<p>Wow, tk, I had thought you had a misprint there, until I checked the table. So that means that my AGI could be $120K & my kid would still get a GRANT of $34K. Still paying $23K if the COA is $57K, but that’s not all bad.</p>
<p>They must have one heck of an endowment. I gotta think a place like this is more the exception than the rule.</p>
<p>Oh but it IS about assets for most privates! To dismiss assets is a critical error and one that happens often, especially with regard to questions about colleges that state “income levels” in their marketing materials or claim to “meet need.” Since we’re all tossing out WAG (wild ass guesses) I would say $15-$25,000 if one finds a school where one will qualify for merit aid and utilizes the Staffords, etc. But I think it’s a safe assumption to say that the vast majority of middle income families aren’t going to get private college costs down to $10,000 a year unless the student is highly desireable to that particular college…top 10% of entering class etc. etc. This is just my opinion and YMMV.</p>
<p>Our family income hovers around $40,000. Financial aid packages so far for my highly accomplished daughter have ranged from us paying $5,000 to us paying $15,000.</p>
<p>jnm - The Trinity chart is misleading. There are probably many families included in the figures who are putting two children through college at once–which would reduce EFC at Trinity, since they’re spending just as much at a different school.</p>
<p>paying $20k for a $50k school is a pretty good deal. In California, a UC might cost $26k/year at instate rates (depending on fafsa), so the private maybe “cheaper”.</p>
<p>Paying $20,000 for a $50,000 a year school is a good deal. Defining “middle class” as the OP used is the unknown…most families in the $80,000 range define themselves as middle class and $20,000 is probably the “bottom” of what would be expected to be paid and closer to a federal EFC than an institutional family contribution.</p>
<p>Well…it’s a good deal if the school is worth it in the first place. I suppose some of the Top 50 are for their contacts after graduation, and others–because of their status as privates–jack up the COA beyond all reason so they can ‘re-distribute’ the wealth under the guise of merit & need-based grants. But if you’re still paying $25K out the door at the end of the day, maybe that’s all it’s worth. All things being equal, a private school ranked #136 with a COA at $50K+ is just plain ludicrous.</p>
<p>Some great advice here, and what has been said about ‘what is middle class’ can vary greatly.</p>
<p>We are in that 60-70K income range, and not a lot of assets other that retirement accounts and house equity, which are not counted on the FAFSA. Daughter was a 3.9 student in the top 10% of class with a 28 ACT. A couple of the LAC’s she applied to did need the CSS or their own proprietary forms. I think our EFC her first year was around 6K, and about 3K this year as we have 2 in school now.</p>
<p>She applied to about 10 LAC in the upper midwest, some of which she was at the upper 10th percentile (Coe College - GREAT Writing Program), and some as low as the 90th percentile (Carlton College), and 2 state schools, our #1 and #2 as a backup in the event she did not get into #1 and decide to go the state route. </p>
<p>She ended up choosing our #1 state school, UW Madison, and academically sits around the 60%ile, and income wise we are in the lower 20%ile. They gave NO merit aid coming in, but we did qualify for several state grants based on income that came up to about 3K, and she ended up getting a merit grant of around 2K for earning a 3.3 GPA. Which means a total out of pocket cost of 13K (18K-5K of grants) We paid this from her wages (4K) and our help from cash flow (4K) and Stafford Loans. She could have saved about 3K by going to our # 2 State School if she had chosen to.</p>
<p>The LAC’s she applied to varied a GREAT deal. I think the best offer would have left her with a TOTAL out of pocket cost of about 7-9K for the two best offers, where she was in the top 10-20% and very strong GPA compared to other applicants. Some were as expensive as 35K out of pocket (45K sticker - 10K merit and need based combined). Her second choice if she had not picked the state school (St. Olaf) was about 20K out of pocket (40K sticker price - 20K for merit and need based grants). I think they are a pretty good example of what might be expected as far a ‘middle class’ at a typical upper mid level LAC. They also offered to finance the balance of the 20K after deducting for the Stafford and Pell that we were eligible for.</p>
<p>If yo do some looking, there are all kinds of rankings that show GPA, ACT, and average aid packages. That is partially how she chose or eliminated some of the LAC she applied to.</p>
<p>Good Luck on your search. It is definitely more work to find a LAC that is ‘inexpensive’ compared to most state schools, but it can usually be done for an ‘upper level’ student…say in the top 25% of your graduating HS class.</p>
<p>DjD</p>
<p>*For family income of $60K-$89,999, the mean need-based aid for those who get it is almost $42,000. Total cost is about $57,000/year. So the out-of-pocket must be about $15K. *</p>
<p>jnm quote:
*Wow, tk, I had thought you had a misprint there, until I checked the table. So that means that my AGI could be $120K & my kid would still get a GRANT of $34K. Still paying $23K if the COA is $57K, but that’s not all bad.
