<li><p>In light of what Harvard and Yale have done with their financial aid programs, do you think the current formulas used by FAFSA and College Board disadvantage upper-middle-class families?</p></li>
<li><p>Why do you feel the current formulas used by FAFSA and College Board are fair or unfair to the upper-middle-class?</p></li>
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<p>For the purposes of this discussion, consider upper-middle-class families to be those making $120,000 to $180,000 per year.</p>
<p>I'm quite interested in this as well, as a child in a middle/upper-middle class home. Any knowledge is appreciated.</p>
<p>Yes, upper and middle class families (the top 10% of earners as you have defined it) are at a disadvantage using FAFSA formulas, isn't that the definition of need based aid?? Is it fair? Anyone can choose to make less money and qualify for FA under FAFSA, but I don't see any people doing so. I for one, feel very fortunate to be middle class and able to save to support my kids in college.</p>
<p>You need to remember that FAFSA is used for Federal funds, while the Profile is used by schools to distribute money from their endowments, those are two very different pools of money.</p>
<p>When I went to college more than 30 years ago, my father who was a government employee and the sole wage earner for the family, made little enough to qualify for government financial aid for me. The cost for a private college back then was about $5K a year. This amount has gone up 10 fold. The salary for a government employee in my father's job category has not gone up 10 fold, but is now too high for anyone making that much to get federal aid, other than the Stafford unsubsidized loan. So where does it put a family in that situation? I have no memory of what the financial aid process was those days but I knew that the result was some federal grants. Pell money is only available at levels far below that these days.</p>
<p>I believe the FAFSA methodology is unfair to the middle class today because it provides living expenses just above the poverty thresholds established by the Dept. of HHS in the 1960's and adjusted only for inflation since. This methodology is not a realistic measure of the current cost of living, and inmy opinion artificially inflates what a family can afford to pay for college after taxes and reasonable living expenses. The institutional or COllege Board methodology is better in some respects, but often assumes a family will mortgage their home to borrow college money, a very poor financial choice, again, IMHO.</p>
<p>It's interesting how most people define themselves as the middle class. I wouldn't really consider myself middle class if I had a six-figure income or income in the 90th percentile.</p>
<p>An interesting point...what is middle class, a stratified income level or a bundle of lifestyle and values? It seems to me that the term has become somewhat like "conservative" and "liberal" in political life- loaded words ill-defined, especially by a speaker with an argument. And look how "middle class" is used in debate about tax policy. I do think it is true that expectations have risen over time. How many garage spaces did the typical new home have in the 1960's, compared to today? How many cars should a middle class family have, and how is that judgment made?</p>
<p>I suppose the fairness of FAFSA is related to what one believes the goal of the FAFSA methodology is., and the schools that rely upon the FAFSA generated EFC.</p>
<p>If the goal is to make it easy to go to college, then FAFSA is unfair.
If the goal is to make it possible to go to college, then FAFSA is possbily unfair.</p>
<p>In large part fairness really depends on what choices you've (parents mostly) have made prior to the college years. i.e., how much savings/debt you already have and what your expenses are. If you have been frugal over the years, the FAFSA EFC seems fair. If you have not, then FAFSA's EFC seems unduly harsh. FAFSA does not consider where your discretionary income goes, and they define discretionary as anything the govt doesn't take in taxes. While FAFSA factors in what state you live in, it is only to determine the tax bite from that state, not the cost of living in that state. Hence, in places where housing expenses are high, FAFSA tends to be unfair. In essence, FAFSA penalizes those who "choose" to live in high cost areas. I think to FAFSA's credit their methodology does not make judgments about how and where people spend their money. Otherwise FAFSA's rules would begin to resemble the tax code. Instead, FAFSA leaves it up to the schools to decide special circumstances. Most schools latch on the FAFSA's EFC as a minimum that the student & family can pay, but there is nothing stopping a school from providing more than the EFC suggests.</p>
<p>I am a believer that the rules of any game are fair, (no matter how fair or unfair), if they are understood in advance and they aren't changed during the game. The difficulty with FAFSA for most people is that they don't know the rules before the game is played. More typically, they suddenly find themselves in the middle of a game that they didn't know existed. If a person knew FAFSA's rules years in advance, they might have made a number of different decisions leading up to the college years, but realistically you can't move to a different state when you find out what your EFC is.</p>
<p>I guess I don't think of $60,000 per wage earner which is a reasonable income for a teacher/fire fighter couple to be " upper middle class".
I know mini will say that $43,000 is median income & I am sure it is, but I would consider that very low middle income & difficult to raise a family on, unless you have few other expenses.
What the govt considers low income- is only because if they raised the cuttoff to be more accurate, than millions of people would then find themselves to be " low income" & the govt would be pressed to subsidize more programs.</p>
<p>So would a person in the upper middle class (using the OP's definition), even get financial aid?
