EDITOR’S NOTE: For more information on Tom O’Hare’s College Funding Assessment Exercise, please visit Get College Going.
First-time full-time undergraduate freshmen have a 12-month dropout rate of 23.3 percent. Put another way, 41.9 million Americans were college dropouts as of July 2022, according to the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics.*
A college degree only provides a Return on Investment (ROI) to students who graduate, and if 20+ percent of students drop out after their first year, then money is spent in a direction that is not helping high school graduates find their way. And we don’t like that.
ESSAY CURE and Get College Going encourage 20+ percent of high school students to PAUSE.
What does pause look like?
There is no flashy banner for pause. There are no Instagram posts of pause to compete with dorm move-in-day.
Students who have not been doing the part-time job of reality-based preparation for college during their senior year can benefit from this pause. For these students, pausing allows them the luxury of time without tremendous financial pressures to figure out where they want to be, what they want to study, and how they want to map out their college path. Pause means navigating the transition into adulthood as their own personal journey rather than following a herd of high school classmates or friends. Pausing to take time to explore these personal variables, such as academic interests and goals, is incredibly empowering for young people.
Tom O’Hare and Christine Gacharná welcome a parent who supported two students doing exactly this. UVA graduate Victoria (Tori) Hobgood shares her story.
[TRANSCRIPT]
[00:00:00] Christine: Okay. So thanks so much for being here. I'm Christine and independent educational consultant with ESSAY CURE. I work with a lot of high school students who are trying to make their post high school decisions. And I also do a lot of collaboration with Tom O'Hare. So Tom, would you like to introduce yourself?
[00:00:17] Tom: Yes, I'm Tom O'Hare. I'm from Get College Going, and Christine, I work with high school parents and students to help them figure out what to do after high school.
[00:00:28] Christine: Tom has a college funding assessment exercise, he calls it, and he puts parents and students through this, and it's actually really helpful.
[00:00:35] Christine: And so as Tom was talking to me about this assessment that he does, we were talking about the process where parents and students get caught up in the prestige of colleges when they're going through trying to make this decision of where they're going to go. And the way he described it was.
[00:00:51] Christine: that backyard barbecue and all the parents are talking about where their kids are going. And then suddenly somebody says, Oh, you're being awfully quiet. And I was thinking, I have spoken to that mom who was at that same backyard barbecue, who had such a great answer for that. So this is where I want to introduce our guests.
[00:01:13] Christine: Miss Tori, who's here today to talk to us about going through this process on the parent side with her two students. So Tori, do you want to tell us a little bit about yourself and how you got here in front of us?
[00:01:25] Tori: Sure. So I am a proud mother of two college students.
[00:01:30] Tori: And we looked at where we were financially, and where we were financially was not a place where we would be debt-free sending them to college initially.
[00:01:44] Tori: But we were encouraging them to, we want you to apply where you want to go and we will work out a way to figure that out. We had a good amount. We probably were 80 percent there, but we weren't going to be able to finish that. And we wanted them to go through their master's degree to make sure that they had a good foot.
[00:02:03] Tori: In the door, because in our area, most people require that master's degree So we wanted to make sure that we had a financial ability for them to go through that graduate school experience and potentially a study abroad experience if they wanted to, I wanted them to take the biggest bite out of the college life as possible.
[00:02:26] Tori: Then they both came to us separately. Nick first, our oldest, and he said, Mom, as much as I know that you want me to have that whole moving away experience, I really am not ready to leave home yet. I'm really not interested in sharing a dorm with someone I've never met. And I'm really not interested in that away experience.
[00:02:49] Tori: I have a good amount of friends here. And I really want to dip my foot in the college pond in a way that I'm comfortable with for my success in the future. This is a 16-year-old. And when he said, I'm not really interested in sharing a room, I've never shared a room my whole life. Now that was a totally unexpected response
[00:03:10] Tori: Our kids had a lot of freedom, and they didn't really feel restricted. So he told me, I'm not really interested in moving away. I'm not really interested in sharing this dorm room. I'm not really interested in spending that kind of money. I really want to take a look at the local community college. I'd really like to do a two-year course and figure out where I want to go because I'm 16, and I don't know what direction I want to go in yet. I don't know where I want my education focused. I have several different interests, and it's a lot cheaper if I don't know to figure out that I'm not good at a subject at a community college level than it is at a four year where you're spending anywhere from $12,000 to $20,000 a semester, so I did not fight him on that.
