That’s a helpful frame of reference—thank you!! I think we’ll be doing 1-2 credits and then the rest activities! 👍

The colleges we’ve examined so far do not list fine arts…..or PE…..I’ve obsessively made lists. Ha! His electives are likely mostly going to be academic in nature, like extra foreign languages, or Econ, theology, etc. After this year (10th grade) he will have fulfilled *most* of his required-for-college basics, and so junior and senior years will be a chance to focus on what he really likes, which are things like theology, languages, philosophy, etc…..(we could graduate him early but no one is in a rush for that around here!).

That’s helpful-thanks! So far I’ve only been really recording and describing the “academic” credits, but we have WAY more than enough for one fine arts credit. Along similar lines, what about PE? Again, I’ve just ignored it because I am focused on the academics. Between hiking the AT and involvement in ballet (he’s not a dancer but he gets roped into being in ballets as a sort of “warm body who can also partner with girls in party scenes”), we’ve definitely got enough hours for a couple of PE credits. I’ve never placed much mental value on that, but perhaps it would be good to include those on a transcript as well.

I feel this acutely. It is SO much.

Our daughters must be on the same wavelength! My 12 year old is at about 13 hours per week—except, of course, right now. 27 last week and 50 next week. Can you say “Nutcracker?” 😳🙈🥵

So far I haven’t included any fine arts as a graduation requirement. He is advanced-intermediate at piano and has also done a lot of art, so we won’t be hurting for *something* to fulfill that requirement. I guess that begs another question: should I require a fine arts credit? 🤔 🤷🏻‍♀️

This is definitely a nice perk that would set a child up really well for their future!

If your child were heavily involved in theatre, would you include theatrical hours as a *credit* on the transcript for drama, or would you simply add this to "activities?" I'm torn. My son puts in probably 200+ hours per year into theatre so it surely deserves some attention, but at the same time, I feel ridiculous awarding him an A (although he does do a great job!). FWIW, we are not lacking credits. By the end of 10th grade we'll have 13 credits and they're all hard academic ones (no PE, no arts, no electives other than theology).

I bet! I think it was really stressful for our niece also. And right now the job market is saturated, so finding a summer job has been tough as all the law students are competing for a few slots. After my 1L year I took an amazing unpaid internship with the US Attorneys office and then after 2L year secured a great job with the law firm that eventually hired me. It didn’t seem hard then, but it seems harder now.

It seems to extend into graduate programs as well. My niece applied to at least a dozen law schools. I applied to one. It just feels like so MUCH!!

This was our thought process as well. Definitely don’t want to be locked into a 529, and the “tax benefit” wasn’t sufficiently strong to convince us to give up the flexibility!

@Lori D. Point well taken re: spending on higher education without a clear goal! I majored in philosophy so I was one of “those,” but it was during my college career that my plans began to gel and form, and those years were valuable as a time to ripen. Fortunately it didn’t cost a fortune because my “public ivy” was affordable—sorry I can’t say the same for that school now. 😕 For this particular kid, I suspect we’ll see some more direction over the next 2 years. He’s only a sophomore, so I feel like the next couple of years will be big growing ones! He adores those residents! I can’t see him in the medical field, but actually—chaplaincy? I could see something along those lines. He’s the nicest person I’ve ever met (seriously), and has a gentle heart with a deep-thinking brain. He has spent time with a very sick cancer patient (his daddy) and a terminal patient (my daddy) and has empathy as a result. I was encouraging him to maybe cut back next semester and not work again until summer and he said “I can’t—I’d miss the residents too much, and I don’t want to come back and find that any of them died without me knowing.” 😭🥰

Yeah-technically the entire mutual fund is mentally earmarked for educational expenses, but obviously the less we use of it, the better! So we will likely use a combo of that plus income. Just as little of the saved as possible. I believe when I’ve looked at the NPCs I am writing down a figure that always excludes loans, but I will keep an eye on that because I don’t want to accidentally include it when I am doing my initial evaluation! Good tip!

@8filltheheartRight! Because at first my husband suggested reducing AGI next year by maxing out his 401k (which we did until that aforementioned car loan last December), but since those contributions are added back in, it won’t matter. I also agree with you that I think the EFC could end up higher. Several CSS Profile schools are on our long “initial list”—the starting-point comprehensive spreadsheet I created to compare prices, sizes, NPCs, and many, many other details. I’m noting which schools are CSS on that.

