Economy Forces Families, Students to Make Tough Calls in Choosing a College

Michael Parra loved the University of Delaware the moment he stepped on its campus, so much that the aspiring civil engineer slapped a college sticker on his mother's bumper and sent in a deposit not long after he was admitted.

But after he learned that he would be $60,000 in debt by the end of his college years, he scuttled the plan and signed up with cheaper George Mason University, joining thousands of other high school seniors across the country who had to dial down their dreams before last week's college response deadline.

"We just don't have the money," said Parra, 17, who attends Wakefield High School in Arlington County.

That's a refrain muttered across countless dinner tables this year, from those seating single mothers such as Parra's who work two jobs to those with parents who started pouring money into college savings plans as soon as their children were born.

When a college counselor laid out the financial aid Delaware offered Parra, the student realized that half the package was loans, not grants as he initially thought. It wouldn't work, Parra decided. George Mason will pay most of his expected $8,000 annual in-state tuition, and he'll somehow come up with money for room and board.

Families who have seen retirement funds shrivel but make too much to qualify for need-based aid are nervous, too.

"This season, more families have asked me about the probability of getting merit packages than they have in years," said Steven Roy Goodman, a District-based educational consultant and admissions strategist.

Parra's Wakefield classmate Clayton Miller, 17, also picked a Virginia public university in the end, even though neither his consultant mother nor his lobbyist father had big drops in income. Miller had dreamed of studying environmental science at the University of Texas.

But a college fund invested in the stock market dropped 40 percent this year. A full-tuition freshman year scholarship for valedictorians that he thought he qualified for turned out be for Texas residents only. Instead, Texas offered him a $6,000 merit scholarship. He'd be on the hook for $80,000 in loans after four years. Suddenly, Virginia Tech looked a lot more attractive. He sent in his deposit last month.

"I was devastated for a good three weeks," Miller said. "I'm still a little bitter about it."

The recession has touched Albert Einstein High School in Kensington in basic ways. Sales of yearbooks have plummeted, and teachers are opening their wallets to buy them for their students. A golf tournament will raise money for $2,500 scholarships, but for some students that might be woefully inadequate.

"It should be $20,000 for the way things really are," said school counselor Joseph Monte. He said many more students were choosing Maryland universities and high income-producing majors.