<p>It’s more economics discussion than a political one.</p>
<p>@awcntdb I disagree, it’s not all middle class that carried the brunt of the economy, just the upper 3rd. Therefore, it’s a much smaller group people. If your income around $60k you get a full ride at Amherst, low tax bracket, and health care subsidies. Families who make $90k-$180k, are the ones get impacted the most.</p>
<p>us news report
“If you’re in the middle of the middle, however – not lower or upper-middle class – that would be an income range between $39,764 and $64,582, says Aaron Pacitti, an assistant professor of economics at Siena College in Loudonville, N.Y.”</p>
<p>Not sure what you are disputing. Breaking down the middle class into different cohorts still does not change it is still the middle class. That is all I said. No where did I say all of the middle class.</p>
<p>So, I just clarified your comments then, since they appear to be too general and not specifically relative to this discussion . It’s only a part of the middle class that we’re talking about in respect to college costs, because others quite frankly do no pay at Amherst. And this group (upper middle class) clearly not “the largest cohort of the population that works, so it uses the most healthcare services”.</p>
<p>Also, Amherst does bill people differently than most other colleges, they’re more generous. And that’s the original and the main topic of this thread.</p>
<p>As a parent of a middle-class Amherst Freshman, the college is amazingly generous, it blows away all other financial aid my DS14 was offered including Wesleyan U, Vassar, Tufts and several others. </p>
<p>Amherst College fin aid is the best! and affordable to anyone, but not just anyone is admitted, it helps if you’re SAT’s are 1550+…!</p>
<p>Why are you using Amherst as the arbiter of what is middle class, as I never proposed such a thing?</p>
<p>The correct clarification is this: my initial response was to this statement,</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Please note that Amherst is not mentioned in the above statement. And my response was the above is to be expected. It still holds true that the largest cohort that has the largest working population, pays the most taxes, uses the most healthcare, and uses the most education is the middle class. (Taxes are in aggregate, not percentage, because the upper income pays a greater percentage of all taxes, even though there are fewer.) Where Amherst or any other school places its FA cutoff is not even relevant to the above statement.</p>
<p>More importantly, leave the Amherst-type tier and that $60K is mega-loan territory for the vast majority of students.</p>
<p>I think the issue is that this is not a general tread about economy and college education costs. It’s all about Amherst specifically, and all my responses and context (if your read all posts in this tread) were directly relative to Amherst. What about you?</p>
<p>Therefore, what Amherst does is paramount for the purposes of this discussion, and I’d like to stay on topic. If you have other ideas, you may have to start another general thread in a different location to discuss the state of education and economy in general.</p>
<p>Lastly, combining Amherst with “any other school places” in terms of financial aid is not accurate to say the least. Amherst financial assistance far superior compared to majority of the private schools, and $60k loan (if it even possible there) could be easily be $120k loan in other places. How did you come up with $60k loan, would you care to share a scenario (income, FA, loan type)?</p>
<p>I truly suggest you to do a research on Amherst financial aid assistance, because, honestly, I have no idea where you pulling your numbers from. </p>
<p>I was responding to the above, which I thought was important. The above is a general statement and I thought it important to point out that the middle class should carry the burden since it uses the most services. </p>
<p>Your post read as if it was unfair in some way by juxtaposing that Amherst is more sensitive. The other side is that there is nothing insensitive about being asked to pay for what one uses.</p>
<p>@circuitrider - Sorry, I mistakenly attributed a post to you that was not yours. The post was actually by @colsearch101. I saw the letter “c” in the beginning of the name and transposed. My apologies. </p>
<p>Well, you could have looked at what it was in response to</p>
<p>@codychesnutt wrote “BUT clearly the middle class bears the biggest burden at expensive schools like Amherst - low income families can pay nothing and high income families can pay full freight with no real sacrifice to their spending or lifestyle” </p>
<p>He was clearly talking about the Amherst, where lower and mid-middle class pays nothing.
Thus, I stand by my statement above relative to Amherst. I meant the impacted (paying) part of the middle class.</p>
<p>However, in general terms (unrelated to Amherst), the upper middle class (which I meant) is not the largest, nor it uses the most services, nor should it carry the biggest burden in the US economy.</p>
<p>-I had looked at Amherst’s financial aid and posted about in the thread I just mentioned. Amherst’s financial aid is really one the of best in the country. I think only Grinnell and Macalester do better. Careton’s financial aid is medicore…at best.</p>
<p>-Carleton has an entirely different financial model versus Amherst. Since 1993 (I think) Carleton has taken financial need into consideration when accepting students. Also, since 1993, Carleton has been on a building spree. They literally build (or buy) a major new building every 2.5 to 3 years. Before 1993 (when Carleton was need-blind), Carleton hadn’t built anything major for ~20 years. I’m sure Amherst’s president’s sees this and other liberal arts schools that give less financial aid and just build away.</p>
<p>Amherst should beware. When their president starts making the comments that initiated this discussion about financial aid versus facilities (or lack thereof), a switch to need-aware admissions may be on the horizon. When Macalester changed from need-blind to need-aware a few years ago, they gave Carleton as an example of why they should change. Grinnell is also considering no longer being need-blind.</p>