I have a question for the board about college choices, and I wanted to get your opinions since most of yins are Pitt alums and all are Pitt fans.
The time has come for the little ones to start thinking about college. The oldest will be graduating in 2019 and is looking at Pitt for either education or marketing/business. His lifelong dream has been to follow the family tradition and attend Pitt; There's also no worry about his chances of getting accepted. The only problem is that since we're now living in Kansas City, out-of-state tuition is insanely expensive. I guess I didn't realize how much it went up from the time we went there. For one year, including room and board, we're looking at around $45,000. I think he should be eligible for some grants and maybe some scholarships (another thing that surprised me; Pitt's scholarship standards are much higher than others) but it'd still come to around $30,000 per year. Add three years to that and it adds up pretty fast.
We're not in a position to pay off most or all of his college, most people aren't. He also has some opportunities to stay home and go to someplace local for little to no money. In fact, he might get to keep some of the scholarship money to himself. My question to the board: If you were a parent and your kid was asking you for advice, would you sway them to take the more affordable choice with the chance to move back to Pittsburgh in a few years or pursue the lifelong dream and collect some massive student loans debt. I'm specifically worried about this since, as a teacher for example, you won't be making much to start out... little bit harder to pay back six figures in loans. I feel bad that one of these decisions has to be made, as in a perfect would he'd be going there no doubt. Thanks for the responses in advance. Looking forward to hearing what the proud Pitt men and women of the board have to say.
