College people - help me!
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Dymphna
Loyalty, Friendship, Love
Mom and Dad paid for my tuition, room and board for my undergrad. I lived on campus and ate in the dining hall. They sold my car 
(legally theirs) and gave me the money and told me to buy my books. They occasionally deposited spending money in my checking account, but since room and board were covered, they didn't give me much, I wasn't having pizza and beer every night, or even every week. I worked on breaks.
My senior year, I got an on-campus job, working about 6 hours per week, minimum wage (which was a lot more minumum back then). Parents loaned me a spare car, but I was responsible for storing it, they didn't pay for a parking pass.
Grad school was entirely my responsibility. I worked full time and went to school part-time and I had student loans. It took 4 years to get a 2-yr master's degree, and I'll be paying for it for 20 years.
Keep in mind the IRS tax code and eligability for student aid, including student loans assumes that Mom and Dad will be supporting the kid until they are 23. Because you claim her on your taxes, she ends up paying more taxes as a result and she is less eligable to get student loans and grants on her own because your income is a factor.
(legally theirs) and gave me the money and told me to buy my books. They occasionally deposited spending money in my checking account, but since room and board were covered, they didn't give me much, I wasn't having pizza and beer every night, or even every week. I worked on breaks.My senior year, I got an on-campus job, working about 6 hours per week, minimum wage (which was a lot more minumum back then). Parents loaned me a spare car, but I was responsible for storing it, they didn't pay for a parking pass.
Grad school was entirely my responsibility. I worked full time and went to school part-time and I had student loans. It took 4 years to get a 2-yr master's degree, and I'll be paying for it for 20 years.
Keep in mind the IRS tax code and eligability for student aid, including student loans assumes that Mom and Dad will be supporting the kid until they are 23. Because you claim her on your taxes, she ends up paying more taxes as a result and she is less eligable to get student loans and grants on her own because your income is a factor.
sleuth
Livin' Like Thanksgivin'
Undergrad = anyone pursuing a 2 yr. or 4 yr. degree
Grad Student = anyone pursuing a professional (masters, phd, etc.) degree
It's easier for the kid to pay the bill. He/she is right there at the college and can pay it on the way to their classes, assuming that the registrar is on the same campus.
I took freshman year off. Then I worked in the student unions (food service) where they're very flexible with hours for students. The best deal for me was when I got a job at the computer lab. I could work up to 20-30 hours a week while doing homework, i.e. basically getting paid to do my homework and answer the questions of people who can't turn on a computer. You can also get similar jobs in the libraries, if your kid isn't computer savvy.
Make her pay it. Have her look into internship and co-op opportunities where she will be able to save money to make those tuition payments. Help her out if she helps herself. I made it through 4 years by working a co-op job, paying my own way, and finally had to borrow $5,000 my senior year. That's pretty low debt for a college student. Also look for scholarships. www.fastweb.com is a good place to start. I also got several scholarships every year totalling about $2000/yr. from the school without even applying. I don't know if they were based on grades or need, but I got them.
One last thing. If your daughter is not inclined to go full-time, many colleges offer benefits packages for their full-time employees where they or their children can take any class for free. If she can find a way to get a full-time job status through the university, any schooling she wants will likely be paid for.
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ceo_pte
New Member
My education was free, but I say pay for it if you can. With the cost of living going up so fast and wages only going up at 3%, if you are lucky, she will not be able to support herself and pay back the student loans. She may be able to foot the bills if you send her to a state school, but if it's out of state, I say no... You will experience the boomerang generation....
jlabsher
Sorry about that chief.
Man! What a deal! That's not us, though - fortunately or unfortunately, depending on how you look at it.
This is why I say that any kid in America who is talented and wants higher education can get it. That old "we can't afford to send you to college" is from the stone age.
We're having a family meeting about this Friday night to hammer out the details. She's going to be living on campus and will have a meal plan, so monthly rent and grocery payments won't be an issue. NYU has so many great internship opportunities in her area of interest - gopher at MTV, the theaters, off-Broadway, TV networks, etc. - that she'd be a fool to miss out on them. I'm going to insist she work and earn her supplies and pin money.
