Harvard doesn’t just say only 10%. There are some caveats about assets.
Also, remember that the NPCs aren’t accurate for divorced parents.
… for colleges which require both divorced parents’ finances.
It is likely that much of the NPC inaccuracy for divorced parents is derived from data entry inaccuracies:
A. Many people mistakenly include only the custodial parent finances in NPCs when the college wants both parents’ finances.
B. Many people filling in the NPC have good information on only one parent’s finances, so (even if they know to include both parents’ finances) they make poor guesses for the other parent. Since many divorced parents do not want to reveal their finances to each other, that can mean putting accurate financial information for both parents into NPCs is difficult for students in that situation.
Of course, if the divorced parents are uncooperative, then the student can get no financial aid from colleges that require both parents’ finances.
@Colorado19and22, That’s very helpful. I have a good friend who will be where you are in a couple years. He keeps saying he and his wife “look good on paper,” but the cash just isn’t there. I’m going to tell him to cast a broad net and look for merit.
i really appreciated reading through this whole thread. Lots of good points; and no arguing or defensive answers. THANKS! (that’s why i love this forum!)
so i’m guessing that the 150-200k is the basically the “donut hole” area; where there’s not as much aid, but families can’t meet their EFCs ? It describes us for sure; we don’t have as much in savings though as OP. If we had to pay our EFC for 4 kids x 4 years each – it’d be more than $500K (including the 5 years with overlapping kids in college with split EFCs)
That’s not happening; we have to go for merit money at our state flagships. 
but, it’s all good in the end I suppose; we see a way to make that happen.
One of the things I never really mentioned was that we were prepared to pay $40,000 per year–essentially $320,000 for both kids total–we certainly weren’t expecting college to be free. Going in, we thought we had done well in saving that much, thinking that financial aid would make up the rest if DS got into a T20. once we ran the net price calculators and found that wasn’t a good plan, we switched gears.
Our son chased merit aid and was given the top merit aid awarded at Grinnell, and above average merit at schools Case Western and Pitt–but other than Pitt the merit aid didn’t get the cost down to what we were comfortable paying, at least not when you consider the cost of travel and how much costs go up annually.
We were lucky to have a strong in-state flagship coming in about $25,000 per year after merit, but in the end I think the full ride, along with a exclusive research program, tipped DS to another state’s flagship.
As far as the “paying for college” part of things, I feel much more prepared for when our DD starts the process in a few years!
Thank you for saying this. So true…full pay is much lower than so often assumed.
These lower income also have to play for retirement (most private sector employees no longer have a pension), are paying high health care premiums and deductibles and often live in high tax states.
We just survived a long recession where it was difficult to remain employed let alone save the way we would have liked.
@vpa2019 - my cousin’s daughter received a Questbridge scholarship. That kid is amazing and busted her ass since she was little…I really believe she is going to make a difference in the world someday. She didn’t have parents on College Confidential mapping things out for her either, she did all the research herself and her credentials are stellar. There were 16,000 applicants for 1000 scholarships, so it was far from a sure thing. Her parents don’t have money and she has 9 siblings, so they wouldn’t have even been able to afford a cheap state school. I’m very happy for her.
@cshell2 congratulations to her and your point is? That she is more deserving because she worked hard and because her parents decided to have 9 kids and they can’t afford to send them to college so someone else should pick up the tab? It is that viewpoint exactly which creates the frustration. She sounds like an amazing kid but does she deserve a full ride to Yale, for example, because of her birth circumstances more than a middle income kid with the same stats and ECs who can’t qualify for Questbridge because that child’s parents make just a bit too much money, and can’t afford to go even if accepted? Questbridge is also a hook because it provides academically vetted low income applicants to the elites looking to fill those places. And QB applicants have the opportunity to have their application reviewed by up to 12 schools during the ED period and if they don’t match they still have the opportunity to apply to a “13th” ED school if none of the first 12 match. That’s a pretty nice deal.
@vpa2019 - It’s incredibly easy to be low income if you want to take that route.
A month on this board and it’s pretty clear that a lot of the kids on here are at a tremendous advantage to the low income kids. Multiple ACT tests, tutors, high dollar EC’s, parents who know the system inside and out advising on everything from course selection to navigating the admissions process. I thought I was up on things. I’m a college grad, both my parents are, but when it comes to the elite schools we’re pretty clueless it seems. So, when a kid in a highly disadvantaged situation (there is a lot more going on here than lack of money), can figure out how to have an application that stands against all those with all the advantages. A kid that can only take the ACT one time, but gets a 34 that has congressional letters of recommendation. I’m happy that kid gets a shot.
The middle income kid might not be able to afford Yale, but I’m guessing they can afford to go somewhere and with credentials good enough to get them into the elites, it’s likely they’d get a lot of merit at a lesser ranked but still very good school. They have options that the low income kid does not.
And seriously, if a family makes just a “bit too much money” for Questbridge, they’re not paying much for Yale anyhow. The income limit for QB is 65K. I ran a net price calculator for Yale at double that income and 100K in assets outside of retirement accounts and came up with 5K net price.
