Gifted Issues Discussion homepage Forums General Discussion College choices

You know, I read once about this guy who budgeted for Christmas presents by assigning each family member a number from 1 to 10 (not ranking per se, like each kid was a 6 or whatever), then adding it all up, dividing his budget by that total, and multiplying the resulting number by each person's... shall we say, gift index.
Sometimes I feel like you almost have to choose a college that way: cost index times learning index times best fit index (and times prestige index, if you're that sort of person). Better than putting them all in a hat, I guess.

On a side note, I thought the quote, "If you don't know where you're going, any road will get you there" was the Cheshire Cat, but I was wrong -- although sometimes it feels like this whole mess just keeps getting curiouser and curiouser. :-\

Yes, good book, it was quoted two weeks ago, in a post on a related topic: Colleges ranked by value added.

It wasn't the cat? Who said it? Alice?

Can't resist: http://cartoonistgroup.com/store/add.php?iid=83796

I'm hoping this is going to work for our family, but I have no idea. What do colleges do if you actually quit your job or reduce hours before filling out the FAFSA or whatever it is? Do they look askance? I realize this sounds nuts, but my employment is grant-based and/or freelance and thus, I have the ability to ramp my income up and down. We are also used to this.

Our family is very financially weird. We have a rather low income, but also a very cheap mortgage and no other debt. College savings are not huge, but on the other hand, we have quite a bit saved for retirement. We are probably doing everything wrong.

I wonder if the solution is to purchase a really big house (with cash) to live in and then cut your income to below $65K, or whatnot, a year.

The Florida bankruptcy approach.

Ah, they don't look at your house? There you go. Take all our savings and upgrade! (while the kids are moving out...hmmm)

I guess I'd need to quit well before we apply since they look at the prior year's income. Oh hell, I don't know. I worry because my income is annoyingly unpredictable, making it hard to know how much we can save or what to expect at the time we will actually apply for aid.

From yesterday's UK Guardian paper, Bernie Sanders is looking to make debt-free (not tuition-free) college the key campaign for 2016 - http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2015/may/27/democrats-debt-free-college-bernie-sanders

I'll add here that I have family in VT; one of whom recently finished doing a doctorate in physical therapy at UVM. She had to take out over $100,000+ in student loans to do it. However, IF she stays in VT, then the loan is forgiven. So there are deals with loan forgiveness if you're doing certain degrees in certain states.

My point here is that parents should cast a very wide net with their college searches - beyond local, regional, and national. Others may differ, but the savings and benefits can be substantial.

Ultramarina - I have a friend who recently filed for bankruptcy. She has a 17-yr-old who was applying to various schools in MA (not top ones). She told me that he got into every single school and got quite a bit of financial aid as well. She said all her friends who saved like the devil for college and who made much money barely got anything or not even a penny. I'm not saying anyone wants to file bankruptcy or does so deliberately to get financial aid for their children to study at college. However, there is a silver lining here and hope for those of us on quite a bit less than $90K.

Thanks to DD's private school tuition and expenses related to her music lessons, we have nothing left to save so we will qualify for financial aid unless someone dies beforehand.

I know it's completely impolite to talk about but this has happened to people we know. Their inheritances is going straight into paying for college.

No, it was the cat. He was expressing the same sentiment, but with different words.

Regarding the purchasing of Nordic countries, I read about a Finnish system where every baby got this adorable box of things that even transformed into a bed. It really only works because there's a decreasing birth rate and less than 60,000 births yearly, but...lovely country, Finland.
Also, I keep on hearing commercials telling me to BUY BELIZE!! (just call our 1800 number), and I always vaguely wonder how one can buy a whole country, and how the people of Belize feel about the matter. I always wait for them to say, "But wait! There's more!" or to throw something in free, but they never do.