The College Visit—stuff I didn’t think to ask

Posted on March 27, 2014March 27, 2014 by Danielle

I’ll be honest—we didn’t do a ton of visits, when dear daughter was applying. As usual I had a divergent view and couldn’t really grok spending thousands of dollars to see colleges where she might not go. Plus, the few we did visit she hated. Maybe it helps with admission and maybe it doesn’t much matter, but who knows. Personally, I don’t think student guides walking backwards have all that much influence.

But now that she’s happily ensconced in a school, there are a bunch of things I wish we’d known enough to ask. I include them herewith, as they may save you some money or allow you to do better calculations.

Is there a college sponsored way for kids to get to the airport?

Some schools do offer a shuttle, but this is generally only on the day when school lets out for breaks (if at all). And getting back to school after breaks? Good luck on that one. If the school is located in one of those charming remote areas, check out how much the cab or airport express costs. Don’t faint. And while you’re doing that, check out the airfares. Add $2,000 or so to what you thought was your budget—because the airlines know when the schools let out, and price accordingly. College students have a lot of breaks.

What does it cost to stay in the dorm over breaks? Can you?

Luckily, I guess, my kid always wants to come home. But there are often special programs, internships, or even paid jobs that run over breaks. Before signing up, check out if the housing & food cost makes them worth it.

What can you do with the kid’s junk, er, room décor, over summer break?

Find out what storage costs average—many campuses have arrangements with storage locker facilities, but surprise, they aren’t cheap. Plan to rent a uHaul? Add up that cost, too.

What’s the policy if the student takes a year off, or quits or gets ill at some point in the college experience?

Right now you’re probably thinking please God not my kid. In the past 2 years I have heard 6 stories of personal acquaintances whose children did not or could not finish. Will the school automatically admit them back if in good standing? What about tuition refunds? And be aware that any loans will then kick into payment mode.

How does the health service bill? Is the local hospital in-network for your insurance?

Can you get bills to submit to your own insurance company? Can they get your kid to the emergency room or will your child have to find friends or EMTs if they need more than the health service can provide?

What can the school do if your child is in bed with the flu?

Surprisingly, at dd’s school nobody seems to have considered how a sick student will get fed. If your child is too sick to get over to the dining hall, she better have friends willing to get infected. Find out if there are beds at the health service—maybe you don’t want to be in the same room as a roommate who’s got the flu. And lock your kid in a room until the HIPAA form is signed so the health service can talk about the kid’s condition with you.

Is there an appeals process for grades that is remotely fair to the student?

This is a hard one to discover. But think for a moment about what each class is costing. Let’s say, total cost of attendance is $56,000 and child is taking 4 classes/semester. $23,000/4=$5,750. I am NOT saying that buys you a good grade, or that ANY child is entitled to a grade they did not earn. But the student ought to be entitled to a FAIR grade. Speaking from said daughter’s experience, there is going to be at least one teacher who

Can’t produce a coherent syllabus
Changes the grading system three or four times during the class
Can’t get assignments back so that the student has some idea how they’re doing and can prepare for a test
Loses assignments, doesn’t appear to read assignments carefully, yadda yadda
Doesn’t show up during posted office hours, and is late to appointments
Grades based on some airy-fairy feeling rather than the actual numbers the kid has scored

Sure, you had some terrible profs and so did I. But we probably weren’t paying the kind of bills we’re now getting, either. Thankfully, this experience was acquired via study at that other school down the road, okay, it was Swarthmore and not dd’s beloved Bryn Mawr. And I shudder to suggest that not all profs are equally (remotely) capable and that supervision of exactly what they’re up to is not as closely monitored as, say, the average schmo in an actual job, because that would probably make me sound a little resentful. Even worse if it’s a required course, a prerequisite, or something the student is profoundly interested in. In such a class with such a prof you would be better off lighting five Grover Clevelands (he’s on the $1,000 bill in case you’re never seen one)—at least it wouldn’t hurt the kid’s grade point average.

I’d ask about appeals and how many have been decided in the student’s favor. Snarky rant over.

Check out the public safety reports often posted on bulletin boards.

The ones over at Swarthmore made daughter and this parent shake in their boots. You really want to know about sexual assaults, armed robbery, etc. before you read about them in the paper. Unfortunately, some of this appears to be the new normal on some campuses (thankfully not aforesaid Bryn Mawr).

Will campus safety escort a student back to the dorm at night, do they actually show up, and how many people use it on an average weekend night?

Yeah, your kid will hate you for asking this. Until some dark and stormy night.

Is there an emergency management plan?

Not that there is ever a big snowstorm or anything, but maybe as a parent you’d be more comfortable if the inmates weren’t running the asylum. The kids are stuck there, but what about food service? Campus safety officers? Fire department, heat , electricity? If I had it to do over, I’d probably find out if a copy of a plan was available. Bryn Mawr did do a terrific job with snow and kid management. Glad it wasn’t me trying to handle both at once.

