<p>My wife and I make about $130,000 a year. We live in California where the cost of living is sky high. $130,000 does not go very far in California. How does someone in the middle class pay for their kids to go to a top rate college? If you are poor it is free and if you are rich, you can afford it. Why is it that the middle class has to put themselves into a huge amount of debt to go to college but poor people are rewarded for being poor by being offered a free education? Please no one tell me with this income we can afford to send our kid anywhere because that is simply not true. Did anyone on here go to a "top notch" school and NOT take out a lot of loans? Is there a way around this?</p>
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<p>Personally, I think that the UC campuses are top notch schools…at a more reasonable cost.</p>
<p>Yes…there are kids who attend college without loans. Your kiddo can look for schools where he/she might qualify for merit aid based on their academic stats for admission. Merit aid helps “soften the blow” for many student who do not qualify for need based aid.</p>
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The few schools that offer anything close to a “free” education to lower-income students are the most competetive in the nation. Those “lucky” poor students must have academic credentials and accomplishments far beyond the average, and they must have achieved at that level in very challenging circumstances. The vast majority of lower-income students - those with simply average academics - often have no options at all.</p>
<p>We use my entire take home pay for college. We live on my H’s pay. It’s a choice we have made - we do not have what our friends have - including debt! :)</p>
<p>Our 2nd child will be in school this fall. It will be much harder for us to afford things when he is in school. We may have to borrow. Again, it will be a choice. Both of our kids DO have options we could afford. We CHOOSE to send them to schools that cost us more. We accept the consequences of our choices. </p>
<p>Everyone is different. The key is to do what works for you & understand that you have made the choice that works for you. Our son is interested in a school we may not be able to afford. We have been upfront & honest about it with him. If he ends up disappointed, he will survive. He has an option that we know we can swing, and if he winds up there, he will be fine.</p>
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<p>By broadening one’s view of what a “top rate college” is, rather than depending on, for example, one magazine’s stupid list.</p>
<p>The “top rate college” for your son will likely be different than the “top rate college” for my son. Each family needs to do its OWN college ranking, based on criteria which make sense for that family and that family’s student(s).</p>
<p>Factors important to my family: languages taught at the school, whether there is a core curriculum, class size and type of classes, availability of professors, strength of certain departments, location, affordability including availability of aid (especially merit), size of college, experience of college with autistic spectrum kids, and 4-year graduation rate.</p>
<p>YMMV.</p>
<p>I live in California as well and know that while one can live like a king on $130,000 in most of the country, that’s not the case in California. So I sympathize. </p>
<p>However, the answer to your question is that college is paid for by a combination of current income, savings, and sometimes loans. Some people start college funds for their children when they are very young, and through the magic of compounding, inflation and appreciation, have a significant chunk of money to spend on their children’s college education.</p>
<p>We’re also fortunate that there are many top-notch colleges in California. The UCs, the top CSUs, and many of the private colleges here rival those anywhere in the country. Some of the best privates will give merit aid to good students that will bring their cost down close to, if not even below, the cost of a public college. I know this because I’ve been guiding my sons through the college search process for the past 2 years. There’s one college in Southern California that offers a tuition scholarship of around $25,000/year to bring the cost down to that of UCSB for anyone who was admitted to UCSB but choses that college instead. There are other excellent colleges that offer full tuition merit aid. So just because you are not wealthy (for California) doesn’t mean that high-quality colleges can’t be affordable.</p>
<p>Good luck in your kids’ college search, and stick around here a while, you’ll gain lots of useful information :)</p>
<p>Mysonsdad, please disabuse yourself of the notion that poor kids go to college for free. A few, an infinitesimally small number that have very high grades and test scores (and only a very few of them!) can get accepted to the Harvard, Yale or similarly well-endowed schools that are nearly impossible to get into. Those students will be able to attend those colleges without borrowing, but they are expected to work summers and during the term. But we are talking about a minute number of kids.</p>
<p>Most poor kids are lucky if they can get a full Pell and go to community college while working a job and living at home. The vast majority don’t go to college at all.</p>
<p>***How does the middle class pay for college ***</p>
<p>With its checkbook between its teeth. ;)</p>
<hr>
<p>But, seriously…</p>
<p>Many pay for college by saving a little bit each year - starting when the kids are born. </p>
