<p>My family is poor (I'm talking extremely low income, well below $40,000 (we weren't always poor, tough circumstances) with little assets (we have a lovely home but very little money in the bank). I receive a fairly large chunk of money every year from a fund that my parents set up for me when I was a child (enough, almost, to completely pay in-state tuition, room and board, etc for a public uni), but this was barely factored in when calculating my college contribution, which was significantly lower than this amount. Amherst was very good to me.</p>
<p>Garland, though the folks in the $42-90K zone are not being asked to pay the entire cost of an Amherst education, my bet is that they are being asked to pay more than they feel they can pay. I know there are those who are doing it, your family one of them. But the data is showing that many are finding this too bitter a pill to swallow.</p>
<p>garland and calmom, you're right about the house, but the 100K we have budgeted is in our names, not the kid's. We have some other assets as well, and I guess that we're supposed to re-mortgage the house and spend down a substantial part of our savings. I just choose not to. </p>
<p>No criticism of those who do it--I suppose that paying full freight at 40+ is like buying a Jaguar. It's a great car, it's worth it to some people, I don't have anything against those who buy them, but it's not for me! Now if somebody wants to GIVE me one. . . . :)</p>
<p>I just wanted to point out that some of us overly frugal folks can lie in that quartile and be left out in the financial aid game.</p>
<p>"jaybee -- your EFC is based on the fact that you have high assets. If you saved $100K for the kid's education, in an account in his name, then the college financial aid system just happens to expect you to actually spend that money on the very thing you saved it for. So maybe your EFC really $26K + $20K of that $100K account for your kid?"</p>
<p>Kind of ironic isn't it? If you scrimp and save for your kids education you get no aid but if you spend every dime they have plenty of money for you.</p>
<p>There are only two kinds of people at Amherst and most of the other elite private universities - the rich and the poor. The middle classes are almost totally absent. That is one of the reasons why they are so politically wacked out and out of touch with the social, religious, moral, and cultural values of America.</p>
<p>Financial aid is pretty much a zero sum game at these schools. They could attract more middle class kids if they could get the effective tuition down to state university levels but for Pell Grant kids the school pretty much has to foot the whole bill. Increase the number of low income kids and you have to squeeze the middle class kids out because there is only so much institutional aid to go around. What you are left with are the very rich, the poor, and a small group of middle class kids who are either academically exceptional, atheletically exceptional, or have parents who will be eating cat food and sleeping on a park bench when they have their jobs shipped out Bangalore or China.</p>
<p>celloguy
The median family income in Los Angeles is about $43,000. That means you would consider nearly 50% of the families in Los Angeles to be indigent. The latest statistics I was able to find on poverty in Los Angeles county show that about 13 to 15% of the families are at or below the poverty level. This would probably put the poverty line for a family in Los Angeles to be about $18,000. A family with an income of $40,000 in Los Angeles is hardly wealthy, but given the facts as published by the Census Bureau that family has income that is probably twice the poverty level. So I stand by my characterization of a family with $40,000 income as hardly indigent, even in a high cost of living area like Los Angeles.</p>
<p>Jaybee, you are entitled to make what ever decisions you want about spending for your kids education.... but let's get real.</p>
<p>First of all, assuming that by "lower end" of the $42-90K zone you mean that your family income is between $42-$50K, then in order to get a $46K EFC, it means you have around $750K in assets. At least $100K is the amount saved for your kid's college -- probably more, since you referred to the amount you "budgeted". Whatever you have put away toward retirement isn't counted. $750K is enough to pay for an elite college 3 times over. I'm not saying you have to -- just pointing out that your net worth is on the high end.</p>
<p>If the bulk of that is your house (lets say that your house is worth $500K), then your EFC is not going to be anywhere near $46K. Most colleges using institutional methodology cap the amount of home equity they consider at 2.5 or 3 times income -- so it is far more likely that the CSS colleges would expect a contribution of around $26K annually. You've got the money already saved and budgeted to pay $25K annually -- your kid will qualify for stafford loans and work study and so will be able to contribute $20-$25K over 4 years --so it looks to me like you have everything you need to send your kid to whatever college you choose. </p>
<p>Now maybe I'm wrong and your home is worth a lot less -- in which case you have a lot more cash on hand -- but any way I do the math, I see that you are in a good position to pay for college, and you will probably get good boost with financial aid along the way -- assuming your kid is able to get into an Amherst-like school. (Amherst is in the 568 group, so it caps home equity at 2.4 times income) (The online calculators on various web sites don't reflect the cap -- so you have to figure it out on your own when you enter home equity figures to get a more accurate picture of likely award). </p>
