Dear colleges, You have priced the middle/upper of the middle class out, so...

Parents Forum
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<p>to drdom: is distribution of principal really what you’re unhappy with? Suppose that the universities we’re talking about started spending their endowments much faster, but instead of increasing fin aid of any kind, or lowering tuition, they used the extra funds to build science labs or community service centers. You’d still be just as unhappy with the system, right?</p>

<p>What would a wholly transparent admissions system look like to you? Would it be numbers driven? Or would it be OK to still use a holistic process, but the committee deliberations would be public?</p>

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<p>The average in state tuition at a public school is around $7,000. I seriously doubt that this kind of tuition is out of the price range of most upper middle class families. Of course, you have to add room and board, books and other fees, so maybe total cost of attendance for an in-state student is between 15K-20K.</p>

<p>This kind of COA is admittedly hard for a family earning around 50K, but not really that hard for a family earning 150K.</p>

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<p>The comments in threads like these are usually (and not illegitimately) anecdotal. It’s interesting to read them to get a general sense of what may be happening out there, but what really interests me is whether the data will actually bear out that more middle/upper middle class kids are choosing to go to less expensive schools when they also have the opportunity to go to (i.e., they have actually been accepted to) more expensive “elite” schools. I suspect that is actually the case, but my suspicion is admittedly influenced by our own experience. My son turned down several top schools to go to a much less expensive school. It was a painful and difficult decision making process. But we simply concluded we could not justify the very substantial additional cost.</p>

<p>Now here’s the thing: if I posted my financial statement and my salary for the last couple years, you would each react differently. Some would say, “Yep, I hear you – I completely understand your choice.” Others would say “Are you crazy – if I made that much I’d be lighting my cigar with a twenty after I dropped Junior off at Stanford in his new convertible.” </p>

<p>You’d all be right, at least in the absence of other factors. And there are a lot of them. For example – how old are we? How secure do I feel in my job? Where do I think the economy is going in my geographic area? Where will the real estate market be? How does my health project over the next five to ten years? How old are our parents, and what is their financial condition and health? What are the job prospects for our other children? And many others.</p>

<p>There are, in short, a lot of factors that are not just real to us, but actually real, that influence our comfort with expenses, but that are little taken into account – or ignored entirely – by colleges. So in our case, when it came to financial aid it was “no soup for you.” The colleges wanted our son, but they wanted our money too. As much of it as they could get, and 5 to 6% more every year besides. </p>

<p>Maybe it would have all worked out. But it nagged at us that if we took that risk, we’d be among the fools in the middle paying full boat and sweating it out. We just couldn’t get there.</p>

<p>But maybe we’re just another anecdote. It’s a big country, and the top schools presumably have concluded that they really have no shortage of more financially courageous middle/upper middle families, not to mention a large supply of upper class families, who are willing to pay the sticker price, even with its inexorable and meteoric rise. Time will tell if they are right.</p>

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<p>We were, by CC standards, upper middle class but nowheres near rich. Like Hanna’s family, we were able to send both kids to very good schools by living like we were lower middle class.</p>

<p>And I’ve met many of their friends from those same schools, and not one of them was “rich.” I’d say all are middle to upper middle class. That’s not to say there are not rich kids at these schools, just that there are plenty others who are not (what I also never met was a poor kid from either school, though I know they were some of them too.)</p>

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<p>“if I posted my financial statement and my salary for the last couple years, you would each react differently”</p>

<p>The main way I would react is: you seem to have assessed the lay of the land and made the financial investment you thought best for your family. You don’t seem, as far as I can tell, to be attacking the system for forcing you to make hard choices…you’re just going ahead and making them. That’s exactly what you should be doing, even if your choices might be different from mine. It’s a good case of different strokes for different folks.</p>

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<p>There’s a similar thread in the financial aid section about the rising COA of college, and I want to quote from post number 20 in that thread.</p>

<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/918407-higher-education-broken-look-scary-graph-ct-confidential-2.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/918407-higher-education-broken-look-scary-graph-ct-confidential-2.html&lt;/a&gt;&lt;/p&gt;

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<p>At my institution, this does seem to be the case. We now provide so many services–a study abroad office, more advisors, more equipment, more IT people to make sure it all runs smoothly, internship opportunities and then faculty to arrange and monitor these opportunitie etc.</p>

<p>And I’ve heard from high school college counselors that student have dropped off college tours because they’ve heard, for example, that the college doesn’t provide for single rooms.</p>

<p>So what are we willing to give up?</p>

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<p>MilwDad, it doesn’t make other folks more courageous financially. Some of them are without a doubt financially illiterate, and some of them assess different risk factors at higher or lower values than you do. Doesn’t mean you lack courage.</p>

<p>I know people in their early 50’s with no retirement savings who are taking on loans for their kids college and I think they are nuts. We lived very modestly for many years to save for college and people thought we were nuts. I have a close friend who refused to give up the vacations, the summer house, or the high end luxury car to pay for college so her kid is commuting to a non-flagship state U and living at home. Believe me, I think she’s nuts but she didn’t think private college was “worth the sacrifice” it would have required from the family. </p>

<p>It was humbling meeting so many of our kids friends over the years and realizing what a diverse and interesting group of families they represented. Their institutions for sure would have been “poorer” without institutional, need-only aid. Is it perfect? No. Are we all nuts in our own way? Probably.</p>

