<p>NY Times coins great new phrase: prestigious poverty.</p>
<p>Instead, at 64 and 61, they're both still working full time (not to mention their much lower standard of living over the last 30-odd years). There were a lot of years when the majority of their after-tax income went to tuition.</p>
<p>Pretty risky to gamble your future on the chance that you will stay healthy enough to work. My H job is fairly strenuous, and it is not something that most people would be able to continue doing 7 days a week into their 50s let alone their 60's.
I have seen too many people lose their jobs shortly before retirement because the company did not want to pay out salary for someone who had 30+ years experience when they could hire someone right out of school for a nth of the cost.
My brother in law who was CFO of a national company 4 years ago in his early 50's , is now selling medical insurance because his company was one of 3 that he has worked for that has gone bankrupt ( hm... connection?)</p>
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<p>Pretty risky to gamble your future on the chance that you will stay healthy enough to work.</p>
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<p>It could be, but carefully planned insurance takes care of that risk. They're not going to starve (and they know my sisters and I would take care of them if it came to that). My mother is a psychiatrist/academic and my father one of four partners in a small law firm, so they can't really be "downsized" or lose their jobs in the traditional sense.</p>
<p>Thats great that your parents have jobs that aren't physically taxing or threatened by offshoring but many are far from that situation.
My husband works for a company that has laid off thousands and those jobs aren't coming back. He still has a job- but he gets paid less than he used to- for the same level of work-
*In the past six years, this state lost about 100,000 manufacturing jobs, half of them in aerospace. Since their jobs at Boeing disappeared, longtime factory workers have searched for new ways to support their middle-class lifestyles.</p>
<p>Most who found jobs are now in the service sector, where they earn considerably less. Some carefully mapped their career changes, only to see their plans fall apart. Many are striving to refashion their sense of identity and preserve their aspirations.</p>
<p>The work force's move away from manufacturing signifies more than just a change in employment statistics. It also means a dislocation in the lives of once-comfortable workers who now struggle to survive in a shifting economy. *
<a href="http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002243908_postmanufacturing-a17.html%5B/url%5D">http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2002243908_postmanufacturing-a17.html</a></p>
<p>emeralkity4, I find that article depressing.
For every Hanna, there are many more like the Seattle security guard.</p>
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Nesbitt said that as Williams is need-blind, the admission staff does not review financial declarations made by families. Instead, they look at zip codes and the level of parental education to estimate socio-economic status of families when making admissions decisions
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<p>I suppose this could work for or against an applicant, but it's hard to know ahead of time. I googled around and it seems the median household income in my zip code is around $26,000. My zip covers a mixed urban/suburban area. That figure in no way represents our economic situation. Would they judge my kids as low income based on our zip and never look at our FAFSA? Would they assume we would need a lot of need-based aid? Our EFC will actually be quite high, but we've chosen not to live in more expensive suburbs due to the size of our family and not wanting to get into debt. I always assumed they looked at your individual family economic situation since they have the FAFSA or Profile in hand. I guess it could also work in our favor if a college viewed us as adding socioeconomic diversity based on our zip code, but that's really not fair to kids who live in the same zip who are actually economically disadvantaged.</p>
<p>Who said anything about "fairness" to individual students? The mandate of admissions offices is not to "be fair to individual students" but through admission of a class to best carry forth the mission of the school. We may not like that, but so what else is new? (They have statistical instruments to predict their "error rate", so individual circumstances don't have anything to do with it. Remember, these are professionals, with collectively decades of experience, and training in both yield and financial aid management. Give them credit for what they do.)</p>
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<p>many are far from that situation</p>
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<p>Well, as I said, it's one family's take, and one set of values does not fit all. That said, in the increasingly insecure job marketplace you describe, I'm more and more grateful to have the degrees I do (thanks entirely to my parents' sacrifices).</p>
<p>I am not sure if Nesbitt was not quoted out of context. There is no question that each application is viewed in light of socioeconomic environement that created it. No wonder the questions of education level for the parent, whether the applicant needs financial aid, the address, etc. However, in my experience with those working in admissions, there is a strong reverse discrimination against the haves. I worked in a school that is need aware. However, despite some of its financial aid policies that I to this day find despicable, I will tell you that admissions is need blind until they get to the last 5 or so % of the applicant pool. Admissions would take the students they felt best contributed to the school community, and I assure you, high achievers from disadvantaged backgrounds, both economic and episodic were given preference and leeway. The adcoms did not look at need at all when they were admitting the kids, but instead rated the kids as A, B, C quality, a designation that is meaningless unless it came to merit aid, special acceptance reception, and financial aid. The A's got the merit aid and the best grants in financial aid. The B's came next and the C's got what was left, many of them got loan heavy packages or were gapped a bit. If they had to be gapped too much or if the loans were too ornerous, they were dropped. It was this group that was assessed as to whether 4 kids with $5000 in need should be accepted or 1 kid with $20K in need. So culling the kids for need came at the very end of the process.</p>