I’ve developed significantly more grey hair over the past two years my offspring has been in college and it’s not even due to her behavior! Find out all you can before you sign that acceptance letter, and you’ll sleep better for the next four years.

Drown-proofing your finances

Posted on April 9, 2013April 9, 2013 by Danielle

House on Fire (Photo credit: dvs)

We all know that we should plan for retirement and our kids’ college education. Like many other things in life, it’s simple but not easy and the how-to keeps plenty of financial planners in business. But what about the stuff you never see coming—anything you can do to protect yourself from drowning in the unexpected?

Have an emergency fund. Yes, it’s obvious in theory but apparently most people don’t believe it because few people have an even barely-adequate one. Yes, you have insurance (you do, don’t you? See below!) but there are plenty of things insurance doesn’t cover. A few:

veterinary bills;
dental work (insurance is rarely worth the cost);
deductibles on multiple policies (such as you drive your car accidently through your garage, or the house and the car burn in a fire or float away in a flood);
the cost of repairs or care when insurance doesn’t pay the full bill, one person gets really ill and the other person has to take off work to care for them or investigate or arrange care (unbelievably time consuming),
a loved one needs psychological care (few health policies pay the whole cost of this);
your car develops sudden, expensive repairs or you suddenly need a new one;
the new ones I hear about nearly every week.

In fact, many, many disasters could be avoided if an emergency fund were in place.

You say you have credit cards for that? And so did many of the people now facing bankruptcy because disasters multiplied, forcing them to put more and more on a credit card while they often had less and less income.

You’ll just cash in investments? How about in March, 2009 (market bottom,remember)? Tap your retirement fund? You’ll either get taxed on that or have a loan to repay. And a lot smaller retirement fund.

Continually upgrade your professional abilities. Join and keep active in whatever networking groups are applicable to your profession. Take any opportunities your company or professional association offers for skill upgrades. Take more classes at night or weekend workshops. If you ever get fired, you’ll know people and your resume will be fresh.

Don’t quit the day job. If you want to start a business, write a novel, change careers, do it part time. That way you can test out the viability and find out whether you really like it. Sure it takes time. Sure you’re tired. Sure it’s hard. Sure it takes herculean discipline. All of which are true, but more so, once you do quit the day job.

Also, after talking to oh so many stay at home moms going through divorces, I strongly advise anyone to keep a part-time or consulting foot in the door of their career. It’s far easier to re-activate a career from part-time than from scratch. Sure you’re madly in love, have the perfect marriage, and will never be in that situation. Unless your spouse suddenly becomes disabled. It happens. And, the impact on your future Social Security benefits can be dismal if you take a decade or two off of earning.

Live below your means and especially control your housing costs. Yeah, I know we’ve all heard it. It’s hard to live in a big city. Anyone can cut back on eating out, travel, and electronics purchases but ratcheting back the mortgage is much harder. Instead of living large for the neighbors, smile to yourself when you compare their new car to how much money you have in the bank, er, no-load mutual fund portfolio.

Don’t have all your wealth in your house. In an emergency you can’t spend equity, and it can be very hard to get a home equity loan if you suddenly have no income. People near retirement should be very careful about using significant cash assets to pay off the house if they have no other savings. (Whether to pay off is too complex and individual to discuss thoroughly here).

Understand what’s in your retirement accounts. Some people are very focused on saving, but park the money in investment choices that are absolute crap. Surprise, you’re 58 and your retirement is a disaster. Listen to the presentations, read the brochures, and learn something about investing. It won’t hurt, I promise.

Never, ever sign for your kids’ college loans. They have a lot of time to repay them. You don’t. If your kids don’t have enough initiative to be participants in their college funding, I wouldn’t say the future looks too bright on the employment front for them, either. Better clean up that basement room now.

Don’t borrow more than you will make the first year after college (or any other education). That way, you can pay it off in 10 years with a reasonable kick to your future income. If you can’t make it with that level of borrowing (combined with work, financial aid, individual scholarships, and whatever parental aid can be cajoled), you can’t afford to attend a traditional, full time, four year college. There are plenty of other ways to get an education and you’re going to need to explore them. It’s a good thing—you’ll have more self-reliance, more marketable skills, and you won’t decide to major in something dopey. Really, it’s not as hard as paying off a quarter of a mil for a degree in communications.

Don’t do everything for your kids and don’t pay for everything. You set their expectations too high while destroying their own initiative. The kid that has a job in high school (as opposed to 7 extracurricular, paid-for activities) is, IMHO, much more likely to have a job after college! Would your kid be willing to earn part of the money to pay for all those extras? If not, maybe you ought to save yourself the cost of those music lessons, language camps, etc.

