<p>My niece's family & nearly all her peers are paying full list price at Notre Dame, which is about $45-50K/year for 4+ years. She doesn't qualify for any FA & they don't award any merit aid.
Most of the folks I know own a home & don't qualify for need-based FAid, so most are paying everything out of pocket & making their decisions accordingly. I know they are fortunate to have a home & income, but many are not getting any merit aid & some are consequently going to in-state flagship U because they just can't make the numbers work for them--too much out of pocket for all the great schools that accept their kiddos.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, lots of kids/parents are paying full price. None of the Ivies offer merit aid. Many other very selective colleges do have some merit money available, but the percentage of students with awards is very small.</p>
<p>Someone on another forum pointed out that those families making 200K will get no financial aid, and it takes 75K of their income to come up with 45K cash tuition. Therefore, for full price to truly be "affordable" for them, they would have had to have been living at 60% of their income. Do you anyone who does that?</p>
<p>Lots of families around the United States live at 60 percent of $200K per year.</p>
<p>token,</p>
<p>True, but that wasn't my point, was it? This was not intended to be a battle of the haves and have-lesses, it was just to point out the shock that even families in the higher brackets feel when confronted with college costs for one child, let alone multiples.</p>
<p>A year ago today we were gnashing our teeth worrying about how we could afford 45K a year to send our boy to his private dream school. </p>
<p>Flash forward, today he's ecstatically happy going to flagship public university and I'm thrilled at how things worked out. There are plenty of opportunities for him to go as far as his dreams and hard work will take him. He has to seek them out and pursue them. That which he doesn't achieve is not for lack of opportunity, but for lack of effort.</p>
<p>My kids went to a private hs, where most of the students families were quite affluent (we're not). I gave up a long time ago thinking about the things my kids didn't have, weren't going to have- recreational, academic, and enrichment opportunities. It just was a waste of time and energy to think about it.</p>
<p>We don't qualify for assistance, although we can't afford 45-50K per year either. It may seem unfair, but as the past 6 years has taught me, it doesn't do any good to think about it. It's life. My kids aren't going to be handicapped by it. They're going to be fine. That's what public schools are there for.</p>
<p>At about $14,000/yr, we are paying a lot less than we thought we would for him to attend a private univ like Rensselaer. And of that he is paying $5000/yr for his room and board. And on top of that he will have about $50,000 left in his college fund when he graduates.</p>
<p>The many hours he devoted to his college search in 2003-04 is really paying off for both him and us now.</p>
<p>Also want to address our increasing standards of living in terms of luxery. When I lived in the midwest, I remember vividly, an oldtime resident giving me a tour of the neighborhood where he was raised. Nice little area with primarily 3 bedroom, LR,DR, kitchenettes. This was where the upscale lived 40-50 years ago, the doctors and lawyers. My good friend who was raised in Staten Island showed me her parents old home which was written up in some architechtural magazine and other pieces as a jewel of a house. Her parents were well to do, and the neighborhood was considered very much an upscale one, then. Again the same configuration with square footage around the 2000 range. These day, you don't see that upscale of a crowd living there, and the doctors and lawyers too often live in home twice that size with family rooms, extra bedrooms, baths, sauna/whirlpool, walk in closets, state of the art designer appliances, extensive built ins. The McMansions soar over the rooflines of many of the older homes with cathedral ceilings and big windows. We've really changed our standards that way making it so much more expensive to live. The super sizing of homes has lead to increased utility and upkeep costs. The SUVs are now the way to go for many families, and eating out or carry out a way of life. Even families making high incomes need to take a look at how they are living before claiming that they are not spending money on things that are unnecessary. True, with larger incomes, come larger responsibilities and the ability to address certain issues with degrees of quality assessment (education, quality of life, health, safety), but too many slip into the true luxery area and mistake that with other more basic quality of life issues.</p>
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My good friend who was raised in Staten Island showed me her parents old home which was written up in some architechtural magazine and other pieces as a jewel of a house.
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That sounds like my NJ neighborhood. My next door neighbor's house appeared in Better Homes & Gardens in 1898, I believe. (I have the article filed somewhere.) The same architect designed all the homes on our block. All about 2000 square feet with craftsman style moulding & details, 1 &1/2 baths. Very modest by today's standards. We love the turn-of-the century charm. But it is still costing us $12,000+ a year in property taxes.</p>
<p>"So I wonder how that impacts the < $60K students who get accepted to Harvard. I wonder how they fit in, and how they manage to form relationships and friendships with their peers, many of whom are certainly very well off. To my way of thinking, college - in addition to all else - is also the environment where the young person is supposed to form the relationships, bonds and connections that will support and augment adult life and career."</p>
<p>There are a lot of kids at Harvard that are not well off and are middle class or in a lower socioeconomic group. The Harvard of years ago is not the Harvard of today. Most kids become friends with one another because they like each other. Kids on a free ride are friends with kids who went to elite private schools.</p>
<p>In addition, there are a heck of a lot of kids with work-study jobs, which holds no stigma.</p>
<p>Harvard is more diverse than any college campus I've ever seen.</p>
<p>What happens after graduation? That remains to be seen.</p>
<p>Our stockbroker said $60K would pay for both of our kids for 4 years at in-state flagship. His estimate was including room & board & now it looks like that will be the price w/o room & board.
Our S saved us about 1/2 of his college costs by attending USC with generous merit aid. It is still much more than our stockbroker estimated, but not as bad as it could have been if he had his heart set on a school w/ no merit aid. We'll muddle along but sure would be nice if we had $200,000 income to do so with.</p>
<p>"But it is still costing us $12,000+ a year in property taxes."
