<p>I'm not really arguing about whether it's feasible for a family that makes $150k to pay out of pocket for their kids' college...I'm not in that situation and I never will be so it's not something I can comment on. I just find it a bit off that this site is full of people with top 3% incomes who consider themselves "middle class" and talk about all the other unfortunate "middle class" people who also have $40k EFCs....and I see it in classmates as well who lament the fact that since daddy's "only" going to make $100k this year, mommy might have to go and get a job for the first time in 20 years just so they can keep their middle class status. If that makes you middle class then what on earth does it make the people who actually make near the median income? It's a very skewed perspective.</p>
<p>My opinion about "colleges and sacrifice" have changed over time. American corporations have off-loaded their pre-screening needs on to families - where formerly a high school diploma (with education paid for by the taxpayers, including corporations) was the union card, now a college degree is. Never mind that the Department of Labor says 85% of the jobs that typically require college degrees don't require a single skill acquired in college. College degrees are now the union card, and having large numbers of over-qualified union card carriers depresses wages (which is a good thing, if you are a corporation.) Under such circumstances, society has a strong(er) interest in leveling the playing field, at least for publicly funded institutions. </p>
<p>It's nice to say that a person with a $60k income living in San Francisco (the median family income) should have been saving for their kids' college education, but that isn't too far from the better known expression from Marie Antoinette.</p>
<p>As for the prestige privates - they've freely chosen to be less economically diverse than they were 25 years ago, and it's their money. No big deal either way - it is their loss.</p>
<p>P.S. NO college expects parents to pay for college out of current income, but rather out of past savings, or future earnings (loans, to be paid off in discounted dollars, even as their incomes rise.)</p>
<p>Keep in mind that median income varies a lot by family size and state of residence. As these census data show <a href="http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/medincsizeandstate.html%5B/url%5D">http://www.census.gov/hhes/www/income/medincsizeandstate.html</a>
the median income for a family of 4 is
$ 53,690 in Alabama and
$ 85,420 in Massachusetts
and that's not even the entire range for families of that size!!</p>
<p>Mini, I don't disagree with a word that you have said. But the article that started this thread was NOT about that problem. It was about upper middle class families complaining because they could not afford to pay for their children's no. 1 private school choice, and that someone else got merit aid that they are convinced should have gone to them on a need theory.</p>
<p>
O.K. As an exercize in what if's , let's do that. ;) Since I haven't been barbequed yet today by an irrational poster and D is holed up in the tub with her Ipod and the Confessions of St. Augustine, I'll play! I'll play! I'll make us the sacrificial goats, so to speak. ;) We'll use her well publicized story and see what happens. Maybe it will help somebody who'll find themselves here a few weeks. </p>
<p>This line of calmom's has been thought provoking, as it drew into clear view what my family was feeling at the "Time of Great Decision". </p>
<p>At the start of serious Decision Time D was choosing between 1) Yale/Amherst and a need-aid package leaving a non-grant balance of $25K 2) Various merit awards at private schools with the most generous at the time (before Bellingrath and a later match of the Bellingrath) being the Singer at UMiami which left a R+B balance of $9K and the most attractive pure merit LAC being Rhodes at $16K 3)Texas Tech at @ $10K annualized after the val scholarship and $4K auto merit. (D hates UT and A+M) 4) A need award with AMS scholarship at Colgate leaving $11 K after grant money. 5) Combo merit/need awards at Hamilton and Scripps which left @$15K after all was said and done. </p>
<p>The vagaries of need aid and it's changing nature year to year played heavily against the need award schools in our minds. </p>
<p>When Rhodes dropped the BIG ZERO on us D went straight to Rhodes at zero, Yale at $25K. The only two standing. No hesitation on her part. I kept insisting that since we were willing to pay/borrow $15K year (between D and us), it should be considered that Yale was $40K over budget and in my humble opinion a Yale degree was worth $40K more than budget . I also felt that to deny her Yale because she got a full-ride made no sense at all and amounted to a bizarre "punishment for excellence". If I had to sell (or pledge ) part of the ranch (pledging being difficult at best with our homestead laws and banking practices), I was willing to sell the kidney for that $40K. Hence the "Sell a Kidney Strategy" talked about here. (Yes, I know the "profit" on that sale would be normally considered income screwing with EFC for the next year, but I was going to attribute $40k in cost basis if possible to the land sold to alleviate that or most of that. I was being very optimistic as that's a required part of the part of said "Strategy". ;)) </p>
