<p>Yeah, I do think we are dealing with a ■■■■■. If they are real, then seriously immature.</p>
<p>Plutonium, I gather from a more recent post of yours, that you are in the financial situation where you get no financial aid, but full pay is not painless. As many here like to remind us, this is not truly middle class, but upper upper middle class. Our family is almost there, but not quite and it somehow doesn’t feel like upper middle class. Funny. Anyway, knowing that about you helps to focus answers to your question- where do families in this 'donut hole 'get the $60-65K/yr needed? </p>
<p>Some families may have thrifty education-minded grandparents,or inheritances from them to help pay. Not me. My surviving parent so far spent equivalent of 2 ivy educations being cared for in non-cognizant state in nursing home and money runs out this year. H’s surviving parent is inclined to have a good life and flits between 2 homes in Europe and cruises and vacations.Not rich, just spending all the money.Which is fine, but anyway no money for us there.</p>
<p>Some parents take on huge loans. Which is OK, for people who are good at managing debt and comfortable with it. That’s not me, definitely. Cash and carry on everything. Refusing to take loans one could qualify for to pay for education is not necessarily an indication that one doesn’t value education. I am debt averse in the extreme, wouldn’t sleep nights if I had loans. It’s my psychological profile.</p>
<p>Some parents may take on the huge loans in their name with the expectation that the student pays them back after he graduates and has a job. Additionally student can take out some loans in their own name. I’m not familiar with exact amounts. Just writing about loans makes me feel slightly ill, but I believe it’s on the order of $5-7K/yr.</p>
<p>Some parents take on extra jobs and the student may be expected to chip in to raise $5000/yr or more working summers and winter break.</p>
<p>Some people may have assets they can liquidate, easily, or not so. It is possible to cash in retirement accounts in some cases, though penalties are high. I do not say it is advisable, but it is possible. They may have summer homes, real estate they manage, etc. In our case, we could sell our home, move into apt., and use that equity. Technically, could mortgage the home, but that would involve taking on debt, and well, no,not gonna happen. Selling the house I can contemplate. I could rent space in the community garden to fill the gardening urge.</p>
<p>Some people actually have saved substantial money in college funds. We did that for our eldest. Not enough for private, but had enough to pay for a state school put away. Back then our income was lower. There’s the rub. All those years of struggling to save and get ahead on a low salary, and finally income starts to rise, just in time to come under scrutiny of college FA offices. Who don’t look over your 20 year financial history, just the snapshot of today, sigh.</p>
<p>Most people in your situation can pay something out of current income. We could come up with about half the annual cost that way with minor adjustments to living standards. With that in mind, I decided to take on the necessary job of remodeling our scary 1960 bathrooms myself, as I couldn’t bear to spend $50K+ on that with college costs looming.</p>
<p>Probably most people combine bits of several of these methods to pay. </p>
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We would be one of those mis-managers. Sadly, our kids were not elite enough for Harvard. Maybe not so sadly, given that we could not have justified that expense, even though we only have two kids. I’m sure we could all benefit from some of your financial planning wisdom.</p>
<p>Please don’t feed the ■■■■■. If he’s ignored, he’ll quietly go away.</p>
<p>If rich Ivies think you should contribute x and a family can’t afford x, who’s to blame for the disconnect? That is what you are all arguing. That families are told they need to provide a certain amount and they can’t. Apparently schools your children dream of going to are colluding or conspiring to lock out the “upper middle class”.</p>
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<p>It’s the same way in DC suburbs. 180k is middle class. </p>
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<p>Someone’s been reading a bit too much Ayn Rand. </p>
<p>Investment banking is the only occupation for which a prestigious degree is recommended. </p>
<p>Law school? No one cares if a kid has a 3.2 from Princeton. The kid from Central Michigan with a 4.0 and a 175 LSAT’s getting into HLS over them. </p>
<p>Med school? Same thing.</p>
<p>If you really want to be successful on Wall Street, put down the books and pick up golf. </p>
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<p>“There’s only one thing this country hates more than lawyers, and that’s bankers.” </p>
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You’re missing the distinction between “can’t” and “can’t justify”. A family with an income of $40,000 and no real assets CAN’T pay $60k/year for college. It’s just not there. A family with assets and income putting them in the full pay EFC range may still not be able to justify spending that much as a wise financial move.</p>
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<p>This is exactly it. A lot of times, the family starts out with the “dream” schools, and then in the course of visiting safeties they realize that State U or no-name LAC that promises a lot of merit can ALSO get their kid to their desired destination. They look at the opportunity cost of spending all that money on a dream college rather than saving it for the kid’s grad school or down payment on a condo or living costs during an unpaid internship. And without the DEMONSTRABLE proof that the money is worth spending, the family decides they can’t justify the expensive school. In many cases the kids agree with this rationale, and this represents one of the first significant adult decisions they have had to make. (Of course there are those who stomp their feet and insist that their lives will be ruined if they don’t get to go to an Ivy.)</p>