<p>Now obviously you can send your kid to a public college or a private college that offers merit aid for even less money, and there is nothing wrong with a decision to save money and go for the less costly alternative: but the point is, affordability isn't the problem. You've got the money, you just do not want to spend $30K annually for your kid to attend college, because $100K over 4 years happens to be your personal spending limit. Not what you can afford -- you clearly can afford more -- but because of your choice. </p>
<p>Again, there's nothing wrong with that choice. I could easily afford to spend $90 on a bottle of wine, but I never would spend that sort of money on wine in any circumstances -- my idea of a good wine costs $8.99 a bottle. But I'd pay more than that for a pair of good tickets to a ballet or musical, - so it's not that I am unwilling to part with $90 for an evening's entertainment -- it's just that I value a live theatrical performance a lot more than I value fermented alcohol. </p>
<p>I do think that there is probably a psychological barrier that prevents upper middle class families from paying the cost of an elite private education once that goes more than a few thousand dollars above the COA at their flagship in-state public - but that's a choice they are making. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that I am one of these middle, middle classers with the $50K something income, give or take a few thousand. I borrowed to send my first kid to college and I'll borrow to send the 2nd kid to college -- my kids have borrowed as well and they are working. The math I have done is simply to compute monthly payment against borrowing power; with a PLUS loan every $100 I am willing to pay is equal to $8000 in funds for college. I figure I'll pay what I can afford when my kid is in college, and then when she graduates I won't have to support her any more and I should be able to afford to accelerate payments. If she gets a really good job, maybe she'll be able to help me out after she pays off her own loans. </p>
<p>I'm sorry, but I don't have much patience for the complaints of people who are sitting on top of a lot of savings and are unwilling to borrow. I'm not saying you should borrow -- just that your gripes fall on deaf ears to those of us who are willing to do so. I have borrowed money in my lifetime to buy or lease at least half a dozen cars, and I happen to think that my kid's education is worth more to me than a new car. hat's what the financial aid system is structured around when it comes to those of us who have some assets, and it's fine by me.</p>
<p>I've done the financial aid math every way possible, and it always comes out the same: the more money a person earns and the more they have in the bank to start, the more they will have in the end. It's not a confiscatory system --- people who earn more pay more, but what they also keep more. I'd rather earn $80K and pay $30K (leaving me with $50K) than earn $45K and pay $10K (leaving me with $35K) -- because the higher income and higher payment would leave me a better off by $60K at the end of 4 years. </p>
<p>I've notice that when I earn more money I have to pay higher taxes, too... but that has yet to stop me from trying to earn more.</p>
<p>
I'm a middle class parent with a kid on financial aid at Barnard. I will grant you that I think my kid is "academically exceptional"... but I thought that was an entrance requirement at her school and schools like Amherst. It's not easy paying my EFC but I'm not eating cat food and I'm not out on the street. I assume that if I lost my job then my daughter would qualify for more financial aid, so fear of job loss really doesn't figure into the financial aid equation. </p>
<p>I agree that it would be nicer if there was a greater percentage of kids in our income range at the schools.... but that's really not what the NPR broadcast was focusing on. There is really not much difference on college campuses between my kids and those who come from poorer circumstances. If anything, the financial aid system tends to even things out among the students at all levels who qualify for any sort of aid -- kind of making it an equally tight squeeze for everyone. It's just set up so that there really is no getting ahead of it until incomes are very safely into the 6-figure level. </p>
<p>The NPR broadcast was about the huge gulf that exists between the ordinary and the super rich -- both in terms of cultural expectations and in spending power. This is a very real issue that my daughter faces at her college -- there is a significant cohort of students from extremely privileged backgrounds who can be quite snobbish, and my d. has already discovered that she does not wear the right clothes or shop at the right stores or eat at the right restaurants to be treated with anything other than disdain by members of that particular cohort. That is not to say that all kids from rich backgrounds behave so badly... but there definitely are those who flaunt their wealth, and their behavior tends to reinforce whatever divide exists. Obviously, I'm not talking about kids whose parents earn $110K - the parents may have twice as much money as I do, but I'll bet their kids' on campus lifestyle is not that much different than my own kids. They probably are as willing to dine on chinese takeout or shop for shoes at PayLess as my own kid. </p>
<p>In any case, the NPR Amherst broadcast is part of a series they have done all week about the widening gulf between the super-rich and the rest of us. It's all available online at <a href="http://www.npr.org%5B/url%5D">www.npr.org</a> for anyone who wants to listen.</p>
