<p>Where I live, a typical house that the rest of us buys costs 200-300K. It just does.</p>
<p>And Deskpotato–I believe I made it clear that I was responding to the NYT article, which included all those things like vacations and lunches out as part of the price of making 250K.</p>
<p>garland what are you saying? Purposely live poorly after years and years of school so that the family can give it all back in a tuition tax? I live in Southern CA and there simply is no realistic housing for less money. What exactly is the incentive then for a student to do well, get accepted to a good professional/grad school and make a good living? Don’t also forget that the country needs precisely these types of higher income tax payors to pay the bills. You suggest they then after 7-10 years of expensive education after HS they live like the students who did not become educated for the purpose of paying out of control college tuition. </p>
<p>Do you really believe this is a model that’s best for America? Is this sustainable with ever rising tuition? What about this approach are you really defending when it has nothing to to with poor families and instead is mostly about whether to draw the FA lines at the 90th%, the 92nd%, or the 95th% of income. How can you defend a system where everyone knows that a family at the 90th% of income can’t remotely afford the top colleges without major FA? Where is this going to end when even the top 96-98% can’t afford to pay for 2-3 children at the very colleges the parents attended themselves.</p>
<p>It’s time for rational people to admit that the system is broken since familes above the 90% of income can’t afford the costs.</p>
<p>There’s also a mention of debt on NPR this am.
SAY, I know it’s tough on everyone, one way or another. But, the core argument is about aid to the very top of the income pyramid. And, whether costs are a train wreck or parents are allowing that wreck by buying in. </p>
<p>So many can vent on a forum, but don’t follow through in personal choices. NPR mentioned gas prices- and I thought, gee, analogous to the college costs issue. Until very recently, gasoline was considered an “inelastic need” - no matter what it cost, people wouldn’t change driving behaviors. Do we knee-jerk look at college choices the same way?</p>
<p>I believe in learning to say “no” to our kids, through our own best judgment, until they truly reach an age of self-responsibility. I have the “dream school but not enough aid” thread fatigue. Many parents don’t research their cost or aid realities (or wait until it’s too late.) They admit to making assumptions. They don’t look into the actual specific academic opps or teaching strengths at various schools, in their kids’ proposed majors. They drop schools onto or off their lists based on media hype, and let their kids fall in love with a school based on superficials. They let kids cross off their list the ones where they didn’t like the dorms, the classroom seating or the lunch they had there. (On CC, even if those schools offered better aid.) Many of the very things a 17 year old loves and wants in a school is what contributes to costs.</p>
<p>Name an “A” city (the expense ratings) on either coast and I have lived there or in those metro areas. When my kids were in middle school, I sweated the college issue- not just the issues of rigor, prestige, contacts to be made and personal growth, but how to alter our budget to balance my kids’ best opps versus our financial picture. That’s when we paid off the used car and crossed our fingers it would last. That’s actually when I cancelled the cleaning service. The four of us did take an amazing trip, three years ago, but at roughly half the cost quoted in the article for a 250k’s annual family vacation. (The kids still talk about it.) We do the right amount of things together- and, I am not afraid to be frank with them when something is dropped out of the picture because of the priorities DH and I feel are more important.</p>
<p>Some things can barely be controlled. As mentioned, our med/dental coverage costs well above what was quoted. We live in a great home in a great part of a pretty interesting city- but, by choice, it is older and cost less- not one of the “houses on the hill” but close enough. Of course, the rich have their woes. I know what a bungalow costs in LA or Silicon Valley. But, they do start with more income to get by on than the other 97%.</p>
<p>ps. I know the issue with home prices in CA and know plenty of folks who commuted 60 miles or more, each way, to be able to live in a decent home. If I lived in CA now, I’d pray my kids got into one of the fine state schools.</p>
<p>“Live poorly” is a state of mind. Living well is not always about having all the toys and bells and whistles. Just think about that.</p>
<p>And, despite the years of eduction DH and I have, I do not believe grad school is any guarantee of future financial security- except in a few fields. I am also not sure an undergrad diploma, nowadays, is any guarantee either, without the intellectual growth and maturity to go with it.</p>
<p>@tptshorty</p>
<p>As narrowminded as some people would find your first page post on this thread to be (I haven’t actually looked through the rest of this…), I couldn’t agree more. As a UCLA student, I get incredibly irritated when I see idiots from easy school systems getting into my school. Just because you were able to maintain a 3.7 in regular classes at Compton High School and you’re a minority, should not give you the right to get into a top state school with a full-ride based on low income. On the other hand, if you’re a minority, and you get a 4.0 in AP classes, I believe you should get preferential treatment compared to a White/Asian kid.</p>
<p>These underachievers should be forced into the community college system where they can earn their way in or go into the low-paying career path that their poor high school performance has earned them.</p>
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<p>Yes, exactly. SAY-- I surely don’t believe I live poorly, nor do most of the other 97% who make less than 250. and the ones that really do–I can only assume that they live lives unimaginable to you. Many of my students come from truly poor households, with hardworking parents, who seem to have less sense of grievance than those making 10X as much as them. I find THAT mindboggling.</p>
<p>@overachiever92:</p>
<p>And you know these school systems are “easy” because… what, you have research experience performing peer-reviewed studies on the comparative quality of schools?</p>
<p>Or are you just an ignorant undergrad who has no concept of socioeconomic conditions and the unlevel playing field of locally-funded schools?</p>
