Can a Middle Class Person go to an Ivy League School?

Paying for College
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<p>Guest22....
I'm sure your son is a very high achiever...however, what makes you think he would qualify for merit aid at the most highly competitive schools, even though he got accepted? The University of Chicago, for example, gives out 30 full tuition merit based scholarships. It is hard enough simply to get into those schools, much less be in the top 1% of applicants to those schools.</p>

<p>It is frustrating that the middle class is pushed very hard to afford an uber elite education. But no one has a right to go to those places. If you are middle class or upper middle class, you just have to suck it up and pay. Or move down a notch or so to places like Hobart (which a lot of people would consider a dream school).</p>

<p>I got involved with an academic competition program that gave me some insight into the incredible differences in opportunities between the middle/upper middle class schools and the less advantaged ones. It is really sad to see the differences in resources. Kids that can (and will) make it of of those schools and neighborhoods won't be doing it from the Ivy leagues or Pomana...they will be working their asses off at places that people on CC wouldn't dream of sending their children. And they will do well in spite of the lack of equality of opportunity in education.</p>

<p>As far as your point of eliminating tuition, I think it is a good idea. If the list price is $32k and the average after 'financial aid' is $20k, then schools with the highest endowments should just eliminate not only the tuition, but also the entire FA office. They could also get rid of billing, loans, work study, etc. Which would probably save another 5%.</p>

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<p>
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People should not have to sell their homes and deplete their retirement savings to send their kids to college!

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<p>Good grief! I'm doing neither of those (and I bet our income is lower than yours.)</p>

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<p>To the OP:</p>

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<p>National Merit has no pull at Ivies. Think of this as a 'food chain' and Ivies don't need to grant merit awards to fill their classes with their choice of students. </p>

<p>However, those schools that gave your son merit aid --- those schools will have less money to award to students based on need. The parents with the greatest need whose children got into those schools, but whose children aren't at the very top, they will be wondering exactly the same thing. They will likely be offered lots of loans or possibly gapped, and will have to either deal with it or move down the list to a lower ranked or state school.</p>

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<p>It's doable, but you need willing parents. If your parents aren't willing to help you out financially, then their assets will SCREW you aid-wise</p>

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<p>ROTC....I wonder why more people don't try it?</p>

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<p>duh...because they don't want to go to Iraq?</p>

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<p>LuxArtesVeritas....
I never said there was ANY guarantee that he would win the competition for merit money, but I believe he should at least be given the opportunity to try.
I also understand that getting accepted to the highly selective schools is an achievement that many superior students have earned. My point is that schools that offer no merit scholarships, or even 30 like Chicago gives, do an injustice to the middle/upper middle class. If each institution looked at the percentage of money they give to "need-based" vs. "merit-based", they would see why their student bodies are not as diverse as they all proclaim to be. Students from ALL socio-economic backgrounds bring different experiences and different backgrounds, which help diversity. Most of these schools are shutting out an entire socio-economic class and creating a "class-war" on their campuses.
The middle class could bridge that gap. Many middle/upper middle class students have stopped applying to the colleges that offer no merit aid, even though they could get accepted. Why apply if you know you can't afford $46,000/year and you won't qualify for "need-based" aid?</p>

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<p>Nope. Couldn't afford Dartmouth or Cornell. </p>

<p>Going to the University of Florida!</p>

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<p>A modest proposal.</p>

<p>I would like to see HYP auction off 100 or so places to the highest bidders. They could find the spots by getting rid of some admits for minor sports. I could see them getting $500k/slot. This would raise $50 million, which could then be used to discount the tuition to those making under $200k.</p>

<p>It might sound a little tacky, but since a significant reason for tuition increases is to increase need based aid, why leave money on the table?</p>

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<p>Wesleyan was financially out of reach for me. Seeing my father plunge back 60-70k in debt or me plunge into 60-70k was a tad frightening. I'll be happily attending Lewis & Clark College in the fall, most likely with minimal debt after four years. Even though Wesleyan was my first choice and a more "prestigious" school, reality has to kick in. Sometimes reality comes in the form of almost 100k in debt (after interest) only following undergrad education.</p>

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<p>What do people consider middle class? My friend has a household income of 150k and he's still consider middle class which really surprised me. If college costs 50k a year, then it's a total debt of 200k for 4 years and w/ a 150k income that could easily be saved in my opinion, but who knows? I only make $20 a week and even I save some of it for college.</p>

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<p>My experience was that there were plenty of generous publics for national merit and hardly zero iany ivy's offered scholarships. Getting into the honors programs at the publics can give you just as good of an education and some times even MORE opportunities than the ivys. There was an article in Time or newsweek on this where students are choosing these programs over harvard for that reason. Often they come with additional incentives like travel and research money for summers.</p>

