I find all the assumptions on CC about low income going for nothing amusing. We have a 0 EFC and I’d love to know where DS can go for nothing because we’re signing up no matter where it is! The out of state schools we looked at were going to be 25-35K/year AFTER all grant aid applied. Most had a line for something like a 30K Parent Plus loan or something. Jeez, thanks. Just what I need making 40K/year, 120K in debt.
Luckily, I saved despite being low income and grandparents gifted money as well so we can afford up to 15K/year. With a couple scholarships, Pell and state grant there are a total of two schools in our state that have the major he’s interested in and our under this price. One that he only has a 50/50 shot of getting into. So. We’re down to one without going out of state and spending probably just as much as anyone else minus the Pell grant…which isn’t really an option for us.
We’re still going to apply everywhere. Maybe the magical free ride stuff isn’t advertised in the NPC?
Seems like they could at least say “Each college has a net price calculator on its web site. Use it to get an estimate of financial aid. If your parents are divorced, check the college’s web site to see if you need to include both parents’ finances or if you just need to include the finances of the parent the student lives with.”
Our GCs can not inquire about family finances. They DO tell the students to discuss college finances with their families.
There were two financial aid presentation nights each year. I have to say…I went every time…and they were extremely poorly attended. These were open to all parents of 9-12 graders and were held in the fall…about 175 students in each grade. Less than 20 people were in attendance. They had guest speakers who spoke about applying for student aid, types of aid available, and the like. The presentations were excellent.
So please…don’t just blame the school counselors. Even when they tried at our school…parent interest was…not there.
@Riversider: “What I don’t understand is why people paying little or nothing get upset when full pay families show frustration”
Have you ever lived on so little (while married with a kid or two) that you’d pay little/nothing for college? My parents did (I was a Pell Grant kid). They had a few more pressing concerns than being able to pay for college. They went without health insurance for decades. We got a little lucky but if any of us had developed a major health issue, we would have been toast in so many ways.
By now, my kids wouldn’t qualify for any financial aid anywhere, but I still have a lot more sympathy for households who qualify for a Pell than families that complain about being full-pay.
^I agree most people would prefer to be in an income situation where they are deemed full pay. But I also understand where @Riversider is coming from because if you are a two income family each making say $70k or $ 80k you are easily out of the money for FA in many situations yet their $140K/$160K doesn’t feel like it should. And given the point of this thread is to warn parents that even though they may consider themselves solidly middle class and eligible for aid the colleges might not.
Likewise I can understand that other posters discussing that they should have or could have saved money for their kids’ education because they make so much money is where the frustration originates for some. We don’t know the income history of these families or the expenses and other financial obstacles they may have encountered.
Additionally, I think many families had no idea college would be so expensive 18 years after their first child was born and haven’t saved nearly enough and now there’s no way to make up for the shortfall. Yet, they currently make too much for FA. So they see people making less getting excellent FA or a full ride through Questbridge and I can see where the frustration occurs. Questbridge finalists get to apply to up to 12 (I believe) elite colleges ED and if matched receive a full ride. Is that fair? I don’t know but the middle class does seem to get squeezed.
" Questbridge finalists get to apply to up to 12 (I believe) elite colleges ED and if matched receive a full ride. Is that fair? "
Yes because the income to qualify for Questbridge is low and these students would qualify for need based aid at the schools that are Questbridge’s partners anyway.
I really don’t understand why folks begrudge low income students much needed FA.
“I don’t know but the middle class does seem to get squeezed.”
Are salaries of $140K “middle class”? It might feel that way to some but it isn’t.
Pretty much anyone who is full pay can have the all the benefits of being poor enough to get a full ride, as long as they’re also willing to take some to all of the downsides. Resenting the small fraction of the poor who are lucky enough to have the opportunity to send their kids to college doesn’t make any sense. If you’re going to resent someone, resent those for whom being full pay is immaterial.
@PurpleTitan I am fully aware of other options, but they are not a particularly good fit for my youngest. We have eliminated some schools from her list because of the NPC, but are prepared to pay what we must for a school that is a good fit. She has one school still on her list that offers significant merit aid, where she would be content to attend. We don’t expect to be quite full pay at the others, but close, and we are OK with that, even if not exactly happy. Like you, I know I’d rather be in this situation than not be able to afford to send her where she wants (within reason - we set our budget, adjusted accordingly when my mother died, and she knows she doesn’t want to be saddled with major debt).
@doschicos it depends on where you live. Look up https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/09/06/are-you-in-the-american-middle-class/ if you make $140,000 for a family of 4 in Rochester, NY for example, you are classified as middle class. In fact, I ran the same number for Los Angeles and it says middle class there too. And $65,000 is also deemed middle class in LA but lower class in San Francisco using the same calculator. $65,000 is the maximum income threshold for Questbridge so depending on where you live you might be considered middle class or lower class.
It isn’t right to paint everyone at a certain income level with the same brush.
I don’t think that’s true, CupCakeMuffins. I think people get frustrated when people who make upwards of $150k complain that they don’t get the aid that people who make $65k or less get. Which one of those families has a better shot at paying for a residential college? Most kids aren’t getting into colleges that meet need. A family who earns $150k might be able to come up with $30k or more per year for college. Not many families who make $65k or less can do that.
Most lower income students aren’t getting handed free rides. It boggles my mind that anyone could resent the poor. Higher income families already have a slew of benefits lower income families don’t get. Do you go to the doctor when you’re sick? Low income people think twice before laying out the $20 copay. Do you worry how you’re going to come up with tuition if the car breaks down or there’s another substantial unexpected expense? Do you hesitate in the dairy aisle debating between the $4 gallon and less expensive half gallon? Do you own a home? Is it in a safe neighborhood with good schools? People want the benefits of being lower income, but they don’t want the lifestyle that goes with it.
