If your child doesnt get into the state school, and that is your plan, what is your plan b for a private school tuition? Mine are high school but not seniors so we arent there yet. (Curious specifically about anyone who has had recent experience with admissions to our state schools here in MA) . . .
I know the state schools for many states are huge....much larger than ours so I wondered how that can impact students and their choices.
We personally don't really have a Plan B in case our kids weren't accepted to the State schools. In our state, with 16 public universities, most students who should be going to college (meaning that they have the grades and the work ethic) will be admitted
somewhere. Maybe not their first choice, but somewhere. My own daughters shouldn't have any problem.
However, I have taught students who weren't accepted to the state schools; usually that means that their grades were lacking AND they waited pretty late to apply. They seem to have three options (none of which I'd really like for my children): 1) Don't go to school. Being rejected is not a good thing for a kid's self-esteem, and it can be such a turn-off that the student just gives up. 2) Look into community college. It can be a good start. 3) Pay what the private schools demand, and if you're talking about students who weren't accepted at the public schools, there's not much chance of any scholarship money coming through.
As for school size, perhaps I feel this way because I attended a large university, but I do not share the very common desire for a small school environment. My daughter and I visited one small school this summer (1700 students), and we both came away thinking, "This is it?" Beautiful campus though.
When I was in school, I think we had about 15,000 students, and I was fine with it. A larger school offers a wider range of majors (good for students who aren't sure what they want to study), a greater number of professors, more course offerings, lots of offerings for on-campus living, four cafeterias, always something to do on campus -- concerts, movies, speakers, lots of sports, more jobs on campus, larger library . . . just more opportunity. This wasn't a "thing" when I was in school, but as I've done college visits with my daughter, I've seen lots of international opportunities at the larger schools. I can see that this'd be "too much" for a shy or unassertive student who was afraid to "do for herself", but I thrived in that environment. I don't remember ever having trouble finding my professors when I needed them.
And a story: I was worried about one of my ultra-shy students (not the strongest academic student) when she headed off to a campus of 26,000 students. I feared she'd be overwhelmed, maybe even end up coming home. I'm very glad I was wrong. Her mom tells me that she encountered some problems in her first weeks, but she sought help from her RA and soldiered through. She's a sophomore now and is making better grades than she ever did in high school -- so her choice was right on the money!
If you can't do it, you can't do it.
However, if the argument is simply, "Well, we had to pay our own way and gosh darn it, our kids won't be getting a penny from me because we never got anything." then I would have to disagree with you.
Yeah, I'd disagree with that statement too. The world is changing; it's much less forgiving than it was when we were in college -- kids who don't start out well have to work so hard to catch up.
Saving for college is not an all or nothing proposition. Just because you don't want to provide a "full ride" doesn't mean you couldn't provide a partial ride.
Quite true. If you can just do tuition -- or even half of tuition -- it's a huge help to your college student.
Why do they look at the parents accounts?? When is a child responsible for themself financially in terms of financial aid?
I think it's age 24 -- unless some other fairly unusual circumstances exist. Colleges assume that traditional students (traditional aged college students) are getting financial help from their families, whether it's true or not. It's far from a perfect system, but I don't have any idea how to make it fair for everyone.
I do contribute to my 
