Jonathan Hughes: [00:00:00] Hi everyone. My name is Jonathan Hughes. College decisions are rolling in this time of year, and so are financial aid offers, which means that families are finally coming face to face with college prices. And no matter the price, many families feel obligated to make their child’s college dreams come true.

And of course, we all want to do what’s best for our kids, who doesn’t. But what if the best isn’t that dream college and hard as it may be? It’s okay to say no to a college you can’t afford. Today we’re gonna be talking to a mother who made that difficult choice, and her son who said it saved his life. So let’s go ahead and meet him.

Donna Connolly: I’m Donna Connolly, a longtime MEFA ambassador. Worked in the college world financial [00:01:00] aid and college admission stuff in Worcester for close to 30 years. So have a couple. Bits of experience and here to talk about talking to parents about college affordability.

Jonathan Hughes: Shaun. Now of course, we know you. As the producer of this show, you also have a lot of experience similar to your mom’s. When it comes to, the college process and helping students through. Can you tell us what that experience is?

Shaun Connolly: Yeah, I I taught high school for seven years. I also worked for two different trio programs upward Bound and Gear Up.

When I was working at GEAR UP, I was actually working with my mom. A little nepo baby status. And but yeah, and then doing a GEAR UP presentation. That’s how I met you, and that’s how I ended up, started working at MEFA.

Jonathan Hughes: As I said earlier, I certainly do appreciate you coming on to talk about, frankly, something personal like this. Shaun, [00:02:00] you wrote a really great article on this topic, and the topic is. How to say no to your student, to your child and it’s okay to do that. And how do you do that? So can you just set the stage for us? Take me back to high school. What’s your thinking during your college search and what your plans were?

Shaun Connolly: Yeah, I I was not fully into college. I didn’t really like the idea of going to college. I How come? I don’t, I just I was like really into I wanted to be an actor and I didn’t think, I thought college was going to be a waste of time and money. And so I just didn’t want to go.

And then mom started showing me schools that, because that was her job to do not just as her, my mom, but as a professional. And so she started showing me schools. Theater, get, be a theater major. And I fell in love with one specific school, Emerson College, which a lot of people do in the heart of the city.

And [00:03:00] it’s got all these great features of the arts and you can go away to LA and Ireland to study as well. And I just thought that was the school I wanted to go to. No matter what. Obviously I still applied to, some other schools that were more affordable and didn’t require an audition to get into.

Because that’s a part of it is, especially with a lot of the acting schools, you have to audition. And not just, yeah, it’s not just your college resume, but it’s your chops as a potential artist as well. And so yeah, I really just wanted to go there and do that.

And especially after auditioning and getting in. As like they thought I was good enough to get into the acting program. There I was. I was like, sight, like that’s it. I’m going there. Emerson, that’s, I have to.

Donna Connolly: I just, I was very happy and I’m all good with, he wanted to major in theater. His dad and I had no problem with that at all because I think we wanted him to go to school.

We wanted him to get a bachelor’s degree. I [00:04:00] knew that theater was his passion and I felt like that was important. If that could get him there, then we were going to fully support that part of it. But I can remember some other people saying. What you’re going to let him be a theater major? I said, he’s going to come out and he’s going to get a great education. So that’s how we looked at it and I wanted him to and to do something he loved.

Jonathan Hughes: And when he did, fall in love with that particular school, what was going through your mind then?

Donna Connolly: There’s no way we can afford Emerson. Being a middle class background I knew had a pretty good idea what the financial aid numbers would look like, right?

So I thought, unless they thought he was amazing and was going to have an Academy Award down the road and they could give him some merit money, in my heart, I knew that just probably was not going to happen. Which is why looking at public and private schools [00:05:00] and admissions and financial aid, reaches and figuring out what would work the best.

Jonathan Hughes: So you were careful to stress those other options too, and wanted him to go through those paces of looking and applying.

Donna Connolly: Absolutely. Yeah. Yeah. And I guess probably, because I’ve, in the business I had a pretty good sense of what this, what some of the numbers were going to look like. And so just, and knowing, we’ll get into that a little bit more of what we could do and what we couldn’t do financially.

Jonathan Hughes: And Shaun, for you at this point, was it was just, you were just all in on Emerson?

Shaun Connolly: Yeah. Yeah. It was, once I got accepted, once I was, once it, they proved to me that I was actually like, in their mind, a good actor and worthy of this elite acting. Only so many students got in. I was like they want me why wouldn’t I go if this, prestige acting school wants me to go?

Jonathan Hughes: And was cost in your mind at all, [00:06:00] Shaun?

Shaun Connolly: No.

