About this time last year, during our meeting with one of our senior students, we discovered that he had quickly turned down an acceptance from one of the colleges that was on his “Top List.”  The reason?  He thought this school (let’s just call it School A) would be beyond what his family could afford, and he knew for sure that he was going with another school (School B).  Thankfully, as a freshman college student, he absolutely loves his choice of school and has no regrets.  However, as a consultant who has guided him through the process, it’s hard to overlook how the results could have been even better.

The truth is, until you get a full financial aid package from each school, you really don’t know what your net price (out-of-pocket cost) would be for each school.  In this student’s case, his family showed significant need according to their EFC (Expected Family Contribution) calculations.  The school he ended up going to, School B, was a larger public institution, which didn’t offer any extra financial aid. The other college, School A, which he turned down before getting the financial aid result, was a smaller engineering school — these types of schools tend to meet a higher percentage of families’ financial needs.  In other words, there was a very good chance that he could have gotten significant grants and aids (free money) that would have made School A more affordable.

Your final college decision should not be solely based on affordability, but it should be one of the biggest factors, regardless of a family’s ability to pay.  The more parents are forced to spend on college education, the less resources they will have to allocate to their other kids and retirement.  That means families have to look at the college decision as part of a larger financial decision and planning, rather than just a one-time consumer decision.

Don’t make your final college decision yet based on the limited information available to you.  If you haven’t done so already, visit the schools you are considering; review their financial aid and bottom-line out-of-pocket costs; and talk to alumnus (alumni?) from those schools.  Discuss the available options with family members and consult with someone who may have experience in the process.  The more information you have from a variety of sources, the better you, as a family, will be able to make sound decisions.  There is so much more to choosing a college than just the “name value” of a college.  It is good to exercise a common-sense approach for an important decision like this that will impact every member of the family for years to come!