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<p>You are right, you should not expect taxpayers of Michigan to subsidize your or my kid. At the same time, I should not be expected to subsidize other people’s kids (through levying significant taxes on my income), while not be able to receive any benefit for my kids. This is what bothers me - I end up paying both for my kids (through paying full sticker tuition) and for somebody else’s kids (through paying significant amount of income taxes every year).</p>

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<p>I for one has posted many times that I think some top schools are missing out on some great middle/lower-upper class students. The students I am referring to are the ones whose family income is between 150-250,000, living around high cost areas (like NYC, Boston, Chicago, CA in general…). I even did a break down of how much those families would have to pay for housing, property tax, commuting, and how it would be very difficult for them to save up enough money to send their kids to private schools. Many people argued with me that if those families really wanted to, then they could have, because they did themselves. </p>

<p>All I have to do is look at kids at D1’s school, Cornell, those kids are either really wealthy or they are making less than 150,000. D1’s best friend was the example I used when I started the thread about “Would you let your kid marry someone who has a large student loan.” She is a classic example of growing up in a high cost area, Dad making 200,000 with 3-4 kids in her family. She will graduate with $200+ loans. How many people are willing to do that?</p>

<p>What is too bad about the whole situation is the group that’s missing is the back bone of this country. They grew up with parents with professional jobs, good education. They probably grew up in a “Leave it to Beaver” type of environment - with a lot less psychological issues (relatively). They are the same parents who were able to go to some of the top schools 30+ years ago. But now their kids can’t afford good private education.</p>

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<p>this is where the subject loses me. We never had an income like that, and live in the North Jersey NYC suburbs, yet we full paid and my kids had no loans except small Stafford for second one. The question here is what was her family unwilling to do, that she took on such large loans.</p>

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<p>Making over $150K is not exactly middle class.</p>

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<p>This is all very interesting. I guess my thoughts are that private colleges are just that, private, and have no obligation to pay for anyone to go to them. That they do, is great. However, supply and demand is in full force. We all know, based on just reading these boards and looking at the college stats that highly regarded colleges have alot more students applying, and students who can afford to pay full price, than they have openings. That they strive for some sort of economic diversity is nice, but the bottom line is they are not obligated to do so. State colleges, especially non-flagship colleges, are affordable for most middle class families. It’s just that we don’t want the mediocre college, we want the bells and whistles college. Like many things in life, everyone’s circumstances are different, everyone makes different choices and in the end you do the best that you can with what you have. No crying.</p>

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<p>I was stunned recently when someone mentioned that his daughter had been offered a financial aid package at one school that his wife was very excited about, since the parents would only have to pay $3,000 a year “out-of-pocket.” He noted that his wife completely disregarded the $13,000 a year in loans that either the parents or the kid would have to pay back. (I would not have guessed his wife was that clueless.)</p>

<p>Our high school guidance counselor is also completely clueless about this, telling kids and parents that they should not let the price of a college deter them, they have to borrow for college – and that he is still paying back $40,000 in loans for his own college education. (He is married and has three young children – and I doubt he is putting away any college money for them while he is still paying back his own large school loans.)</p>

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<p>These kids can’t afford OOS flagships either. These schools should serve in-state students first. However, the state contributes less than 10% in the case of Michigan and Virginia (for ex.). Yet the OOS tuition is something like 200 or 300% of the in-state tuition.</p>

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<p>“How many people are willing to do that?”</p>

<p>I’d lie down under the wheels of my child’s car to keep her from borrowing $200k for college. If I didn’t have the money to pay for Cornell, I’d do everything in my power to encourage her to choose a cheaper school.</p>

<p>“I think some top schools are missing out on some great middle/lower-upper class students.”</p>

<p>Assume that this is the case. What’s the solution? Where should colleges redirect the finite money they currently spend on need-based aid for poorer families? I’d love to pull the luxury suites and climbing walls out of the equation, but it’s very hard to slow down an arms race in progress.</p>

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<p>“I think some top schools are missing out on some great middle/lower-upper class students.”</p>

<p>We all want to think that we are “special” - and we are in our own ways. Bottom line though is that there are enough kids applying to these colleges that the colleges really aren’t missing out on too much. They have plenty of people to choose from.</p>

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<p>The positive side is the fabulous students who are now flocking to state flagships and the lower than top 20 LAC’s because of their merit scholarships. Their attendance is enhancing the quality of education for everyone.</p>

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<p>There is also the effect of internationals. In some schools, there are enough international kids who are willing pay large sums of money to get an degree from a brand name institution. There are schools that are actively courting such students to pay full sticker price. Hence is there is less willingness to reduce sticker price as they know they could get very qualified international students willing to pay if domestic students do not pay. As admissions for international students are not need blind, they can reject students who need aid and just accept those who can pay their way. </p>

<p>This may not be a big factor but does have an impact on the prices that schools charge as their market is now global.</p>

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<p>Colleges have enough kids in numbers applying, but I would guess, especially now, the numbers are skewing more towards the highest and lowest income brackets. Harvard changed their policy on mid-income payers when they looked around and found there weren’t many of them. In these economic times, this trend may be be exacerbated. To compensate, the schools will have to keep boosting tuition.</p>

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<p>setting a bookmark.</p>