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<p>Let's be very clear people. The Ivies, all of them, are need based only. They will vary somewhat from school to school on what they consider your need to be, but they all have the same charter. The athlete that was given a partial at Princeton, but the parents had to kick in $20K, had $20K in need, just like the oboeist that had the same income and assets. Harvard was better than Yale, Princeton, Columbia, Brown, or Dartmouth for us. </p>

<p>In LACS, Swarthmore was probably the best pure need based offer. Williams was ok, Amherst was less so. Wellesley was in the middle.</p>

<p>There are 100% need schools (guarantee to meet 100% of demonstrated need) that also have merit money, but they are not Ivies. There is one exception that I know of and that's Columbia. They have some 'outside' scholarships that they administer for URMs. UChicago, Rice, Smith, Mt Holyoke, Scripps are all 100% need schools with good merit money. These are the ones that I know about personally from my Ds experience. </p>

<p>Rice was very good with $60k in merit. MHC was better at $100K merit. Scripps gives full and half rides but it is a competitive process with interviews and visit weekends. Smith has merit and research grants. Uchicago has up to 1/2 rides.</p>

<p>At all 100% need schools, outside scholarships and merit money will reduce your need based grant, so it's usually a wash whether you get merit money or need money. Some 100% need schools meet that need with loans. In that case, the merit money will USUALLY reduce the loan amounts first, but not always.</p>

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<p>The OP's question was about "Ivy League" colleges. Middle class persons of all incomes can definitely afford to go to Harvard, Yale, or Princeton IF they are admitted. Brown and Cornell (two schools mentioned in other posts by the OP) supply more "financial aid" by loans, but at neither school would it be necessary for the parents to skip mortgage payments or for any family member to go on food stamps to attend the school. It might require both parents and students to borrow money, and whether or not the Brown/Cornell quality difference is worth that out-of-pocket cost difference to a particular family depends on what other schools have offered the child admission. (The OP's child for this thread must have decided by this time of year, right?) </p>

<p>See </p>

<p><a href="http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/fa/Economics-Primer-2004.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.collegeboard.com/prod_downloads/highered/fa/Economics-Primer-2004.pdf&lt;/a> </p>

<p>for an article by an economist on general principles of college financial aid </p>

<p>and </p>

<p><a href="http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/aidpaper.pdf%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.economics.harvard.edu/faculty/hoxby/papers/aidpaper.pdf&lt;/a> </p>

<p>for an article by other economists about how financial aid offers influence family decisions about where to attend college among the colleges that admit each student.</p>

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<p>All private schools are expensive; I'm not sure why "the Ivies" are singled out here, except that they tend to give better "need" based aid and less (ostensibly none) "merit" or athletic based aid.</p>

<p>Look: college expense is not an unanticipated emergency. Are there any posters here who never anticipated that their kids would go to college? Starting about 18-19 years after they were born? And that it would costs some money to do that? These facts were not hidden from us - we had plenty of time to plan and prepare. Even a state school ain't cheap, unless the kid lives at home and commutes. (Here in California the estimate is about $20K/year at UC.) I'm getting the impression that the middle class folks here who are bemoaning their fate may primarily be the victims of their own failure to make simple plans for easily anticipated needs, and as a result were shocked - shocked! - to discover that a college education costs money. (Maybe as a policy matter it shouldn't, but it's best to plan for the real world even while working for the better one, don't you think?)</p>

<p>We started saving when our kids were pre-teen; not on a regular basis but when we had a good year we socked some away. 529 plans let the money grow tax free. The stock market downturn in 2001 was bad timing for us but we still ended up with close to 1/2 the cost of a state school education set aside for each of our kids. We didn't have to change our lifestyle because our lifestyle already included not spending too much to be able to save some money for this purpose. Our average term of car ownership is 180K miles; we haven't had as many or as elaborate vacation trips as many families in our community, my wife's attire is scandalously short of large pieces of expensive jewelry, etc. because our "lifestyle" includes college for our kids.</p>

<p>Yes, we have a second mortgage. (Isn't it great to have equity to call on for this purpose? I'm glad I'm not a renter.) So we saved up front; we pay some now, we're borrowing some more to pay off in the future. My goal is to get each of my kids through 4 years of college debt free. That's based on state school costs; I've told my kids if they want anything more expensive that that they'll have to figure out some way to find the extra cash - grants, loans, whatever they can get and are OK with. With two kids currently in college our actual "family contribution" including the draw down from the 529 plans is more than our FAFSA "EFC", so I can't complain about how it's calculated. Yeah, it would be nice to not have to pay; I'd like to get everything for free. But this was an expense that was very budgetable.</p>