@Lori D. thank you for the info-I didn’t know the FAFSA is being revamped! I’ll be interested to see how that plays out/changes things. You’ve included so much useful info. I also appreciate all those links—I’ll be interested to examine those! Trying to determine whether to pay off the loan we have and maybe invest in a Roth is the main issue here. I’m thinking we’ll go for it, since 5.64% of $100K is more than, say, 5.64% of $60-70k. We’ll need to crunch the #s for my son’s earnings—he’s a saver!

Right! We opted not to do a 529 because we don’t want to be locked into using that money for education in case we don’t need it. We have no plans to open a 529, as we don’t see a benefit of a 529 over our current investment. (And we want the flexibility.)

My husband and I are trying to determine how best to strategize some investing over the next year or so in preparation for college and Life Ahead. I plan to post here but eventually delete the relevant details, but for now I'll give some basic information- Our son is 16 and a sophomore. My understanding is that next year (2024) will be our "base income" year from the perspectives of colleges scrutinizing our finances for his college education. His sister, who is almost 13, is in 7th grade. My husband and I do not think there's any way to reduce our AGI, so I suspect it is what it is in terms of our income next year. *Income: I work very very part time (5-10 hours per week) and plan to continue that next year. My husband makes about 10x what I make. We're in the lower six figures. I think our AGI will be about $100K next year, maybe a bit less. *Debt: Last year we took out a loan for a car--which I think we may pay off this month (it's at $24K, this is part of the strategizing, see below). No mortgage, no other debts. *Retirement: Hugely variant with the market but we've been aggressive investors and if we put NOTHING else into retirement (which is not the plan) and the world stays relatively stable, we will retire with plenty. We currently invest something like 18% of the salary, I think--I can't remember as we change it from time to time. *Other (here's where the strategizing is happening): a $10K CD I keep just in case we need it; a bit of cash on hand in savings/checking (nothing remarkable), and $100,000 in a mutual fund--this is what we're scrutinizing. I inherited that money from my grandparents a few years ago and since we didn't need it, we just invested it, with the idea that it could be used for college expenses down the road, if needed. We are toying with the idea of using $24K from the mutual fund to pay the car off. The interest rate on the loan is 5.75%. This may roughly match the interest rate we've gotten on the mutual fund. If the car loan were, say, 2% and we were seeing an 8% return on the fund, that's an easy choice. But since they're fairly close, we may just rather pay it off and get rid of the $560 monthly payment, freeing that money up in our monthly budget. My husband is considering taking $6500 out to open his own Roth IRA, and then using money from the fund to max that out over the next few years. So we're looking at removing about $30,000 (this year) from the $100K fund, leaving $70K. And we are thinking about using that a portion of that money over the next couple of years to max out the Roth we may create in my husband's name, which would decrease the fund additionally. (I already have a Roth IRA, so that's why we're focusing on him.) *College plans: We are not going to allow our children to borrow money for school, nor do we plan to leverage ourselves for that. However, from the FAO's POV, I suspect we're good candidates for a parent loan since we have some home equity (probably about $275K). I'm concerned this might "bite" us, since we have no intention of borrowing money. I think we'd be able to contribute about $1,000/month for tuition out of pocket just from our current income. Also, I may be able to pick up more work, especially once my daughter is college-aged, which would increase our income and increase the amount we can pay OOP. I've run NPCs all over the place and they're wildly variable. I think *in general* most schools seem to think we'd be paying $20K-$25K OOP per year. Except for some schools, who are higher. (I'm looking at you, my public school alma mater!!!) I suppose the question we're grappling with is this: does it make financial sense to pay the car loan (we are leaning heavily toward that) and open the Roth (not sure we'll do this or not), and reduce our set-aside cash on hand? Or should we simply keep the mutual fund intact as much as possible? How much does a FAO take into account that type of fund v. income? *Last note, re: types of schools: no idea about my daughter yet. My son is a straight-A student so far (except for those B+s he currently has in 2 classes, time to buckle down!!). He's historically a good tester, so with prep I'm hoping he'll do well on the SAT, but we have no idea yet. We're still in the very earliest stages of exploring schools and options. He's a pretty gifted languages guy (French 4 and his 4th year of spanish this year, hopes/plans to study French in college, along with something else--not sure what yet). He is on the spectrum, big into community theatre, works in a retirement home, has a father who survived stage 4 cancer. He's smart and solid, but he isn't currently doing anything that I would consider a "wow" to admissions officers. Maybe I'm underestimating him. 🙂 But I'm trying to be realistic! Cash on hand or paying down debt/investing in retirement...what do you think would ultimately be better, and would have the least negative impact on our potential aid?

