Wait, this is going to cost what?

That’s what I kept asking myself when starting research on sending my oldest daughter to a college outside my state.

About to start her junior year, M had always been an above-average student, had performed well on standardized tests and participated in various extracurricular activities through the years. Her admission profile was tracking to be much stronger than mine had been many years ago — and I had graduated with a bachelor’s degree without paying a dime for tuition, fees or books (I know, #humblebrag. Just bear with me.) Since that time my career has been in non-profits and my wife has worked on building a photography business from scratch so you can guess that we hadn’t spent the last 15 years socking away college savings.

I just assumed that:

A) We would qualify for financial aid, and
B) Our kids are smart; they’ll get scholarships.

Yeah. About that.

I think back to meeting with a financial advisor in the early years of this century. He showed me a chart projecting that we should expect to save around $120,000 for each of our two children to pay for their education. Considering our annual gross adjusted income at that time was not even half that amount I literally laughed at him. Like falling out of my chair laughing. Hysterical hyenas-from-The-Lion-King laughing.

Once I regained my composure I thanked him for the chart but patiently explained that saving anywhere near that amount in the next 15-20 years would be impossible. Retirement savings was, and would be, our priority. We would do what we could and see what happens. The ridiculous escalation of college costs would probably be solved by that point anyway, I said. It was unsustainable.

As has happened on many occasions since…I was wrong. The trend sustained and even accelerated. Average tuition and fees at public in-state institution has doubled from under $5,000 in 2002 to more then $10,000 now. Private tuition has skyrocketed from an average of around $20,000 in 2002 to more than $40,000 today. Add another $15,000 for room and board and assorted costs to those tuition totals now — no matter what type of school you choose if your student is not going to live at home.

We had saved some for both kids through 529 plans. Actually, I was kind of proud of us when I checked in on the statements. Then I came to the realization that we might need $120,000 to get two kids through college EVEN IF THEY GOT FULL-TUITION SCHOLARSHIPS.

It was a terrifying — and depressing — moment.

Some quick research on the term EFC eliminated the idea of financial aid for us for public schools. And need-based aid would vary greatly from school to school among the privates. My faith in A) was quickly dispelled.

As for B) Scholarships, despite my kid’s credentials, I found that full-tuition scholarships are exceedingly competitive now. Schools no longer hand just hand those out because because you posted a great test score and have a 3.5 GPA. There are plenty of merit scholarships available at most schools, but $14,000 knocked off a $55,000/year cost doesn’t have that much appeal to me.

But I still thought I could beat the system. I’m great at research and relentless on finding answers. I would find a solution to this that wouldn’t break the bank.

Remember that thing about me being wrong. It’s a theme.

The funny thing is, kids have strong opinions about things themselves. M has a career path in mind and has certain ideas about locations and program focus. In talking to other parents, I’ve found that seems to come up a lot. The main thing I’ve learned is that if your child wants to pursue a path that is not easily available in at a public university in your state, or is determined to live in a big city or whatever reason that results in crossing that state line for school — you are screwed.

So her education is going to cost a lot more than I ever anticipated. We’re now resigned to this. But we’re not resigned to draining our retirement or saddling our children with a mountain of student loan debt. In this search, we are all in agreement on the following:

1. She is not going to take on more debt than the limit on federal loans (no private bank loans).
2. Because of the outrageous cost of out-of-state tuition coupled with limited aid options for those same out-of-state students, public schools not in our state are generally out unless she can earn enough AP credit to graduate in three years.
3. Private school aid will need to be a combination of financial and merit aid since financial aid is re-evaluated every year based on income and ours can vary significantly since my wife is self-employed.

I’ve put in countless hours in the last year trying to help my daughter find the magical combination of location, academic program fit, campus culture and cost. I’m writing this blog for a few reasons.

1. If you find this, I want to you know you’re not alone in this desperate process. There are countless parents out there flailing their way through it.
2. It took me a lot of time to find the right resource for the right fact. You can’t just subscribe to USNEWS and think you’re going to assemble the perfect list. I want to share those resources and give you tips on what information each is best at providing.
3. I don’t have the right answer for you and your family’s situation. Every one is different. But I can help give you some shortcuts and perhaps help you get to the right decision with less aggravation and stress.

OK, there’s the origin story. Let’s get to work.