How does the upper middle class afford college?

Paying for College
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<p>To answer your question, it is done with past, present and future earnings, both of the parents’ and the student’s. You parents should have been saving a little bit. Even a few hundred a year could come up to some relief. Since they have been paying for private school, that amount will come out of their current earnings and be available for college as well as the savings from having you out of the house and not having to feed that extra mouth and any other costs attributable to you being shifted to college. So that amount would come out of their current earnings. Plus when you have kid in college, you tighten the belt even more because those are the lean years for most families. Then, they borrow, to spread some of the cost over a longer period of time.</p>

<p>You, the student, should have a little something saved. I came from a lower middle income family, and I was forced as child to have savings for college. Parts of any money I got for birthdays, graduations, awards went into the old college account. Also any savings bonds I might have gotten. Hopefully, you have some money saved. You knew you were going to college for a while now. Also, students should get a job. Over the summer and during the school year. No reason why you should not be working a few hours a week during college and paying some of your college expenses. Plus you have $5500 you can borrow for freshman year.</p>

<p>So if you can come up with at $5500 in loans, annual income, and savings that $16500 right there. If your parents can match that even that’s $33K If your parents can kick in more, so much the better. If a school will throw in some merit money, better still. At that range, you are looking at what a number of state universities charge for OOS kids, private colleges if you commute, your home state schools with money to spare and if you can get merit money from the privates, those would be a go.</p>

22

<p>Where I live, a significant number of families with incomes like your family income, send their kids to the local community college for the first two years. After that, the students complete their degrees at one of the in-state public Us. The kids do this because (just like with your family) that is what is affordable. While you are college-hunting, take a long hard look at the community colleges and four-year institutions within commuting distance. You may find that one or more of them score well enough on the affordability scale, and offer enough of the courses you are looking for, that they can serve as your safeties.</p>

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<p>I say, go ahead and apply to top-ranked colleges - but be sure to also apply to some public universities in your state that your parents could afford. Where are you in-state? Likely your state has a great flagship at which you could flourish and do well. You don’t have to go to an expensive top 25 college to enjoy college life and succeed beyond the bachelor’s degree.</p>

<p>Although as someone coming from a lower-middle-class family - I do find it kind of odd that your family, at $150K, can’t afford trips or extras. My family of five growing up made less before taxes than your family probably does after taxes and private school tuition, and we still were able to take small trips and afford a few little extras.</p>

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<p>FlowerGirl - There are many threads that discuss flagship schools with extremely generous merit scholarships. My DD’s favorite is the University of Alabama. M2CK has provided great information in the UA forum and elsewhere. Several other schools have similar programs. These schools aren’t as highly ranked as Michigan, but their honors college students are of similar caliber - but are receiving juicy scholarships. </p>

<p>However, you and your parents need to start looking at the Net Price Calculators. At Alabama, if you have at least a 32 ACT and at least a 3.5 GPA -you will receive a full tuition scholarship. That’s fantastic. But even with that, we will still need @$13K for room, board, mandatory fees etc. You also will need books, transportation etc. So, depending upon the variables, the total out of pocket cost can be $17-$18K. The schools will compare this number to your EFC, since it is lower you or your parents will need to cover this amount. In our case, this is roughly half of the cost of our state flagship - so its an incredible deal.</p>

<p>If $7K is the max your parents can contribute, and with the maximum student loan of $5,500 for freshmen, CC may be your best option. Otherwise, your parents will need to borrow the difference in addition to providing the $7K per year. (And just so you know, prices go up every year - budget for that too!)</p>

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<p>Juliet,</p>

<p>the key to your question is the tax code. Once income level hits above certain levels, most deductions and credits disappear, while the marginal tax rate jumps significantly. The end result is that the take home pay of higher earning family may not be as high as many people think and in some cases not much different from a lower income family (Disclaimer: YMMV).</p>

<p>I once got fed up with MIL who harped about me always looking for sales and bargains, while earning “such a big salary” (her words), so I showed her my paycheck. It was an eye opener for her. </p>

<p>The other side of course is that once people start making more money, many of them want to move to better neighborhoods and they want to give their kids every educational opportunity they can (swimming lessons, gymnastics, piano lessons, you name it). Of course this is what we call a choice, but most people do not view it as a choice, but as a necessity.</p>

26

<p>Juillet, the reasons a lot of upper middle income families have trouble with paying for college even though their income figures are such that it should be affordable include that of not saving, and instead spending the money on things that require more money. Ironically, you are in better shape just blowing your money each year rather than investing in a house in good neigborhood, near good school, convenient to work–all of the things that impact the entire family’s quality of life. You can’t just stop paying on your house and it’s not so simple to up and move. If you were buying clothes and going out, you can dead stop those activities and channel the money to something else. If you owe mortgages, property taxes, maintenance, utilities on a house for which you made the commitment, it’s a big deal to give it all up. The same with the private school decisions when younger siblings are involved. What’s a family to do? Pull out the younger kids from their private schools to get the money to pay for the oldest one’s college? A house and private schools are probably two of the most common life style upgrades people make when they can. If you don’t leave a margin for the college costs, it’s going to be difficult to back off when the time comes.</p>

