About this time of year, I see one very common yet costly mistake being repeated by most families. You are tired of applications and the application fees, so you start to pare down the list of colleges and universities to which your student will apply. This makes sense, except the first school to be dropped is always the safe school.
For effective college planning, the safe school should be one of the first applications completed. What constitutes a safe school, a reach school, or a match school? Safe schools are those colleges or universities to which you will be accepted without any problems and may even qualify for merit money.
Reach schools are those colleges and universities that you really want to attend, but your test scores and GPA put you in the lower 25% of incoming freshmen. Match schools are those colleges and universities where your test scores and GPA put you in the mid-50% of incoming freshmen.
This year, more than ever, a safe school is a MUST for effective college planning.
Because of the downturn in the economy, most states are having to slash budgets to keep their bond ratings and meet other criteria. Without exception, most states are cutting education budgets, especially to public colleges and universities. This budget cut combined with the downturn in donations and decrease in investment income is causing institutions to raise tuition and fees mid-year AND again in September.
“Gov. Timothy M. Kaine of Virginia is asking three leading public universities to cut 7.5 percent from their state-appropriated budgets in order to deal with a projected $641-million revenue shortfall, according to The Daily Progress, a newspaper in Charlottesville, Va. The governor, a Democrat, has asked nearly all state agencies to cut their budgets by 5 percent, but bigger cutbacks will be expected at the College of William & Mary, the University of Virginia, and Virginia Tech. For UVa, the cuts would amount to more than $11.5-million. The governor has requested plans for the cuts by September 10. —JJ Hermes” http://chronicle.com/news/article/2967/virginia-governor-seeks-major-budget-cuts-at-3-leading-universities
And the cuts in the state budget still continue. Although Virginia is one of the few states least impacted by the recession, our Governor continues to ask for additional budget cuts to meet the balanced budget requirements. You can be certain that public education is not immune to additional cuts if needed.
And for those states devasted by the economic downturn, the cuts will be even deeper.
The decrease in value of 529 plans and uncertain job situations are causing more families to not consider pricey private schools, increasing the number of applications to public colleges and universities.
All of these pressures are going to create a much more competitive environment for public college and university applications. I think we will see the incoming freshmen classes in 2009 have higher GPA and SAT/ACT scores than ever before.
Because of these concerns, please don’t drop your safe schools from the list. If you need to drop a school, drop a match or a reach school. Your safe school may be where you end up going due to increased competition for places at the state schools and your own family finances.