Jonathan Hughes: It wasn’t for me either, but I’m just saying, I’m surprised. I always, we talked to a lot of students and I’m always surprised when it is, frankly, for a lot of students. I think this was before this sort of became a huge national concern, but I want to come back to something that you were hinting at Donna, which is how did you determine.

You said you knew or had a pretty good idea since you’re in this profession of the aid that you were likely to get. And how did you determine, thinking about parents who maybe don’t know as well as you do? How did you determine, what amount did you have? Like a, I can pay this for college? Did you have a set amount in mind?

Donna Connolly: I did, but still, even for somebody who knew how this was going to work, it’s a very overwhelming process for so many of us. And I think Sean didn’t have cost in mind, but it wasn’t [00:07:00] because. Tim and I weren’t. Talking about that.

We would, we could talk about that. And I always like to call it the kitchen table conversations that, you almost, you have to start earlier than senior year about this is really what we can do. We knew what, our jobs were like. We knew how much money we were bringing. What our expenses were.

And we had, made the very firm decision. We had saved money. We used the 529, MEFA plan because tried to put money away for both of the boys. Not tons, but were able, we started a little later, but we’re able to put some money aside knowing, okay, each year we had X amount of money.

I was all good with him taking the federal student loans. I thought, having some skin in the game is always a, is a good idea. But we did not, we were not interested in taking out, say, a parent plus loan or going out and doing another, loan. I was not going [00:08:00] to dip into our retirement money.

I was not going to take out a home equity loan or borrow off of that. So we had a pretty good idea of. And I, we use the, which I love through the colleges and universities, the monthly tuition payment plans. What can I, what could we squeeze out of our budget, right? Knowing a lot of times you are squeezing some money out of it, but looking at it, it’s not a loan.

That’s a good idea. So we had, I had a pretty good sense about that kind of thing and felt like a, at the time it was Bridgewater was a college, not a university. Knowing that one of those or Salem, would be what was going to work in our family.

Jonathan Hughes: And did you set that, I guess I’m, did you set that expectation or raise that, that possibility with Sean early on in that process or No.

Donna Connolly: Yes. I don’t know if he really remembers that, but [00:09:00] Yeah. Yeah. But we did, we talked about, we knew what we could do. Wasn’t listening. You got a lot of merit money. I’m sorry.

Shaun Connolly: Oh, I said I just wasn’t listening.

Donna Connolly: But you are a teenager and you knew, you wanted something and that, that’s how that works. And it is hard as a parent to be the tough guy to say no. To say this is really. Whether you think this is a good decision or not, this is really all dad and I can do and we’re happy to help. We absolutely positively were, but we weren’t going to go out on a limb and I was not going to, jeopardize my retirement money or things like that. So it, it was discussions like that we were having.

Jonathan Hughes: And Shaun, how did you respond during those conversations?

Shaun Connolly: I think it was in one ear, out the other. I wasn’t, it really wasn’t I wasn’t taking it seriously at all. I figured when push came to shove, if it was something that I wanted to do, we’d be able to do it.

Jonathan Hughes: I think that’s, I think I probably would’ve been the same way, to [00:10:00] be honest. I think rather than being defiant or rather than being upset, I would just not take it. Seriously.

Donna Connolly: Yeah. But I think that’s pretty typical of a teenager also. And how the teenage brain works.

Jonathan Hughes: So when did it sink in then?

Shaun Connolly: When we sent the deposit to Bridgewater State, even then, I was mad. I, we, it took me my dad, my brother, and I took a trip to Bridgewater on a non-acceptance day. Just like a random day. We just went down and walked around campus for a while and looked at everything, and then I was like, okay, this is suitable. This’ll do.

Jonathan Hughes: I heard you say I think I heard you say once that you were mad for a year.

Shaun Connolly: Yeah. Yeah.

Jonathan Hughes: And but now, you wrote in your article that pretty dramatically. That it’s saved your life?

Shaun Connolly: I think so, yeah.

Jonathan Hughes: So tell me about, so you end up going to Bridgewater State. Tell me about Bridgewater State then.

Shaun Connolly: I think ultimately I needed to be a big fish in a little [00:11:00] pond as opposed to a little fish in a big pond. And I had. Because, because of who I am I need, I just, I had more attention. I had more attention from my professors. I had more attention from people coming to plays. I, everything.

It was better for me than to just fall into a sea of other really talented people. I got to be talented with a bunch of with a bunch of, a smaller group of talented people. And, and Yeah, but I the Save My Life part truly, is just it’s the debt. I even though my first job at out of college was, substitute teaching and it didn’t pay very well I never really struggled because I was drowning in a student loan payment.

