<p>^^ I agree with vicariousparent about that.</p>
<p>"I feel most sorry for the kids whose parents can easily afford to pay 50K/yr, and who would therefore not qualify for any financial aid, but whose parents simply refuse to pay (or pressure the kids to choose an inferior but cheaper alternative). "</p>
<p>I know very, very few families who can easily pay 50K/yr. One thing that I have seen over and over on this site (and I know you did not say this exactly) are comments along the lines of “A family that makes $250,000 a year can afford 50k/yr.” The families that I know that are making that much are 2 earner families, both parents middle-aged, with 2 or more kids to educate and they have only just gotten to $250,000/yr after years of hard work at much lower incomes. A family with three kids to educate whose kids go to 50+k/yr schools is looking at over 3/4 quarter of a million dollars in tuition— not many families can easily afford that.</p>
<p>I also take issue with the “inferior but cheaper alternative” comment. A lot of families are getting wise to the fact that cheaper does not necessarily mean inferior. These colleges that continue to jack up their costs years after year have been able to go pretty far marketing their prestige labels-- and playing to parents’ fears that cheaper means inferior – but a lot of families are asking what is so smart about paying tens of thousand more a year for a name? A bright, ambitious student is going to be able to take advantage of opportunities wherever he or she goes.</p>
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<p>FAFSA asks for “Money paid or received on the student’s behalf.” I always thought this was the “grandparent question.” If the people you mention are answering that question “zero” then they aren’t nice; they’re flat-out lying.</p>
<p>Gosh, I must’ve slept through those European vacations that allowed my daughter to get her financial aid. I don’t even know what one day off feels like anymore, as I have a moonlighting job to help my oldest pay off her student loans… </p>
<p>I think that if parents can afford those vacations, they can and should spend it on THEIR children’s educations. Since when do colleges and universities owe kids a cheap education?? Hiding assests is definitely wrong. I WISH I had the money to pay my daughters’ fair share of their educations.</p>
<p>And it is not possible to escape student loans any more. Declaring bancruptcy does not discharge them… the debt stays with you for life. </p>
<p>My youngest has had great assistance from the FA office at her school. It’s the primary reason she is where she is. Her first choice school’s admission counselor told her she’d get a large award there, but then it didn’t materialize. Education’s like buying anything else - look for the best product for the best price, and don’t aim for a larger product than you can afford. If you can’t pay the $50K, there aer less expensive schools.</p>
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<p>The families I’m thinking of are more in the range of $350K-400K/yr.</p>
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<p>Yes, but if a kid has a better fit and stronger preference for the more expensive college then the cheaper college is inferior for that kid. If financial considerations compel the family to opt for the cheaper alternative that is one thing. But if the parents simply declare “that is not worth the money and I’m not going to spend the money”, then the kid is out of luck.</p>
<p>We had a dad who was angry today about not getting any need based aid. The school is a public U. The parent income is over $400,000. </p>
<p>Every day, I am more & more amazed at people.</p>
<p>^LOL! When we toured a public U in our state, they said the sticker price is your “merit aid” because it less expensive than a private school’s sticker price. FA, in our state?? Errr, you’d need to be pretty poor, and that is the problem. Our instate tuition is very high.</p>
<p>kelsmom, tell him I’ll trade him straight across – my D’s FA for his income.</p>
<p>You know, i do understand how shocking that expected family contribution can be. And yes, you can vent. But just to keep things in perspective, last night one of d1’s classmates was over. His college choices are down to two, and it’s all about the fin aid. See, his family’s EFC is 0. They haven’t spent lavishly to attain this full pell eligible status. Right now, they’re living without a fridge because there’s no money for a new one. </p>
<p>When i start to “poor me,” i think of this sweet, hard-working kid who uses the money from his own part-time job to help the family. No pages of ECs when you’ve got to work and pay your own way in high school. I know how lucky I am to have the means to have the efc that i do, and then funny, the urge to vent is all gone. . . . At least until i have to start writing checks.</p>
<p>*Thumper quote: Re: two kids in college…it doesn’t matter if the kid is planning to go to school when you file the FAFSA/Profile. What MATTERS is if the student is in school when the school year begins. In the years our kids overlapped in college, we had to provide evidence to BOTH schools that they were enrolled AFTER the term began in the fall. *</p>
<p>Thanks Thumper…that’s what I thought. I didn’t think that the OP had that right.</p>
<p>OP Quote: *
They honestly, actually expect us to spend 45% of our net income on one student’s college costs AND assume $50K in debt over four years.</p>
<p>Thumper Quote:
If this is the case, you likely have significant assets AND an income that would not support significant need based aid.
