GHS grad passes up pricey private schools

This is the second in a series of stories about Class of 2009 graduates who have been impacted by the economic recession.

This fall, Megan Leininger will start classes at a "middle-ground school" - and she couldn't be more excited.

The Glacier High School senior had expected to end up at Willamette University, Lewis and Clark College or some other West Coast private school. She was a good student with an impressive resume of extracurricular activities, and she saw no reason why she shouldn't get into one of her dream schools.

Then Leininger had an epiphany: Dream schools cost money - a lot of it.

"Wouldn't it be nice to go to a nice private school? Oh wait - that's real money," said Leininger, 18. "It was a wake-up call: That's real money."

As a sophomore, Leininger had heard counselors and teachers encourage students to pick 'reach" schools (dream schools to shoot for), "middle-ground" schools (usually in-state universities' and safety schools. As a junior, she assumed she'd end up at one

of her private-college reach schools.

"As a junior, oh yeah, no big deal," she said, articulating her attitude then. "It's $50,000 a year, but you can get scholarships. It's no big deal."

Then, as a senior, Leininger realized that one day she would have to repay those loans.

"I can't graduate with a ton of student loans. I had to be realistic," she said.

Neither did she want her parents to have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for her private-school education.

"I didn't want to feel like I was a financial burden on my parents," she said.

So Leininger stopped reaching for the dream schools and instead started looking at more "practical" - and less expensive - colleges. She turned her back on Lewis and Clark College in Portland and Willamette University in Salem, Ore. - private schools that had wowed her as a junior.

"Looking back, I should have applied," Leininger said. "I was just so overwhelmed by the cost."

She might have gotten in to one of those schools, she said, but there was no guarantee she would be able to stay there. Some of her friends had won scholarships that had allowed them to attend private colleges as freshmen, but had transferred to in-state schools as sophomores because they could no longer afford tuition.

"That wasn't something I wanted to do either," Leininger said.

She did apply to Pacific Lutheran University in Tacoma, Wash., just to see what would happen. She was accepted and offered a hefty financial aid package; most of the approximately $43,000 expense was covered. But loans with "ridiculous' interest rates made up a big part of the package, and Leininger realized she would still owe a lot of money when she graduated.

That left the University of Idaho and the University of Montana. In the end, Missoula won.

Part of the draw was UM's Davidson Honors College, which Leininger hopes will create a small-school environment at the university. And in the end, Leininger is a Montana girl at heart.

"Idaho had never really been my dream place to live," she said. "Why not stay here? I love it."

She will still take out loans to attend UM, but "not even close to as much" as she would have at a private school, Leininger said.

Her parents, Bill and Anita, are glad their daughter will be closer to home and thrilled to see her at their alma mater. But they would have supported her wherever she went, Bill Leininger said.

"My wife and I are committed to having the best fit possible for her," he said.

He said they were proud that their daughter had the aspiration to look at the private schools in the first place.

"And some of those schools gave her some very nice-looking scholarships," he said. "But as a young person coming out of high school, it's a good, solid reality check for her - and, I think, a lot of other kids. They're realizing this is real money."

He laughed. "Their parents, of course, understood this well before this economy."

Even though she knew she didn't want to pay to attend an expensive private school, Leininger said giving up the reach schools wasn't easy.

"I was disappointed at first," she said. "I saw myself leaving Montana, going out into the U.S."

Now, however, Leininger is excited about attending UM. And creating a new college plan seems to have made the self-described "planner" more flexible in figuring out what she wants to do with her life. She has considered becoming a teacher but thinks she wants to try political science for awhile, just to try something new.

"I really try to make the plans," she said. "But college is a time to discover what I'm interested in.

"I've realized I've got a lot of life ahead of me. There are a lot of seasons in life. I don't have to decide this year what I'm going to do with the rest of my life."

Glacier High School graduation:

When: 11 a.m. Saturday

Where: high school gym

Number of graduates: 235

Summa cum laudes (4.0 GPA): Genevieve Boyer, Cole Eddie, Ann Koenig, Tyler Lincoln, Matthew Schwager, Hillary Secrist, Kate Tilleman