Mike Wilson was not surprised when his 18-year-old daughter called him to say that she had a 4.0 grade point average for her first semester at college. What has surprised him is the high cost of keeping her in college.
“She really loves it and has become so active in everything that she could be a poster student for the school, so we’d hate for her not to be able to go back,” said Wilson.
Wilson, an Internet technology specialist, said he worked with his daughter over the summer to prepare her for college-level courses at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU), but now they spend time searching for grants, scholarships and other financial assistance to keep her in school. For the 2012/2013 school year, the annual cost to attend VCU for in-state students was $22,549. Wilson’s daughter is an in-state student because she lived with a relative in Virginia before college. Out-of-state students faced a total one-year cost of $35,964.
“I wish I had the maturity when I was younger to have saved more money for her, but I didn’t,” said the 42-year-old, African-American father who lives in Baltimore, Md. “Now the bigger issue is finding the resources.” (He asked that his daughter’s name and her mother’s not be used to protect her privacy.)