*</p>
<p>First of all, the issue isn’t “net income”…aid is based on AGI. You may have a lot of deductions (such as big mortgage deductions from a pricey home). </p>
<p>Thumper is right, you either have a high income and/or your have a LOT of assets.</p>
<p>*Yes, but if a kid has a better fit and stronger preference for the more expensive college then the cheaper college is inferior for that kid. *</p>
<p>It’s a FAMILY’s obligation to pay for “fit”…it’s not anyone else’s responsibility. When I felt that private K-12 was a better “fit” for my kids, I PAID FOR IT.</p>
<p>*Also, be prepared to hear about students whose grandparents pay the family contribution but aid was based on parent income and assets, this is the one that really gets me, and I see it happen ALL THE TIME! Even nice people do this and don’t think it is a problem but it is very dishonest.</p>
<p>This one gets to me too! *</p>
<p>This happens all the time at FAFSA only schools…especially in Calif. The NCP is contributing/paying for college costs, but the lowly paid single mom’s income is what is used to determine Pell, Cal Grants, Blue and Gold. And, no, many are NOT declaring that NCP “help” on FAFSA or elsewhere.</p>
<p>I know that many NCPs don’t contribute…just like many Granny’s aren’t contributing…but these situations do happen.</p>
<p>“We had a dad who was angry today about not getting any need based aid. The school is a public U. The parent income is over $400,000.”</p>
<p>Oy.</p>
<p>So we have been targeting our state’s flagship public university as our top choice because of the relatively low cost $30k and return on investment. Are you saying there are private schools with comparable academics, or better, who will throw gobs of cash at the B+ (not Einstein, but smart) kid with a middle class financial profile?
So far, we have found that private institutions will offer enough to make the price comparable or just a little more than our state flagship.</p>
<p>Hardly anyone expects you to pay college tuition out of current income. I doubt anyone could except those who make 7 figures per year. You are supposed to pay it out of savings and investments. If you don’t qualify for FA, that means you have the income to have saved and invested through the years so you can pay for college tuition. Unless you are making a big income just recently.</p>
<p>We had 2 children in private colleges at the same time. We did not qualify for FA and there was no way we could have paid 2 college tuition out of current income. We saved and invested carefully so when the time came, we had the money. We did not live an extravagant lifestyle, buy expensive cars, etc. We were prepared to pay for any top college education that our kids wanted even though they were accepted to our state flagship, UC Berkeley. We never questioned whether top elite education was worth it, we were willing to pay and we did.</p>
<p>What I’ve learned from these threads is that a lot of parents who are earning adequate incomes have handled money poorly.</p>
<p>I actually made a spreadsheet with various numbers plugged in to see what difference each would make. It was informative.</p>
<p>Couple of more things I noted while playing with the numbers:</p>
<p>They ask for your bank balances as of ‘today.’ Our checking account at the beginning of the month has significantly more money than at the end of the month when it empties out. So I guess we should file our Profile at the end of the month.</p>
<p>Regarding home equity, how the heck is a person supposed to assess a value of their house in this market? We had a market analysis done by a top realtor in our town and she recommended a listing price range of X to X+$350,000. X gives us negative equity while X+$350,000 gives us quite a bit of equity. What’s to keep a person from lowballing the house value in this situation? Zillow is useless in our state.</p>
<p>Also, we used up all of our DS’s 529 funds (less than 1 years expenses :D) in the first year once I realized it would negatively impact his evaluation. Not sure if we will get any FA, but if we’d only used 25% of it, I know we definitely would not get any.</p>
<p>While my husband is self employed and his SEP-IRA contributions are counted as income, my employer (a corporation that I own) funded SEP-IRA does not get reported anywhere on my tax return or Profile that I could see. </p>
<p>All of this could add up to few thousand dollars of FA/year. Is this ‘gaming’ the system or being a wise consumer?</p>
<p>My husband makes $120K a yr. I’m a SAHM. We have all our savings in retirement accounts and we’ve also been paying private prep school tuition for four yrs so not a lot of extra to invest outside of retirement accounts. We had quite a bit of equity in our home and 4 years ago took a big chunk out renovated and put on an addition. We still have equity but not nearly as much.</p>
<p>My son got $41K in institutional aid from his top choice school. We expect him to get approximately the same every year as my DH works for the State, hasn’t had a raise in 2 years and is unlikely to be getting a raise anytime soon. </p>
<p>Our EFC for Fafsa was considerably higher than what this school is asking us to contribute. </p>
<p>This school gives no merit aid and we did not expect to get anything close to what they have offered. We had planned to pay his tuition out of my husband’s paycheck by just cutting back on our retirement investment. DH will get a nice pension when he retires so not funding these accounts for a few years isn’t that big of a deal for us. </p>
<p>His second choice school gave him a $30K merit award and his third choice school gave him $17K merit and $12K in institutional aid. </p>
<p>As for how to assess the value of your home - we used the gov’t formula. I found the info for that on CC.</p>
<p>*So we have been targeting our state’s flagship public university as our top choice because of the relatively low cost $30k and return on investment. Are you saying there are private schools with comparable academics, or better, who will throw gobs of cash at the B+ (not Einstein, but smart) kid with a middle class financial profile?