We are full pay for in-state public, but << $150K. Do I go to the doctor when sick? We don’t, not unless we absolutely HAVE to. And even there we regularly put off or skip procedures, tests, and PT due to costs. I have spent MANY nights crying myself to sleep wondering how I’m going to pay for things like broken heaters, engines, etc. We did not have any breathing room until the last 7-8 years… Oh yeah we always debate costs of stuff in the grocery store… Safe neighborhood? Debatable. Every single one of my running routes in 2016 had a shooting and/or murder on it, and I run in the “Safe” areas. Good schools? LOL. My kids were definitely not sheltered in high school.
I’m really complaining. We have everything we need and in the last few years we have been able to do a lot of fun things. And personally, we will be fine. I’m just pointing out that there is a middle ground between poor and well off. And I don’t get irritated AT ALL by the poor who get full rides. The ones that irritate me are the ones that find loopholes and/or flat out lie. Like the kid who goes first gen because his parents didn’t go to college- but all 4 grandparents did! But the app didn’t ask about grandparents. or how one of the wealthiest families in town’s D got full tuition to a great school using some kind of disadvantage because of a great-great-grandparent (and they look 100% white). Or the kid with the 1200 SAT, not even in the top 10% of the class (not hard at out school) who is going to Yale because “her family knows people.” Or the student who brags about getting into 8/9 Top 20 schools with a full need based ride with scores 300 points below the others who were waitlisted/rejected… because she’s poor with a single mom… when she spends every summer touring Europe with her wealthy dad overseas who apparently has always paid cash under the table somehow. Those are the stories that irritate me - and I figure if these are the ones that I know about just in my kids’ groups, how many thousands of similar cases are out there.
My daughter is a questbridge kid, so I would like to point out a misconception. The benefit of the questbridge program is mainly getting to apply to more than one school early and being prefiltered for the schools as high achieving/low income. We would not have paid app fees to any of the schools anyway, as our income qualified us for fee waivers. My daughter was a finalist who did not match (unofficially most of the colleges only match to zero EFC kids, so questbridge has a lot of finalists with almost no chance of matching) but she got the same aid from her school ED anyway- they’re giving questbridge matches full rides that they would’ve gotten anyway with acceptance. There is no extra money thrown in to matches. Those schools just have excellent aid.
LOL. Mine should have read “I’m NOT really complaining.” And I also agree that most of my irritation is also directed at the colleges. Do you know how many stupid magazines I get from my alma mater? And every time I go, it seems that a new set of fancy buildings have cropped up. And then I hear from my younger co-workers that students now take Calculus in cube farms online. But yet, they have fancy dorms and food!
Life is about choices. I don’t judge others choices (unless they’re blatantly harmful / dangerous to them or me or mine). Assuming we’re talking about middle to upper middle income families, how they choose to spend their money is none of my business. Did they save for college, go on fancy trips, buy luxury cars? We live beneath our means. Had some business related hardships that taught me very strong lessons about credit and debt when I was much younger. Built a solid business and make a healthy living. We are full pay. Do I scratch my head when my neighbor (with all the toys) complains about how expensive college will be? I used to. Not anymore. Could he have saved more? Sure. Will he get some aid due to his lack of savings and equity? Maybe. Does it make me mad? No.Again, my situation is mine and his is his. I guess you could construe a scenario where we earn the same and my savings caused a higher EFC than his due to lavish spending. So they get the need aid and got the benefit of the trips. You could figure out the break even point to know how much you can spend vs. save. You could. Or you could just live your life and do what you can for your kids. That’s my choice.
How many threads have we all read on here complaining about how “unkempt” a college was because on a visit, the grass wasn’t trimmed to country club standards or because a dorm was shabby (a building built in 1895-- yes, it’s shabby).
We have nobody but ourselves to blame (not us personally, but our generation). We have created a consumerist society and colleges have responded (not led the way, but responded). We want dining halls that stay open past 7 pm so that our kid who doesn’t finish athletic practice until 7 pm gets a hot meal (when we were in college, if you showed up at 7:30 there was a pile of sandwiches by the door with a bowl of apples). We want full on, concierge medical attention with specialists and coverage on weekends-- not like when we were in college where a solo RN took the night and weekend shifts whose answer to EVERYTHING was either "take two aspirin and go to bed, you’ll feel better’ or “Call 911 and go to the ER”. Now we are furious if our kid has to wait a week for an appointment with a psychiatrist- my college had one counselor (not an MD) for thousands for of students). And we want our kid using “dining points” so they can eat until midnight at any facility on campus.
We want gluten- free options in each cafeteria, we want a list of other allergens posted on the website daily to avoid cross-contamination, we want state of the art telecommunications support in every dorm and building, and we want a career services team which has specialists to advise on Fulbrights, how to get a job at Credit Suisse, how to get into Med school AND how to get a job as a curator at a major museum. (That’s four FTE’s right there.) Oh-- and a fulltime person to answer questions about teacher licensing in all 50 states, and someone who can advise the nursing students on the differences between Nurse Practitioner, Physician Assistant, Midwife, and various other sub-specialties again- in all 50 states.
Yes, college is now more expensive then when we went, when NONE of these services were available (my college had a big black binder in the “career” office and no matter what question you asked the nice but clueless person at the desk, her answer was “look in the binder”. The binder contained out of date job listings and some generic advice about how to order a transcript). How do you think this stuff gets paid for- all these non-instructional staff?
Retailers range from Boutique to Saks to Walmart to Dollar General. That’s market driven.
But colleges are all at Hollywood boutique pricing, except for CCs. That is not market driven.