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<p>Well said Kluge.</p>

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<p>You actually sound a lot like us kluge. We never moved out of our "starter" home and drive our cars till the door fall off. No restaurants or designer clothes here. We saved as much for college as we could over the past two decades, but not enough for a private education for each kid. We planned. You can budget all you want to, but $200K for each kid is a lot of money! I am certainly glad that there are good state schools that we can afford with our savings and some small loans. </p>

<p>But what if that private college is the perfect fit for your kid? What if the best place for their area of study costs $50K per year? What if your kid is accepted to that ivy but there is no merit aid? For many families, those choices would absolutely mean a big lifestyle change. Most of us have to make some sort of compromise. Yay for state schools! :)</p>

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<p>Great points.</p>

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<p>Well, Kluge, I believe the topic is whether a middle class person can go to an Ivy League School. Your comments about saving are apropos of a public institution, but I believe it's a stretch to think that a truly middle class family (especially with multiple kids) could have saved enough and anticipated the huge increases in college tuition for Ivies.</p>

<p>Let's look at what else is pressuring the middle class (and I'm arbitrarily defining that as under $100,000 gross wages per year). Huge increases in health care insurance and corresponding ridiculous cost of medical care. Lack of guaranteed pensions resulting in the need to fund our own pensions. Skyrocketing housing costs resulting in huge property tax increases and insurance costs.</p>

<p>In our case, we moved to the midwest twenty years ago because we couldn't afford housing in California. Our house was bought for $120,000 and now is probably worth twice that (a modest increase compared to much of the rest of the country). However, our taxes have more than tripled and so has our insurance. We're not from this part of the country and don't plan to stay here after retirement. If we tap our equity for college expenses, where could we possibly afford to buy another house? So we stay in our house and pay more or we move and pay even more. (And when I say "more" in all these examples, I'm talking about increases that are way over wage increases.)</p>

<p>20 years ago we paid mostly nothing for health insurance. In the ensuing years, the health insurance has eroded to the point where we're probably paying for half of our own healthcare costs ourselves. That's three kids to pay for braces, routine medical visits at $100 a pop, costs for me for followup cancer visits, etc. - costing thousands of dollars per year. These are not considered "extraordinary" medical expenses for purposes of financial aid, but are nevertheless significant expenses for us.</p>

<p>Then we get to pensions. I think it's criminal the way the pension system in this country has been allowed to erode. We have no guaranteed pension, so what extra money we've had has gone into a 401(k) simply because the employer matches the contributions. We'd be idiots not to take advantage of that. So we have some money in our pension fund, but no significant savings elsewhere. </p>

<p>We've never bought a new car. We don't drink or smoke. We've never purchased a latte (I believe someone on one of these posts snarkily suggested we cut those out). Our kids don't wear designer duds or sport the latest electronic gadgets. We drive rather than fly to vacations and then stay in modest motels. In short, we have a frugal middle class lifestyle. Other than our house we have no debt, but then again we have no college savings. We're in our mid-50's and hubby has enough years in that he could retire but can't because of financial obligations.</p>

<p>Our EFC is approximately $17,000 on an income of about $90,000 (and remember, we've worked up to this after 30 years of working). Obviously we'd have to borrow all of the EFC and then would have to work into our seventies to pay it back. This scenario is being played out in homes across the country. I think EFC assumptions regarding accumulated savings do not reflect a reality of ever-rising costs for the middle class. Even if all we middle-classers had cut out every single vacation, never bought a car and ate every meal at home, I just don't believe the extra money has been there to pay for the huge cost of an Ivy. </p>

<p>Yes, Kluge, we knew there was nothing significant going into college savings. It was either that or a pension. But we knew our kids could go to a state school if necessary, while there's just no equivalent of a state school for retirement. Is it fair? Depends on your idea of fair. I'd love if they'd be able to go to an Ivy (since they have the numbers to get in), but they're grounded enough to know the financial situation and would never expect us to bankrupt our future. They don't think it's the end of the world if they have to go to a public school.</p>

<p>So, yes, a middle class person can go to an Ivy League school, but probably not without borrowing most of the money.</p>

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<p>Hi, Snowmn, </p>

<p>Are you writing as someone whose child applied to and was admitted to a college that is literally in the Ivy League, or are you extrapolating from the financial aid determination and offer of some other college? </p>

<p>See </p>

<p><a href="http://www.princeton.edu/main/admission-aid/aid/prospective/estimator/%5B/url%5D"&gt;http://www.princeton.edu/main/admission-aid/aid/prospective/estimator/&lt;/a> </p>

<p>for one source of a financial aid estimate.</p>