Some high school counselors are very good at finding the right schools for low income kids. When I was looking for high schools for my kids, I was very impressed by a city school not known for IB or AP or athletics. I noticed that it was placing a lot of kids into private schools and that a lot of students were winning the Boettcher and Daniel scholarships (Daniel has an income component). Someone was helping these kids get their applications together, get the documents needed, making sure deadlines weren’t missed.
"congratulations to her and your point is? That she is more deserving because she worked hard and because her parents decided to have 9 kids and they can’t afford to send them to college so someone else should pick up the tab? "
YES! Definitely, yes.
As is often pointed out when a CC thread turns to the “ease” low-income students have in paying for college, the solution for a middle-income family is clear. Give away 80% of what you own, quit your job, and give up the house for an apartment in a low-income neighborhood.
Funny, I have yet to see anyone take that offer.
Give up your doctors and go to a clinic where you wait in line for four hours. Give up your dentist and wait for the mobile van to show up at your kids school once a year for a cleaning- and you can start to lose your teeth at age 40 with no regular checkups yourself. Forget contact lenses- you can squint like regular folks, or use reader’s from the dollar store.
Isn’t poverty fun when you have the right attitude?
I agree with the above posters that being low income and high achieving is very difficult. I think what’s hard for the full pay families is the cost of an elite college education period. It’s easy to say one is subsidizing the education of kids who can’t pay but that’s too simple of an analysis. I think being upset about being full pay should be directed at the sky rocketing cost of these private schools. Also, let’s realize that it’s a very small percentage of kids going to school for free or for very low cost. Something like 50% of families at T20 privates and LACs are full pay. Another big chunk are middle class families paying what they can afford or, more likely, taking loans. A middle class family paying $30k per year could easily be struggling to come up with that money just like full pay families can struggle to come up with $72k per year. And what’s the alternative? Only families who can pay can send their kids to expensive schools? Of course no one wants that. But I’m sure we all agree that the sticker price has become ridiculous.
As a full pay parent with an income just above the cut off limit, it is very frustrating to have to pay the same as the mega wealthy, who can pay 300K without blinking.
However, it is incredible that some folks on this thread seem to be envious of the Questbridge and low income kids getting into elite schools on a full-ride. They 1000% deserve that chance, especially getting in, despite their odds.
OTOH, I get mad when I hear of families who learned how to beat the system, when they claim it is legal and same as knowing how to pay less taxes by setting up their finances the right way.
I am talking about upper middle class , 2 income families, with 1Mil+ retirement, and a paid off house in an upscale area, who then decide to quit their jobs or both parents decide to go part-time, just a few years before college, to claim “low-income” and then get a full ride at Harvard. I am talking about high-level executives, who announce 'It’s time for me to slow down and spend sometime with kids before they leave home but I will be back soon., blah blah" and position their exit only for FA purpose.
“I am talking about upper middle class , 2 income families, with 1Mil+ retirement, and a paid off house in an upscale area, who then decide to quit their jobs or both parents decide to go part-time, just a few years before college, to claim “low-income” and then get a full ride at Harvard. I am talking about high-level executives, who announce 'It’s time for me to slow down and spend sometime with kids before they leave home but I will be back soon., blah blah” and position their exit only for FA purpose."
Is that really that common or doable? I would think these families are going to have assets which would make them ineligible for FA.
@NCKris I doubt there are that many kids getting free rides to elite schools because the parents quit their high profile jobs a few years before college.
First of all…I seriously doubt these folks divested themselves of all of their assets…because, after all, they need something to live on. And the assets are likely decent amounts. In addition, some of these elite schools do use the primary home equity to some degree…so a fully paid off $1 million house is going to count in the mix. They likely have decent interest income as well…and investments…which also are considered assets.
I think programs like Questbridge are terrific. I wish more lower income kids could get these awards. 1000 isn’t a huge number.
The vast majority of colleges in America do not meet full need. So the actual number of folks who can pull off NCKris’ scheme is incredibly small. I’m sure it’s worked for a handful of people, but the risks of not being able to fund your own retirement with a gambit like that seems to me to be much higher than the actual cash you’re going to end up with, IF your kid is talented and lucky enough to get into a “meets full need” college AND your assets don’t end up disqualifying you for aid.
I know folks who have tried all sorts of bone-headed schemes-- to avoid alimony, to increase financial aid, to keep assets away from a business partner. A couple of them ended up in a perfect storm in 2008- unemployed when their company folded (and not able to land another job- you think Lehman Bros. competitors were hankering to hire the folks who ended up on the street?); their houses worth 30% less than what they thought when they went to sell; their retirement portfolios reduced to dust (I know a couple- she worked at Bear Stearns, he worked at Lehman, they thought they were financial geniuses for having ALL their retirement money tied up in their companies- stock plus options).
I don’t think an upper middle class couple with two incomes and a paid off house in an expensive area are going to be happy living on what they’ll end up with if they find they can’t get back on track once the kids are out of college. I think I’d rather pay tuition and keep on working, thank you for very much.