*</p>
<p>No…need-based aid is NOT all grants. Need-based aid can be student loans, work-study, and grants. So, the aid package may be around $30k, but there will be a student loan of $5k-7k and work-study of $2-3k as well. So, about $8-10k will not be “free money.” </p>
<p>That’s still good, but it does mean that the student can’t take out a student loan to help reduce EFC nor can they work a part time job to help further contribute (because work-study is already part of the pkg). </p>
<p>and…again, those numbers might be misleading because a good number of students have at least one sibling in college, so their EFCs will be lower.</p>
<p>Read that Trinity chart, mom2. For year 2011, it said mean Trinity GRANT at $33809. That ain’t loans. Now, it is entirely possible that, like you say, that these figures are skewed because of at least one sibling in college. Either way, it sounds like some significant coinage or Trinity’s figures are inaccurate and/or misleading.</p>
<p>And djd, nice to hear from you again. Our kids are Badgers together!</p>
<p>At Trinity College for 2011, the mean need-based aid was $38,262. The mean need-based Trinity grant was $33,809; the mean subsidized loan was $4,317. The Trinity site has a financial aid calculator to help you predict the package given your own circumstances. </p>
<p>I don’t know how typical it is for families to have 2 or more students in college concurrently. Does anyone know a good source of data? My own trial run of the aid calculator, together with the cited table data, suggests to me that a family could qualify for the above mean aid package at AGI = $75K, with a net worth of $100K (parents’ savings), parents at age 50, and no other children in college. The package would include work-study of about $1,900. Your mileage may vary. I may be missing something significant.</p>
<p>Trinity’s 4-year graduation rate is 76.5%; average debt at graduation is $20,174.
At UConn-Storrs, the 4-year graduation rate is 61%; average debt at graduation is $21,257. These debt averages are only for students who took out education loans, not for all students. (Source: Kiplinger)</p>
<p>The Trinity College endowment is not especially high compared to other private LACs:</p>
<p>Pomona: … $2.1B for 1,548 students
(average 4-year graduation rate=90.4%; debt at graduation=$11,700)</p>
<p>Amherst: … $1.386B for 1,744 students
Grinnell … $1.26B for 1,688 students
Oberlin: … $633M for 2,970 students
Mt. Holyoke: … $488.0M for 2,200 students
Trinity: … $360.7M for 2,341 students </p>
<p>Sources: Wikipedia</p>
<p>most families in the $80,000 range define themselves as middle class</p>
<hr>
<p>So, too, do families who earn $250,000 … on CC, anyway! :)</p>
<p>Just for the heck of it, I checked the US News Ranking (FWIW!), saw that Trinity is ranked #36 among liberal arts colleges, which I guess is pretty good. Also saw that a 4.0 and a 28 ACT got one prospective the Dean’s Scholarship–which I imagine would be part of that generous grant $$ they offer. Other reviews have the same pros/cons as other small colleges–great professors, limited social life if you’re not Greek, some student alcohol abuse. In short, Trinity sounds like a LOT of other small schools! It’s probably a good value for a student with decent but not stellar stats that can’t get into the top Eastern LAC’s.</p>
<p>Trinity is a popular school choice among my boys’ school. They get a lot of apps from the private prep school crowd.</p>
<p>Income, wealth, class and lifestyle are all very different things. In particular, income does not define class.</p>
<p>Our income last year was just below $90K for a family of 6 with limited assets. Our son has applied and been accepted to 4 private colleges and our out-of-pocket per year has been averaging around $9000-$10,000. Student loans seem to all look about the same: $3500 Subsidized and $2000 Unsubsidized. This is no different than what we pay for our daughter to attend a state school. I should also add that our son is an average student (3.5 GPA). Our daughter was more of a competitive student in high school, but average compared to the other students at the college she attends. In other words, neither one of them were highly competitve students at the colleges they applied to.</p>
<p>Terig, many fols that I know with incomes in the low $100K range ended up with results similar to yours. Their kids’ final costs ended up being very close when it came to the more selective colleges and in state schools. Where they could cut costs was to commute or go to a school where they were truly the cream of the crop and get generous awards.</p>
<p>We have cousins right now going through this and they are all finding that their state flagship is probably the best all around deal for their kids given name recognition, rankings and cost.</p>
<p>*Read that Trinity chart, mom2. For year 2011, it said mean Trinity GRANT at $33809. That ain’t loans. Now, it is entirely possible that, like you say, that these figures are skewed because of at least one sibling in college. Either way, it sounds like some significant coinage or Trinity’s figures are inaccurate and/or misleading.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>I see that number. That isn’t what I was responding to because that is an overall mean number. I was responding to:</p>
<p>* So that means that my AGI could be $120K & my kid would still get a GRANT of $34K. Still paying $23K if the COA is $57K, but that’s not all bad.</p>
<p>*</p>
<p>From that chart, I’m only seeing that such an income would get $30,405 in aid…I don’t see where it says that all of that is grants…but maybe I’m overlooking something.</p>
<p>Hah–no, I was looking at $119,999 vs. $120,000 and seeing the mean need-based aid at $34984 vs. $30405. Guess I forgot how ‘mean’ works’—sorry…:)</p>
<p>What IS interesting to me in the last few posts is that I guess it IS possible with good but not great grades to have a net COA of 10K per year. That’s pretty good. Unless I missed something or was barking up the wrong tree, those kinds of deals weren’t available 7-8 years ago when D1 started looking. </p>
<p>Terig, are those all private colleges you mention on the East Coast? Our financials & our kids’ stats match up fairly well with yours, and unless I was willing to drop to Tier 2 or 3 LACs, our net numbers came nowhere near that figure–I think the lowest out-the-door cost was about 18K.</p>
<p>^ If your family income is ~$120K and you don’t have a large family, then I’m not surprised $18K was the lowest after-aid COA you came up with for moderately selective private schools.</p>
<p>Check out the Kiplinger guide to best values in private colleges. You can calculate these costs from the numbers on their site.</p>