I that’s, I that’s the part that saved my life is that I wasn’t ever truly. Scared of of debt because I could always make that minimum payment and I could for the federal loan. And never really had, an a crazy expensive private loan bill coming at me every month.

Jonathan Hughes: And Donna, when did feel, [00:12:00] did you feel right away that, it was all going to be fine and you made the right choice? And I know that you felt that you made the right choice, obviously, because it take a lot of strength to do that. But was there a point when you realized that he was going to be fine and he was going to be happy and it was going to be okay?

Donna Connolly: Yeah, I guess because I knew, I know that guy and I think it, it was going to both Tim and I really felt like he was going to be better off in a smaller program. Going down there looking at it, he could see, he’d have attention from his professors. There was some very wonderful theater people that were down there.

And I felt like he’s going to learn a lot and that would be good. And he’d get to. Show what he can do. And I think, we felt pretty good about that. It’s never easy to have a child who’s not real happy with you for a while, but you, that’s just part of being a parent too. You just got to go with it.

But I felt like in my heart of hearts, this was a good place for him and he [00:13:00] wasn’t going to be drowning in debt, as he said. And that was key for me. I did not want that for him.

Jonathan Hughes: And I think that part is key too. Like the, when you said that you knew that this was going to be a good place for him.

So I think that was one of the, one of the most. One of the wisest piece of pieces of advice I’ve heard is to really check out all of the colleges, even the ones that you know, the ones that are not the ones that you’re likely to attend be admitted to academically, but also the sort of the ones that you can afford and to really make sure, do a lot of looking into those schools to make sure that you’ll be happy there.

Donna Connolly: And yeah, that’s what I tell students and parents all the time, and kids really do have a gut feeling when many of them, when they walk on a campus, Sean, I didn’t go with him to UMass Amherst, but it was reported to me that he didn’t even want to get out of the car. Tim was like, oh no.

We drove out here. You’re getting out of the car and we’re going to walk around. [00:14:00] Knew like he didn’t see himself there and which surprised us because of the. Gregarious social person that he was. But a lot of kids have a gut feeling. They see other kids who look like them. They have, they look at what’s being offered on campus in the campus center and they go, oh, wow.

I like that. I could do that. And sometimes they just go, there is no way I am going to be here. And I tell parents, you know what, it may not seem rational to you, but you sometimes you have to go with that kind of thing if that’s what your child is saying to you. And that’s okay. They might, they’re going to feel comfortable someplace.

Jonathan Hughes: I guess looking to wrap it up, the whole purpose of this really is to talk to other parents and let them know, first of all that it’s okay. To say, to make a decision based on cost. If you truly cannot afford the student’s number one school, it’s okay. You’re not doing a bad thing by making that decision.

So if you [00:15:00] could talk to parents who are definitely, there’ll be a lot of them in the coming weeks and coming months maybe that are looking at that and they really are having a hard time with that circumstance. What would you say to those parents?

Donna Connolly: I think just when your child is younger and they want to do something that you don’t think maybe is the best choice for them or the safest choice for them, again, your job as a parent is to say, no, this is a little different.

Finances, we know what we can do and I don’t want a family to sacrifice other things or something for their other children. Maybe they don’t, they’re not thinking they’ve got two other kids that they’ve also are probably going to go to college and this is four years, or maybe it’s five years of tuition.

Not everybody gets out in four years, right? You got to look at it that way. But it is okay to say no. I think sometimes. Parents also let egos get in the way. They want maybe [00:16:00] that more prestigious school. I can’t tell you how many times parents would say to me, oh, my child is never going to go to Quinsig Community College.

I’m not going to do that. And I always love to come back with, oh, my son Mark started at Quinsig, and they look at me like I had three heads. Like, how could your kid go to community college? You know what? And now there’s even better reasons to go to community college because of the free community college.

But you have to be able to just look at that and be that parent. And Sean and Mark knew that we were the parents who they said, they always said, we were the strictest parents ever at Burncoat High School ever. We were going to win an award and we said, I will gladly take that award because you guys turned out pretty darn good.[00:17:00]

Jonathan Hughes: My sincerest thanks to Donna and Shaun Connolly. Thank you so much for coming and. Sharing your personal story with us and with everybody. I really think it will help a lot of parents and folks. If you liked what you heard today on the show and you want to hear more from us on planning, saving, and paying for college and career readiness, we’ll then subscribe or follow us wherever you get your podcasts.

I would like to thank our producer. What do you know, Shaun Connolly? Thanks also to Meredith Clement, AJ Yee, Christina Davidson, Lauren Danz and Lisa Rooney for their assistance in posting the show. Once again, my name is Jonathan Hughes and this has been the Mefa Podcast. Thanks.