Pay attention to insurance. Make sure you have it. Then make sure you re-evaluate it every 2 years or so for coverage and cost. Get some quotes. Be sure the values are current.

Take advantage of any government program for which you are (or your loved ones) are eligible. Veterans benefits, Social Security disability, whatever—don’t be too proud. These programs are designed to provide a safety net and sometimes we all need that net. You paid taxes for it. I paid taxes for it, so use it already. You won’t be the first person going through a divorce who ever applied for food stamps.

Face up to age. Get your estate documents in order. Sacrifice for long-term care insurance. Talk to your parents about their finances, and let your kids in on your “secrets”, too. (Who do you think will be making the decisions?) Don’t stay in your house until you’re too feeble to walk out on your own. Make some plans while you have choices.

Clean up the place. Junk, clutter and deferred maintenance reduce the value of your assets, damage your possessions, and can cost a ton of money to your heirs and anyone responsible for your care should you suddenly become disabled or need to sell in a hurry. Any realtor can tell you about the beautiful home gone to wrack and ruin by terrible housekeeping and neglected maintenance. Anyone willing to buy and repair a wreck is going to expect a discount far exceeding the cost of repairs. After all, they have to factor in THEIR labor cleaning up and fixing YOUR crap.

Pick any one of the above pointers, do the opposite, and you’re living on the edge. Save yourself now! And be careful out there.

College expenses you haven’t planned for

Posted on January 15, 2013January 15, 2013 by Danielle

Corrugated shipping container, one type of &qu...

Corrugated shipping container, one type of “cardboard box” (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

Soon (if not already) you’ll know if your child is one of the anointed ones. Early decisions from college applications have pretty much rolled in by now, and while the regular decisions are still sweating it out (or hoping for better), parents are busy filling out those college aid applications. It’s really crazy that you have to file aid applications without knowing whether your child is in or not, but I suppose the colleges could argue that you need an aid offer to know whether you’re going to accept their admissions offer. I’ve discussed aid qualifying in other posts on this site, but this time I’m going to mention a couple of surprise costs not usually included in most colleges’ costs of attendance statements, but you have to pay them anyway.

Transportation. Dear daughter has had so many breaks that sometimes I wonder why I’m paying for room and board at all. Look carefully at the college calendar. Many schools have a 5 year calendar available, so you’ll be able to know the exact day little Jennifer will don that cap and gown, provided she makes it in 4 or 5 years. But if your child is going to a school far enough away that you can’t easily drive to pick her up, count how many times you’re going to need to fly her back and forth (or estimate the cost of gas and hotel for a long road trip). Also, be aware that you’re not going to get any deal from the airlines on these trips. They’ve figured out that every college student is flying out the moment classes recess, and the airfare that’s $286 every other day of the week suddenly morphs into $486 on the day your child wants to travel. Also, the school may or may not provide a shuttle to the airport—bingo, another $60 in charges each time. If your child makes the round trip 5 times (school beginning/end, fall break, Thanksgiving break, Christmas break, spring break) it can easily add $2,000 to your needed funds. Frequent flyer seats? Ha. Ha.
Supplies. Sure, the school has told you to budget $500 for books. Maybe. But if your darling is taking a foreign language or science labs, those textbooks can be $150 or more, alone. The trend is to include online access and supplemental cds with those courses (which the kids never use, of course) making used textbooks or reselling the new ones not practicable. If the teacher decides to include supplemental books, like a French novel or two, cross your fingers that it’s available on Project Gutenberg. Many schools discourage students from purchasing individual printers by offering a certain amount of free printing from the college center or library. It’s easy to exceed this. If you do buy a cheap printer, don’t forget to add in ink and paper costs, which can easily amount to several hundred dollars per year.
Room decoration. Not only are they dinky, but most rooms can be extremely bare. And the mattresses are often extra long, making a purchase of a complete suite of bedding necessary. Then there’s the closets and storage containers, lamps, sometimes a rug, etc. We budgeted $200, but spent $500. And we didn’t bring a refrigerator, air conditioner, coffee maker, or any of the other stuff I saw some kids haul in.
Shipping. The closets are so small that we decided to ship winter clothes later. Then there were the books she couldn’t live without, the stuffed animals, the stuff she forgot on the first round, a supply of dark chocolate…Of course, you can’t just leave this stuff in the dorm room over the summer, because any college with an eye on raising money is renting out that dorm room to some summer program or camp. So you need to either ship it all back, or pay for storage, containers, and transportation to the storage facility over the summer. Believe it or not, this all can easily add up to $500-$1,000.
“Special” opportunities. Students will be pitched extra “opportunities” for break time: field schools, intensive workshops, discounted “educational” tours and spring break drinkathons. I’ve nixed those but the tab can be solidly in the four figures. I guess enough people sign on that it’s worthwhile offering these. I hope you can withstand the pleading.

And you thought the tuition was high, right?