She has a great scholarship so I think we'll split the remainder with her. She can get a Stafford Loan and a Perkins Loan for $5,000 (combined) per year - this would mean when she graduates, she'll have $20,000 in student loans to pay off over 10 years. That should be doable for her or we've wasted the money on college altogether.
You guys have given me some great advice - thank you!!
My parents had 4 kids with a 10 year gap between the first 2 and the last 2. As a result they offered to pay for the first 2 years of college for each of us. This way we all had a chance at a college education. Because Dad worked construction and had been out of work a lot my 2 years were paid for by financial aid. My youngest brother got a 4 yr scholarship and that helped to. Each of my other siblings took the 2 years and then used loans to go for their BS or my one brother worked for 2 years and then went for his masters working part time.
We all worked while going to college and my 15 year old has already told me he wants to start at the local community college, live at home and work part time. Then he will move to larger school to get his Bachelors. I was totally blown away at how thought out and together he had his future.
We all worked while going to college and my 15 year old has already told me he wants to start at the local community college, live at home and work part time. Then he will move to larger school to get his Bachelors. I was totally blown away at how thought out and together he had his future.
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czygvtwkr
Guest
Vrai,
As someone that recently got out of college I think I can help you out alot with financial aid etc.
First off a graduate student already has a 4 year degree and is going for a Masters or Doctorate.
Let you kids take out loans, its really the best thing I ever did. If you want you can always pay them off for them if they do good as a reward. What the loans did for me was built me a line of good credit before I got out of school. I was able to buy a brand new car within 20 minutes where several of my friends were not able to do it. Credit cards just dont build a line of credit that mortgage companies and autofinanceers like because its really a much smaller responsibility.
I say no job the first year of college, there is soooooo much of a change. About half of the kids that go off to school are very homesick their first year and almost that many never graduate from the school they start out at.
I got a job during the middle of my second year and am happy I waited but also proud of the fact that I did it. I paid for almost my whole college education, it made me appreciate it much more. My parents were there after by helping me out with my loans and helping me get on my feet after college.
Have her apply for any and all financial aid she can. Once in college there were a ton of little scholoships endowed to students just because. It sounds good for a department to say alumni gave this amount and x amount of students are getting scholoarships from them. Each semester I got $200-$500 just because I filled out a 2-3 page form.
Oh and usually a car at college is a bad idea for a freshman and sophomore, not something many parents think about. There usually is no place to park but thats just the tip of the iceberg.
As someone that recently got out of college I think I can help you out alot with financial aid etc.
First off a graduate student already has a 4 year degree and is going for a Masters or Doctorate.
Let you kids take out loans, its really the best thing I ever did. If you want you can always pay them off for them if they do good as a reward. What the loans did for me was built me a line of good credit before I got out of school. I was able to buy a brand new car within 20 minutes where several of my friends were not able to do it. Credit cards just dont build a line of credit that mortgage companies and autofinanceers like because its really a much smaller responsibility.
I say no job the first year of college, there is soooooo much of a change. About half of the kids that go off to school are very homesick their first year and almost that many never graduate from the school they start out at.
I got a job during the middle of my second year and am happy I waited but also proud of the fact that I did it. I paid for almost my whole college education, it made me appreciate it much more. My parents were there after by helping me out with my loans and helping me get on my feet after college.
Have her apply for any and all financial aid she can. Once in college there were a ton of little scholoships endowed to students just because. It sounds good for a department to say alumni gave this amount and x amount of students are getting scholoarships from them. Each semester I got $200-$500 just because I filled out a 2-3 page form.
Oh and usually a car at college is a bad idea for a freshman and sophomore, not something many parents think about. There usually is no place to park but thats just the tip of the iceberg.
SmallTown
Football season!
When my sister was a freshman, she got a parking ticket. My parents "paid" that ticket AT LEAST 6 times (Sister got the money from our parents, then probably bought beer). Finally my parents got a phone call saying if the bill wasn't paid, they were taking THEM to court. needless to say, the bill finally got paid and the answer my sister gave as to where the money went that was supposed to be for the ticket? " I don't know"
Take it for what it is worth. My sister was given a free ride through school (or was going to). Tuition, housing, food, spending money all paid by my parents. Even a car. She partied a year then was finally kicked out.
