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Writer's pictureCatherine Tidd

A Shallow Dive Into the Jacked-Up System of College Funding


frustrated mom

With three kids, I now consider myself an expert on the screwed-up system that is college funding.


Now that I've sent my third kid off, I have now logged into some college bursar's office 14 times so far to pay college tuition. I have diligently filled out the FAFSA seven times. I have opted into funding solutions I have been utterly confused about and have hoped this doesn't mean that someday they will repossess my favorite kid (my dog) because I didn't understand what I was signing up for.


I thought it was just me. You put numbers in front of me and I glaze over. But I work in marketing with financial advisors so I at least have a basic idea of how this is supposed to work. AND I have a sister who is a Certified Financial Planner (tm) so you'd think I'd be ahead of most people.


Yeah. No.


Before my oldest went to college, I went to a seminar on how to fill out the FAFSA and left feeling more confused than when I walked in. I had some money saved for college, but not for all of it. Was that going to be helpful or was I about to be penalized for what I'd saved? Was I about to have to figure out how to find $100k a year or were scholarships and grants going to cover it all? Did my parents go through this as I packed up my little Toyota Tercel in 1994 and headed off to college? If they did, they didn't tell me about it (while my kids have listened to me whine nonstop about this system).


I blindly waited for that first tuition bill to hit my inbox in 2019, embarrassed that I didn't know down to the penny what to expect. I assumed that I hadn't asked the right questions or was just too dumb to get it and held my breath hoping it would be an amount I could manage.


I'm going to fast forward for a moment to when my sister (the financial planner) sent her first kid to college two years later. She went through the same thing. Bottom line: you don't know what that total is going to be until it hits your inbox and by then your kid already has their shower caddy all ready to go. You're locked in.


Now, let's get to the Covid years. One of the only good things about how this works is that you can connect your FAFSA to your IRS account and it will automatically download everything and put numbers in the right boxes.


But during Covid...I couldn't do that. The IRS was so backed up on reviewing returns that they didn't have my taxes in the system. That meant that it was up to little old me - the one who doesn't understand numbers - to fill in all of that information.


The result? I don't know what the hell I did but my daughter's tuition bill that year was horrendous. And, again, we were locked in.


And now? My son has been going to the same university for two years and is starting his third. His tuition bill is higher this year than it was last year. Why? I've had to do some digging and have sent a plea to the financial aid office asking what we missed. Did we forget to check a box somewhere?


WHY DO I HAVE TO DO THIS EVERY YEAR???? Why, when we sign on the dotted line their freshman year, isn't it the same damn bill that comes every semester after that? Why do I always feel like I'm playing a game and was only given half the rule book?

My sister and I talk about this all the time. We are smart women. We are college graduates. She works in finance. I work finance-adjacent.


We ask ourselves in disbelief, "Can you imagine being one of the many parents in this country who are trying to navigate this system who don't speak English as a first language, and who might not have the education level it takes to understand this?"


Maybe the government does this to level the playing field because it doesn't seem to matter if you have a PhD or you didn't graduate high school...no one can understand this system.


So, if you're beating yourself up for feeling unprepared about your kid's tuition bill, don't.


No one gets this.

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