These are great ideas about how to help him recognize the reality of passing time! Thank you all so much. 💙 We have a Time Timer that he utilizes (I bought it earlier this semester). The visual nature of that type of timer is super helpful for him. He also tends to use the pomodoro technique—but struggles to keep breaks within preset boundaries. I love some of these suggestions!! these life skills…so hard and yet so essential!

Yes! That was always something my sister has struggled with. A “quick” task would take 30-60 minutes. It was epic. My son isn’t quite at that level, but he does get surprised by the passage of time, or isn’t able to figure out how much time things will take. I will say he’s pretty good at being on time or early for the things that matter to him (work, theatre) although he’s usually last to the car for church on Sundays. Ha! I have not found anything that would limit other windows (I’ve looked a little bit, am underwhelmed with our new laptop’s lack of capabilities there), although something might exist!

Yeah. I appreciate that and may implement it, especially since more physical time is better for him (I sometimes force him to go outside and walk around the farm). Fresh air is so revitalizing/mentally refreshing! I think there’s wasting time and investing time. TV I see as a generally universal waste (I know others would disagree…we don’t even have TV access), friends and games I would generally consider investments, and the type of internet use he typically does is also investment (he’s a learner for sure) although funny Babylon Bee videos are a waste. Maybe an investment in laughter. Jury’s out. 🙂 So there’s some nuance in my analysis. It also doesn’t help that I somewhat regard chemistry as a waste….but we’re not telling my son that! 😉 He WANTS to like it. Physical alternatives make a lot of sense to me. Walks are good, & chores are helpful!

I have often wondered/suspected that he’s got mild ADD (no hyperactivity in that one but inattentiveness and laser focus, alternating, as well as slow to respond at times—deep in thought—poor sense of the passage of time, etc). My sister is *severely* ADD & I see the similarities, although hers is way worse. And you’re right-it’s tricky for someone without it to help someone with it, because my rationale is: just quit procrastinating already! Which just doesn’t provide solid help for that type of brain. Reframing it as a choice is helpful. We’ve done some of that already—will keep going in that direction (even though I totally think it’s a bad habit-ha ;)).

@Alice Good question! He doesn’t want to cut anything back! We have discussed dropping chemistry and replacing it with something more self-paced/less homework (and I’d overlook the $1200 loss, gulp—we are truly willing to do this to buy some margin) but he is pretty adamant that he not drop any classes. I respect that. He’s going to cut back to 1 day/week of work in January and we may drop the job altogether until summer (neither my husband nor I worked while in HS during the year, so I don’t think it’s really necessary—but my son loves the residents at this retirement home and doesn’t want to totally lose contact!). My son likes all his classes except chemistry. He just doesn’t like the *workload* for a few of them —at least that’s my interpretation. He unequivocally loves languages and philosophy/theology, but also enjoys math and loved physics last year. I’ll be structuring next year differently, that’s for sure.

I tell him to quit and get back to work. So he does. But it certainly feels “nag-gy.” And he’ll get distracted again later!

He works either at the dining table or our schoolroom table (basement). Very rare he’s in his room. During the day I’m either working (I work 1-2 hours a day) at my desk which is also in the schoolroom or doing various household tasks (laundry, tidying, cleaning, food prep, etc). I feel like I have to babysit his internet use, which no one enjoys. Nothing nefarious at all, but things like watching political debates and linguistics videos—with the occasional Babylon Bee clip thrown in.

Yes-this was the idea of not letting him do the February show. Get off the hamster wheel/treadmill of scrambling and Busy for a couple of months to see if we can establish better habits. We’ve started already with a couple of basic morning routine things, but the distracted nature is one of those things that I’m struggling to determine how to help-tackle.