<p>The problem using income as a barometer is the simple fact 120k in the Heartland of America is significantly more then 120k in the NYC area or most big cities,particularly east coast/chicago/west coast</p>
<p>qdogpa that is very true a big part of why the current FA system is corrupt nonsense. Many posters seem to think the FA is about fairness when it reality it’s main purpose is to allow the schools to legally extort ever higher and higher fees and mostly disconnect the cost of college from the value of the degree.</p>
<p>lookfwd depending on where you look and which year that number will vary. It doesn’t change the point and aqdogpa says 120 or 138k in Peroria is a vastly different income from than the same amount in a major coastal city.</p>
<p>A fiend of mine and her husband went to their financial advisor to talk about college costs and he told them a paper divorce would give them significanltly better FA. In almost every case FA punishes responsible behavior in a similar way to gov’t programs. I’m sure all of you know that there is currently big marriage penalty at higher incomes in the federal tax code which is an equally insane policy.</p>
<p>This article:</p>
<p>[Where</a> Do You Fall on the Income Curve? - NYTimes.com](<a href=“http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/05/24/where-do-you-fall-on-the-income-curve/]Where”>Where Do You Fall on the Income Curve? - The New York Times)</p>
<p>refers to this table for 2011:</p>
<p>[Income</a> Breaks, 2011](<a href=“http://taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=2970]Income”>http://taxpolicycenter.org/numbers/displayatab.cfm?DocID=2970)</p>
<p>but the figures appear to be generated by a computer model, not census data.</p>
<p>It puts $120K at about the 85th percentile.</p>
<p>Are there more than 5 colleges that give aid to families making $100K+ (add the condition of only one child in college)? To partially answer my own question, this link show some related information (income limits for no-loan financial aid and loan caps).</p>
<p>[Student</a> financial aid in the United States - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia](<a href=“Student financial aid in the United States - Wikipedia”>Student financial aid in the United States - Wikipedia)</p>
<p>It look like more than 5, but I think SAY is still complaining about a very small number of colleges (maybe 20-30 out of a couple thousand).</p>
<p>spurster, the Wikipedia page on no-loan FA packages is interesting, but I wouldn’t read too much into it. Many schools may say that there is no maximum income to be eligible for an FA package with no loans, but it’s the school that is determining the family’s need–and hence, the amount of FA to be offered. Eligibility to apply for aid doesn’t mean a guarantee of being awarded aid. </p>
<p>CC collective wisdom is that there are four schools (Harvard, Yale, Princeton and Stanford) that give very generous financial aid to families earning up to $180k-$200k. Even under that income level, some families with students accepted to those schools may get less-generous aid because of e.g. a home-owned business.</p>
<p>Then there are a number of schools (perhaps a dozen? a score? two score?) that have deep enough pockets to give FA to families earning into six figures, given a large family, extraordinary expenses (such as significant medical expenses), or some other special circumstance. </p>
<p>Finally, there are hundreds of schools that offer merit aid regardless of need.</p>
<p>How do you defend this?
it’s main purpose is to allow the schools to legally extort ever higher and higher fees and mostly disconnect the cost of college from the value of the degree.
How do you know? Personal experience? Research? Someone told you? Someone agreed when you said it? </p>
<p>Yes, depending on “where you look…” That’s why we are asking YOUR sources!!! Not conjecture, opinion or chat. That’s why we are quoting the Census! It, the IRS studies and Federal Reserve data are examples of primary sources. </p>
<p>Your friend’s story of an advisor telling them to divorce is hearsay. It’s you telling us what someone told you someone said to him. It’s also faulty advice given by we-don’t-know-whom. Divorces of convenience can be flags to finaid officers. Again, go look at finaid web resources and you will see all sorts of legit tips to protect your position as well as what raises flags. Worst case, you can be denied aid based on fraud.</p>
<p>Your arguments are circular. I heard this so I know and I can spread the word. -What a prof at one of your worthless colleges would call an unsupported statement.</p>
<p>Having fun? Gawd, do you really have kids in college?</p>
<p>Oh for heavens sake!
