I awoke today deep in considered college costs and all the facets of a family's life it impacts.
It hit me how much picking the best possible on where my kids go to college is essential for the financial health of our family, and in particular our retirement.
Here’s my backstory that got me thinking a lot about this.
The other month my husband and I both missed the high school graduation ceremony in our middle son. Thankfully, other relatives have there been to go to, but we couldn’t allow it to be because my husband have been hospitalized, unexpectedly. Therefore we had to accept watching the graduation on livestream.
My husband is home now, still recuperating, but otherwise he's fine. Thank God.
Our recent family health scares helped me realize how grateful I am for that college decisions my children make.
Strategies That Helped My Son Get a Full-Tuition Scholarship
Most recently, my son (our 4th child of 6) was awarded a full-tuition merit scholarship to a small private college. The scholarship came as we did the following:
- appealed twice;
- met personally with his admissions officer;
- met with financial aid, personally, and he still wasn’t offered any institutional need based aid (not really work study);
- sent in the interim transcript;
- sent in the 3rd marking period report card;
- sent in most four SAT scores – and then we waited.
My son literally didn't get offered his scholarship until 1 hour prior to the May 1st College Decision Day!
My son had been perfectly prepared to visit College for free on Delaware's SEED scholarship when the full tuition scholarship hadn’t come through.
Candidly, we'll have four kids attending college simultaneously this year, and no matter what FAFSA says – we simply can't afford to place a great deal of money towards ANY of their college costs.
[Read: How We Manage to Pay For 4 Kids Attending college At The Same Time]
The Family Impact of selecting Affordable Colleges
Which leads to my point.
My husband is almost 55 years old. He's gainfully employed. We still have two kids at home in addition to the four in college.
And yesterday, we remarked that because our oldest four children all chose colleges offering either full tuition scholarships or full rides, their father doesn't ABSOLUTELY HAVE TO continue working the type of job that puts his health at risk.
Although he still cannot retire yet, our children’s wise financial college choices may literally wind up prolonging their father’s life. He can now take a lower stress (minimizing pay) job – and still be able to maintain our family's lifestyle.
These types of decisions about college have serious implications towards the financial health of a family and parent’s retirement. Initially, we were just attempting to be frugal whenever we steered our kids towards affordable options.
We never imagined what a blessing their choices would grow to be. We hadn't even considered potential circumstances where having minimal term college bills to pay for could have indirect health implications for his or her father.
I’m sharing this type of private information for all those families undecided about expensive schools versus less expensive ones.
There aren't any easy, simple answers, but I urge you to definitely be sure you keep some affordable options on the table when your children are applying.
You might be glad you've them if unforeseen circumstances arise!
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