Me. Took out my own student loans, worked during summers. Parents would drop by every once in awhile and bring a car load full of groceries which was really nice. Bought my own car.
I have a diploma on the wall
Eventhough I was ticked off at first that my sister ruined my free ride through school, I know I took more pride in what I was doing since it was "my investment"
One thing to think about student loans - There are fields where you can have your new employer pay them off after graduating. Take teaching for an example, in some areas when you start teaching the school system will pay sometimes up to 25% of the loan for each year teaching - so teaching there the school system would pay off the loan in four years, other places might be at 20% per year and such. I know there are counties in Florida that do this and in other parts of the country. There are places that do this for doctors as well.
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RodRugg
Active Member
My uncle Stanley went to community college for three years and he hated it. My grandma says he was the stupidest one there and even stupider for going in the first place. He said it was pretty hard especially with stuff like math and social studies. He got some loans and he never paid them back and my grandma says that's why he can never buy a car or order stuff off the TV. After all that he went to tech school and got certified in animal trapping. He got a job trapping animals but got arrested for trapping up some wolverines and got fired. Anyways, now he says he wished he would have stayed with college and he would probably be a scientist or biologist or art teacher.
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cmdrfunk
Guest
I just finished university in Pennsylvania. If things in Maryland are anything like the state schools in PA (probably) they completely rip you off with the meal plan.
They force you to buy more meals than you want to in the cafeteria. In the ala carte eating places, they give you a little allowance of the amount of food you can get depending on the meal (bfast lunch or dinner) and it's way too damn easy to go over and have to pay cash for the rest. If you don't spend the whole allowance, you just lose it. Rip. Off.
Oh, and most people can't even get to breakfast. In college, any class before 10 is too early even though 9am is reasonable. Breakfast usually ends at like 9:30, maybe 10, which means if your kid goes to class at 9 she won't eat before class and won't be able to after class until the cafeteria opens for lunch. Don't seriously count on any student getting up early enough to actually eat. Theyll end up eating junk food on the way to class wasting the hundreds of dollars the school forced you to spend on breakfasts you don't eat.
I changed from meal plan to groceries after my first 2 years. I ate more; I ate healthier; I learned to cook; and it's WAY cheaper if you have a clue how to shop. Of course, they usually force you to buy a meal plan if you live in a dorm. What a crock.
If she's going to NYU, and she's only used to Maryland weather, I hope she's prepared for walking to class in a foot of snow.
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cmdrfunk
Guest
My older brother's loans were all paid off by my dad after college.
I have them all to pay back myself.
My younger brother hasn't bothered to do anything after dropping out of high school 4 years ago (he's 22 now) except play video games, and have all his bills (cable modem, gas money, cigarette money, food money, etc) paid for. He doesn't go to school; he doesn't have a job; he doesn't care. He routinely takes out cash advances on his credit card that my mom pays for since "I don't want him to ruin his credit." He gets a room full of really good brand new bedroom furniture in exchange for doing nothing with his life.
I have the little kid furniture from when I was 6 in my room. So now I have to buy all my new furniture for my own apartment myself.
I'm probably going to end up on a psychologist's couch complaining of middle child syndrome within 10 years
SmallTown
Football season!
Yea, I didn't even think about this. Many parents are worried about their baby easting, so they get the most expensive meal plan. But in reality it won't get used as much as they would hope. With class schedules and late night pizza ordering, kids won't be in the dining hall that often.
If you can order the meal plan by the semester instead of the year, go ahead and give the full plan the first semester. That way she can eat decently well until she gets use to everything, then reduce it the next semester. And really, they will be honest about how much they use it so just ask.
Excellent points, guys - thanks for bringing it up! The lowest meal plan she can go with is 10 meals a week and $250 declining dollars. I was debating whether to bump the meals or the DD - now I know to forget the meals.