<p>yep, taken from [Cornell</a> Further Caps Loans For New Financial Aid Plan | The Cornell Daily Sun](<a href=“http://cornellsun.com/node/33574]Cornell”>http://cornellsun.com/node/33574)</p>
<p>Well, Colene, you forgot to quote the condition to get these aids. This is for a selected students. The large majority of students will not get these aids. For most students with $120,000 income and $200,000 assets, the family will need to contribute at least $45,000/year at Cornell. I will include any loan as family contribution since it needs to be paid back.</p>
<p>Cornell can be generous if you have no assets, like a home, I think. I do not have direct experience with them, but D did apply as a reach. Deferred until RD Didn’t have money for tutors, courses to get scores up. Anyway, part of the financial problem is your home is not a cashcow! There should be a cap on how much colleges count of your home equity, such as counting only equity above $400,000 maybe, esp. in certain areas. The American Dream is owning a home. You need a place to live. THis policy makes elite schools and CSS schools financially out of reach of most families, or else they kill themselves living superpoorly. So depressing to live that way. I will be paying college for fourteen years straight. Only halfway through now. I don’t think I can continue living this way. Tooooo stressful for too long. Affecting everyone. Can’t do anything. Gotta have money for college. Ugggggggggg. And then the kid has loans, anyway!</p>
<p>@NJmom, I didn’t say
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<p>I said the undergraduate NAME matters very little- read my entire post, it appears you blotted out some of it. Graduate school matters a lot more.</p>
<p>Sure, that is a low number, if that is true. It seems not according to some. At least the loan is capped. Thank you, Cornell. They have the money, so they can. Other schools can’t, I guess. I say too many sports programs for us all to subsidize. ? But you can’t buy a house in LI for $200,000 unless it is a shack in an undesirable neighborhood, so many people have more equity, esp. if bought in 1990s. God forbid you have emergency money to save you from disaster, too.! Who cares if you never saved for retirement, or stress is going to knock you off early! At least then there would be life ins. money, but what if just get unhealthy sick, and you gave all your money to colleges in the good earning years? Risky.</p>
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<p>Not sure what you’re talking about. Do you have any evidence for what you’re saying?</p>
<p>My family made $100k with a high value home in the Bay Area and our family contribution was $13k with $7k in loans (total of 20k even by your standards). This was in 2003, before Cornell enacted more generous financial aid measures.</p>
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Maybe the answer is that Ivy league schools are simply not worth taking out huge loans for a prestigious undergraduate education name, which matters very little for applying for a job in the future.
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<p>You aren’t buying just the name but rather what the name standards for: research opportunities, beautiful campus, challenging academic environment, accomplished professors, intelligent classmates, etc. It’s silly to think that the only advantage top tier schools have over state schools is the name.</p>
<p>Wish my D would get accepted. Would love to see the cost to our family. We need a boost for morale!</p>
<p>"My family made $100k with a high value home in the Bay Area and our family contribution was $13k with $7k in loans (total of 20k even by your standards). This was in 2003, before Cornell enacted more generous financial aid measures. "</p>
<p>The cost in 2003 was much lower than the cost in 2012. As a comparison, the total cost in 2008/09 was about 50k, and in 2012/2013 will be about 60k. The home equity is capped by Cornell, so the high price did not account too much. Your 20k should be more than the half total cost in 2003. The Cornell new financial aid policy mainly benefits the poor families or the families with income below 120k in term of loan. I have an income level similar to this level and a little more asset, Cornell has more than 30k family contribution and loan in year 2012/13. I have two kids in college with similar cost, and if the other college has the same financial aid policy as Cornell, I will have more than 60k family contribution and loan each year for two college kids. Without another college kid, I am sure that my family contribution and loan will be more than 50k from Cornell. About half of Cornell students do not have any grant from Cornell. Unless most students are very rich at Cornell, Cornell financial aid is not very good for families with income above 120k. </p>
<p>From College Navigator, the average net cost (family contribution and loan) of Cornell was $40,819 and $37,644 in 2008/09 and 2009/10 for families with income above 110k. Take the example of 2008/09, the total cost was $50384, so these families paid a very high proportion of the total cost (40819/50384). It was better in 2009/10, probably due to lower asset values due to stock market and house market crashes.</p>
<p>My D is a freshman. Our income was $163,000. House is appraised at $144,000. Our contribution was calculated at approx. $40,000 per year.</p>
<p>Our family has a home appraised at just over $500.000 in a high tax area outside of the city and income just under csdad depending on the year. We are self employed so things change year to year. I think for us receiving the aid had alot to do with the number of kids in school at the same time. Our retirement funds were apparently not looked at although we have not added anything to retirement in at least 8 years because we knew our kids were headed to private research Universities. As I have said before it was worth every penny of what we paid. For those of you who believe the system is unfair…I could only tell you that my sons have already made financial contributions to Cornell and because of the generousity of Cornell they are likely to always do so. They are very grateful and know that they have an obligation to pay it forward. </p>
<p>Cornell isn’t just a name of a school it is opportunity…if you view it in that light rather than the fact that it is an Ivy League school than you understand why so many parents will sacrifice to send their kids here. You will never find the level of students, professors, research, and general opportunities at most other schools and graduating from Cornell has landed my sons at some pretty amazing post graduation jobs. It was worth every sacrifice and every bit of their loans.</p>