final rundown on the colleges

So, Jake's three choices were all basically the same size. All within our state. Two are private liberal arts colleges and the third is a state honors college. Well, since he didn't choose it, I'll go ahead and say the third one is St. Mary's College of Maryland.

All three offer small class sizes and a well-rounded liberal arts education. Each has a nice variety of majors from which to choose, a good option for someone undecided, as Jake is.

College A is just under 42k per year
College B is just under 32k per year
College C is 24k per year

He was accepted at all three and College B has offered him a 12K per year Presidential Merit scholarship.

College C was the last to send us the financial aid package and I have been both excited and worried that they might end up costing far less than the first two. Excited because, you know, less money is less money. Worried because it's Jake's third choice.

With all of the financial aid packages in, College A will cost $900 more per year than College B. College C will cost about $2500 more than college A. How nuts is that? The one that is 18k less than the most expensive would end up costing the most.

Looks like the boy gets to go to his first choice. I'm still in shock that he's old enough to be going off to college at all.