<p>However, all elite colleges discriminate against disadvantaged kids because the wish lists that admissions gets from the powers that be of the university are heavy with expensive item. You don't become a lacrosse player or have a heavy background in the classics or have a number of accolades on your resume when you are working in the family store or restaraunt or babysitting siblings as extra curricular activities. When your family is truly needy, your resume is not going to look like the one's with parental cheerleading and financial support. Unless you are in a tiny group of kids whose parents do not have much money but they are in a high social category--say university post grads or other highly educated cluster that has decided to eschew material wealth. But again these kids have the advantage of parents who are fully supporting their activities rather than struggling to make a living, and leaving the kids on their own or needing them to contribute to keep the family wheels rolling. So just in the fact that colleges want kids with a variety of experiences and that adversity and poverty are only two such experiences, means that you will get more kids in the upper income brackets. There is no need to sort by zip code or by school, or whether the kids need financial aid.</p>
<p>If you meet adcoms at most private colleges, you will find other than the directors, most of them barely make the cost of the college. You are not going to find them looking for an upper crust class. If you get nothing else out of Rachel Toor's book, "Admission Confidential", you cannot escape the scorn she has for the "rich kid". That is the feeling I get when I talk to those adcoms I know. They do court the feeder schools because they need to get their body counts, first and foremost, but when it comes time to admitting the kids, they hate any kids circumventing the admissions office or process. They are the last to want to admit athletes, legacies, development, celebrity kids. Most are upset at well to do URMs getting any latitude in admissions. To ensure those categories remain represented there are others (athletic directors, development office, alumni office, minority coordinator) perusing the tagged files and giving them the pass to get in the door. I can assure you that sending a rec from a board member or a "big name" will turn off adcoms. You would do better with recs from a janitor or bus driver, unless the recommender has the clout and willingness to use it to follow through on the admissions, which they rarely do. </p>
<p>As to merit awards vs financial aid, it is a tricky situation for colleges that are trying to consolidate their position in the hierachy of schools or climb that ladder. The very top schools do not need to give merit aid to stay on top. But there are tradeoffs other schools need to make. As tuition cost spiral upwards, more families are going to be hard pressed to pay top dollar, and those schools that offer merit money are going to figure largely in the decision. There is a diminishing number of families willing to pay full price unless the school is absolutely up there, like HPY, the numbers going down as you read down the reputation hierarchy. There comes a point where it simply is not worth it to many famiies to pay more money for a school. And this is the niche that merit money woos. I can see how this money can attract more kids that the college wants whether it is more science majors, more humanities majors, athletes, high SAT scores, URMs, geographic divesity, an equal number of males and females. All of this diversity helps make a college community more vibrant. But it does impinge on the financial aid available, and it is this balance that is becoming more and more delicate. </p>
<p>In order for lower income kids to be represented in larger numbers in the elite colleges, and be more eligible for merit aid, there needs to be a bigger push in the college counseling departments of such school to provide SAT prep courses and to have a voice in configuring the school's offerings so that the kids will be prepared to be competitive for admissions in such schools. Unfortunately, this is an issue that is not achievable at most schools with lots of low income kids as other problems are more pressing, and the kids are so far behind upon the onset of high school that getting them to the threshhold of college admission, any college admissions is a heavy task. I work at a highschool where most of the kids have a better shot of going to the moon than to a selective college. Certainly a better shot of staying there. Though there have been notable exceptions, such as the teacher with the success in AP Calc, they are truly exceptions.</p>
<p>Immigrants to this country, particularly those from an educated background, understand that education is the quickest way up the ladder, and work on their kids from day one on this premise. That is why you get the "Asian parent" syndrome which could just as easily called the "Russian parent", the "Serbian parent"---I can go down the list. These families focus on academic achievement, grades, difficult courses, and SATs, and , yes, excellence in those areas alone do pretty much guarantee you a spot at a top college, and spots at not so highly rated schools with a merit award. A 4.0 and a 1600 SAT with difficult courses, high AP and SAT2 scores won't guarantee you a spot at HPY, but it sure does give you a better shot at it. If you look at the matrix of grades and test scores at the top school, you will find that the chances of getting into them are much higher with top academic stats, and a number of kids do get into HPY even without ECs, particularly if they come from economically disadvantaged families. The problem is that there are not enough kids who are coming up through the academic ranks with numbers that put them within striking range of the selective schools. Until that happens it is difficult to say that the colleges are "discriminating" against lower income kids. If anything, they are giving them a boost most of the time.</p>
<p>That's a great post, Jamimom, a Keeper that should go into a CC "Best of" for future reference,.</p>