<p>Calmom. looking at the statistics at who is at Amherst, it is clear that the vast majority of this country, the middle class, feel that the cost to them to go to Amherst is too high. These are the families, like yours, who are not going to get a full ride, or close to one. The either will get some financial aid or just miss getting aid. The fact of the matter is that most of these families do not think that the sacrifice and use of their money to send their kid do Amherst is worth it. They do not agree with you. I think that it is wonderful that you and a number of parents on CC are able to budget, plan, sacrifice to send your kids to the schools that they want and are the best fit for them. Clearly, you are in the minority. Tiny minority. If so many families are unwilling or unable for whatever reason to send their kids to such schools because of the cost, there is something wrong. That means the vast majority of kids in that economic group are not having the opportunity to go to these schools which is not what these schools intended to have happen. The parameters for need are clearly too rigorous, cuz the families are not buying at those prices set.<br>
I don't pretend to know where the line should be drawn on who should pay what. I am not impressed with families who live in absolute squalor, ignoring basic needs, moral obigations, and are truly so set on saving enough to send their kids to a top college that they truly would sell an organ (and their souls) to achieve this goal. It just is not that important to create so much hardship and adversity to save that money. On the other hand, I have no sympathy at the other extreme where I see parents driving very expensive cars, living on the end in many, many ways, and then crying poor when faced with college costs when they could not possibly have not known that this was a financial responsibility that they would be facing. But there is a very large area between those extremes, where family needs, values, comforts, opportunities should be balanced, where a large tab for college would not be a good investment for all concerned in the family. This situation tends to hit the middle class. Those who get an EFC that is just too high for them. When the statistics at a school like Amherst show that this very large percentage of the populaton is not being represented even close to where it should be to be equitable, there is a disconnect somewhere. Just as schools lose out when they are not enrolling kids from the lower end of the economic scale and the top end, it is really getting out of touch when it is short on Middle America.</p>
<p>Cpt--who are the mythical living-in-squalor families you speak of? it's seems urban-legendish to assume that a middle class family has to reduce itself to abject poverty in order to pay for a school like Amherst. I've seen no evidence of that here or anywhere.</p>
<p>But you are right; it is a choice. Which is why I said earlier that I think it was wrong to use the word "lucky" to describe those middle class famiilies who choose to send their kids to a school like Amherst. Yes, they are making a choice, but at a full-need school, they are not being asked to choose poverty (which is what those "fortunate" poor folks who "get" to go there are already in.)</p>
<p>Jaybee is a perfect example. Does not "choose" to mortgage a house full of equity, or "dip into savings." That is a perfectly legitimate choice, but I don't understand how it would be Amherst's, or any other school's, responsibility to mitigate that choice with more money.</p>
<p>cptofthe house-- I know many families such as you describe. Most of them are my neighbors-- our houses are all worth the same, give or take a few thousand bucks.</p>
<p>Many of them were absolutely incredulous that we were willing to pay full freight at MIT. They see our lifestyle; of course they don't know what we earn or what our savings are, but from the outside looking in many of them thought we were insane. </p>
<p>I made a perfectly rational decision, IMHO. Our kids have never been to Disney (sort of a coming of age around here when the kids reach elementary school age); didn't get a car when they turned 16 (we were too cheap to pay the insurance so kids got their driver's licenses when their jobs could kick in for the increment on the family policy); we haven't added a "great room" with a big screen TV and we drive our junker cars (for which we pay cash) into the ground-- no swishy SUV's in my driveway.</p>
<p>I live a beautiful, affluent lifestyle compared to 99% of the people on the planet who have ever lived; H and I have worked hard and saved diligently for our kids education. We didn't see the ski trips or the fancy cars or the other indulgences for the kids as anywhere nearly as important as their educations..... that's our choice, and I'm not complaining about it. But-- it galls to have folks who are sitting on the same home equity we're sitting on, who spend every school vacation at a resort, who buy every electronic device known to man, etc. implying that we're being "extravagant" by paying for a private college. They gripe and moan about tuition at State U "fleecing us", as if saving for college was something they heard about when the kid turned 16.</p>
<p>People should spend their money however they wish, but I don't believe a private institution has an obligation to help people with assets and a comfortable income, shield those assets from tuition just because they don't feel like dipping into their equity to pay. Bravo to the efforts to enroll the low income kids-- and if every family in America who bought a big screen TV and upgraded their cable package banked the money instead, we'd have a very different society, now wouldn't we???</p>