Why can’t some of you in this country wrap your heads around compensatory social policy? It doesn’t PUNISH anyone – it freaking helps not throw away innocent kids just because their parents did not or could not pursue wealth. In other words, it’s humane. What has happened to some of you to make you so incredibly self-absorbed and MEAN that you begrudge anyone else a break. What happened to being RESPONSIBLE for the sake of being RESPONSIBLE. What a load of crybaby vitriol. What a dearth of personal integrity. Seriously.</p>
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<p>Not to mention that any PROFILE school is going to look at the assets of both custodial and non-custodial parents. FAFSA EFC will be lower, but FAFSA only schools don’t guarantee to meet need. Some family law attorney gets to pocket a few thousand bucks for drawing up the divorce papers, and the family will have to spend other funds to segregate finances and living spaces to give the appearance of being divorced. All for a gamble about maybe getting better need-based FA. </p>
<p>Sounds like a really stupid idea.</p>
<p>Kmc, a large part of this thread was devoted to why high earners CAN’T be “responsible.” After all, they have to keep up a lifestyle. It costs more to lead a “productive” life. And, if what the top earners have turns out to be unacceptable, they have to be prepared to spend to resolve this, partly out of obligations to their families and partly out of love. </p>
<p>I don’t begrudge someone wanting to move to a safer neighborhood or better school district, not letting grandma go toothless, needing roof repairs or having an unplanned transfer, job loss or medical issue rock their stability- but the follow-up implied that if the middle and lower classes similarly cared, they would have chosen “more productive” career paths in the first place. </p>
<p>There has also been vitriol against the notion of using social conscience to understand one’s advantages. </p>
<p>College costs are seen as some sort of plot (extortion! per #1 Naysayer) against high earners and college educations are seen as having little or no effect on kids’ own earning power and so the high earners are forced to pay for their grad school! All the while, profs are getting richer and schools are “pretending” to care about poor kids…but on the backs of the rich.</p>
<p>Oh, and all the while, our kids are in college or planning to attend. When anyone says, talk with your feet, the thread circles back to: I thought this cost problem would be fixed by now, it’s going to be impossible in x years, etc. Or, it’s expensive to live in an “A” city; why doesn’t FA take that into account?</p>
<p>When a few of us hinted at steps colleges take to manage within budgets or keep cost hikes down while increasing aid…these were generally ignored, possibly because they run counter to the notion that colleges and the govt are out to rob from the rich and give to everyone else. Oh, and take for themselves, too, as much as they can get.</p>
<p>Then, there are the high impact, low reliabilty statements: one poster noted a choice to return to work after medical leave; the response from #1 Naysayer: “most people would simply not work.” Huh? Or, “Everyone outside the top 5-8% is almost certainly getting aid from every single top school.” Huh? NOT. Go research it. But, oh, we can’t even agree on what the top 5-8% is. We are headed for more statistics of convenience.</p>
<p>I think this thead should be closed.</p>
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</p>
<p>This is quite true. On this very forum, it’s easy to find savvy CCers advising students not to work, spouses not to work, to have a spouse quit a year in advance, to spend down in advance, how to hide a windfall (an inheritance), and even supporting folks considering sham divorces for FA. Surely folks can imagine how sickening this must look when viewed from the perspective of an honest full-payer.</p>
<p>Citations, please.</p>
<p>I’m sure that people have advised all of this, but I don’t think it’s come from truly savvy CCers. Because every single one of those suggestions is going to be a bad idea in almost all cases. </p>
<p>Sham divorces: see above. Hiding a windfall: can’t be legally done, risks are too great, best one could do is to spend down resources so that savings don’t show up on FAFSA and/or Profile. Spouse not working or quitting a year in advance: you’re gambling that your child is going to get into a school that can offer signficant FA, and you aren’t protected against being gapped. Student not working: schools assume a certain amount of self-help via at least a summer job if not part-time work during the school year, so not working isn’t going to increase your FA award. </p>
<p>If anyone is advising people to do any of the above, I’m sure that the truly savvy CCers are posting right afterwards about how it’s a bad idea.</p>
<p>mom13 I have no doubt your heart is in the right place but you completely misunderstand the system if you see this as helping poor innocent kids. Everyone I know myself included fully support helping poor or near poor students. But such students are a very small part of the class at any selective school. The vast majority of the students come from mostly upper middle class and affluent families. What FA is doing is mostly doing is giving help to familes that by any normal measure are doing fine. My point is that it makes no sense to give FA to a one earner family making 100k(85th %) and give nothing to a two income family making 175k(93%). What greater purpose for humanity does this serve? </p>