I'll ante in on this- although taxes on a house that size aren't nearly as much (maybe 3-5K per year) in Florida, try insuring the property- you're looking at 6 to 8K. Ridiculous.</p>
<p>When you see the stats on who is paying full sticker price, an entire spectrum of school are included, many where nearly every full time student is on financial aid of sorts. When you are talking about the residential, fairly selective private schools, about half are paying sticker price. But then when you look at how much aid people are getting, there are many who might just be getting non subsidized Stafford loans. Or getting $5K or less in financial aid. So getting a head count of who is really paying full price or close to it is not that easy to do. If you are living in an area where the income will generate high EFCs, it is likely that most families are paying full sticker prices, other than the very few with special circumstances, kids who get athletic or merit awards, and many of those merit awards may be token (less than $5K when COA is greater than $50K).Although I am and would be grateful for every cent to reduce costs, in the whole scheme of things, those $5k and under awards off of a $50K school, are not enough to put a school into the affordable range. Even if the kid goes to work double shifting over the summer, he is going to find it tough to make $15K to put towards those costs, and that's with him slaving away. You are still looking at a $30K bill to pay, with only the prospect of it going up.</p>
<p>When we bought our house nine years ago (and it was our first house, bought when we were 37, after FINALLY paying off years of student loans, with no help from parents), our real estate agent was aghast that we weren't looking to max out what we could borrow. Why weren't we looking at a house in XX? You know you can borrow 2.5 times your income, right? And think of the appreciation! </p>
<p>Nah. Housing prices here are already insane. We didn't want to be house-poor. We knew there would be college for two kids, 15 mo. apart. We knew the public schools were excellent. We knew DH was looking at a job change that meant at least a temporary pay cut, although more long-term security. </p>
<p>We bought a 60s era split level in a family-oriented neightborhood whose after-tax payment was equivalent to the rent we paid on the townhouse where we'd lived the previous seven years. We followed the advice a a professor DH studied with in undergrad who recommended living below one's means. </p>
<p>Since then, the house has increased in value by 250%. At least we have equity! I became seriously ill and have had to leave work (sans disability). We are fully funding DH's retirement to make up for the years we couldn't save due to loans and day care. Older cars in the driveway. DH and DS2 are fabulous cooks -- not much takeout. We like living on the cheap. ;) I don't expect we'll get much, if any, need-based aid. But to actually answer the OP's original question, we never assumed we were going to get much FA. However, I thought there would be more merit aid out there than there is. </p>
<p>Tuition at my state U in 1982: $251 per quarter. Annual budget was about $3K. I qualified for full Pell and with working 20 hours a week, I could do the entire thing myself. Tuition at DH's Ivy in 1982: $9500 (and they gave out full tuition merit then, which is how he was able to attend).</p>
<p>"But then when you look at how much aid people are getting, there are many who might just be getting non subsidized Stafford loans."</p>
<p>Schools provide data on those who are receiving need-based grants in aid on their CDS forms. You can actually look them up in most cases online. These are the percentages you usually see bandied about in Princeton Review, etc. That has how the percentage of those receiving need-based aid has gone up significantly at Princeton, without much change in the overall revenue stream - lots of small grants replacing small loans to those earning more than $100k.</p>
<p>For those paying full freight (top 3%), relative to their income and assets, the prestige school list prices are actually CHEAPER than 25 years ago. In fact, the Pres. of Williams recently complained that the major gainers in subsidies (at his and other similar institution) are those who least require, and those subsidies are increasing all the time.</p>
<p>It seems to me that focusing only on current income is missing the key ingredient - time.</p>
<p>We started saving for college when my son was born. Compound interest is really your friend on this process - but you have to start early.</p>
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Compound interest is really your friend on this process - but you have to start early.
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Agreed. But the financial planners told us $100,000 would be enough. They were wrong!</p>
<p>What everyone who is not living right down to the bone should be doing as soon as a child is born, is to start putting away for his college. Right now we have 529 plans that can be great vehicles. Or even just a regular old savings account. Something. Just as we should be putting away money for a pension as soon as possible. The problem is getting the balance between present and future living. I know that when we married and moved to a major city, getting a safe place to live was an issue. Though we had lived in questionable neighborhoods earlier, that was in an area we knew well over time, and moving into iffy neighborhoods from out of town is really not a recommended thing to do. That alone was a major expense, along with cost of working--the clothes (H needed coat and tie, brief case, haircuts, had to look good), transportation, socializing (work purposes).I remember our budget then. $30 a week was left after we paid for those sorts of necessities, and half of that we put away for any emergencies that might come up which invariably did. Pension and college fund was out of the question those first years, but there did come a time when there was more breathing room, and we did save. Once the kids are here full force, the current needs become so demanding that saving for future ones become difficult.<br>
I always felt the amount to save was the current cost of attendance at the target college or the most expensive college if you want to be safer, divided by the number of years until the kid would enter that school, times 4. Then you hope you can invest that money to to keep up with the cost increases. I am telling my brother who is just starting his family to use this methodology.</p>
<p>I have never made enough to worry about a financial planner. Do they tell you to be sure to have all your kids in college at the same time so that you qualify for decent aid and pay less in the long run?</p>
<p>A year ago at this time, I didn't know what we would do or how we could possibly send our daughter to college. We knew that private colleges were in the $40,000 range, but didn't understand about "tiers" and "merit money" and we certainly didn't think she would qualify for a state school. Coming to CC really has been a help to someone like me with no frame of reference to know what questions to begin asking. We're now casually thinking about D2 and have different expectations. She's a freshman in an IB program with very high PSAT scores and good ECs. We know what questions to ask now and how to set priorities. We also are in a position where we can pay cash for D1's school out of income, so that leaves savings and loans for D2, so even she will be looking at a different outcome than we had ever expected.</p>