<p>There are several issues with the $180,000-$200,000 middle class families in California that make them middle class: </p>
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<li>Many of us live in areas where the public schools are not good enough due to English as a second language, over-crowded classrooms, not enough textbooks, bankrupt state so no money for science or AP programs, etc. Therefore we pay for private school tuition for our children starting at a very young age. (My kids go to public schools, but the situation here is a tough one)</li>
<li>The housing prices in California are astronomical. We save for years to come up with 20% of a $500,000 starter home. </li>
<li>These two facts do not allow all of us (in our early careers when we were not making $200,000) to save much money for college. The $200,000 income per year is very new for many of us as we approach our peak earning years in our 50s. </li>
<li>Some of us in these income brackets have families of 5 and 6</li>
<li>Obamacare DOUBLED my health insurance premium. </li>
<li>Like many people, we save for our retirements. No pension, no 401K. Nothing. Just a goal of saving 7 figures by the time we reach 75. </li>
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<p>So, while I believe it is a parent’s responsibility to save for college, not all of us can save $250,000 cash per child. It’s just not realistic – I don’t care HOW below our means we live. </p>
<p>Therefore, I agree with some on this thread who say the Ivies and private universities are becoming for the rich (or the very poor). But the middle class continues to get shafted. </p>
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<p>Absolutely.
Sad that this thread started as a “How do they” and quickly devolved into a “Why should they since there are cheaper alternatives, state schools are just as good, etc” thread.</p>
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<p>Just like there is no DEMONSTRABLE proof that going to an no-named LAC will get them to their desired destination. Do you think there is DEMONSTRABLE proof that every decision about education, career and spending is DEMONSTRABLY correct? LOL.</p>
<p>No, fluffy, of course not. But most people–especially those in the middle class–don’t have the luxury of risking as much as several hundred thousand dollars on the off-chance that it will give their kids an “edge” when they graduate. </p>
<p>Ignorance is bliss. The more I read CC the more I see people like this with an agenda. In every thread about super selective schools telling the world how great their kid’s experience was at some lower tier school. Success has a thousand fathers, and failure is an orphan.</p>
<p>The more I read CC the more I realize most here have an agenda to push and post and post, desperate to receive approval from families that also did it the middle class bootstrap way or whatever you want to call it.</p>
<p>“Do you really think a full ride student from Oberlin or Florida State U can get a Goldman Sachs or McKinsey interview?”</p>
<p>I can’t vouch for success with these two particular firms, but FWIW, Oberlin has (or at least had, a few years ago) a “Business Scholars Program” that exposes selected interested students to the financial services industry, and I know for a fact that there were students in D1’s year who had NYC interviews at places like B of A through this program. She has visited a classmate from there who is working at a NYC investment bank, starting right out of college.</p>
<p>Of course, Oberlin is not the kind of school most future Lloyd Blankfeins would choose in the first place. </p>
<p>People who can choose to stay away from public schools because there are ESL students and crowding, and strive to save a million bucks, are not middle class. anywhere. If I were running a school and read that, I think it would be my good laugh for the day. </p>
<p>I mean, I know it really feels like that for you. But it’s just not. you can’t really think that a school is shafting you for not supporting that lifestyle. (I live in the metro NYC area, so I know about “high cost of living.” lots of folks where I am think you can’t get a house for less than 500K either. Shrug (hoping to resell mine for 150K some day, half an hour outside of NYC.)</p>
<p>@edison96: I haven’t found an agenda against the Ivy Leagues on CC. The greatest contribution that CC provides are the personal stories of success with or without the prestigious names on the diplomas. I believe that all of us want the best for our children. If someone told me that a $260k degree would guarantee that success, I would move mountains to pay for it. But no one can guarantee that outcome. So, I have to use all of the resources available to make the best decisions and provide my personal accounts to help others. </p>
<p>I asked all of my patients when I was in Baltimore and now in the Midwest how they make a living. The jobs are as diverse as the institutions of higher learning. Northeast, where the financial world is concentrated = a higher number of graduates from the NE top schools. Midwest where the oil and farming industries rule the commerce = surprisingly a high number of Midwest/Southwest graduates. I have never worked in Silicon Valley, but I bet you their top employees are graduates from the top West Coast institutions. Life is so much complicated than a simple success plan.</p>
<p>Please carry on folks. I am learning as much as I can while trying my best to enjoy some of the banter. </p>