<p>"The middle class is screwed. Most homeowners with decent but not high salaries can't afford the $45K colleges but colleges think they can."</p>
<p>i saw this quote in one of the threads, and i whole-heartedly agree with it.</p>
<p>i have seven senior friends who were accepted to amazing colleges such as: </p>
<p>bates
bowdoin
vassar
georgetown university
tufts
boston college
williams college
swarthmore
middlebury</p>
<p>they all really wanted to go to one of these colleges, but they offered them almost nothing. they all come from middle class families whose wages are very decent. yet, they are not rich.</p>
<p>they are going to state universities, who is giving them way more financial aid.</p>
<p>what do you adcoms, (and other thread readers) think about this situation? do you think the middle class is getting the short end of the stick? i, for one, do. do you think something like this is going to prevent middle class students from entering colleges, and therefore reduce diversity of financial backgrounds? i think i do. the really rich kids and the really poor kids are in the best situation, as they will either get bountiful scholarships or be able to pay all of it. </p>
<p>Colleges, just like families, have different financial positions (Swarthmore, with an endowment of over 1 billion and Bates with a modest endowment are like apples and oranges). </p>
<p>But if financial aid officers at most of those (mostly need-only, but not über-rich) insitutions were allowed to speak frankly, I think they might say something like: </p>
<p>"We're concerned about the way the middle-class is getting squeezed and we re-evaluate our FA formulas constantly. We'll make it possible for you to attend our school, but you/your family must be willing to do a little belt tightening. Yes, we could offer you more money, but we're on a budget, just like your family, and giving you more money would mean denying a place in our entering class to a student from a low-income family that will have to sacrifice even more than your family in disposable income. We know that you probably have offers of merit aid or lower tuition from an institution that--to be blunt--we don't consider our peer in terms of educational quality. If you got an offer from one of our peers that's wildly out of line with ours, let us know; we'd be glad to reevaluate our offer to be sure that we didn't miss something. You and your family have to decide how much these trade-off are worth. We'd love to have you enroll, but whatever you decide, we wish you well."</p>
<p>Colleges know the middle class often can't go. I think they've decided they have pleanty for diversity. They want more low income students, more high stats kids, more science kids, more women but not more of the middle class sadly.</p>
<p>The weird thing is that recent study which says only 4% don't go to a school because of $$. I almost didn't and I'm considered upper middle. Without a lot of my own savings I would have had to take merit $$</p>
<p>Please remember the FAFSA and the EFC are brought to you courtesy of the Federal government.</p>
<p>Clearly there is a huge problem with the middle class squeeze and the problem is not just the EFC but the difficulty of paying both tuition and high taxes. If our society really values education and the contributions of educated citizens, perhaps it is time to see some sort of reasonable tax deductions available for those of us paying tuition.</p>