<p>You know this based on API scores, you know this based on these students’ average grades. Sure, these students have had family problems and financial problems that stretch way beyond the average suburban kid’s, but that does not make it valid for them to be admitted into a competitive top school where they can form the bottom 25% of the school. It’s not fair to them and it’s not fair to more hard-working students.</p>
<p>No, we don’t “know this.”</p>
<p>Someone who stands above their peers at the poor, underfunded and bankrupt high school they have to go to deserves the same opportunity as someone who stands above their peers at a wealthy, well-funded high school.</p>
<p>Top X% of the class is a fair, level admissions playing field that gives every student an equal and attainable goal.</p>
<p>So, basically, you’re saying that it’s ok for an unprepared student to come into a competitive school where they will most likely earn C’s their first few semesters, ruin their GPA, and then get on track when they’ve already destroyed their academic record? Why not let them attend a CC which is much more cost-effective where they will get adjusted to college classes at a more moderate level and then transfer into UCLA (or any other 4-year university) with a much higher chance of actually succeeding in their studies (assuming they had the academic potential to start with)?</p>
<p>They already have the option to attend a CC. Are you asserting that every student from inner-city schools is academically unqualified for UCs and doomed to fail? Where’s your data?</p>
<p>You want to throw another obstacle in the road of students who already may have had more obstacles in a week than rich white kids had in their entire lives. The solution is to fix the schools.</p>
<p>Where have you been your whole life? Of course a student who has gone to an almost “bankrupt” (as you put it yourself) High School is not going to be able to keep up with their more privileged peers. CC is a good transition that prepares the students to actually be competitive in top schools (they’ll ultimately get a top-school diploma if they work hard). And I apologize for using the word “idiot” in my first post (not necessary at all…)</p>
<p>I’ve been a student in a broke school district in a poor, majority-minority area. Where have you been?</p>
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<p>The words “Of course” do not constitute evidence. You are committing argument by assertion, a classic logical fallacy. Try again.</p>
<p>You keep asserting stuff without providing evidence. That doesn’t fly in college. I’m still waiting for the data.</p>
<p>How convenient that your preferred solution would open up freshman slots for rich white kids. Improving the inner-city schools so that their students are equally prepared doesn’t seem to have crossed your mind.</p>
<p>Well, good thing we’re not in college, we’re on collegeCONFIDENTIAL, so I don’t have to look up factual evidence that you have most definitely come across at some point in your life. Besides, I never said that we shouldn’t make an effort to fix the inner-city schools. The issue I’m focusing on is that inner-city students at our current FAILING inner-city schools are GENERALLY not sufficiently perpared for top schools unless they took the initiative and took AP classes and/or CC classes while in high school. The sate is not doing these students a favor by admitting them into a top school where their GPA suffers. The funding that is being put into “cushioning” these students at top schools with tutoring and special programs should be put into the community colleges so that unprepared students can transfer into a 4-year university after 2 years and finish their education with confidence.</p>
<p>So you just admitted you can’t be bothered to provide evidence for your claim.</p>
<p>In the immortal words of Roald Dahl: Good day, sir.</p>
<p>Yup, if you really enjoy having such an objective outlook on life, have a good day…</p>
<p>Down and out on $250,000?? Hugely laughable. </p>
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<p>There’s non essential expenditures to the tune of $10,000 a year. Eat out food weekly and daily?? clothing budgets in the thousands, etc. etc. $500 a month car payments? Cry me a river. Sorry, I have zero sympathy for families with $250,000 annual incomes kvetching about the cost of non-essential “stuff” and “lack of financial aid” regardless of where they live. My sympathy is clearly in the court of kids whose parents have true EFCs of zero and the intelligence and ability to want to achieve a college degree.</p>
<p>Polarscribe “Top X% of the class is a fair, level admissions playing field that gives every student an equal and attainable goal.”</p>
<p>There are many different points of view on this issue. The top 40% at one high school may stand head and shoulders above the top 10% at another school. The differential 30% at the first school could certainly argue that they are disadvantaged if the arguably lesser skilled students at the second school are automatically admitted.</p>
<p>IMO, the community college route to flagship state schools gives every student an equal and attainable goal, i.e., maintain a certain GPA at the cc level and you can get automatic entry into the state university system. I know of students that follow this route based upon financial necessity. If the student can succeed at the cc level then they have at least mastered the basic skills necessary to suceed at the university level (it doesn’t guarantee sucess of course but they have earned the right to try).</p>
<p>Students that bust their butts for admission into a school can form all sorts of opinions when they see that some of their peers in the school are taking remedial classes. Students that need remedial classes can have that need taken care of before they get their final degree at the state university.</p>
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<p>Kayf, I completely agree with you. If we could have relocated and kept our income at a similar level, we would have taken that opportunity.</p>
<p>Momofthree, dry cleaners to the tune of $1200 is laughable. We have cut that cost out of our lives a long time ago (we never spent 1200 anyway) because we buy wash and wear clothing! The only time we go to dry cleaners is for a black tie affair (comes up twice per year the most where we need the cleaners). </p>
<p>4000 in kids activities, I agree, is unnecessary. This is about choices. In part it is also about community and schools YOUR kids are in. I would have had to pay for art classes if I wanted my kids to have something more than once per week in school. I have friends who had extensive art class offerings (ie: pottery wheel access and such) during the summers for next to nothing. </p>
<p>5000 on housecleaning, well, we clean our house ourselves, BUT it is at least that if one hires a house cleaner weekly in my area. Some families pay much more than that! Really!</p>