<p>Would love to be in your situation. And it's not like we're out buying new cars and eating out anymore than we are buying the $2,000 jeans that "darling" so ludicrously suggested. </p>
<p>The facts are these: my husband and I are both on our second marriages. Divorces wiped out whatever college funds would have been available. We both make decent salaries, but with 5 kids at home and a hefty child support obligation to his ex-wife (equivalent to some people's mortgages), the funds simply are not there. </p>
<p>So don't lecture me about my choices. (Well, on the other hand....I SUPPOSE I could have chosen to stay in my abusive first marriage so my daughter could attend a LAC.) Kudos to you for saving what you were able....not everyone has that choice. I would also love to see how many middle class families are also taking out huge private loans to fund the gap. We simply are not going to do this....especially with this many kids to put through college. I put myself through college (and grad school) on <gasp>.... scholarships, loans, and jobs, and I lived to tell about it.</gasp></p>
<p>And my comment about "on the backs of the middle class", I'm sure is not a popular sentiment (at least not that too many people would admit). I am referring to the poor....whom we do subisdize through our taxes (and before you blast me....I am a liberal....I am just stating factual information), and the rich, whose wealth-enhancing tax breaks come at the expense of the middle class.</p>
<p>Wow...a bit touchy aren't we? I wasn't lecturing you about your choices - how would I know anything about your choices? I was simply responding to your statement that kids going to small private schools were doing so on the backs of the middle class. And by the way, one of the definitions of callow is immature...people who make sweeping generalizations denegrating others can often be put in that class.</p>
<p>So thanks for your family history, but I don't get the relevance of that to your statement I was responding to.</p>
<p>Colleges are a consumer product like anything else. Some can afford the Mercedes of cars and colleges and others can't. If there's anything I've learned from reading CC it's that many upper middle class do send their kids to $50K schools by living far below their means. And that many most would deem very well off have saved no money for college.</p>
<p>Very Wealthy ==> got the money, don't care
Very Poor ==> Got all the help they can get
Middle ==> Sorry, you are on your own (saving, loan, etc)</p>
<p>This is how the system works, without this, the system will collapse :D.</p>
<p>We've been down this road so many times on CC but again
the elites respond to the desires of their customers, who want
to see some diversity on campus. A few black faces, a
smattering of low income kids. They have no ideological or
political goals but if it was obviously all rich people, some of
them would be morally uncomfortable, so the elites accomodate
to a degree, usually less than 10%, very carefully chosen. The
elites call it "extremely selective", lesser schools refer to it as
enrollment management.</p>
<p>"it is obvious that low-income student have a much more harder time to appear "competitive", especially compared to the upper-income bracket applicants."</p>
<p>As has been stated, a lot of the elite schools view students as competitive based on how they did relative to their circumstances. That's one reason why parents who think they can give their kid a leg up on admission by sending them to some fancy expensive summer program that costs tons of money are wasting their time. That said some of the "advantages" that "poor" have from the financial aid standpoint depends on how one defines poor. There are people who are economically challenged living in my community for example but getting the same education as anybody else. They really are not disadvantaged. However others living in inner cities with an abusive drug addict parent while the other parent is in jail are truly disadvantaged. They aren't even in the college game and clearly have no advantages.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Very Poor ==> Got all the help they can get
[/quote]
</p>
<p>This is very likely to be factually incorrect. But if there is proof for this, please tell us all about it. I think the better considered view can be found in the various links in post</a> #35 in this thread.</p>
<p>That is very true DocT. However, at the same time, low-income kids attend "good schools" might also suffer a bit in ECs and grades if they have to supplement their parent's income. I have been working throughout all of HS to help support my famil, and trust me, it is much harder to be "competitive" because I have so many other responsibilities that are not school-related. </p>
<p>Do colleges consider my circumstances? Yes. However, I still believe that if I did not have have to work 30-40 hours/week, I would be much more competitive in college admissions than I was.</p>
<p>^^If my parents didn't have to work 40+ hours a week, I could have more ECs. Instead, I let my sisters have the opportunities that I didn't have-- piano lessons, talent shows, etc. because at this point in life, I'm used to it.</p>
<p>EC's for admission to many elite schools are not weighted anymore than working 40 hours per week if you need to support your family. As a matter of fact it shows that you are not a pampered spoiled brat and truly mature to be able to aid your family.</p>
<p>Carnegie Mellon is also need-aware for waitlisted students and clearly states that. </p>
<p>I never realized someone could have an EFC of zero. I figured everybody would at least be a few hundred or maybe $1K. Wow, to go to a $50K per year school for nothing.</p>
<p>hundreds of thousands of students have efc's of 0. Most
of them end up graduating or not graduating often after
quite a few years with tremendous debt. A couple of thousand,
or maybe even only hundreds end up going to an elite school
for free. It's pretty much a fantasy and of course most kids
with efc's of 0 never go to college at all.</p>
<p>I feel like I'm probably feeling the burn from this. I applied to seven schools, got rejected at three, waitlisted at three, and accepted at my one and only large public school. The thing is, in comparison to a lot of the kids who got into all my schools, my stats really aren't even that bad. They're actually pretty good, but my parents really don't make a lot. I'm really not looking forward to going back to school and being judged by all the rich kids....</p>
<p>We are paying just a tad under 50K a year to have son at a top Ivy. We are feeling like fools for doing this. The mania surrounding these schools is just insane. Not seeing much impact at all from son having a pedigree school on his resume. Summer internships in our state seem to go to the kids who attend state U. If you stray from the NE or coasts, there is a bias AGAINST this sort of education. Just because the masses pursue it doesn't make it worthwhile. Think of the housing and tech bubbles. Madness of crowds . . .</p>
<p>The squeeze is going to be on the private colleges that are not well known. The top schools have more applications than ever. BUt I have heard well to do parents say that they don't want to pay the private cost of a school without getting a lot of name recognition and prestige from for the money. They'll borrow and scrimp for HPY but they are not paying full freight for BU or NYU or a school that they have not heard of.</p>