Our son Patrick is a sr. this year in h.s. We live in Virginia. He is a very smart boy and will be applying to many of our state colleges-UVA and James Madison are his top Va. colleges. Can you say "IN STATE TUITION????" But recently, we took a trip to Boston, and he fell in love w/ the area. He now wants to go to Boston College---tuition is 34K, room and board another 10. We want him to go and do whatever he can in life....But we certainly cannot afford the room and board at this time. We will be most happy to pay it off over time. Just wondering how the tuition reimbursement works-unfortunately, we probably make too much a year to qualify for much-it will just have to be student loans. You all must be t hinking I am high on drugs to even be considering this, but let me give you a bit of background *for those that don't already know* ....Patrick was diagnosed w/ cancer in May 2006. He went through almost a year of chemo, and six weeks of radiation. In my heart of hearts, I don't know that the cancer won't come back.....And if it does, it won't be very favorable. So, while I would just prefer to send him around the corner to the local community college, I also want to do everything I can to make sure that he is pursuing every dream that he has. He will be eligible for a few small scholarships through some of our local cancer societies, but it will basically pay for books. What are your opinions and just wondering if anyone has any suggetions? We do have equity in our house, but also have three sons right behind Patrick that will need college as well. I would appreciate all thoughts and opinions. Thanks, Lynne

I remember your story and am so happy to hear that Patrick is doing so well...

I'd encourage him to go to college in-state and maybe he can get a summer job in Boston (that would be fun!) or even think about working there after he graduates?

That's my thinking mainly because it sounds like it would be an enormous hardship on the rest of the family... a seemingly unnecessary hardship in my mind.

We are paying. My son is going to Valparaiso. 31,000 a year. He takes out his student loans, we pay the rest. He did get scholarships, so we are only paying about 15,000 a year. We have parent plus loans. He is a Junior this year, so only 1 more year to pay. The fist year we paid outright. The second year we paid about half and this year, it is loans. I understand how you feel about Patrick. I would do the same thing.

I will do whatever for my son. I want him to do better than we are doing.

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Freedom Stands...Because HEROS Serve

Mary

Hi, We just went through this last year (son is now a college freshman). I say have him apply at several places and see what kind of packages they offer you. Then do the visits and help him make his final decision. Does he have pretty good grades?? My son actually got better packages at the out of state colleges due to his grades (you do have to keep them up to keep the scholarships though) and SAT scores. My son was adamant about not going to school in our state . He ended up going to a Mass. school also and so far so good--he is pretty happy with his decision. I miss him very much but it gets easier each day..... Also, we will not be paying for any of his schooling and he knows that...he had to get loans for the remainder. We paid for books, school deposit and application fees but we too have other children at home....Good luck!! Cookie

Our youngest son just graduated from Ohio State. It is in state and we have another state college within about a 20 minute drive. He wanted Ohio State. He received a scholarship that was decending. The first 2 years paid for tuition and books, the third year 75% tuition, and the final year 50% tuition. We paid for the remainder. Since we both work we just cut out some luxaries from the budget. We did have to pay for room and board...as another poster stated that came to about $1000 a month. He loved Ohio State and took a job in Columbus to stay in the area. His friends are trying to persuade him at the end of his apartment's lease to take a position in LA. He is thinking about it. Now my fears start. He is a little over a 3hr. drive from us...LA will put him at a 4 hr. flight. I fear I will hardly ever see him again.
Good Luck to Patrick. We were able to pay for the total college bill for all three covering what scholarships did not cover. When my children looked...the private schools in and out of state offered them packages pretty equal to what we would pay at state schools. We now consider ourselves fortunate, but at the time whined a little when we would miss out on extras (my favorite was ski trips every weekend in January).

I have a DD that graduated from college last year and one in college full time now, the younger one is married (but wasn't wne she started school)and the oldest was married when she started college (but got divorced while in college). They have paid their own way, we have helped them out at times with books, but they have always paid their own tuition, both got scholarships, etc. We opted not to help them pay for college (unless it was absolutely a necessity, it wasn't) we saw too many kids just waste away their parents hard earned (and borrowed money) partying and getting bad grades. So we decided to see if they could do it on their own and they have and they both have done quite well. I worked my way through college, worked a part time job, sold Avon, and had a kid, got scholarships and took NO LOANS out. DH got his bachelors and masters by going into the Navy and getting the GI Bill. I went to a state university and so did DH, I graduated from the University of Oklahoma (Go Sooners).