<p>Garland, I think I was not clear. There are families that I have known, still know, who live to save every dime they can. They choose to live in neighborhoods that are not so safe, houses in poor repair, perhaps squeezed in several rooms. They are saving their money. Perhaps not to go to Amherst. More often Harvard, Princeton,Yale. Some are immigrants with the dream for their kids to get that brass ring of the most selective college. Some are not. But they are certainly not a myth. They do not have to live that way as they certainly have the money to upgrade. But they choose to save and invest in the future. I think there is a point that is too far, but that is my opinion. </p>
<p>The middle class that I am referring to do not have SUVs, or any new cars that I have seen. They have not been to Disney World or to any vacation that someone else did not subsidize, or maybe went to one vacation in 20 years as an "extravagance". They have not skied, and they do not have computers unless they are someone else's cast offs, nor do they own any new electronic devices unless they are gifts. At $60K a year, they are "making it" just fine. They pay their bills, have some debt but not a lot, have a house. not paid for, not extravagant that they try to keep in good repair. Their EFC does not give them any grants, just loans, and their kids are not going to to get into MIT or Amherst, the ones I know, but if they did they would be hard to put to pay what those schools feel they should as, yes, they are having a hard time paying for State U. I think $15-20K a year is alot for someone with 3 kids to pay for college. They did not always make $60k a year. They had some problems and issues some time back, and they just did not save that much money as savings seem to go towards the house down payment they just scraped up a few years ago, and for any disasters that may have occurred in life. These are my husband's cousins that I am describing. Very much middle class folk, who pay their bills pretty much on time, have nothing luxurious, and have a tough time managing their health insurance, a bit towards pension, the kids ECs which are mainly scouts and rec teams, maybe a band instrument/piano lessons. They give a little to their church, and to a charity or two. None of their kids have a car until they are of college age when they pretty much need one for the job they get and to commute to community or tech college. They talk longingly about sending their kids to the local catholic school that they could not afford and local Catholic colleges are totally out of range. Sleep away colleges? Not in the equation in that state. In the last 20 years, I've seen about that many of them go through their education without a private college on their list because they could not afford the cost. Some did apply to them and go through the aid carosel and the numbers did not work out.</p>
<p>As I said before, though many of you may disagree about their priorities and use of money, there is something wrong when such a vast % of the majority of this country, the middle class are just not there at a premier college. No, I don't believe in a quota system where every dang thing has to be represented, but the stats that were given are frighteningly low to me for those that make up this country. Hopefully, other top schools do not have similar stats.</p>
<p>Cpt--obviously, I don't know these folks. You do. But, I feel there's something missing in your equation. 60K would give very extensive grants at an MIT or an Amherst. Not, maybe, at a state school, because those don't pledge to meet full need.</p>
<p>So, there, you are right. That's where more money needs to be. Many, of not most, of the kids from my town go to one of the local state schools, so they don't need to pay room and board. However, the ones who get into full needs schools, they go away, because they can afford to; they get the grants.</p>
<p>It's the state schools that can make meeting an EFC tough for someone who truly has a 60K income and no assets, but at that point it's up to us, the taxpayers, to subsidize them better.</p>
<p>I would definitely use the word "lucky" to describe those middle income family kids whose parents were somehow able to come up with the money to send them to college. The kids have little to do with how the money is earned, allocated, saved, squandered, or used in a family. If they are fortunate enough to come from a family with wise money saving skills, savvy enough to save for college over time, they are lucky indeed. Many come from families that did not think of college in the early years, made some poor decisions and by the time these parents got themselves in some financial groove that is more responsible, there is no way to save what is needed for a private college, or going away to a college. If the kids has the academic stats or a talent that could snare a large merit award, yes, he is lucky too, in that he can go for scholarships at schools that are willing to pay for him; but the chances of getting money from a top school is miniscule, and many of them give financial aid only. He is entirely at the mercy of his family's ability and willingness to send him to a college if he wants to go to one of those schools, even if he should get admitted. Those families who are high enough on the financial scale that they can come up with the money more easily are luckier still. Though I would NOT call kids from families with very low EFCs,lucky,as that income level has many more drawbacks than advantages, those kids just might be able to get enough money from a college that they can swing it themselves, particularly those with good academic stats.</p>
<p>I don't know how many of that 7% of students that are in the $40-90K income range at Amherst that have a family income of $60K a year, but it cannot be very many given that we have only 7% in that entire range. Somehow I don't think they are getting "extensive" grants, by their definition.
