First post here, but I've been browsing and reading for a few weeks. Hopefully I picked the right forum for this post.
First the background info…
We live in OH and my child attends a small rural school. Believe it or not, K-12 are in one building with about 50 students per grade. As you can imagine, there are limited opportunities in terms of ECs. We don’t even have a football team. I don’t believe there are any AP classes. Child was home-schooled through 7th grade and enrolled at in local school district for 8th. So next year, he will be freshman. This year’s grades were a couple B+ and the rest were A- and A. He excels at reading/language and (relatively speaking) struggles a bit with math. He wants to go to college and would prefer computer science or something in the engineering track, perhaps mechanical or electrical. He does well on homework but struggles with testing so I’m not expecting superb ACT or SAT results.
He has no hooks. Has taken several years of piano and does OK, but it is not his passion. Likes sports but is not an exceptional athlete and is physically small in size. Loves to read and remembers all sorts of crazy facts & trivia. Closest thing he may have to a hook is a strong work background. He has raised animals (cattle, turkeys, chickens) as well as baled hay and split firewood.
Our family comes from a blue-collar background. Other than one uncle, nobody from spouse’s extended family has ever gone to college. On my side, other than one uncle, I was the first. So we aren’t really into the whole “travel across the country and enjoy your college experience” scene or “become a well-rounded” person philosophy. To us, college is more a stepping stone to a sustaining, enjoyable career and a degree should be obtained as efficiently as possible. But don’t get me wrong, if the best fit for our child is on several states away or on one of the coasts, then that is OK, too.
Our EFC looks like it will be about ~14k. Realistically, we can probably cash flow about a third of that. All our savings are in retirement accounts with nothing set aside for college. I’ve played around with net price calculators and once room and board is figured in, I am struggling to see how this can work without a lot of debt that we are not in favor of.
I guess, my question is, how do I guide my son and direct him to schools that may be a good fit? How does one go about finding colleges with engineering programs that offer good financial aid to a bright but not superb student?
Since we live in OH, one thought I’ve had is to potentially direct him down the college credit plus track where he can take classes for dual high school and college credit at local community college. If he did this as high school junior and senior, he could probably obtain 30-60 college credits and get a lot of basic classes out of the way and paid for by the state before high school graduation. There was actually a girl that graduated from his high school this spring that graduated from the local community college two weeks earlier than she did high school!
The other thing is, the same local community college has firm transfer agreements in place with a relatively local (40 minute commute) but less than stellar state university.
Ultimately, this is all his decision to make but I’m hoping to set to tone and gently guide him in a direction that will ultimately conclude with a good degree in a field he likes without a lot of debt.
Input appreciated. :)
↧