Paying for college

iVillage Member
Registered: 08-09-2000
Paying for college
61
Fri, 08-03-2007 - 11:14am

Next year at this time we will be sending DD off to college. We are making campus visits, she has taken her ACT test, and has college and scholarship applications on her mind.

My question...how is your student's college bill being paid? H and I have been discussing this for years and now the time is here to make a decision and make it known to DD. We would like to help her, but we don't want college given to her and we don't want her to be overwhelmed with debt when she is finished. We believe she should put tremedous effort into scholarship applications (and have strongly encouraged her to do things that look good on her applications), however, we don't what her hopes dashed if she does not receive a lot of gift money.

DD will not be eligible for federal grants. Any government assistance will come in the form of a $3500 Stafford Loan. We thought we would give her $5000 per year which is about 1/3 of the budget for the school she plans to attend. She would be responsible for the rest through scholarships, working, and her savings. (We are hoping she will not opt for alternative loans or ask us to take out the parent loans).

I'm interested in other thoughts or philosophies on this subject.

Thanks....Julie

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iVillage Member
Registered: 11-28-1999
Wed, 08-08-2007 - 2:11pm
Yes, I can see that w/ my 80 yr old mother, who has to take a variety of pills. I think it's too bad that it seems so confusing for seniors to have to pick between all those health plans. I was going to say that at least we wouldn't have to pay for a family health ins. plan, which now costs us about $7000 a year, even though DH's employer contributes. But a lot of plans no longer have a category of a 2-person plan, so a couple still has to pay for a family plan. That doesn't seem fair to me. So much for retirement. At least DH has a 401(k) plan at his employer that he contributes the max. too.

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