[00:03:56] Tori: I was not interested in putting him somewhere he didn't want to be. I wasn't interested in fighting him on something that as we were trying to push them into adulthood. I wanted him to feel like he could make that decision and have the support, but he wasn't interested in moving away yet. So he spent two years there.
[00:04:14] Tori: Actually, he spent, he ended up spending three years. So part of that education and me trying to let go of the reins a bit was a year of taking the wrong classes. Now I will tell you that because we had a healthy savings for college, a semester at Northern Virginia Community College is fractions of what it is at a, even a state college that's reasonable in price, like a Virginia Tech or a UVA or a school like that
[00:04:44] Tori: The 2 semesters that he took the wrong kind of engineering classes was not a bad thing because it gave him a look at engineering. It ended up being a happy accident. So he spent an extra year there, which was okay.
[00:05:00] Tori: 5, 000 for two semesters full time. So it was a very reasonable price to spend on an additional full year semester where some colleges that's just two classes. He was living at home. He was working. So basically he made the money that he spent on that semester. And because the way that we financially structured him, is he got a job, he put the money in his bank account and he spent the money on the tuition. So essentially at the end of every year, his federal refund and his state refund paid for half of that semester, that year that he took the classes. So financially, it didn't really impact the bottom line for him or for us financially because essentially, the money that he had been putting away for college and the money that we had put away in a 529 that he was spending on college were going into his accounts. And then he was paying for that semester out of his money. And then when that tax form came from Northern Virginia Community College Department of Education for his taxes, he got that money back pretty much in, in most part in a federal refund.
[00:06:14] Tori: So it was a double win for him. So he put all that money away, back into his account and then that would pay for the following semester at a community college. So we had three years at a community college with tremendous savings, and then because he was paying for it out of his funds, out of his account, he got the tax benefit for it as well.
[00:06:35] Tori: So it was a double windfall for him.
[00:06:37] Tom: So I want to ask you, let's go back to the junior year or moving into his senior year. Your approach to this and your planning to this is excellent. Your sounds you're able to look back, but as you look back, you sound very grounded and very focused on the plan.
[00:06:57] Tom: I'm interested in hearing a little bit from you about how it was interacting with other parents, other adults, how it was for your son to do this, because many times I find that is where a huge amount of the emotions of the process comes in and can really hurt sometimes. So how was some of that experience for you?
[00:07:20] Tom: As this particular student was saying, Hey, I'm not going to four-year school. I'm going to community college.
[00:07:28] Tom: There's a lot of judgment and it's not hidden. The announcements of the signs and this, my kid just got into all of that comes with so that people want to take a moment to brag and proclaim their pride in their student, which I can appreciate because we all have those parent moments that my kid got into.
[00:07:52] Tom: Have these moments. I prefer to share the good and the bad or that the ugly and the pretty part of parenting. My kid didn't get into the school that he wanted to get into. He was a very average student. His grades were good As and Bs, but in this area, it's highly competitive. There's a lot of exceptional 4. 0 to 4. 5 GPAs and so with that comes the announcements and the, Hey, my kid got into. And, There was a lot of shaming in that. The parents are, Oh, your kid's going here.
[00:08:26] Tom: It didn't faze my child when he was faced with that. It didn't really faze me and my husband when we were faced with that because we grew up understanding the value of a dollar. Nothing was handed to us. We had to earn every bit of it. So it didn't really faze me, but it definitely happened. And it was difficult. It was difficult to not say anything when you're like, we're paying cash for college. How's that working out for you guys? 😜
[00:08:53] Tom: You want to, but instead, I just offered up, Hey, we're taking a different route. My kid doesn't want to leave yet. We're fine with that. We're happy that he's in college. He's going with the experience he chooses. And I had to have a few things in my pocket to say, to not be like a tit-for-tat kind of thing, but to help for help people to understand that our experience is not going to look like anybody else's and I don't expect to be in competition with any other parent because our journey is based on experience. What my kids and I were, we're trying to let go of the reins, and there's a lot of desire out there for parents to really push a certain perception and influence on their kids. And we didn't want to as much as I would have liked him to go to UVA.