<p>Some insist that their kids go to local publics and commute (saving on room and board)</p>
<p>Some have their kids look for merit scholarships at OOS publics or various privates (if stats are very good.)</p>
<p>Some have their kids go locally for 2 years (either at local state or local CC) and then transfer to a favorite 4 year.</p>
<p>Some have grandparents who “help out”.</p>
<p>Some have their kids pay for *some *of the costs.</p>
<p>Some take out student loans or second mortgages.</p>
<p>Some parents get a second job to pay or use a spouse’s income to pay.</p>
<p>Believe me…the poor rarely get to go to school “for free”. The few poor with super stats may get to go to the elites for free, but the poor with “normal stats” are in a much worse situation - even if they can get their UC tuition for free.</p>
<p>Mysonsdad…Do you have a junior or a senior?<br>
What schools is he considering?<br>
What are his stats (GPA and SAT/ACT including SAT breakdown)?<br>
How much can you afford to pay each year towards school costs?<br>
What is your EFC (I imagine it’s at least $35k)</p>
<p>.</p>
<p>^ Good info, but I have a note about:
Remember that UC eligibility is such that only about 12.5% of graduating seniors in California are even eligible to attend a UC. The tuition waiver for the lowest-income California students does no good for a low-income student who has managed - despite their poverty - to be in the top 13% - 20% of graduating seniors in the state, for example.</p>
<p>So those with “normal stats” that fall below the top 12.5% are in an even worse situation.</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>Very true. Having a 0 EFC doesn’t give you much if you can’t or don’t want to commute to school. </p>
<p>All you’ll typically get in “free money” is Pell and perhaps some other small fed aid or state aid, which will only pay for some/all in-state tuition and not much else. And, if you live in a state with high in-state tuition, then ugh!! </p>
<p>Also, the poor don’t usually have family members who can qualify for the loans that are often needed to pay the rest of the COA.</p>
<p>Please don’t fool yourself into thinking the poor go to school for free. Sister’s mom makes 20k a year. My sister doesn’t even get full Pell. She works 40+ hours a week to cover her tuition and fees at a state school (on top of cell phone, car costs, living costs. etc). She is in her fifth year because she can only take (at most) 12 credits a semester. Please get off the notion that poor kids go to school for free.</p>
<p>In terms of who-has-it-harder with regards to sending kids to college it’s 1)the poor, 2)the middle class and 3)the wealthy.</p>
<p>There are many threads on CC on the theme of woe-to-the-poor-families-making-over-$100K/yr. I do not doubt there is significant hardship involved and sometimes very difficult re-prioritizing of family budgets, but it’s important to understand that it isn’t some kind of conspiracy against the middle class. More money is virtually always better than less money.</p>
<p>As to the cost-of-living in certain areas, there is a factor of higher salaries in those areas to consider too. I live in a relatively low-cost-of-living area, but wages and salaries here are much lower than in CA, NY, NJ, etc.</p>
<p>A bit of a reality check for the OP:
According to the UC Census Bureau, the median household income in California for 2007 was $59,928 [California</a> QuickFacts from the US Census Bureau](<a href=“http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06000.html]California”>http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06000.html)</p>
<p>^^^</p>
<p>True…but if the OP lives in a single-family home in the suburb, then $130k is about what it takes to live there, unless you’re like my parents who bought their OC home in 1966. :)</p>
<p>^ We live in California in a single-family home in a suburb, and somehow we manage on approximately the median California household income. I guess we have made some different lifestyle choices than the OP. The OP is making more than twice the median California household income.</p>
<p>Median incomes in California vary wildly by county and city. In my county the median income in 2007 was $84,265 and in my town the median income in 1999 (latest reported number on that link) was $126,740. Anyone who bought a house in my town in the past 5 years is paying $8000-$12,000/month on their mortgage + taxes, so that high income doesn’t get you very far. Is this a personal choice? Of course! The school district in my town is a huge draw and many people gladly pay a premium to be within its boundaries.</p>
<p>I think there’s an affordability index published that takes into account both salaries and costs of living in various cities in the country. High salaries in high cost-of-living cities are clearly not as enviable as high salaries in low cost-of-living cities. A normalized index is probably a more relevant measure of “middle class” than a simple salary figure.</p>
<p>We live in California in a single-family home in a suburb, and somehow we manage on approximately the median California household income. I guess we have made some different lifestyle choices than the OP. The OP is making more than twice the median California household income.</p>
<p>I realize that. But, the median income includes everyone - the poor, those who aren’t raising kids, those who are just starting out, those who are retired, those who rent, singles, etc.</p>
<p>It’s great that you live in a SFH in a Calif suburb on about the median CA income. I don’t know when you bought your home, but that can make a difference, too. 