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<p>Is this per year, or total?</p>

<p>Talk to your counselors at your high school to see where students with your stats (GPA and SAT) have been accepted for college. If it’s possible that you are a contender for a school like Harvard, Yale, Princeton or Stanford, all of which offer highly generous aid, that’s useful to know.</p>

<p>Start hunting here on CC for information about schools that offer substantial merit aid. Be open-minded to learning about schools you might not have heard about before.</p>

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<p>Julliet, I’ve been in both places (ok, nowhere near 150K yet, but have seen some significant bumps over the years). And I used to ask the same questions because somehow I have managed to take trips, buy new vehicles, have dinners out, and not live in a hovel. I might delude myself into thinking I am somehow a money magician, but it really does boil down to chioces. </p>

<p>As cpt says, the bigger house costs more and it’s a commitment one really doesn’t get out of when the kids go to school. But, the big house was initially a choice. My BIL bought a car recently and the price was more than the mortgage on my first home – and it’s not a luxury brand. Sure, in 10 years, he might still be driving it and can post, on a board like this one, that he doesn’t buy new cars. Well, my choice was a bottom of the line subcompact, so I’ve been able to get a new one every 5 years and still spent less than he did. I’ve seen families spend more on groceries than I do on going “out”. Private school is also a choice. </p>

<p>Once in a while, there’ll be medical bills or something which is completely out of the control of a family, but mostly, a family doesn’t save because they had other priorities. It’s not a bad thing. It’s just a different set of values. Ruby Payne did some work on the culture of poverty and wealth. Higher income families often have a different set of values, and some of those “values” cost money. Come college time, then, you do legitmately have families with big incomes, no college savings, and a genuine belief that they’ve been pretty frugal.</p>

29

<p>There are scores of married public school teachers in our upstate NY area with an annual household income in excess of $150,000. Those whose kids perform reasonably well in school inevitably apply to Harvard, Yale or Princeton and just as inevitably get turned down. I think a significant percentage of those who apply to HYP each year are children of upper middle class households. Can’t say that I blame them, although I wish more of them had a clearer understanding of how much the odds were stacked against their getting the proverbial fat envelope.</p>

<p>There are many very good schools in the top 20 – 75+ range (including public honors programs) that offer excellent merit packages to strong students, yet the opportunity to attend these colleges and universities is often passed unnoticed by families who see only the Ivy and the local public. In our area, those who get rejected by Yale or Princeton often end up at a SUNY and not necessarily the academically strongest ones.</p>

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<p>It is absolutely choice. What happens, however, is that as you make more money, there are more choices. When I was growing up, there was no mention of getting private lessons in anything, our parents belonged to no clubs, and it was pretty much the norm as we lived in a community where it was rare anyone could afford certain extras. When you move into the circles where joining clubs, giving kids private and group lessons in various venues, taking certain trips become the norm, it really is pretty hard to stay the line. When you become a member of a community, you do want to participate in the activities others do.</p>

<p>When we bought our house in area where just about every family with kids joined the community pool; what do you think we did with our brood in the summers. Yeah, we succumbed. You join the pool, they have the swim lessons and the swim team. You are asked to contribute to things. Your kid becomes a great swimmer and joining year round club swimming becomes the next step, and then swim camps. We went down many such slippery slopes with performing arts, sports, all kinds of thing. Kids need braces–in my day we just had crooked teeth, it can cost a small fortune. The same with glasses these days. </p>

<p>I’m not excusing this or saying this should be subsidized, but explaining what happens.</p>

<p>Also, the more you make and have a higher standard of living, the more you need to save and invest to ensure a reasonable continuation of it at retirement. You are also responsible for just about everything because you have the money. When relatives are in trouble, you get the call. Sometimes for things that are life threatening, life changing, and if you have a heart or the love and care, you pay. No, you don’t have to do so, but many of us do. </p>

<p>A simple example of something that happened here. DS’s car air conditioner is totally kaput. Has been for 2 years. He’s driven that car in some mighty steamy summers down South with it that way. With what he makes, it is a big chunk of change to get it fixed. So he does not. It never moves up on the list of priorities that his pay check can cover. Had this happened to DH and me, it would be fixed immediately. FOr us to drive around with a car that does not have air conditioning that works, with dents with a nick in the windshield, with carpeting that is ripped up with a window that does not open, is not acceptable, in part because we do make the money where we are expected to take care of those things. Not so my son. The same with the appearance of our house and many other things. There are certain social expectations as well.</p>