By the way, I would agree that a 120,000-180,000 income can be middle class. I think it depends on the way families approach their incomes. If someone considers themselves to be lucky to have an income in the 90th percentile, then they might approach it in a different way than people who have that income, but are extremely careful with their money. Its all a matter of perspective.</p>
<p>I just looked up salaries in a district in my state. The lowest salary that I saw for a teacher was 41,000/year. This teacher had no graduate degree, and only one year of teaching experience. Many teachers in the district were earning over 85,000/year, and administrators were earning about 140,000/year. By the time a teacher's son or daughter is ready for college, if they began their career in their early 20s, they are earning more than 60,000/year (more like 85,000/year as a teacher with 25-30 years of experience in the classroom). I just looked again and noticed that at the 23 year mark, with a master's degree, a teacher is earning 100k/year in the district that I looked up. So if one begins teaching at 25 y/o with a master's in hand, at age 48 they can make 100,000 today.</p>
<p>Northeast mom: In our area most teachers who have been at it awhile (so may have kids of college age) make about 50-60K per year. They also have great benefits and a state pension at 100% of their salary. They also pay very little into their health, dental benefits, so in fact this couple is doing very well by some standards. My guess would be, that even though they are in a very high income bracket that their frame of reference culturally is very middle class</p>
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<blockquote> <p>I just looked again and noticed that at the 23 year mark, with a master's degree, a teacher is earning 100k/year in the district that I looked up.>></p> </blockquote>
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<p>I'm a 32 year teaching veteran and I do not make 100K per year...and I live in a wealthy and expensive part of the country. I will venture that teachers earning that salary are not the majority. Please do not generalize.</p>
<p>Not generalizing. This is what I looked up within a district in my area. It is fact, not fiction. There are poorer districts paying less. Here is NJ by the numbers. You can look up salaries in various districts and see for yourself. You can look up upscale and poor areas. Where you work is "choice" (maybe and maybe not). I certainly did not generalize, and I certainly did not create these numbers. Here you go:</p>
<p>Example #1: Bayonne:</p>
<p>$89,860 y 20 33 Masters (#s are yeas in district, and teaching experience)</p>
<p>Example #2: Cedar Grove:
$86,650 y 28 28 Masters </p>
<p>Example #3: Ridgewood Village:</p>
<p>$101,268 y 17 17 Masters</p>
<p>Example #4: Riverdell Regional School district:</p>
<p>$105,257 y 18 24 Masters</p>
<p>Example #5: Bloomfield School District:</p>
<p>$83,100 y 32 32 Masters </p>
<p>So it depends upon the district you choose to work in, or where they'll hire you I guess.</p>
<p>Northeastmom, I'm not saying you made up the numbers. But I will say that when folks read posts about teachers earning those salaries, it usually translates into "most or all" teachers earn those salaries. </p>
<p>What this says to me is that the salaries in those areas are trying to make it possible for the folks who work there to also live near there. And that's not a bad thing. </p>
<p>Yes, there are districts where the pay is quite good. But there are also many districts where the pay isn't as good. That was all I was saying.</p>
<p>As you can see, there are many teachers who are earning 100,000 per year. There are many teachers earning much less as well. The one I pointed out did have 23 years of teaching experience and a master's degree. I never said that someone teaching for a handful of years was earning that. I said that lowest salary that I saw was 41,000. I was not generalizing anything. Others can come to the conclusions that they are going to conclude. There is nothing I can do about that.</p>
<p>Here was my original post, and I do not see any generalizing:
[quote]
I just looked up salaries in a district in my state. The lowest salary that I saw for a teacher was 41,000/year. This teacher had no graduate degree, and only one year of teaching experience. Many teachers in the district were earning over 85,000/year, and administrators were earning about 140,000/year. By the time a teacher's son or daughter is ready for college, if they began their career in their early 20s, they are earning more than 60,000/year (more like 85,000/year as a teacher with 25-30 years of experience in the classroom). I just looked again and noticed that at the 23 year mark, with a master's degree, a teacher is earning 100k/year in the district that I looked up. So if one begins teaching at 25 y/o with a master's in hand, at age 48 they can make 100,000 today.
[/quote]
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<p>As to the original question:</p>
<p>"do you think the current formulas used by FAFSA and College Board disadvantage upper-middle-class families?"</p>
<p>Yes, but by design.</p>
<p>The FAFSA formula is designed to determine a families NEED, in order to facilitate the awarding of NEED-based financial aid. That money comes from somewhere-- it comes from the higher income families (through taxes paid to the government, and less directly through full tuitions paid by higher income families to colleges, who turn part of that revenue into institutional need-based scholarships).</p>
<p>The average family income in the US is a bit under 50K. So the family making 120K to 180K is indeed among the wealthiest of American families, and these families would be unlikely candidates for need-based aid.</p>
<p>This question is like asking whether the tax code "disadvantages" the rich, who must pay more. Or whether the NBA "disadvantages" players under 5 feet. Duh.</p>
<p>Average income is a tough one to come up with when you are trying to use it for families that have kids applying to college. I don't know if there is any guide on what the average income is for families filing FAFSA. To use averages where families have small children or other situations that are not profiles of those with kids going to college is not relevant.</p>