I am not advocating a give away of private education or the right to go to a selective school. What I am saying is that the data given on page 1 of this thread shows a serious gap of who is sending their kids to that particular school. I suspect that the financial aid formulas are not giving kids of that particular income bracket enough for the vast, vast majority of those families to send their kids to that school. For the school to be more representative of the middle class, and again, I want to make it clear, that I am not saying there should be a quota, there should be some investigation as to why this major part of the country is so severely underrepresented. If that many families truly believe that the financial aid formulas being used by Amherst does not give them enough to send their kids there, some adjustment should be made. There is a true disconnect here that makes no sense.</p>
<p>I think the people who are screwed are the ones earning 60K to just under 100K. They are truly stuck in the middle of no grants and all loans. Unless of course they settle for a lower tier school with merit-aid or a high quality public. The only folks that I know sending their kids to higher tier schools are docs, lawyers and teachers.</p>
<p>Why do you think the ones in that range are not getting "extensive grants" at Amherst, cpt? how are they affording it?</p>
<p>You can plug 60K, no assets into the FA calculators. It will yield a very, very low EFC. So, I gather that you're saying that Amherst et all are either refusing to accept these students, or not meeting full need, despite that they say they do. Both, as i said to Mini early on, pretty serious charges. My guess is that these students and families are self-selecting out of the pool, rather than being selected out by these schools, either in admissions or in aid. I haven't yet seen any evidence to the contrary.</p>
<p>Edit: and, I still think it's making sure kids can attend college at all that is important, not what level of choices they're families will make or not make on where they're willing to send them. That individual outcome may indeed be lucky or not, but, as we have both said, lucky in what the family chooses or doesn't choose, not in what the school provides.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse, believe me, 60K will get you a wonderful package from Amherst. It is costing me about a fifth of what the State U would have cost, since they don't have the FA packages of the elite privates, and are governed by state rules and regulations, so have their hands tied more. It is just this type of talk that makes people believe that they can't afford Amherst or another school like it. It is a MYTH! They simply aren't applying, because they have heard this myth repeated over and over until it has become a mantra. Better to talk to those whose kids are there and fit into that category to find out how wonderful the FA packages really are for the middle class at these schools. We would have had to take out loans for my D to go to state U, but she is going to Amherst loan free - now that is evidence that the myth is just that - anothe rurban legend.</p>
<p>
I agree with Garland -- I think that you are expecting the colleges to subsidize the ability of the upper half of the financial-aid eligible group to protect their accumulated savings. Essentially you are arguing that a $50K earning family with $500K in savings ought to pay the same for college as a $50K earning family with only $50K in savings, through some sort of moral justification of rewarding them for their thriftiness. To me that turns the whole notion of "saving for college" upside down -- into a "save so you don't have to pay" program. Given the favorable treatment of 529 accounts, I think think that we already have such a program. </p>
<p>Try looking at it this way: my son, who is paying his own way through college, also has a half-time position with Americorps. Americorps volunteers are paid a small stipend, not a living wage. My son learned that most of the other Americorps volunteers were getting food stamps, and his supervisor encouraged him to apply as well -- so he announced to me that he intended to do so. I asked him how much he had left in savings, and he said $6,000. I told him that I was sure that he would not qualify for food stamps with that kind of money in the bank-- and of course I turned out to be right. </p>
<p>I am sure that when it comes to allocation of taxpayer dollars for welfare programs, such as food stamps, you would agree that the authorities should consider available assets. While my son's income in fact was only half of that of the full-time Americorps volunteers he worked with, my son had accumulated money from his previous employment -- whereas his food-stamp eligible colleagues had not. I don't think my son is being "punished" for his thriftiness; on the contrary, I think its only right that with his bank balance, he is expected to pay for his own groceries. </p>
<p>The college financial aid system does not expect family with the accumulated assets to render itself destitute. Your reference to families living in squalor and ignoring basic needs to pay for college seems to be a product of an over-active imagination. I've never met anyone who fits that description; if a family has $200K in savings and withdraws $30K each year to supplement available cash from earnings, in order to put their kids through college, then at the end the family will have about $100K left (assuming that they can get about a 6% return on the money in the bank). They aren't destitute; they aren't living in squalor; they haven't ignored basic needs -- they just have a smaller nest egg.</p>