So far, we have found that private institutions will offer enough to make the price comparable or just a little more than our state flagship. *</p>
<p>Maybe, maybe not.</p>
<p>What are your child’s test scores? What is his GPA? If you can find privates that give merit AND your child’s stats are in the top 5-10% of the school, then MAYBE that school will give your child enough merit to make it equal or less than your flagship.</p>
<p>That would mean that a $50k per year school would have to give you at least $20k per year to make it equal to your flagship. The scholarship would have to be bigger to make the private cost less than your flagship.</p>
<p>Be aware that there are a good number of mid-tier privates that will throw in a $5k or $10k per year scholarship, but that’s not going to make the school as cheap as your flagship. </p>
<p>Your child’s stats will determine where he should apply.</p>
<p>“Are you saying there are private schools with comparable academics, or better, who will throw gobs of cash at the B+ (not Einstein, but smart) kid with a middle class financial profile?”</p>
<p>In general, the state schools are where these kids will get the biggest name school for the cheapest amount of $. Another good alternative is if there’s a good school within commuting distance. However, it’s hard to guess because cc is the only place I know where people have such expansive definitions of “middle class” and “average student.”</p>
<p>Well, if it’s alright for me to offer my opinion (despite not being a parent), I do feel that this perspective is a bit one-sided, mostly due to being so emotionally fueled. I mean, it’s not without base, of course-- college tuition is terrifyingly overwhelming these days, and my heart would pop a ventricle if I was presented the bill so many upper-middle class/upper class parents get thrown at them for being as fortunate or responsible as they are.</p>
<p>However, a lot of the argument is based around the idea that the colleges are somehow punishing or taking advantage of these fiscally responsible parents, or, more pointedly, rewarding the bad behavior of parents that squander their money away and enter the process destitute.
My perspective is that, personally, would it not be that much worse for the child’s-- the student’s-- educational prospects and future to be “punished” and made unattainable by those alternate parents’ irresponsibility, neglect, and wantonness? How much worse that the child who worked so hard to gain admissions to “top” schools from that situation learn, upon receiving the financial aid decision, that their acceptance was pointless?
But bleh, okay, now I’m sounding a bit preachy. I mean, I’ve only experienced one side as well, even though I do my best to sympathize and understand the responsible parents’ side, as well.
Sometimes when I read the parents’ forum here, I can’t help but feel some levels of envy and sadness for how much concern is shown, how much involvement, how much desire for the child’s future. My mother is a severe alcoholic and substance abuser who works a part-time retail associate job; my father is unemployed and is no longer allowed to live with us because of his awful fits of mental illness. I rarely have anyone (fit) to drive me anywhere, let alone someone with the kind of money that could pay for Yale. My parents never knew my grades, my homework, or even most of my hobbies. Until my gap year, when I’ve been taking charge of everything myself, I hadn’t been to the doctor or dentist in many years, let alone (again) the kinds of things parents here are willing to do for their children. Without financial aid, my only options would be cheap, small local schools (not that there’s anything wrong with them), no matter how hard and high I worked or attempted to accomplish.
But yeah, I guess that turned into sort of my vent, now. A vent for a vent; the frustrated student side, for the frustrated parent side. Haha!</p>
<p>Still, I wish you the best with everything. It seems like everyone’s got some sort of unlucky share these days. Financial anything is a nightmare!</p>