The other thing is if you do it for Patrick, won't you have to do it for the other three? Can you afford to send 4 kids to out of state college (if that's what they want)?

I have a sophmore in college now. We live in WV and he goes to a wv state college near DC. My sister lives in Va and her 2 dd's attend JMU. They ADORE it ! It has a lot to offer and give pretty good packages on top of that. Va has some great schools. I feel the MASS school will be a hardship. Remember , not only do you have to pay costs since you earn too much, but the incidentals will sometimes start to add up...linens for the dorm, new clothes, cell phones, my ds absolutely needed a car, his college is pretty out of the way. JMU has a walmart within walking distance, btw. VA TECH is another fantastic school. What area of Va do you live in ? Would you consider a WV school ? WVU is a fine school, as well as Marshall in Huntington. Good luck !

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Like an above poster I have seen too many kids waste the money thier parents have put into college, by not going to classes because of partying too much and just messing around. I want dd to know she if she messes around she is wasting "her" money. We did have enough saved to pay for 1 full year of college. So that money will be divided up over the 4 years she will be in college. (if she changes majors and is in longer she will have to figure that out later) I have also seen kids change majors 3 or 4 times just to stay in school and really not do much. She is a freshman. NKU is only about 20 min away so she lives at home. So that is a huge savings for her. She also works and right now is saving up for next semester's books. Hopefully she will get enough out of her books this semester selling them back to pay for 50% off her books. I think it opened her eyes how much books cost when she had to buy them. She thought we were joking with her when we told her how much they would probably be.
I like haveing dd close by so I can monitor what she is doing. And I dont have to worry about her as much as I would if she was away at school. While I want her to have expriences and be all she can. I beleive she can do that right here at NKU. Good luck with whatever you and your son decide.
they sure grow up fast don't they? Doesn't it seem like just yesterday you were holding holding them in your arms, teaching them to ride a bike and putting them on the bus for kindergarden?

We are going through this exact situation with our dd. We really would like to see her take advantage of our state scholoraship program as well as the resident's discount. We suggested that she go to school for a year or two here and then if she still wants to transfer, we will support her decision. Or main reason for this is because, like other posters have mentioned, we want her to have her priorities straight before she goes away to school.

If she still insists on going to a CA school her freshman year, she must make up the difference with scholorships and a part time job. One thing we have told her is that we will not be co-signing any loans. I have too many friends whose kids end up with huge loans to pay back and no job to do it with.

She knows how much money is in her college savings acct. and if she makes wise choices, her school will be free and clear for her.

Wow, you all have some really good info. and suggestions, and I certainly have a LOT to think about here. My parents didn't pay for me to go to college, and did absolutely nothing to help guide me through the whole process, so it is something I really would like to do for our kids. DH went to a federal academy, so his education was basically free. I am hoping that one or two of my kids will follow in his footsteps. I didn't realize that the colleges offered packages--guess that will play a huge part in the decision making. We were in Boston this past summer, but we didn't know Patrick would be considering this option, so we didn't look at any-kicking myself here....We have checked out Va. Tech and JMU and need to get on the ball to look at a few more. Yikes, this is all happening too fast! Thanks for all of your advice.
p.s.-we knew this was coming and we did have a college investment plan for him but we cashed it all in this past year to help pay for some of the medical expenses-worth every penny, just not fair for Patrick. We do have one for our 14yr. old still, and luckily we'll have a few years in btwn to recoup and get the two youngest going.

We have told our kids we will do what we can, without cutting our own throats to get them thru college. We're hoping for at least a few scholarships, too.

Military service is an excellent option for help with paying for college. Have you looked into that?

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Doing the right thing isn't always the same as doing the easy thing.

My one and only is a senior this year so we've just started this process. Luckily the local college has what he's looking for and he doesn't mind still living at home at least the first year.

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"Never loan your car to someone you have given birth too"

OMG, UVA is such an awesome school. I would give my eye teeth to be able to send my son there with in-state tuition. He will be applying there as an out-of-state student from MA. It's a good value education even with out-of-state tuition. Boston College does not have an engineering program (or one that rates) so it isn't on our list, but it definitely is a popular choice of people not from the region. In our college travels, we noticed that people at various schools in VA, MD, NY, NC wore either their school t-shirts/sweatshirts or BC Eagles...LOL Same way that folks up here wear jerseys from UNC. I think it's a kind of grass is greener thing..