<p>D argued that $100K was $100K and "would I agree that I would pay the original budgeted amount for UG plus the $40K bump (if we could) towards her med school education?" (in state that would be all her tuition+ $60K for fees and books and R+B or at least 2/3 the cost of her med school degree. It also allowed D to think about several top med schools that would be priced out).</p>
<p>She convinced me that she knew what she was doing and was doing it with her eyes wide open. She chose Rhodes (and the wonderful research opps she would receive) and limited med school debt over Yale and total med school debt. </p>
<p>Had Rhodes not offered the BIG ZERO, D would be at Yale. The difference between the costs at Yale and the costs everywhere else was close enough that Yale would win. </p>
<p>Now , let's take merit out. Yale and Amherst at $25K , Hamilton and Scripps at @ $15k, Texas Tech at $16K and Colgate at $11k. I believe that would have ended up between Colgate and Yale and Yale would be victorious. </p>
<p>But if we do away with merit, do we do away with all the other similar "preferentially packaged" Vagelos Scholars at Penn, the whatever it is at Brown, Schambach at Hamilton, Alumni Memorial at Colgate , and the need parts of JES at Scripps which magically turn self-help to cash, and in some cases Profile to Fafsa? (as carolyn so sagely mentioned as I was typing this tome.) If so, Colgate is now $16K and Ham and Scripps are $21K and that leaves only Yale at $25K and Texas Tech at $16K. </p>
<p>Yale wins again. </p>
<p>So, it seems that in our case at least, calmom's got it about right. ;)</p>
<p>EMM1 -</p>
<p>Bunch of whiners, if you really want to know what I think. They shoulda just saved more. ;)</p>
<p>(and, as far as I'm concerned, ALL aid - or to be more precise, tuition discount - is merit aid. If they want to rent my d's, they should have to pay for the privilege.)</p>
<p>That's the point Blah under $150,000 isn't middle class... after taxes... after cost of living... after health care... after gas..etc. How far does that go. Farther than 50,000... farther than 100,000... but not RICH. $150,000 after taxes isn't $150,000.While many of us won't see $100,000 it makes it easier to think it would solve all the problems (financially). It doesn't ( it may make it somewhat easier). It isn't the $150,000 people who are the bad guys.They are getting by ( a little better than someone making less but not rich by any shot). Do you realize how many millionaires and yikes billionaires there are now. The number of billionaires jumped 102 people this year alone (Their total net worth jumped 18 percent to $2.6 trillion). The administration has decimated the true middle class.Money is moving up. Top 3% is deceiving. It includes $150,00 and billionaires and millionaires. Thats a big difference.</p>
<p>After taxes and benefits (pension health care etc) 150,000 is more like 70,000.
If 43,000 is going to college it's tight. No one is saying they need full cost cover but 10,000 to 20,000 can certainly help.
I think you're a little skewed on who the wealthy are.</p>
<p>curmudgeon,</p>
<p>can you explain this statement a bit more:
"The vagaries of need aid and it's changing nature year to year played heavily against the need award schools in our minds."</p>
<p>I have a HS Jr and I'm guessing there's some wisdom behind this statement that may be helpful to us.</p>
<p>Curm: Great analysis, as usual.</p>
<p>Well, <em>sigh</em>, all I know is that I Thank The Lord for the merit money Denison offered my kid. Without it, he'd be at a SUNY with all the other "middle class" kids (ha ;) ). He would be just one more kid with no options. </p>
<p>But, did our faux middle-class status "buy" his way into a merit scholarship? Perhaps without his excellent high school (which we paid a lot for) and his excellent music lessons (which we paid a lot for) he wouldn't have been eligible for good merit money. On the other hand, if we hadn't paid for that stuff, maybe he wouldn't have turned out to be a student a good school really wanted.</p>
<p>More than anything, the entire conversation hinges on just how little a standard, usually sub-par, no-child-left-behind, public education will buy a truly middle class kid in America.</p>
<p>standrews: I see the vagaries as follows:</p>
<p>Merit awards are generally renewable for 4 years, sometimes with GPA requirements that you know about ahead of time. Need based aid must be applied for and then hoped for every year.</p>
<p>Merit awards are sometimes "half tuition" or such, cushioning the blow of tuition hikes.</p>
<p>As you spend down assets it is always unclear what will happen to your aid package.</p>
