My daughter just posted this on her Facebook:

"Holy Shit! son just got his first acceptance letter from a college!! Willamette University, plus he was given and Academic leadership Award for study of $22k a year! For 4 years! OMG! And he is still waiting to hear from Yale! OMG"

Gson will be the first to attend a real college since his great Gdad. Father committed suicide after years of drug abuse, his Mom and I never graduated college.
I am really believing this now.
This sounds really really good to me.

I just am reeling!!

Congratulations to him. That is great news.

That is wonderful news that your grandson has gotten a college acceptance letter.

However, for a note of reality -- tuition, room and board, books, and fees at Willamette are estimated to run more than $54,000 a year leaving a gap of about $32,000 a year.

http://www.willamette.edu/admission/tuition/index.html

While your grandson can work during college, it is very difficult to make up that kind of gap without taking out student loans. If I were giving your grandson advice, it would be to keep student loan debt to no more than $20,000 for *all four years* of school. Otherwise, he may be digging too deep a hole for himself to ever get out of.

Your granson needs to take a careful look at the entire aid package, including what is expected as the family contribution (that means his mom,) and what he can reasonably earn from a job. Some schools do better than others in that regard.

Hopefully he has applied to some public colleges as well.

Oh TY summer!!! Really I know nothing at all about this process, that's why I posted here about it.

No, I didn't know that.
OK, I will calm down

ty summer. Yes he has applied at a couple of other colleges. They are hoping for a full free ride at Yale. If this offer from Willamette is an indication ... could he get a free ride at Yale? Maybe not because this one isn't a full one?
hmmmm

guarded optimism now

Any college (public or private) could offer him a full ride. Some of the ivy league schools have large endowments and can offer good aid packages. I know that Harvard is one of them, but I'm not sure about Yale in that regard.

Definitely make sure that he has applied to state schools as well. He might also want to take a look at his local community college for the first year or two. Community colleges are very affordable.

The key is to apply to a good number of schools and then to compare their financial aid offers.

Another factor to consider is that tuition can get jacked up considerably while he is in school. When I went to graduate school at a state institution, my initial estimate of $16,000 in total student loan debt doubled by the time I got my diploma due to tuition increases along the way.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 12/09/2012 09:57AM by summer.

I got accused on here a while ago of not being happy for him because I didn't graduate college. It made me cry and I had Susan remove the post.

I needed and continue to need reasonable advice on this. I have no one else to bounce this off of. I attend a long AA meeting today but as it is on skid row, I will not bring this up. Not appropriate.
My daughter is still a believing inactive Mo and I have little if any input in her life.

I just took all my meds to help calm me down. I just need reasonable. With him I see the killing cycle of drug and alcohol abuse ended. His mom has been sober since 1st year community college. She met his dad in rehab. His dad and my husband are dead because of drugs. I survived to see this!!!
Quite the journey

ty again

However it works out, I'm happy for you and your grandson. I'm sorry people made you cry. Just remember people on the board do not know you or your heart. They are trying to be helpful (most of them anyway), but sometimes fall short. I was told that I had too much hostility towards one of my sons, but that person hadn't lived the constant nightmare of having that son in her home. I just ignored her because she didn't know what I was talking about.

Another avenue for keeping your grandson's debt load down - go to community college for the first two years then transfer to a 4-year school. That way he can get the required "core" courses out of the way less expensively and take the courses for his major at the university.

He'll have to make sure that the comm. colleges credits will transfer to his intended 4-year school. Sometimes a univ. won't accept all the credits and he'd have to take those classes over.

Don't be discouraged b/c the first college didn't offer a full scholarship. it's not indicative of what other schools will offer.

Another thing to consider with college cost is the cost of travel. Might a better aid package from a farther-away school be offset by the costs of travel to & from school?

Congratulations to your grandson!

Community colleges can be an excellent, affordable option. My local CC is a quality institution, and their classes, in my experience, are the equal or better of classes that I took at my well-regarded public university. At my undergraduate institution, my first two years were often spent in large lecture halls with a couple of hundred other students. At my local community college, class sizes have always been below 30.

My local CC coordinates with most local private and public 4-year institutions in terms of transferring credits.

Community colleges can be an excellent alternative for those who wish to save money.

This is such excellent news! Congratulations!

When things settle down and your g-son finally picks a college, why don't you send a note to let him know how proud you are. Maybe it will open the lines of communication between the two of you, even if your daughter isn't open to a relationship right now.

Congratulations!

;o)

One of the biggest being the projected income of the person after they graduate.

For example, $50k in student loan debt for a social worker is a stifling burden. But $50k in student loan debt for a doctor is a GREAT deal and easily taken care of after a few years.

One of the biggest advantages of Ivy League schools is the networking that happens with powerful people/families.

It's why for business people - the quality of education may not be that much better than the rest of the country for the price - but the students get to intermingle with "corporate giants."

Along with the prestige of the school's title, knowing those people makes it much more likely to get a high paying job in a Fortune 500 company.

So, keep in mind what grandson wants to do in school. If he's looking to go into business or medicine - the student loan debt may be worth it.

But if he wants to teach - it may not be.