We Worry About Paying for College. So Why Don’t We Talk About Money While Our Kids Build Their Lists?

If you have a high school senior right now, paying for college may not even be the thing taking up the most space in your head.

Applications are opening. Essays need to get written. The college list may still be changing. There are visits to schedule, deadlines to figure out and a kid who may still have no idea what they want to study.

And somewhere in the middle of all of that, you’re also trying to enjoy their last year of high school.

So the money part?

It’s really easy to think, We’ll figure that out once we know where they get in.

I get why.

But your kid is already making college decisions.

And if they have no idea what your family can realistically contribute, they’re making those decisions without a pretty important piece of information.

So how much should parents pay for college?

There isn’t one number that’s right for every family. The better starting point is figuring out what your family can realistically contribute over four years without taking on more debt or sacrificing other financial priorities than you’re comfortable with.

And that’s a number worth knowing before spring.

When should you talk to your teen about college costs?

You don’t need to know exactly what every college will cost before your teen applies. But before their list gets too far along, they should have some idea of what your family can realistically contribute, how you feel about borrowing and whether there are financial boundaries they’ll need to consider.

The goal isn’t to let money choose the college.

It’s to make sure money isn’t completely missing from the conversation until spring.

First, figure out what you’re actually comfortable paying

My husband and I saved for each of our kids’ college educations from the time they were young.

Being able to give our kids a college education was important to us, and I know how fortunate we are to be able to do that.

But that gift still came with parameters.

We sat down and looked at what we were comfortable contributing, and we didn’t just look at freshman year. We looked at all four years.

That gave us a number we could actually talk about with our daughter.

She knew she could apply to an expensive school. We weren’t going to look at a sticker price and automatically tell her she couldn’t consider it.

But she also understood something important:

Getting in did not automatically mean we could afford to send her there.

If a school ended up costing more than what we were comfortable contributing, that difference had to come from somewhere.

So we looked at that too.

What would borrowing mean? What could monthly payments look like? How much could interest add over time?

One of her math teachers actually had the class calculate how much more borrowed money can cost once interest and repayment are factored in.

She was shocked.

“Just take out a loan” sounds a whole lot different when you see what that loan could take out of your paycheck every month after graduation.

That’s information I want my kid to have while she still has choices, not after she has already decided what she wants.

How much should cost influence the college list?

It depends.

And I think that’s an important distinction.

Cost absolutely belonged in our college conversations. But I didn’t want my daughter looking at every school and immediately asking, Is this one cheap enough?

I work around people who spend every day thinking about college costs, financial aid, borrowing and ways families can pay less for college. So I was VERY aware of the money side during our own college search.

Sometimes I got a little too focused on it.

But affordability isn’t something you either care about or ignore. It’s one of the parameters you’re using to build a college list, and how much weight it carries is going to look different for every family.

For some families, there may be a number they simply cannot go above. For others, there may be more flexibility depending on financial aid, merit scholarships or how strongly a school checks the other boxes that matter to their student.

And that’s another reason I don’t love making decisions based only on sticker price.

That price on the college website? It’s the sticker price. It’s not necessarily what your family will pay.

A college with a huge published price might offer your student significant aid. Another school that looks less expensive at first glance might not offer nearly as much.

And you don’t have to wait until your kid gets accepted to start getting an idea of what you could pay.

You can start estimating what a college could cost your family after potential grants, financial aid and merit scholarships while your kid is still deciding where to apply.

You have to get closer to what each school could cost your family before you really know what you’re comparing.

At the same time, your kid is thinking about where they want to live, what they might study, what kind of campus feels right, how far they want to be from home and what they want the next few years of their life to look like.

Those things matter too.

Cost should be part of the college search. It just doesn’t have to be the whole college search.

Financial parameters aren’t there to make the decision for your kid.

They’re information that helps your kid make a better-informed decision.

Your job is changing too

This might be one of the strangest parts of parenting a senior.

For years, you’ve made a lot of the big decisions.

Now your teenager is making what may feel like the biggest decision they’ve ever made, and your role starts shifting.

You’re doing less controlling and telling and more advising, guiding, and cheerleading.

That doesn’t mean disappearing from the process. They’re still teenagers. There is a LOT of growing up that happens during senior year.

But instead of deciding which schools should make the list, you can ask questions that help them figure out what matters to them.

Why do you like that school? What do you picture your day looking like there? What do you want more of in college than you have in high school? What do you know you don’t want?