[00:09:48] Tom: I said, Hey, let's go look at it. But if that's not your decision, I wasn't going to push that. I wanted it to be what he wanted. And I didn't want him to grow up with regrets with saying, I really didn't want to go here, but I came and went there because my mom wanted me to go. I didn't want that to be his journey.
[00:10:05] Tom: So we headed down the road in the path in which he chose. And we dealt with the comments and the, Oh, Cause there's no, my kid's going to Northern Virginia Community College sign that I'm aware of. We got a, Hey, my kid got in and I made that announcement. And then even the D1 school that my son chose to go post community college is what a lot of parents hear or feel like, Oh, that's a fallback school.
[00:10:32] Tom: So again, we got that even with their D1 school.
[00:10:37] Tom: I applaud you. I think that Christine would probably say this sounds like Tom talking too because this is very much my message along with yes, 80 percent go to college 20 percent need a different path. So I applaud you for putting in there and thank you for sharing your personal sides because there is a lot of emotions and a lot of judgmental or shaming as you said.
[00:10:58] Tom: Christine uses a word with me and she says I'm edgy. I would say that's good for you too, because it's good to be a little bit edgy when you're doing things.
[00:11:06] Christine: One of the things that I like as well as, as Tori talks to you more about where her two kids are now, instead of putting all of their money into their bachelor's degree, their money went into another place.
[00:11:20] Christine: And I think that I really like this idea of let's take the amount of money that we have and decide what's the best return on investment. So do you want to talk about the direction that your kids went with the money that they didn't spend on their undergraduate degree?
[00:11:35] Tori: So while my son spent that third year, he was in and out of the community college into his George Mason career move.
[00:11:46] Tori: And so with that came a much longer commute to get to George Mason. And once he decided to take that first semester and that was full time, the commuting was not going to be sustainable. So we opted to put him in an apartment close to campus. That was in a safe area.
[00:12:04] Tori: Well, Fairfax is a very expensive area to have an apartment. So we spent a, what I felt was an insane amount of money on an apartment for him to move out, to be close to campus, to make sure that he could sustain his studies and his work, work home life balance along with his job and still be able to keep up with the GPA that he wanted for that next look at graduate school after about a year.
[00:12:34] Tori: My second son started his college journey and he came to us. So we, now we have two kids and it's not unusual to have two kids, two, three years apart, starting that college journey at the same time. So all of this compounds a parent's stress for financial success for that journey. We had the same stress as every other parent, even though we had a good amount put away for them. And then here we are, Nick's going to be in an apartment and Ryan is starting this journey. He said the same thing. I am not uncomfortable staying home. You guys give me the freedom and flexibility to do and live how I want to live. I don't feel like I need to escape. I'm not ready to live with a stranger.
[00:13:13] Tori: I'm not ready to move on to a dorm and stay in these little tiny apartments with sharing bathrooms and everything else. I'm just not ready for it. I would like to stay home, go to the campus that's close by for the Northern Virginia Community College and do what Nick did. I liked the journey he took. I need to understand what my stress level is going to be when you get to a situation where, and this was another piece that is hard for kids to understand until you're in it.
[00:13:43] Tori: College, they don't necessarily care whether you're there or not. So a lot of kids don't understand when they're home. And they have to go to school because you're monitored by your parents or whatever. But your teachers care whether you're there or not. If you're not there, you're going to be visited by a truancy person or called about truancy.
[00:14:02] Tori: In college, it's a very different mentality. And it's very hard for kids to grasp what that's going to be like. So I was happy that the boys wanted to stay in our house while they dip their toe in the college experience not just because of the class and the workload was going to be very different but because there wasn't necessarily the need to care whether you were there or not from a teaching Staffing college professor or situation. So I wanted to understand how they would react to that. I wanted to observe what that differentiator Would be like for both of them And Ryan was more fish to water than Nick was, he took to college a lot easier.
