<p>I think that R6L and applicannot are talking specifically about paying for college, while some of us parents are trying to shed light on the totality of a family’s life, over years and decades. Both perspectives are valid, but they are different.</p>
<p>R6L, as I’ve said before, more income is definitely better and you know I’m particularly thrilled for you. But the income one sees at that one minute on a FAFSA doesn’t tell the whole story of a family. As I also said, I think first-gen status should be more important when a student gets to college (not as much financially), because those kids really could use a helping hand in navigating college and money, alone, doesn’t do that.</p>
<p>It’s entirely possible to talk about the system you disagree with without whining.</p>
<p>Whining is, “That private university decided to spend its own money giving somebody else a present, and I want a present too! Where’s my present?”</p>
<p>It’s not whining to say: “Boy, these choices we had to make are tough. I wish we’d been able to pay for both X and Y, but we had to choose X. It sucks.” Lots of posters here are doing this; a few are whining.</p>
<p>The difference is whether you are owning your choices or not (and whether or not you think you are entitled to purchase $50k worth of goods and services for less than $50k). Virtually everyone making >$150k has choices. Some of them may seem untenable, like putting your kids in day care, renting your home, moving to Tulsa, etc. But they are only untenable because of the standards and values that you chose. Lots of people put their kids in day care, live in Tulsa, etc.</p>
<p>For example, I hear a lot of “A starter home costs X!” For lots of people, a starter home is a trailer or a rented 2-bedroom apartment that costs one tenth of X – e.g., my sister’s starter home in the New York area. Perhaps YOU believe that buying a house with its own yard is the only appropriate way to bring up YOUR children, which is 100% YOUR prerogative…just acknowledge that you’re making a choice. A choice that private charitable organizations like Tufts can choose to subsidize, or not.</p>
<p>I’d add that the townhouse my parents bought is in a majority black neighborhood. Then and now, similar houses in the similar but nearly-all-white neighborhoods cost about twice as much. If you asked those homeowners, they’d probably say they didn’t have a choice – living in our neighborhood wasn’t even an option! But of course it was an option they chose to reject. That’s fine, but there’s no lack of options there.</p>
<p>Perhaps we need to add working class into the mix. Everyone in the US wants middle class status, and maybe that’s where the confusion comes from.</p>
<p>If a family has to forego everything single luxury and live subsistance to send its kids to college, I don’t think we can call that upper class or even upper middle class, just because the family can stretch the money and make it possible.</p>
<p>Now maybe that family who can shouldn’t be given financial aid.</p>
<p>And perhaps the discussion of financial aid should not be tied to a faulty attempt to define class.</p>
<p>My relatives who are upper middle to upper class (still wage earners, but doctors and lawyers) send kids to college, have two homes, travel, send kids to law school and med school, make big weddings all at the same time.</p>
I’d be happy to get within 50K of what we paid for ours, but that’s not going to happen in the foreseeable future. It’s value is less than half of the poster’s, by the way.</p>
<p>But we did make a choice. We bought a home because we had been married for twenty years and wanted a permanent place to live. Our bad!</p>
<p>where is there a source saying 350 is middle class? </p>
<p>I am strongly defending the idea that local cost of living matters. I am not sure though how straining 350k is. We live in northern Virginia. I would say folks here living on 350k, unless they have unusual needs (and of course some do) are middle class, or even upper middle class, largely in their own minds. Of course greater NY is probably still costlier than greater DC. </p>
<p>Then again, it matters not so much where you live, but where the primary earner works. Here, if you work in Tysons Corner, Virginia, you can manage a lower housing cost for a given income than if you work in core DC. IIUC thats true in NYC - someone working out in Morristown NJ has affordable housing options someone working on Wall Street does not, for a comparable commute.</p>
<p>Okay, so let’s say we have a person of low-income. No matter where that person lives, he or she is going to have similar experiences - he or she probably rents an apartment or owns a small house, buys cheaper food, etc. Social class = socioeconomic status. So, I agree with your definition. Now, let’s say we have a person making an upper class income ($200,000 for this example). Yes, that family lives in a very expensive area. But that person either chose that area or chose something that led them to live in that area, for whatever reason. Living in an expensive area doesn’t turn $200,000 into a middle class income, or make a person middle class by virtue of his or her income. It just means that a person with an upper class correlated income has chosen (or it has been chosen for them by virtue of some other circumstance) to live in an area that renders their $200,000 income less powerful.</p>
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<p>I’m not doubting the truth of this statement - I’d agree with it - but when you consider the whole, these two people are in the same class anyways.</p>
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<p>Then if it’s a two income household, I’d have no problem considering that family upper class. I’d think a person who risks their life daily would deserve it. What would you consider that family?</p>
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<p>If they have the same socioeconomic status - which seems doubtful, but certainly possible - then I see no reason why not.</p>
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<p>Sure, but the garbageman might be able to offer his children other advantages. Maybe they live in a nicer neighborhood or go to a better high school, or don’t struggle with bills, or what have you. I don’t think it would be scandalous to consider them of the same socioeconomic class. Sure, they might have different values as a family, but that doesn’t change them.</p>
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<p>I live near them. As of right now I live in the middle of no where, but fortunately it wasn’t always that way.</p>
Ok, that’s cool. We’re just working off of different definitions. I define class by using such variables as education, family history, culture, experiences. Not just income. But you’re working from income, so that’s fine and where we differ.</p>
<p>also, keep in mind that COLA and how much you make might be about the same ratio…using mickey mouse numbers but for example.
