Quote:
Originally Posted by Buccaneer
I guess I am still not fully understanding the financial aid qualification thing. My son, likewise, got $5500 in grants and a standard school scholarship and that left about $20k per year to cover everything else. I'm middle class too and easily qualified for Parent PLUS loan, which got me to avoid the whole private student loan business which I would not touch. Maybe it's not wanting to take on that amount of debt?
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I know very little about it either, and I know people who live in different parts of the country have different perspectives on salaries and affordability. But I feel like you can be very solidly upper middle class and still have a whole hell of a lot of difficulty in cutting a $30K check (or more) over a 4 year stretch.
I've been putting away in a 529 plan what I think is a good amount of money since my daughter was born (about 20% of my after tax annual bonus, plus a monthly contribution which I hope to increase at least 5% a year) but who the hell knows if that will be enough way down the road? And that's just for one kid! It's highly unlikely I'll be able to double up on all that for baby #2.
I guess I'd end up taking out a parent loan like you mentioned if my kids can't qualify for their own because of our income, as that is better than nothing. But I'd like my kids to have some skin in the game so they are incentivized to make good choices. Maybe I'll just lie to them and tell them the loans we're taking out are actually in their name.