One of my Calif friends lives on a policeman’s salary. But they bought their home in 1979 for a tiny fraction of what it would have cost if they had bought it during the last 20 years. Eight years ago, they could have sold their home for nearly a million dollars. They bought it for $150k. </p>
<p>I’m not criticizing the OP, he sounds like a lot of people I know in Calif. Once they make about 6 figures, they buy homes in the more upscale neighborhoods. Depending on when he bought, the house could have easily cost $500k or more.</p>
<p>After living in Calif for over 40 years, I can tell you this…a lot depends on when you bought and what zip code you live in. If you married and bought a home in the early 80s, then great. If you bought your home in the late 90s or after 2000, then YIKES. lol </p>
<p>Some might say that it’s a choice to live in an expensive zip code. Sometimes that’s true and sometimes you don’t have a lot of choice…you live where your job is…you live where it’s safe…you live where the schools are good.</p>
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You are suffering from the regularly-occurring sticker shock that happens when a middle class family, who has done what they can to provide a decent but not extravagant lifestyle for their family, discovers that</p>
<ul>
<li><p>colleges that were affordable by our middle-class parents 20-30 years ago are no longer affordable without virtually bankrupting ourselves, even though we may be doing better than our parents;</p></li>
<li><p>and it is no longer possible to work and put yourself through school at virtually all privates, most OOS schools, and many in-state schools - a student cannot make even $20K/year at the jobs available to most students.</p></li>
</ul>
<p>It’s the American Dream that every generation does better than the previous one, and suddenly we are slapped in the face with the reality that when it comes to college, this is not true.</p>
<p>So you have to make some hard choices:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>Do you/your child take on crippling levels of student loans to attend that dream school?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you crush your standard of living (for example, sell your house and move to a smaller one in a less desirable place farther from your job, sell one car, stop funding your retirement/cash in your retirement accounts, borrow against your house equity, take a second job, etc) to send your kid to their dream school?</p></li>
<li><p>Do you reset your expectations, forget about going to a top 50 or top 100 private school or prestigious OOS school, and instead focus on lower-tier schools that can provide enough merit aid to take the school to the edge of affordability?</p></li>
</ul>
<p>These are hard choices, but this is the reality. Most people here have been through this same process.</p>
<p>You need to get past how things were 25 years ago, forget about how “lucky” the rich and poor are (and as people have pointed out, except for a very few, the poor are not “lucky” at all when it comes to college), and get on with figuring out your options.</p>
<p>How does the middle class pay? On a wing and a prayer. </p>
<p>One Question…you talked about “top notch” schools. Does this mean your son qualifies? If so, then the way many middle class pay…is to accept something less elite, but more affordable. Does he qualify for scholarships at in-state schools? That’s what MY middle class family will probably be doing. Refusing the admission to the more elite school (if not enough scholarship), and settling for a nice 4 year bachelor’s degree at a very cheap but good value in state school. It’s not “top notch”. But we can’t all afford that, unfortunately.</p>
<p>- and it is no longer possible to work and put yourself through school at virtually all privates, most OOS schools, and many in-state schools - a student cannot make even $20K/year at the jobs available to most students.</p>
<p>This is very, very true. As someone who put herself thru UCI in the 70s, I can tell you that I could earn my quarter fees by working part time for a few weeks during each quarter. The rest of my earnings for the quarter went towards other school/personal costs. In the summer, I worked full-time to build a “nest egg” or pay for my car.</p>
<p>I think the COA for in-state UCI is somewhere around $26k per year. It’s unlikely that a kid could earn even 1/3 of that (and not have grades affected.).</p>