Someone who is truly working class’s family might make 60k/year…their house is probably around 80-100k
Someone who is upper class may make 300k and have a 500k house. When you look at the ratio of salary to mortgage, they aren’t drastically different. The only difference is the percent of your money that goes towards food and stuff. For the 60k family, groceries are going to take up ALOT more income than the 300k family. That’s where the upper class family ALWAYS ends up ahead</p>
<p>and I’m not attacking either side…really. I think both points are valid…but this is MY experience and what I believe</p>
<p>True, we pay for proximity to the beach and the river, we can easily take a high speed ferry to NYC for a high $. But all of that truly is our choice. My H’s business is 45 minutes south in an area where the cost of living is lower, his employees are then able to afford decent homes within a very reasonable driving distance. He provides his employees with full health and dental benefits paid for by the company to enable them to continue to live “middle class” lives, he pays them a decent salary and tries to be a safety net as needed. His employees have put children through college, some by completly banking their wives salary, or choosing less exspensive instate options. Occasionally he has helped out with a loan. Is it fair that these hard working middle income people have less options?</p>
<p>BBD: I posted the link that said the cut-off to upper class is $350,000.00. I agree with that. I think upper class implies a distinctively different way of life that doesn’t comebout until that kind of income is accumulated.</p>
<p>I sure know I don’t have it (not that our income is near that, either.)</p>
<p>I don’t necessarily agree, although I see what you are saying. If a family that makes a million dollars has to struggle because they want to buy a $2 million house, that doesn’t make them middle class - it means they made a choice that requires financial sacrifice.</p>
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<p>Okay. Let’s say that family of four lives outside LA and makes $375,000. They live up by the mansions there. They claim that since the cost of living is so high, and because taxes are so high, and so on and so forth, they are actually middle class. What would you say then?</p>
<p>“Some of them may seem untenable, like putting your kids in day care, renting your home, moving to Tulsa”</p>
<p>LOL!</p>
<p>I have been in this job for almost 8 years. I value the security and stability at this time, even if I could get something comparable elsewhere. Which I almost certainly could not, as my field is somewhat specialized. I am a DC lifer, barring the unforeseeable, and I accept that. </p>
<p>I think that is one of the issues here - what we economists call an equilibrium view vs a disequilibrium view. Some folks are looking at maximizing a benefit based on a blank slate. Which is, I think, an interesting and often illuminating exercise. But in fact, we are where we are, as a generally unlamented cabinet secretary used to say. Folks have investments in their careers, in their houses, etc. It is not cost free to change those things. Sometimes its the transaction costs of selling a house. Sometimes its the career hit of relocating. Not to mention disruption of changing communities.</p>
<p>I suppose, 18 years ago, when I was at a career fork, and I chose a path that led to DC instead of staying in Baltimore, I should have investigated the FAFSA and the details of financial aid policies. I confess I did not.</p>
from birth, hard working lower class kids have less options. From schools, to food, to the neighborhoods we live in. Very few of us will ever end up ahead…</p>
<p>“Okay, so let’s say we have a person of low-income. No matter where that person lives, he or she is going to have similar experiences - he or she probably rents an apartment or owns a small house, buys cheaper food, etc.”</p>
<p>I can guarantee you that 30k, lets say, does not go as far in greater NY as it does in say, Omaha. you are talking rent a small house, or a large mobile home, vs living in a tiny apartment say.</p>
<p>Some of us do not qualify for financial aid because of money we recently inherited, but a family that will likely inherit a good bit more within the next five to ten years, with the same income, will qualify.</p>
<p>Then there is wealth created and taken away through the vicissitudes of the housing market.</p>
<p>Social safety nets may vary immensely among families.</p>
<p>Many face an increasing uncertain future and are reluctant to take out loans because jobs can be lost, and jobs for graduates may never materialize as expected.</p>
<p>Many of us have not saved enough because of medical issues or disability. I am familiar with a number of families with severely autistic children who would have been institutionalized at no cost (financial or opportunity cost of a parent who cannot work or must work reduced hours) a generation ago, who have spent enormous sums over the child’s lifetime, and struggle to afford a college education for a sibling.</p>
<p>I do think that as hiring managers are unable to afford elite options for their own children and their children flock to merit-based options in ever-increasing numbers, their enthusiasm for the elite name on that diploma is likely to diminish, and it is even possible that that those who are admitted to such schools and whose families can afford sticker price will follow their peers to flagship honors colleges because that is “where the smart kids go for undergrad.”</p>
<p>she provides no citation for her number, and I see nothing in her bio to suggest any expertise in sociology, economics, statistics, or anything else related. AFAICT she pulled it out of the air.</p>
<p>Again, I would suggest that a family earning 350k in DC has a distinctively different way of life from one earning, say, 100k. </p>
<p>Though still not the same way of life as one earning 1million. Perhaps we are constrained by language? I have read sociologists who distinguished upper middle marginal, upper middle core, and upper middle elite.</p>
<p>the housing market makes all this even more confusing. There are millions of people making payments on houses based on prices that are far higher than what they would have to pay to acquire those houses today.</p>
<p>an economist and former Sec of Labor, says over 500k is VERY rich. of course thats in 2007</p>
<p>in recent debates on repealing parts of Bush’s tax cuts, 250k has been used as a cutoff for “middle class”. With the word upper generally avoided.</p>
<p>I don’t know what to think about all of this…</p>
<p>Why do people think they have a right to afford a private college education (thru various means other than paying for it themselves), yet they don’t feel that way about a private high school education? Certainly all the arguments about “fit,” personal attention, and such could also apply to high schools. </p>
<p>I can understand the desire that at least commuting to a local public U should be do-able for anyone who desires an education. But, I see states like Calif that are going bankrupt as they pay for room and board for a Calif resident to jump over their local commutable school and go elsewhere. That’s all good and fine when an economy is sound, but it’s a bit crazy when a state is bankrupt.</p>