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<p>We’re in the exact same situation. But not really at the $150k mark. Research schools and merit money. Did you already take the PSAT your junior year? What score did you get? The local flagship makes a big difference too. We live in SF standard of living is off the charts here. Local flagship for us would have been $28k a year. So we definitely had to look at more options.</p>

<p>I do think an open dialog with your parents is important. I’ve sat down with our son shown him our current budget. Even explained to him how his mom and I would buckle down and try to make any dream he wants come true. But at the same time he has to consider the repurcusions of debt and other things. I’m amazed that he’s so responsible and changed his mind on many things. Like previously he would never go to Alabama, now its on our definitely apply list and we’ve been sending scores and talking to their local recruiter.</p>

<p>You just really need to divise a plan and figure out all the kinks and have lots of contingencies.</p>

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<p>I agree that $150,000 equals circa $30K EFC. But schools do not reduce aid on a dollar for dollar basis for outside scholarships. The school where my daughter will be going–a need-blind, full-need school–is not reducing her her aid at all because she has outside aid. First, they reduce the amount of her Stafford, but then they would have allowed 100 percent of her aid to reduce our out-of-pocket expenses. Only if her aid had exceeded their grant would have they reduced their aid package.</p>

<p>I think most full-need schools do something similar. If you couldn’t keep some if not all of your outside aid, then what’s the point?</p>

<p>As for “generous,” giving half of $56K in aid is indeed generous, but it still leaves a big chunk out of pocket.</p>

<p>If you have a good academic record, your best option might be to go to a school that wants to attract students with merit aid.</p>

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<p>How does a family with an income around $150K/year afford college? As many wise posters here have pointed out, by living within or below their means, saving as much as possible in the early years, and sacrificing certain goodies. For too long I watched as my peers drove shiny new near-luxury cars, bought McMansions, and lived well, while we lived modestly. The payback for us has been the ability to pay for our childrens’ college education. mom2collegekids is correct in stating that outside scholarships merely reduces financial aid–happened to my son at Stanford, who had numerous outside scholarships. Yes, an income of roughly $150K/year generates an EFC of at least $30K. Again, as someone pointed out, that EFC is paid with past savings, and current and future earnings. Top schools don’t give out merit scholarships, as everyone there would deserve one:-)</p>

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<p>You can make a convincing argument that in this day and age, a college degree - or at least a technical certificate - is a necessity for an economically viable life. But a college degree from a pricy "top-whatever’ private school is not - it is a luxury.</p>

<p>Your parents can only afford $7,000 a year? You have options. Two years at community college, followed by two years commuting to a state school. Depending on what state you live in, you might be able to go straight to the state school level, although frankly, there’s probably no advantage in doing so.</p>

<p>I think of a young lady from our community whose parents could no more have afforded $7,000 a year than your can afford $70,000 - her dad is a totally disabled ex-cop and her mother cleans houses and works part-time in a convenience store. She went to CC for two years, then to the local state school as a commuter for two years. She worked full time as a waitress while carrying a full load at the schools - and making dean’s list most semesters. Yes, she had a full Pell grant. But she graduated in four years, with no debt and enough money in the bank to finance a six-month unpaid internship in London that led to a job offer in Los Angeles. So it can be done.</p>

<p>No, it’s not what you’d like - you’d like the full residential college experience at a so-called “top” school. I just had my 12-year-old Taurus towed to the scrap dealer. I’d like to go down to the local BMW dealer and buy a new beamer. But that would be a luxury, one I can’t afford. (So does anyone on this board know of a good reliable used car in the $5,000 range?) It’s not what I want - but it’s what I need - and what I can afford.</p>

<p>You say you’ve worked hard, and you no doubt think you deserve the full residential college experience, and that if you can’t have that, all your work will be wasted (you haven’t said all that, but a lot of high school kids post here when the cold hard reality of the financial picture hits them and say something similar). Your work has not been wasted. It has prepared you to have a successful college experience wherever you wind up. </p>

<p>So follow the very good advice from several previous posters - apply to some so-called “lower tier” schools where your stats might get you significant merit aid. Investigate the options at your state schools, and have a solid financial safety as your backup.</p>

<p>And good luck to you.</p>

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<p>I agree that $150,000 equals circa $30K EFC.</p>

<p>I think it’s higher than that…closer to $50k EFC. I think I once played around with the numbers and it came out to be about $47k.</p>

<p>$30k EFC seems to be more in the $100k-110k range.</p>

<p>Since the students who have posted in this thread (with this affordability issue) seem to have high stats since they’re looking at top schools, then they have the stats to get very large merit elsewhere. That would seem to be a better option than a CC for 2 years and then paying 2 years of full freight (which may not be do-able either).</p>