And yes, some of the answers may seem small.

Maybe they hate hot weather. Maybe the idea of walking across a giant campus sounds miserable. Maybe they really want big-time sports, or they’d rather be somewhere where they recognize people everywhere they go.

Those are still clues.

At the same time, there may be a lot going on in their head that they aren’t saying out loud.

What if I don’t get in anywhere? What if I pick wrong? What if I leave my friends and don’t make new ones? What if everyone else knows what they’re doing and I don’t?

Add schoolwork, activities, essays, applications and trying to enjoy senior year, and it’s not hard to see why one more college question from Mom or Dad occasionally gets a less-than-enthusiastic response.

They still need us.

They just need us differently.

And part of that new role is giving them information they cannot know unless we share it, including the financial parameters they’re working within.

Stop trying to copy someone else’s college plan

When you’ve never done this before, it’s natural to ask everyone who has.

Your neighbor. Your sister. Your coworker. The parent Facebook group.

Some of that advice may be great.

But their kid isn’t your kid. Their finances aren’t your finances. Their priorities aren’t your priorities.

Even within the same family, what worked for one child may not work for the next.

Sometimes you don’t need more information.

You need clearer parameters.

Your kid. Your finances. Your priorities.

Once you know those things, it gets much easier to decide which advice actually applies to you.

Give college planning a place to live

This may be the most practical thing I would tell a friend starting senior year:

Put college time on the calendar.

Maybe it’s 15 minutes one week and two hours the next, or maybe it’s 30 minutes everyday.

Sometimes it’s you and your spouse or partner. Sometimes your senior needs to join you. Sometimes you need to sit down alone and figure something out.

But give college planning a place to live so it doesn’t have to live in your head constantly.

Otherwise, it has a way of showing up everywhere.

At dinner. In the car. While your kid is heading out the door. At 10:30 at night when you suddenly remember something you meant to ask them.

I keep a notebook next to my bed for a similar reason. If I wake up thinking about something I need to remember, I write it down.

Now I don’t have to keep holding onto it.

Do the same thing with college.

Write the question down. Put the deadline on the calendar. Add the thing you need to research to your list.

Then deal with it during college time.

Obviously, if something is actually due tomorrow, deal with it. But not every college thought that pops into your head needs to become a family discussion immediately.

Sometimes it can wait until Sunday.

And then everybody gets to go back to being a family.

How much should parents pay for college?

There isn’t one right amount.

What matters is figuring out what your family can realistically contribute toward four years of college.

Not just freshman year.

Four years.

It does not need to be perfect down to the dollar. You need a pretty good estimate with some wiggle room.

Look at what you’ve saved. Think about what you could comfortably contribute from current income. Consider any other resources you expect to use.

And talk about borrowing.

Are you willing to borrow? Is your student? How much feels reasonable? Where is the line you don’t want your family to cross?

Now you have a starting point.

From there, you can look at the colleges your kid is considering and ask a much more useful question:

What could this school actually cost our family?

If you’re sitting there thinking, Okay, but how do I actually figure out that number? we have a free College Budget Worksheet that can help you work through it.

Start there.

Once you know what your family can contribute, you can start looking at what the colleges on your kid’s list could actually cost you.

That’s your job for now.

Not understanding every financial aid rule.

Not knowing exactly what every college will eventually cost.

Not figuring out four years of college down to the penny.

Get your number.

Then you have something useful to work with while your kid builds their list and works on applications.

So what are we actually trying to accomplish?

I keep coming back to this.

Because it’s really easy to get caught up in the college name.

Where did they apply?

Where did they get in?

Where are they going?

There’s pride wrapped up in this for us as parents too. Of course there is. We’re proud of our kids.

But it’s worth occasionally asking:

Whose definition of a successful college outcome are we working toward?

For me, success isn’t just an acceptance letter or the name on the sweatshirt.

I want my kid to be excited about where she’s going. I want her to see opportunities in front of her. I want her to understand the financial reality of her choice.

And I want the decision to work financially without sacrificing everything else our family is working toward.

A year ago, we didn’t know exactly what any of that would look like.

This weekend, we’re packing the car.

She found a school she’s excited about, and one that makes sense financially.

There are still plenty of things running through my head as we get ready to send her off.

How we’re paying for college isn’t one of them.

Not because senior year went perfectly.

Not because we had every answer last August.

We didn’t.

But we didn’t leave the money until the end either.

And if you’re at the beginning of senior year right now, that may be the most useful place to start.