<p>@205Mom - That was exactly my point 
I think we are in agreement. Middle-class people are not buying Birkins. But it may be everyone’s business if wealth is spent on Birkins instead of educating our fellow citizens, to the extent that we care about an educated populace. How to solve it, I have no idea.</p>
<p>People are allowed to make bad choices. Is it really everyone’s business if wealth is spent on luxuries? Yikes! Slippery slope. Personally, I don’t care one whit where a wealthy parent chooses to send their kids to school and I am having trouble figuring out why that should matter to me at all. Their kids will be fine or not for a variety of reasons that are none of my business. </p>
<p>“Personally, I don’t care one whit where a wealthy parent chooses to send their kids to school and I am having trouble figuring out why that should matter to me at all. Their kids will be fine or not for a variety of reasons that are none of my business.”</p>
<p>I think it depends on what the kid wants. If you’ve got a wealthy family – maybe there’s a family business that junior will get one day, and it requires good sales skills but not necessarily a fancy schmancy degree – and junior is just happy as a clam going to a decent-enough school, joining a frat and having a fun 4 years – then no, it doesn’t upset me that the kid went to decent-enough instead of Harvard. Anecdotally, I know families in those positions who sent their kids to Mizzou and to George Washington. Family happy, kid happy, all good. </p>
<p>If, however, you have a really academically minded kid who really has academic / intellectual interests, and the parent has the money for an elite school but won’t pony up – I recognize it’s not my business, but I can’t help but feel a little sad. This described my first college boyfriend, whose parents easily had the money but refused to pay for Northwestern, and I saw how hard he worked his tail off to stay there. Of course, that’s not even feasible these days – it was then. That did and does make me sad. </p>
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That’s news to me. Our household income is way way less than 300K. Our house has 5 bedrooms and a small yard. We just can’t live in Scarsdale on our income. If we commuted to midtown our commute would be less than 45 minutes - however dh has a 15 minute commute to his part of the city and I’ve always worked in the burbs. </p>
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<p>Shoot, I usually use “boneheaded” to describe things I <em>have</em> done myself – and to preempt SomeMuchYoungerGal from using even pithier descriptors. </p>
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<p>I can’t help but feel very sad when rich kids think they are entitled to money from their parents. They should be delighted that their parents are willing and able to pay anything for them.</p>
<p>Wasn’t there some girl in NJ who wanted to sue her parents for college money? That was very sad.</p>
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<p>However, it does seem that some parents lead the kids to believe that they will contribute lots of money for the kids’ college, but then tell them that they won’t (or not enough) in April of high school senior year.</p>
<p>PG never said “rich” kids. As UCB wrote, it is the “bait and switch” phenomena that some of us object to. Many parents start reading CC when they are trying to figure out how to form a list of colleges that are affordable. And that NJ gal? She was disrespecting parents in many ways. </p>
<p>I don’t recall what age my son was when he asked me, “If I get into MIT, would I be able to go there?” I replied “You get in, & I’ll find a way”. I seriously doubt he recalls this conversation, but I started to seriously save. Maybe he does remember this conversation. When he didn’t want to do a project, or didn’t like a class, he still worked hard. One of my personal qualities that I am proud of is my integrity. I’m proud of my son’s work ethics. I am happy to have been able to set him on his path. A promise is a promise. </p>
<p>(Now I will wait for all the criticism of my comment.)</p>
<p>@ucbalumnus
Agreed — but I posited that hypothetical amount because that income is a level would render the family ineligible for need-based aid – but it’s not hard to imagine a set of regular expenses that would make it difficult for the family to shell out, say, $80K a year to put their kid through college. (Keep in mind that the context that hypothetical was rising costs of college – and right now we are pushing up against the point where 4 years of college will cost that family $300K or more, when you weigh in incidentals on top of the tuition and room and board. Most full pay parents also provide their college kids with allowances – they still need to fund travel back & forth to college, and likely to be funding their kids to study abroad or take unpaid internships). </p>
<p>I assume that the $300K earners have probably adopted a lifestyle that is somewhat more costly than the basics. There are a lot of expensive purchases that are not Mazeratis, but contribute to higher overall costs. I’ve lived quite comfortably in the SF Bay area on an income far more modest … but I assume that the $300K earners probably chose to live in a bigger house than mine, with a higher mortgage payment, higher real estate taxes, higher insurance costs, and higher costs to heat and maintain. If they are driving a recent model BMW or Cadillac, that doesn’t make them “irresponsible” – but that car probably cost them a lot more than my used Saturn. I sent my kids to public K-12 schools, but I don’t begrudge a family with the means to pay for private schooling for their kids. So what wiggle room does that $300K family have when you subtract out the tax bite on their income (pretty high here in California) - and then look at rising college tuitions? </p>
<p>I hate the arguments that are framed around Mazeratis and Birkin bags because that’s an extreme that doesn’t reflect the reality for the 6-figure earner. Yes – I drive an old economy car; my kids got their haircuts at SuperCuts, and I bought their clothes at Ross, Target and Old Navy. But that doesn’t make the 6-figure earner who drives a BMW, spends $200 a month at the hair salon, and shops at Nordstrom’s “irresponsible” – it just means that they are living the lifestyle you might anticipate for anyone with their income. Yes-- it can be argued that they should also have prioritized saving for their kids’ college along the way… but maybe they did. Maybe they funded 529 accounts with amounts that they thought would be more than adequate-- for example – perhaps they worked with a financial planner and created funds with $200K for each child. Ten years ago that would have been enough to fund 4 years at Harvard (COA ~$40K), with room to spare. Now - no way (Harvard COA today ~$65K) </p>
<p>So what will it be when the COA is $90K a year? $120K a year? At what point does the $300K earner couple get priced out of the market?</p>
<p>The other framing I don’t like is the idea that the choice is Harvard vs. no-name “directional” university – when we know that any student who can get into Harvard is also going to be eligible substantial merit aid to shave off the cost of very respectable private colleges. I’m not saying that every Harvard prospect will be offer a full tuition scholarship at Vandy … but partial merit scholarship ($10K-$25K/ year) are a lot easier to come by. And for that full pay family with the $300K income and the $200K 529 accounts – that’s nothing to scoff at. Maybe they could be full pay at Harvard looking at $280K over 4 years – vs. looking at a merit award from Rice that leaves them paying $160K over 4 years. My math says that I would expect that to be a very serious issue for that family. </p>
<p>And again, not because the parents devalue education or are in any way irresponsible or are selling their kids short. </p>
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<p>The post was about wealthy parents.