<p>These kids are in shock. They’ve probably have had lunch table talks with their classmates and have all said that they’re going to go to XX wonderful big name school. They don’t want to lose face or feel like their hard work wasn’t acknowledged by going to a school that doesn’t have the cachet as some do. </p>

<p>Girls…don’t let your egos get in the way. There are many kids that dig their heels in and refuse to apply to the schools that give large merit…and then they end up with nothing in the spring.</p>

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<p>Thanks for the responses, everyone.</p>

<p>I just want to make a few things clear:
a) I am not going to go to a community college (I really do not intend to be pretentious when I say this; I just do not think that it is the best option for me at this point in time)
b) I am open to the idea of going to schools that are not necessarily ranked highly
c) I do not live in a McMansion (need more than $150,000/year in my town for that)
d) My parents are stuck between a rock and a hard place, because they want to move to a cheaper house, yet it would cost more to move than what you would gain from moving
e) We really do not spend money on shopping, we do not belong to a country club, and we drive modest vehicles (relative to all of the BMWs and Porches and Mercedes in my town…), but we do spend most on music lessons, sports, etc.
f) My parents had to pay a huge chunk of money for my sibling’s complicated orthodontic work recently, and also, this past winter, my dog had an unexpected surgical operation that cost a few thousand dollars out of pocket…which got rid of most of their savings
g) My parents never anticipated having to pay for private school when we bought our house…the money that was going to go to college is going to private school…and we used some other unexpected money to help a close family member recently…however, I really can’t control how my parents choose to spend their money</p>

<p>That said, I think I will take most of the advice I have been given. I guess 50% of my applications will be to schools with merit aid, and 50% to schools with strong financial aid that promise to meet demonstrated need (though I know this is highly subjective).</p>

<p>As far as schools with good financial aid, how are:
Harvard
Yale
Princeton
University of Chicago
Northwestern
Brown
Georgetown
Swarthmore
Haverford
Vassar
Bates
Colgate
Bucknell
<em>This is a broad list…I am still in the process of narrowing this down, and these range from reaches to matches…I especially love Brown and Swarthmore</em></p>

<p>And schools with merit aid, I am considering:
University of Michigan
George Washington
Ohio State
Boston University
Northeastern University
University of Vermont
Clark University
<em>University of Michigan is probably about a “match” for me, or maybe a little lower than that. The rest are low matches or safeties…out of the merit schools, I would be willing to attend U of M the most, followed by GW and Boston</em></p>

<p>And others to choose? Take off the list?</p>

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<p>@mom2collegekids</p>

<p>That cannot be right, at least from the schools I have looked at. And Harvard, I did the Net Price Calculator with my parents and got $14,000…though I know this is not guaranteed, I am pretty sure that we wouldn’t have to pay 1/3 of our income toward college. Also, realize that $150,000 may seem like a lot if you live in an inexpensive area of the country, but is considered “average” in other areas depending of the cost of living.</p>

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<p>Do not look to H as some kind of guide. HYPS give super super aid and use extra generous calculations.</p>

<p>Yes…my estimates are correct for other schools. The area that you live is irrelevant… the calculations don’t care about that. </p>

<p>And, it doens’t look like you have a good list of merit schools. What schools will give you ASSURED large merit for your stats? Which schools are you CERTAIN that you can afford based on ASSURED merit?</p>

<p>*I am pretty sure that we wouldn’t have to pay 1/3 of our income *</p>

<p>No, you’re not “pretty sure”…you’re pretty hopeful.</p>

<p>why don’t you try the NPC for Umich, BU, and a few other non-ivies.</p>

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<p>Agree with some commentary on here and not with others…apply to every school you dreamed of if you think you have the chops (grades, classes, test scores, leadership, etc.) but DEFINITELY apply to some top public universities, both in-state and out of state. It’s helpful if you’re a national merit scholar, but excel in something that the OOS schools compete for: academics, sports, or the arts. I’m not saying an Ivy is out of reach, but the out of pocket is brutal. Look at it this way - I work for a Fortune 500 next to a guy who went to Yale, and I went to my state’s top public university. You can get where you want to go many different ways, it’s not always about the most expensive or prestigious program. </p>

<p>Federal loan package in your name starts at $5500 a year for freshman, and goes up each year - yes you will graduate with $20 - $25K in loans, but it’s not going to take that long to pay back that amount. And start applying for scholarships early, try to complete 1-2 a day every day…check out some quality honors programs that are mentioned on here, a couple of others would be University of Florida & University of South Carolina. Good Luck!</p>

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<p>For someone who needs large merit, applying to “top publics” or even a number of publics isn’t going to work. At UFlorida, the student would likely get very little. If the student has high stats, then South Carolina would likely give large merit, so would Alabama.</p>

<p>Flowergirl…what is your GPA and what are your test scores?</p>