does fine and is conscientious. Oh well...he is only in 7th grade....but once you start thinking aboit this stuff, it is hard to stop!

[weeniegeniewife]

Oops, deleted because this is in the public forum.

[MDPhDWife]

I completely agree with WGW, but DH isn't on the same page as me. It's a debate we've had for years. Even if I was on board with his school of thought, I just don't believe it's a realistic possibility for us financially. We have a 6 & 9 y/o & DH is barely graduating this year with 5 more years before we're finished with training. The girls will be 12 & 15 when he's finished with training, but we'll just be getting on our feet with loan repayment & catching up on retirement.

Now I'm off to go bury my head in the sand. Sometimes being in denial is necessary for my mental health.

[diggitydot]

Don't feel bad. While I'm certain both girls will do well in college, I'm doubting whether DS will ever attend unless some things change. He's an extremely smart little guy, but gets bored quickly even on his ADHD meds. He can construct and deconstruct just about anything and can figure out electronics like nobody's business, but make him sit down and take a multiple choice test and he'll zone out. I've taken his failed reading tests and asked him the missed questions -- he gets them correct. It's just weird.

[poky]

- I had a full ride merit-based scholarship for my first year of college. I worked part-time ALL through college, mostly in libraries and computer labs. A teenager doesn't have to "flip burgers" to work, and even flipping burgers can teach a LOT about work ethics, etc. My parents paid my tuition after my scholarship was done, but I paid my room and board from my paychecks.
- Diggetydot, has your daughter looked at Evergreen (TESC)? Have I already asked you this? VERY similar "feel" to Reed, might be cheaper, even from out of state, since it's a state school?
- As for loans "being worth it" depending on what job they end up wanting..isn't that what IBR is intended to deal with? You take out loans, and you pay what you can back for 10 years, and after that, the rest is forgiven?

[PrincessFiona]

I was referring to the burger flipping jobs for right now in the summer. There aren't many non burger-flipping type options locally. We're not metro and the job market sucks.

Personally, I agree that he could learn a lot about work ethic by taking a summer job.

I also worked during college.

I'll have to look more closely at the IBR thing. Interesting point!

Kris

[diggitydot]

Evergreen is pretty high on the list. She likes it, but she prefers Reed because it's in Portland. The girl looooves PDX. I kind of think the only reason she's interested in ND is because she wants to stay near her friends who are all planning on staying in the area fir college.

[weeniegeniewife]

The girl looooves PDX.

But of course! What's not to love?

[SoonerTexan]

Unfortunately for the dorm living situation, unless you can be classified as a commuter student most if not all colleges/universities require at least that first year in the dorms.

This...and I noticed the kids who got out of the requirement at OU (for various reasons) just missed out on a lot.

Ditto on the in-school jobs too. Work-study jobs paid at least $9/hour and there were tons of "regular" jobs on campus that allowed you to sit and do homework--you just have to look for them. I stalked the "equipment cage' at the Journalism school until something opened up. It paid just above minimum wage, but it was awesome because I got all my homework/studying done. Internships can pay well too, depending on what you study. Many business internships pay at least $15/hour. I knew a few engineers making $30/hour during the summer. I racked in $800/month as an IT intern...though I'm not sure my paycheck wasn't calculated correctly and they didn't seem interested in fixing it even though I brought it up multiple times.

I did seem to be the only one of my group of friends that worked during the school year/summer and occasionally that sucked, but it gave me some really valuable experience I wouldn't trade now.

[SuzySunshine]

I think required or not living on campus is HUGE! I think its good that schools require it because, like SoonerTexan said, you miss out on a lot otherwise. I wouldn't trade my campus living for ANYTHING, of course I probably wouldn't have met DH otherwise. But it was HUGE in helping me transition from small town KS to a college campus that was bigger then my town.

I know college is expensive but I will reiterate what everything has said about financial help at private institutions. I had a friend that went to Cornell and they took all of her scholarships into account and then covered what her parents couldn't as well so it can and is done.

I hope that we will be able to send our kids where they want to go but I also hope that if we can't they'll take the initiative to find a job or help themselves follow their dreams. I worked all through college and had to take loans, there just wasn't any way around it and while my studying probably was hurt a little by my job a lot of that was my fault for not learning how to schedule things and buckle down. And even now since I'm not working and we are paying back my loans I still don't regret them but if it was a six figure debt rather then a 5 I might...