[00:14:42] Tori: So one is usually easier than the other. And the financial impact was very similar to Nick, but we had the apartment. What worried me about Ryan was I'm so excited about getting my apartment when I, and I thought we were throwing so much money away on this apartment. Like it was, I felt every month we were throwing a few thousand dollars in the fireplace and just watching it burn up.
[00:15:06] Tori: So I started watching the real estate market around Fairfax where, and things were very, Up and down, it was softening. It wasn't as strong as it was the year before. And I thought it would make a lot more sense than getting two apartments where Ryan could have a roommate at Nick because they were talking about getting roommates and sharing rent.
[00:15:27] Tori: And even if you did all that, you were still spending the similar amount. And thenit wasn't your property. It was, you're paying for somebody else's mortgage. So my husband and I started talking to the boys about what would happen if You guys just invest in a property that you could own together instead of spending money on an apartment that you don't own.
[00:15:50] Tori: And then even if you're only there for this college experience amount of time. And potentially your master's degree, we could find a place that you could each have a roommate and y'all could figure out how to manage living alone and a property. If we helped you on the down payment of that, how would you feel about that?
[00:16:08] Tori: Asking a 19-, 20-year-old and a 20-, 21-year-old, 22- year-old, that they were a little freaked out. What do you mean a 30-year mortgage? I don't understand. What do you mean we have to pay? And so it took a bit of financial coaxing and explaining and educating them on that to understand. What that would mean, but it really, they really warmed to it.
[00:16:31] Tori: And so we found the right situation. There was a new community going up. It was a build process. So they got to build their own space. It was a four bedroom, four bath. So now they're in a situation where they own a townhouse. That has two roommates that all four of them go to George Mason. They manage the property.
[00:16:54] Tori: The house is in their name because they had been working for two and three years and four years each. They were able to get a mortgage on it based on their credit. We helped establish their credit starting when they were 16 for the purposes of that. So now in addition to deducting their education expenses on their monthly bills. They also have now mortgage in their name, of course we were co signers on that property, but it definitely helped them grow into that next phase while they're working on their education and actually managing two other college students who are there as well, and now they're paying 50 percent of what Nick was paying in the apartment, but in a home. They all support. They all go to class sometimes ride together one parking pass. So they're even shaving money on what the traditional expenses would look like, but paying fraction of it, but living in a much more comfortable setting.
[00:17:51] Tom: So, Tori,
[00:17:52] Tom: I want to encourage you to do something. Sure. I want you to take this experience, especially this latter part of what you have told us and talked to us about, and I want to ask you to do two things. I want you to, my first ask is would you please write an article? Oh. Write this down from an experience standpoint.
[00:18:14] Tom: I don't care if it's a thousand pages or if it's one page, but. I think I along with Christine would like to add this into some of our material that we give out as a true great example because one of the things for parents that are listening that want to think about the transfer process. Yes, maybe they don't want to invest in the property down the road.
[00:18:35] Tom: But what you're describing is a very important model that's the family should be looking at from the standpoint of transfer students and another population that I'm very close to and that's military. Because when students, when military people leave the military, I'm a dad of a Marine, although he went to college first, and then he went into the Marines, when they leave, they lack direction, and they need to be in their own housing while they're going to school.
[00:19:03] Tom: So there's a great deal of messaging and what you're talking about and I'd like you to write it down at some point. The other thing is I would really encourage you to talk to the people that George Mason in the admissions department, especially when it comes to transfer. They have a golden opportunity to learn from you as to how to help them develop a model for students to come as transfer students who yes are older and don't want to live in a dorm with an 18 and 19 year old.
[00:19:30] Tom: Maybe they want to transfer they want to travel home, but maybe they want to live in an extended apartment, like your sons and their friends are doing so they can definitely learn from you. And if colleges are listening to our material colleges. You lose five to 20 percent of your students and what Tori's talking about and what her family has done can really impact your ability to get transfer students in.
[00:19:57] Tom: So, that would be my, if you wouldn't mind, that would be my ask.
[00:20:02] Tori: And one of the roommates is a military, uh, Yeah. Yeah.
