Hey parents of college bound seniors: have you had the kitchen table talk? You know the one where you spread out acceptances and financial offers all over the kitchen table and decide where the little love is going to school?
One of my friends calls it “the talk” although I thought you had that one much earlier! He has four kids who have graduated or are in college and says this “talk” is almost as important as the other “talk.” A favorite “swim mom” of mine has a “get real” talk with her children. Yet another one sets up his version of the game of life. He does the loan payback calculations for each school and sets up a timeline which visually explains how old they would be before they could buy a new car or a house. It is really very cool.
In our house we had what was dubbed the “kitchen table talk.” The talk really began at the inception of the application process. I work at a college that does tuition exchange. If he applied to a college which was not on the list he would have to figure out how he was going to pay for it. Simple. We promised to pay the difference between tuition exchange and the total cost of admittance. It he played his cards right he would have no debt at the end of four years. That would be “a dream come” true for most kids.
What I naively did not know was the only school you could be sure your child got full tuition (based upon acceptance) was your own school. It is highly competitive and relatively cut-throat. Fortunately for our son (and this is a bragging moment, please indulge me) he received several Presidential scholarships upon acceptance and four tuition exchanges. He had to make a choice, hence the kitchen table talk. You would think this a wonderful thing but in his case his top choice did not participate in the exchange the year he applied to school. Wailing and gnashing of the teeth ensued. The choices were down to Canisius College (my employer therefore not in the running because he wanted to go away), Loyola University MD, Fordham and Fairfield University. He ended up at Fairfield and has never looked back. He is on the varsity swim team and loves being a Division I athlete.
What is most interesting to me is that Fairfield was only on his radar because he received a “book award” from them his junior year in high school. We only visited there because we had a day between our campus visits to Fordham and Boston College. It turned out to be the little school that could. My mom always used to tell me to try on a dress because they often looked differently on your body than they did on the hanger. It is also true with schools.
The greatest point of the kitchen table talk is that of an open mind. It has been my experience that most kids do not end up at the school they thought they would in the fall. Often they are accepted but financially cannot justify the expense. It stands to reason you are not going to get much money at a reach school. The real money goes to the top 5-10% of the entry pool. My point to my son is that there is no shame being in that top 5-10% and it turns out he has performed that way academically since beginning his freshmen year in 2008.
Good luck on guiding your child to the best school for them both academically and financially.
Until next time!
Jude Russo Caserta
AthleticBudgetCoach.com/blog
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E-mail: judi_caserta@athleticbudgetcoach.com
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