<p>Sometimes need-based aid packages are more generous freshman year - they are used as bait. Sometimes the rug is suddenly pulled out from under the kid in subsequent years. There's no guarantee.</p>
<p>If you have more than one kid, it is always unclear what will happen when the first one graduates. </p>
<p>Small differences in income can sometimes make surprising differences in EFC, but little difference in your ability to pay that tuition bill.</p>
<p>I'm sure there are some I'm forgetting....</p>
<p>Oh - but the big drawback to merit? Your kid has to keep their grades up (usually). If they don't they lose their scholarship - sometimes with disastrous results. On the other hand, they know that going in...</p>
<p>weenie, hit a bunch of them from the school's side. There are a number from the parent's side. Income fluctuations upwards, sometimes only on paper, can be disastrous. Income fluctuations downwards, will they be matched by an equivalent increase in grants or more loans or just not dealt with? How will a purchase of equipment be handled, disallowed? Forced to amortize that which tax -wise you can expense in the year spent? </p>
<p>Every year is a new year. Every FA review is a pins and needles time. Again, this frightens those of us with complicated returns and highly fluctuating income and expenses while it merely "concerns" W-2 wage-earners. ;)</p>
<p>BTW, weenie's last paragraph is applicable to merit awards. There is no GPA requirement for need awards other than "satisfactory progress toward a degree".</p>
<p>It has also hit me that another posit on this thread is true for my family. Without the possibility of a merit award or any merit consideration as far as preferential packaging for top students , I doubt D would have ever even applied to any school other than 100% of need schools with generous reps, and her state school choice. HYPSDMC (and admittedly a few others) and Texas Tech? Yuck. What a system. Let's keep a little merit in the mix, why don't we? LOL.</p>
<p>^ "HYPSDMC (and admittedly a few others) and Texas Tech? Yuck."</p>
<p>Indeed. And think of where that leaves the very good students who are not candidates for the Ivies ("and admittedly a few others")...</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>In Lubbock? Or Plattsburgh? or Ames? or Moscow?</p>
<p>curmudgeon, weenie:
Thanks for the reply. Some of those I was aware of and others not. I did get the FAFSA formula and put it into spreadsheet form to do some what iffing. I can gauge the impact of changes in assets and income from that. It has been helpful. But of course, the FAFSA could change some things in the out years and it seems that FAFSA alone is rarely used. The private schools always want some kind of supplemental info. I've come to like the schools that meet 100% of aid, limit loans, and use merit scholarships and outside scholarships/aid to offset loan and work-study first. It makes no sense to replace grant with grant. Loans aren't aid in my book; they just allow you to kick the can down the road ... at a price though.</p>
<p>We have saved what we could, more than most, but I expect an EFC in the 17-20K range next year. Basically no assistance fromin-state publics, so private schools with good aid should only be slightly more expensive, unless S opts for a school with good merit aid. NM finalist is not out of the question for S. No SAT scores yet. He took it for the first time yesterday.</p>
<p>weenie:</p>
<p>If I had it to do again, I would have put all of my education money in private middle and high school for my children. They would then have had a better chance to excel WHEREVER they went.</p>
<p>Although there is not much sympathy for "rich" kids on this board, don't forget that if their parents won't pay for a private education either due to poor financial planning/debt or merely on principal, they are also denied the opportunity to attend top universities through no fault of their own. </p>
<p>Without the possibility of merit aid, they are casualties of the outrageous costs of college and end up with as few or fewer choices than the lowest income students.</p>
<p>Remember, an EFC of $45,000 can not only come from income. Assets (other than retirement) are counted, as well as home equity (if you are working with CSS/Profile). </p>
<p>Buy a house 20 years ago, watch it appreciate. . . and whoops! Now it's a decision between home equity loans, state schools, or merit aid at a lower-tier school.</p>
<p>Ya know, poor kids can get merit aid too. The universities get what they pay for. College has become the great social equalizer, making everyone poor.</p>
<p>"Although there is not much sympathy for "rich" kids on this board, don't forget that if their parents won't pay for a private education either due to poor financial planning/debt or merely on principal, they are also denied the opportunity to attend top universities through no fault of their own."</p>
<p>I don't see this as a national tragedy either, as long as they can attend their state university. (Lots of poor kids have found that out, in choosing UCLA/Berkeley/Michigan etc. over top privates.)</p>