<p>Lookfwd keeps missing the real point which is that the FA system is accelerating the collapse of higher education in the US. Rather than arguing about small points or disagreements, the parents and tax payors should be demanding fundamental change. </p>
<p>The discussion really is very similar to Medicare reform since the costs are rising about the same, well above inflation and wage growth. Within 10-15 years tuition at private schools will approach 80-100k. So an undergraduate education would cost 500k for jobs that can’t possibly support paying off the education loans. The system is completely broken and in a full blown crisis that is plain for any honest person to see. </p>
<p>In reality the top schools use FA to give discounts to say half the students and then extort the rest for a ridiculouly inflated costs. FA is really mostly a system by which the schools are able to keep raising prices to feed the education machine. Then the gov’t helps out by giving huge loans to students far above what many of them can ever afford to pay back. It is completely unsustainable but yet the biggest supporters of the system are the parents who have benefited from FA. They have in essence been bought off by schools because they are grateful to only have to pay 25-30k instead of the inflated 60k price. Without all this extra money to support the system the schools would be forced to price the tuition roughly at the value of the degree. Now some of you will say that the top schools could charge even more which might be true but then the lower ranked schools would charge far less. How in the world can the 70th ranked private school cost the same as the top five? This system is a rigged monopoly set up by the top schools to avoid any hint of price competition. The principle tool to achieve this price monopoly is the FA/gov’t loan program. </p>
<p>[Suprime</a> student loans crisis 2011? 40% of borrowers were delinquent within a five year repayment window InvestmentWatch](<a href=“http://investmentwatchblog.com/suprime-student-loans-crisis-2011-40-of-borrowers-were-delinquent-within-a-five-year-repayment-window/]Suprime”>http://investmentwatchblog.com/suprime-student-loans-crisis-2011-40-of-borrowers-were-delinquent-within-a-five-year-repayment-window/)</p>
<p>Stove some of what you say is true but many many famlies are doing this. In my area what I see most often is the wife working less or retiring. They may very well have chosen this path anyway but the FA equation is part of that plan since in many cases much of the lost income is made up in FA. Yes this only works for top schools but that’s what we are taking about here at CC. As for getting into the top schools the data makes it sound much harder than it really is for all but the top 5-6 schools. Savy parents would have a very good idea long before application time whether their child is likely to be admitted.</p>
<p>SAY, you still don’t get it.</p>
<p>
I think we’ll only know the cause in hindsight, if it happens. As long as the selective schools are able to fill their classes, they might say “What collapse?”</p>
<p>lookfwd what is the point of your statement. Where is my analysis incorrect? What purpose is served by giving FA to families in the 88th-90th% but charging the 94th% full price. Where does personal responsibilty fit into this discussion?</p>
<p>vonlost do you believe an undergraduate degree from the top ten is worth 240k? What job can be obtained with these degrees? When tuition reaches 80k only the top 1% will be able to pay full price. Does it make sense to have a system where families at the 97% require significant FA? Doesn’t that really mean the degrees are overpriced?</p>
<p>It doesn’t matter what I believe; supply and demand are deciding! 
If demand drops for what schools supply, prices will fall, or schools will close, or ???</p>
<p>SAY, you are entitled to your opinions - and your own choices. I don’t see that you undertand how FA works. You have some examples- based on what you have heard or seen or what happened to you. That’s all. That doesn’t make it an analysis.</p>
<p>You say, “…makes no sense to give FA to a one earner family making 100k(85th %) and give nothing to a two income family making 175k(93%).” Sure it could. In the simplest view, one earns 100k and the other earns 175. A 75k difference. You don’t mention parity or inequality in assets, number in the household, number of kids in college or special circumstances- all things that figure in FA. Only the income difference and number working. </p>
<p>You now call 100k the 85% percentile (though the Census calls it top of the 80th percentile) and call 175 the 93rd percentile-? (Are you just subtracting a bit off the 95th percentile figure of 180k-plus?) You say it’s all extortion- which is a pretty bold claim. You say all but the top 5-8% are getting aid at every single top college. None of these are analysis. </p>
<p>And, you don’t answer our questions about your statements.</p>
<p>To SlithyTove - You’re a regular reader here, so it’s quite easy for you to search them out or scan back for threads with related titles. You’ll find that respected high volume posters have helped in all these areas. Their posts certainly caught my eye.</p>