First, I would like to clarify something I mentioned in my last post regarding the parents and students responsibility in the college application planning and application process. I made the statement at the end of the post regarding the financial aid process that “this is the part of the process that the parent takes the lead, mainly because they are paying for their child’s college experience.” I want to make clear that I don’t expect parents to think they are responsible to pay 100% of their child’s college education. If you are a parent who who like to that is great. However, even if a parent could pay for all of their child’s college education, I think it is wise for their child to “own” some of their education by having to pay for some of it. If that means they work in the summer and that money has to go to their education or they take a small loan out that they will have to pay back, it is smart for them to have to pay for their own education so they don’t get complacent during college and think “my parents are just going to pay for it”. There are parents as well that think their child should be paying for the majority of their college education and this is fine as well. The student can do this by working and earning the money to pay for college, earning scholarships to pay for college and taking out loans (although I strongly recommend the total amount of loans after four years is less that their starting salary in their first job). As long as there is honest communication between the student and parent regarding expectations, financial responsibility and what the financial numbers are, either way can be successful. Hopefully this clarifies things a bit based on my previous comment and please feel free to comment or ask a question about anything in a post by clicking on the “leave a reply” link underneath the title of each post. Below is an article I wrote back in the fall of 2015 that I think is applicable to a student’s responsibility when paying for college.
“Is high school really a job”? This is a question I asked myself when I was in high school. I heard my parents say more than once, “Going to school and getting good grades is your job.” This comment would normally be made following a discussion about me living off my parents, looking forward to being in college, being on my own and needing to get a job to pay for gas, car insurance, etc.
It wasn’t until I got older and worked with hundreds of seniors as they applied to college that I realized that high school is actually like a job and if done well, it may lead to “being paid” more to go to college.
This is not to say that the point of doing well in high school is to get a good financial offer for college. Not at all. After all, the learning that takes place in each class is extremely valuable, the biblical foundation and truths that are taught here at DC are life changing and the social benefits of friendship and contributing to extracurricular activities are really important. I am simply approaching this topic from a college planning perspective.
Approaching high school as a job is a perspective that each high school student should embrace because their academic success in high school can be compensated by how little they end up paying for college. Here are three factors that can be impacted by getting good grades in high school.
- You will have more options. If you do well in the working world, you typically have more options when looking to expand or grow your career. Why? Because employers and those who hire trust you and know that you will succeed. Likewise, if you do well academically in high school, the number of colleges that you have the opportunity to be accepted in to grows as well. This allows you to be a bit “picky” and find that college that would be a great fit for you because you are choosing from a larger pool of schools.
- You will be able to apply to more “safety” schools. One myth that I am always trying to dispel is that the “safety” schools that a student applies to are “not as good” as the target or reach schools. This is not true. What are considered “safety” schools varies from student to student depending on how well they have done academically. University of Pittsburgh may be a “reach” school for a student with a 3.3 weighted GPA and a 1000 SAT (Critical Reading and Math), but for a student with a 4.3 weighted GPA and a 1350 SAT it is more of a “safety” school. “Safety” schools are going to be the colleges that offer you more merit-based aid (scholarship money a student receives based on their grades and test scores). I emphasize with juniors that in my mind the most important schools they put on their list of “colleges they are thinking about” are the safety schools because they should be the ones “paying you to go there”.
- Getting in to a highly competitive admission college could also save you a lot of money.
Colleges that are the toughest to get into (Ivy League, Stanford, Georgetown, Public Ivies, elite small liberal arts schools, etc.) do not give out merit based scholarship money because almost every student they admit is near the top of their class in high school. However, these colleges have large endowments to help with demonstrated need. The EFC (expected family contribution) you receive after completing the FAFSA is all you are responsible to pay. If your EFC is $0, you pay $0; if it’s $10,000, you pay $10,000 a year. These are colleges that meet 100% need. You can do a Google search to find which schools do this. Be careful though because if a college requires more than the FAFSA to determine financial need (CSS Profile, tax returns, etc.), they will use the information they receive from all of these to determine what your demonstrated need is. If you have done well academically in high school and put yourself in a great position to be accepted into one of these competitive admission schools, it could pay off financially.
So parents, if you want to use the line, “Your job is to get good grades in high school,” I will back you up because I know the benefits of doing well academically can really “pay” off.