Also, it was noted that the parent has the money for an elite school and the example was could easily pay for Northwestern.</p>
<p>If you have saved up around $250k that you could easily spend on college, you are very rich.
The average net worth of 34-44 year old is $52k.</p>
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<p>I get that.
I wonder though if when my DS asked a similar question years and years ago, if I had any clue that colleges would cost $250k.
Then unfortunately, as much as people intend to do that, stuff happens. Lost jobs, damaged stock portfolios, medical expenses, divorce, etc…</p>
<p>Um…we were a lot older than 44 when our kids went off to college. Also, sometimes it’s NOT that the family has saved $250,000. Anyone who has been around these forums long enough has read this already. We paid for expensive private universities out of current earnings. My entire income, every penny of it, paid for college costs for the seven years our kids were in college. The rest of our bills were paid by DH’s salary…and NO he doesn’t earn $200,000 a year. Actually when our kids were in college, he earned under $80,000 a year. And yes I know we still had good incomes. But the reality is we didn’t save one cent for college costs. We both worked full time. And that paid the college bills. One of our kids got $10,000 a year in merit aid (COA was under $50k per year). The other got $6000 a year (COA was closer to $60k per year).</p>
<p>Before out kids went to college, we put the max into our retirement accounts annually (on the advice of our planner), and retired debts like car payments, most of our mortgage, and any credit card debt we had. </p>
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<p>Fine. But if that guy would rather buy a kick-ass fishing boat with his money, the only effect on me is that there is one less full pay kid in the pool when my kid applies to Highly Selective College. So, if anything, I should encourage these folks to take up fishing, sailing, or race car driving, right?</p>
<p>Among people I know if the parents own expensive luxury cars then they also provide full pay tuition for their kids at elite schools. In some cases parents that drove very expensive luxury cars provided full tuition at elite undergraduate schools and medical school.</p>
<p>Has anyone pondered on the idea that while a parent may drive a flashy car and may not be able to pay full freight to their child’s university, that the parent still values their child’s education?</p>
<p>@Pepper03 </p>
<p>Yes I’m still reading. I missed the last three days and came back today to find 98 notifications. One thing I didn’t think about was Grad school or professional school. I would say that may the money for expensive graduate school is more worth it than an undergrad since most of the knowledge an hands-on opportunities can be found there. However, that is only applicable if the kid plans to attend grad school. </p>
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<p>I have been around these forums for 10 years, so I know that. </p>
<p>I also know that that is NOT what that discussion was about. The point was wealthy parents who can easily pay for college. Not people who are using their entire income, “every penny of it”, to pay for college. That is hardly easily paying for college.</p>
<p>You might not know whether you plan on grad school until after you are in undergrad-- and the amount of debt you have taken on (or amount of money your parents have spent) for undergrad could essentially leave you with no choice if and when you do decide. So I think that the possibility of gad school should be factored in, whether or not the student thinks they want to go on.</p>
<p>Also: instruction at the expensive elite schools is pretty much built around the assumption that the students are going to grad school. You might not think you want to attend grad school… but your professors will still conduct class on the assumption that they are educating future Ph.D’s. That is one very big difference between the environment and overall academic quality of the elites vs. the regional publics. My d. was at Barnard at the same time as my son was at CSU, taking similar courses-- but my son’s profs thought they were educating future high school teachers – so there was a different standard and level of discourse, with my son’s courses being more practically focused. </p>
<p>So one more reason to keep in mind your personal and career goals. If you are thinking that you probably won’t want to attend grad school, you could find that your reach school is a poor match for your needs and goals. </p>
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<p>Yes.
The parent may also value the lesson of having the kid learning to pay their own way, take out their own loans and get jobs.</p>
<p>As far as fancy cars, one never knows how that happens. I have had 2 jobs in which I got a car allowance…and it was a lot. In one job, they let me just take the money as income, in another, I got reimbursed for a leased car. But if I didn’t lease a car, I couldn’t get the cash. So the car I was driving had nothing to do with my savings, or priorities for spending.</p>
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<p>How do you get that from the question, “How did you justify paying for a reach over a financial safety?”</p>
<p>Why would a wealthy parent who could “easily” pay for college feel any particular need to “justify” or weigh pros and cons? </p>