MrsPete, excellent responses so thank you. I was thinking, "is this MMMs wife responding" but the I quickly recalled she's running an Etsy business not a high school teacher.... :)
No, but my husband's name is Pete.
I had mentioned a book I stumbled across as a freebie in our public libraries book giveaway called "Right College Right Price"
Personally, I have not found any books I would recommend on this topic. Books tend to be so general /try to cover too much ground.
I've been told out school district is one of the best in Ohio and the fact that our academic teams tend to place well in state competitions would seem to validate that, so I am assuming that the pool of talent she is measured against in her class would be pretty high.
It's a good and a bad thing to be a part of a high-academic crowd: On the one hand, it means she's likely better prepared for college; on the other hand, it means the competition for scholarships is tougher. Regardless, she's likely to find college "a step up".
This may be one area I am mistaken in, as I have no idea how to determine that. I'm hoping that since my daughter was part of a Science Olympiad team that made it to Nationals twice in her tenure that this would differentiate for scholarships. She has had a job at McDonald's since she turned 16, works 30-40 hours a week and was promoted to Crew Trainer within 6 weeks of starting, which would seem to show some leadership qualities. She won an essay contest for Daughters of the American Revolution in middle school, so she's got some unique items that I would think are a little rare. She does all that while maintaining involvement in Science Olympiad and theater which both require year round commitment of a heavy nature. In all this I may certainly be succumbing to special snowflake syndrome where I feel she is doing a lot, but maybe it is just "meh" compared to everyone else.
Paired with her 3.9 GPA, these are positive ... but not head-and-shoulders-above-the-rest positive. It's important that she writes these things up well in her essays /applications to show herself in the best possible light. Except I wouldn't mention any middle school accomplishments.
I do feel she is feeling that going to community college is in some ways "lesser".
My oldest went straight to a 4-year university, but my youngest opted to begin with community college -- her choice, the right choice, and the day she made the choice she cried with relief because the pressure of "going away" was removed. Yes, people looked at her (and me) as if they wanted to ask, "But, but, but, isn't she ... smart?" The truth is she wasn't emotionally ready to go away. She has grown tremendously in community college, and she is now ready for the 4-year university.
Honestly, in general, I do think it's better (if possible) to begin at the 4-year school, but it isn't always the best path for every student. In the last 6-8 years I've seen a disturbing trend: I'm seeing (or hearing about) more and more of my students going away to 4-year schools and "not making it". Some just leave school, others come home to matriculate at the community college, but I think most of the ones who "don't make it" haven't chosen well -- for some it's money, for others it's lack of emotional readiness -- but, if in doubt, starting at community college is probably better than the knock of "failing" to a young person.
I do also worry that she has no idea what a real job in her desired major will be. If she can really only do very basic lab work with a BS, she may be disappointed and not prepared that she will need more schooling
She's interested in Biology? I think your fears are reasonable -- unless she wants to teach Biology. I have a relative who first earned a Bio degree and could not find a job. He added a Chemistry degree and was suddenly flooded with options.
Has your daughter considered nursing? It is somewhat related to Biology, though it requires more Chemistry classes, and it is a highly employable field. When my oldest started nursing school in her junior year, 44 people were in her class ... 40 graduated ... 40 had jobs waiting, even though they hadn't yet taken the NCLEX exam to become RNS. It's a tough (and expensive) major, but very worthwhile.
Most of our interns say their most valuable experience is having their eyes opened to how an actual workplace functions versus what they are told in school.
I think that's a very typical experience. Your daughter's a senior this year? Can you set her up for some job shadowing experiences so she can have a look at the reality of the job she's considering?
We do also have a challenge with being up front on what we can contribute because they is all dependent on everything going according to plan. We are saving this up over the next 10 years, it is not sitting there ready to give them. I worry about saying we will give her $25K and then we lose our jobs 4 years in and the whole plan derails but in the meantime she's on the hook with the expectation that we are going to provide $25K which has not become $10K. Therefore it seems to need to be a "floating number". It seem like not being up front to pretend that this could not happen given job instability in this country for the last two decades.
You're talking about saving for the younger children, right? I understand where you're coming from -- things haven't been "going to plan" around our house lately: College is a lot of money. However, between good choices and scholarships, we paid less than 25K total for our oldest's education ... and although we're not done yet, I feel sure we'll be able to say the same about our youngest.
I understand why long-term financial commitments are "floating numbers", but that's tough for a kid to deal with. They're not firm in terms of financial management yet. Perhaps the best thing you can do is sit down together and look at the four-year cost of community college first vs. straight to a 4-year. And given your budget concerns, I would go ahead and nix the idea of out-of-state and private schools right now ... I personally just don't see that they make anyone more employable, and they are so much more expensive (both in obvious ways and in smaller ways such as transportation).
With younger children coming along later, I think it's important that you can offer them all the same parental help later. I've known more than a few families who go "all out" for the oldest child -- take on loans, whatever -- only to realize that they cannot do it for all the children, and it leads to resentment among siblings. For example, I'm thinking of a good friend of my daughter's ... her parents had literally no college savings, and she was determined to go to a reasonably-priced 4-year school, yet she was a mid-range student and earned no scholarships. Her mom told her that she'd borrow 50% of the cost and the daughter would borrow 50% of the cost ... but after a very successful freshman year,, her mom told her that she had calculated the cost of doing this for four years + four years for the younger sister ... and she just couldn't continue. So the girl was left with two bad choices: Leave the university where she was established and successful and go to community college ... or borrow 100% the cost herself. Not a fair position to place a young person.