[00:20:07] Tom: There's a lot. I applaud you. I think there's more for people to learn from Tori. So, high five to you and your sons and your husband for doing what you did.
[00:20:16] Tori: I'm glad you're addressing the stigma piece of this, because it is, it does turn off a lot of parents and some parents, you know, Would prefer to overextend themselves financially just to say that their kids are doing certain things. But that is the perception that I feel like is doing a huge disservice to your entire financial potential growth and your children, when you conform to what perception should be instead of what your reality is or what, you know, what you want to teach your kids to do.
[00:20:48] Tom: I live my life being edgy.
[00:20:53] Tom: As Christine describes it. I love it. I got a sign on my wall right there.
[00:20:59] Christine: I know everything that you're talking about is right up our alley of what we try to explain to parents, but it's so hard and to hear it from a parent who actually did it and to hear the, it is a little bit hard when all the stuff comes out and the, and right, there is no Northern Virginia Community College that you hang out.
[00:21:19] Christine: But the thing is that at the end of the day, your sons are set up in a financial position. That is the whole point of college.
[00:21:31] Tori: Yes. The journey itself should not be the burden. What I picture is like the chains of debt that you're carrying when you get to that career phase And that sometimes is a whole mortgage to get out of and it's interesting because what was transforming with Are we doing the right thing by not not pushing nick to go off when ryan graduated our second son? One of his teachers who he was very close to was giving him a hug at graduation and she said, what are you going to do?
[00:22:07] Tori: What are, what is your next steps? Where are you going from here, Ryan? And Ryan said, I'm going to go to Northern Virginia Community College for two years. And then I'm going to transfer from there to go to, and he knew, he knew exactly what he wanted to do. He knew what the direction he was going in and she goes, you are so smart.
[00:22:25] Tori: And She said, I did not do that. And I wish I had done that because I went to Virginia Tech through all of my bachelor's and my master's degree and had to take student loans out for the entire journey. And now I am in debt and I owe so much money in college loans. And I wish I had paused and thought about that, but I was so excited to go take this journey at that.
[00:22:55] Tori: in that particular way. And I'm not saying that it wasn't valuable and I'm not diminishing that experience, but with that comes a huge burden.
[00:23:07] Tori: even starting out after your master's degree, you're not going to be making a whole lot of money initially. So burdening yourself with a lot of debt to repay those loans is a hard thing to do post graduation if you're not set up financially initially, right.
[00:23:26] Tori: So it's tough. So I was actually, it took me a minute to accept the decision the boys made. But once we, put the figures down on paper and you realize how much it saved us, then you realize this next step was, yeah, it was a little bit of a risk, but it put us in line to make that choice. Easy to help them into that home environment.
[00:23:52] Tori: And then it helped two other boys. It helped two other boys go to GMU. So we were actually able to pay it forward with two roommates that they knew that they would be able to live with for two to three years and it helped their financial bottom line as well. So it was really a win and we were glad to do it.
[00:24:13] Tori: The hard part for some parents is accepting that they're not going to have the grand farewell. And when people are announcing and they're showing all the dorm moves in, and it, it can be a bit, it can be, you could feel a little bit cheated when your kid is still at home and all that, but it really does, you have to push that aside and that was the best decision for them.
[00:24:34] Tori: And in hindsight, I'm so glad we made it or they made it and then we supported that decision.
[00:24:40] Christine: I so appreciate you sharing this. I think this is going to be really helpful to a lot of people who watch it.
[00:24:46] Christine: There's a lot of people who won't watch it who should, but there are people who will watch it who didn't know that they needed it. I've seen you before in a George Mason sweatshirt and I love that.
[00:24:57] Tori: Yes, I have my George Mason mom gear on all over the place to make sure that the boys know that I'm their biggest fans.
[00:25:03] Tori: I'm so proud of them.
[00:25:05] Christine: Yeah. Yeah. At the end of the day, that's the parenting goal, right? Yeah. Okay, I appreciate your time and your talent. Thanks for helping us out with this.
[00:25:14] Tori: Yes, absolutely. I'm happy that you asked me.
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