<p>I don't know how many $45-$90K earners Amherst admits, in terms of overall percentage -- or how or why they choose to go elsewhere -- so I can't draw conclusion as to what would be an appropriate pricing/financial aid scheme. But I figure what goes into one pot will come out of another -- so a financial aid scheme that was more generous to one group would probably result in higher fees to being charged to another. The bottom line is that the colleges need or want a certain $ revenue coming in each year, and they are probably going to keep on getting it. </p>
<p>I understand why a family that earns more money than I do and has more money in the bank than I do would feel resentful of my daughter's deeply discounted tuition -- but I don't think the system would be better or more fair if the better-off family was given the same deal that I had -- any more than I think that life would be more fair if my son could get food stamps. Actually, I think life would be more fair if no one needed food stamps and public universities were affordable to everyone. I don't really care that much about fairness in allocation of pricing among private sector colleges -- I am happy that my kid can attend a private college, but I would not have felt angry or resentful if the financial aid money had been insufficient to meet our needs. Disappointed, yes. But I have no sense of entitlement to a private college for my kids. I do have a sense of entitlement for public colleges, and the financial aid offers from the UC campus certainly fulfilled any expectation I had. </p>
<p>It might be nice if the private colleges would abandon the fiction of meeting "100% need" for its applicants, when they all use their own methodology to define "need". Perhaps if they simply said that they had a sliding scale of fees based on income and assets, there would be less confusion and resentment overall.</p>
<p>
A family with a $60K income is going to have plenty of grant aid at a school like Amherst. Assuming 2 parents, 1 kid in college, $100K in savings and $144K in home equity (the maximum considered under consensus methodology), their EFC would be under $18K -- with a $49K COA at Amherst, that family would probably get a grant of around $28K. </p>
<p>I suspect that the bigger problem is your observation that the kids aren't going to get into MIT or Amherst -- they probably are looking at colleges that are less generous with need-based aid policies, and perhaps their kids aren't going to qualify for a lot of merit aid either. I realize that college financing is a lot more challenging for the parents of B+ students -- those kids probably are going to have to settle for public schools; with the figures I assumed above, Federal EFC is around $9000 -- and the public colleges are more likely to meet the need with loans and work-study than grants. </p>
<p>But that's a somewhat different question than that of the class divide at Amherst and its ilk. The problem is that there isn't much in the way of subsidies available for private colleges for ordinary students. Those kids wouldn't be going to the elites in any case, but I can see why they might wish they could go to a Fordham rather than a SUNY. Unfortunately, that really isn't much different than the problem faced all along, when the option was sending kids to the local public school with all its ills rather than the nicer, cleaner, more attractive private school over the hill. Private education is essentially a perk of being well-to-do; the exceptions are almost always based on some sort of merit (with merit including athletic prowess) that is sufficient to motivate the private school to subsidize a certain percentage of its students. If the private institution is selective enough, it recognizes that all its students are equally meritorious, and limits aid to considerations of financial need; if i is not quite as selective, then it usually will leverage its aid dollars in way that favors the students it perceives as most desirable. </p>
<p>I'd recommend listening the the whole NPR series. Apparently life isn't so good for minor league ball players either. You have to be cream of the crop to get the big money. Good-but-not-great doesn't necessarily cut it in a meritocratic system.</p>
<p>When you only have 7% of the students at Amherst coming from families that make between about $40-90K a year, and more than double that percent from famiilies making less than $40K a year, and about 75% making over $90K a year, something is not right. I am not talking about the kids who are B+ material, though if the same picture/stats are there for those kids, I would feel the same way. I am specifically talking about Amherst which is one of the top LACs in the country. If the income bracket that makes up the bulk of America is represented so sparsely, even less so than the lower income brackets, given that educational level is so dependent on income in just about every educational study done, something is wrong. Why aren't more of these kids going to Amherst? I can see why low numbers of kids whose family have practically no extra money would not be eligible or able to go to such a school, given education stats and the financial hardship of families at that range to come up with any money for college. But we are talking about middle America here. Only 7%? Why is this category not applying to Amherst? I can tell you that in our family which tends to have most members in that income bracket, there is no money for private colleges. The two kids I know who could have gotten into Amherst applied only to private schools with merit money, and ended up not getting enough to go them anyways, and went the state route. It looks to me like the middle class is getting squeezed out of Amherst and if this is representative of schools of its type, it is not a good sign in my opinion.</p>