We are following a process similar to what cookie desribes:

We've looked at and selected a variety of schools to apply to - safe, target, and stretch schools. We are not applying anywhere early decision; maybe 1-2 early action, and then will wait and see what the offers are. We are not in a position to be offered any financial aid and are willing to pay for his school probably up to a certain limit (like $35-40K/year) that will be determined by his offers. I do have a deal with my son that he needs to cover his books and spending money no matter what, and we estimated that to be about $5K per year. I told him that he should plan to have the first two years banked ($10K) before he starts his freshman year. He opened his first CD with $5k last Friday, so doing well.

BC is quite competitive - are you confident that he will get accepted? If not, maybe cross the financing and whether to attend bridge when you get to it. I think that there are so many places to get an excellent education, that I don't think I'd be personally willing to take on tremendous debt to put one of my kids through college. But I haven't been in your shoes....

Goodness, I wrote too much....sorry!

cj/

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You have received some very good advice. There is no harm in applying to Boston College as long as he understands that there will need to be some financial considerations in the decision. This would allow you to assess the financial aid package. You might be pleasantly surprised.

College is an excellent opportunity to experience a different geographical area. And, Boston is a fabulous place to go to school.

On the other hand, the Virginia state schools are excellent and he would be hard pressed to get a better education elsewhere. Schools like UVA offer students so many opportunities and majors that kids can persue many different career paths even if they are uncertain what they are looking for going in.

Depending on his grades and ACT/SAT scores he can qualify for a lot of scholarships! Our DD applied to anything and everything that had a $ amount attached to it (vegetarians, red- haired left-handers etc) and ended up with about 10,000 over what college and books cost for this year. She had a 3.5 GPA and a 28 on the ACT - there are a lot of kids with higher grades and better scores. It also depends what your DS's major is; languages, for example, get another scholarship at DD's college.
I understand that your question was about paying tuition off over time, but I say, why? There has got to be a way to have other people pay for it. I'm just CHEAP!!! BTW -ACS gives scholarships, too!

That's funny-I live in Va., you live in Mass., your kid wants to come to Va., my kid wants to go to Boston. Is there any way we could just trade kids for say, 5yrs.? BTW, how's your health insurance? lol....
Thanks for all the scholarship advice too. At this point, he is interested in pursuing sports medicine, or teaching (history). Boston is a really neat town, and it seemed pretty "college kid friendly." And of course, there's that little place called Fenway Park! I would love UVA or Tech, but do think Boston would be a great experience for him too.

I have a hs junior this year, and a college junior, so I'm on both sides of the process right now. If your son is interested in BC, apply. I was so surprised by the number of scholarship offers he received that were not tied to our financial ability. He received full scholarship offers from several of the schools, but in the end attended the school he felt was the best fit, which offered about a 2/3 scholarship. We made up the difference, but he works 2 jobs while attending and covers his living expenses, books, etc.


My high schooler is just beginning the process, and is considering attending an in-state school since he prefers to be close to home. This is, much less expensive, but we still are advising him to apply to all the schools he finds appealing since the wider you open the window, the more opportunity can fly in. Programs change regularly, and each school is looking for different things. For example, you can apply to one school with good grades, a decent SAT, and be rejected out of hand. Another school may be looking to round out their class, having already accepted a good number of super-achievers, with some good students who are more well-rounded, while perhaps not the top of their class, and you're in.

I also have to add that the cost of sending a child to college in this country is ridiculous. Every time I look at the numbers involved for my 4 kids, it is staggering.

Now that's an idea.....however, younger DS is really, really looking forward to his brother going away to college and having the house, the TV, the Xbox, the you-name-it to himself! Patrick is welcome to come for a visit though!

I love "the wider you open the window, the more opportunity can fly in", momshops!! Cast a net and see what the offers are......of course, our college counselors are really advising against loading them up with too much work by applying to too many. We are seriously considering about 10 applications!

cj/

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I was walking home one night and a guy hammering on a roof called me a paranoid little weirdo. In morse code. -Emo Phillips