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<p>Well, you may not think it’s disgusting that someone with top-notch grades and whose family <em>only</em>makes $120,000 a year, can only afford to attend their in-state flagship university, but, I do.</p>
<p>I’ve played with the Dartmouth calculator before and that EFC sounds high to me. Do you have significant assets figuring into the mix? While Dartmouth might not quite match the 10% of HYP, I think assets might be what is pushing things to the 20+% range here. I’m not sure if they consider home equity for example.</p>
<p>Your son should look into schools like USC, Washington University in St. Louis, University of Chicago, UVA, Rice, Case Western Reserve U., Tulane, Duke, UNC, Michigan, Washington and Lee, Stanford and Emory. All of these schools give phenomenal merit aid (although they are skimpy with the need-based aid) and your son’s 35 would be greatly rewarded.</p>
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<p>Only??? Even you say it’s upper middle class. Folks with this income often find themselves with family contributions that they find unbelievably high. The reality is they have choices…they can pay the full freight at the instate U…OR the family can assist them by with loans, savings or money from current income if they want to attend a more expensive school.</p>
<p>We live in a pricey part of the country…we had NO college savings accounts for our kids. Our income was in this range. We just finished sending two kids two different expensive private schools (where they got some merit aid but we paid most of the costs). Providing a college education to our kids was a high priority and we were very willing to cut back on ALL discretionary spending. ALL discretionary spending. If we didn’t NEED it we didn’t get it. We’re not the only family who has done this.</p>
<p>NOW…having said that…paying for college is a FAMILY decision. Some parents will pay high costs and others won’t and that is fine. There is NOTHING that says everyone has to do what we did. In fact, if our state had more and better public options…our kids would have at least applied there. </p>
<p>The important thing for the OP and family (and every other family in my opinion) is to determine what THEY are willing to pay. Your doesn’t really matter as much as you think. If your family is NOT able or willing to pay your family contribution then you need to look for options they WILL pay for…or where the college will make it financially possible for you to attend with merit aid. If your family can pay MORE than your EFC…that is fine too. Again…use this information to craft your college list.</p>
<p>In any event…everyone has options. There was one family on this forum a while back with several kids. They looked at college costs looming in the future and then looked at where they lived (didn’t like the instate costs)…looked at other states where the options were better…and they MOVED to North Carolina.</p>
<p>Well, maybe we need to redefine what’s upper middle-class in this country. It seems to me that one income earner bringing in $120K a year while the other stays at home is a little different than two parents each bringing in $60,000 and neither of them really spending a lot of time cooking in an apron and with a string of pearls around their neck.</p>
<p>John…I don’t wish to hijack this thread…but $120,000 in family income is $120,000 in income whether two earn it or one.</p>
<p>I will venture that a LOT of us on this forum and a LOT of parents in general are from families where BOTH parents are working.</p>
<p>John, I think it is absolutely correct that OOS students pay full freight. Why should my state taxes pay for an OOS student to be subsidized? If a family wants to go to an OOS school then that is their choice. No one is entitled to go to a particular school.</p>
<p>College is supposed to be paid from savings, current earnings, merit, and loans. If a family has not saved and or the student is not strong enough to get merit then that is a family issue. What I have a real problem with is the attitude “well we did not save so I should get aid”. As someone who did save why should I subsidize that family?</p>
<p>I’d love a BWM 5 series. I can’t afford it. I drive a Hyundai. I’m not entitled to a BMW.</p>
<p>Most of the state schools that give money to OOS students have nice endowments. So even though a student gets a scholarship, it is not necessarily on the backs of the taxpayers of that state. I kind of figure that if my kid gets some money from an OOS school, some other kid is probably getting money from my state’s state schools, so it all kind of works out.</p>
<p>To me, what has happened in this country is people think that if their children get into “The Best School,” they should do anything to make going there a reality. In fact, people need to look at college as a business decision. After all, these colleges are businesses, and with the cost of education, college choice is one of the biggest financial decisions many families will face.</p>
<p>MD Mom:</p>
<p>I know in my State Flagship does not meet full need for in-state students. So any money given to OOS students does take away from in-state. Other states may be different. </p>
<p>I totally agree with you in college being a business decision. The reality is the where you get your undergrad degree from in most cases makes no difference. You get your first job and them your success is based on how you perform. I’ve interviewed 100’s of applicants and as long as they have the required degree we move on to experience and fit. I’ve never had any potential employer ask about my undergrad degree. </p>
<p>Obviously there are exceptions (Wall St hiring for one) and you need to go to an accredited school. And grad school does matter IMO. But students should go to the least expensive school that gives them a good education in their intended major. </p>
<p>Too many students and families get hung up on “prestige” so they can brag. Or they feel entitled to go to any school because they worked hard. Life does not work that way.</p>
<p>Two things to consider"</p>
<p>1) quit one job and essentially earn a full ride at Dartmouth.</p>
<p>2) The EFC gets divided with multiple kids in colleges. Thus, the $28k is divided by 2 when two kids are in college, so Dartmouth would expect you to pay $14k and they would provide the rest. The second student’s other college could be similar (or worse, since D does offer better finaid than most colleges).</p>
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This is only partially true. Chicago, Duke and WUSTL have very limited merit aid, and as far as I can tell there are no freshman merit scholarships at all at Stanford. Tulane I know is correct, possibly the most generous merit scholarship school in the top 50, but they are also good with need based aid, so that part of the statement is incorrect. You would have to check the others yourself, because based on those statements by rotflmeopencer, I don’t think they know what they are talking about.</p>
<p>Many of the above schools have good need based aid too. Stanford the top in the Country.</p>
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John, you are kidding, right? People in that state have been paying state taxes, for years in most cases, part of which goes towards the school. How much as someone from Montana been paying to support UT or Michigan? If they choose not to go to Montana, that’s great, but they certainly don’t deserve a break on tuition at those schools. To them, it is no different than going to a private.</p>
<p>John:</p>
<p>Perhaps you should redirect your disgust: why is it that only ~xx states have top-ranked publics? What is your state of residence? Have you lobbied your state legislature to better support your state Uni (to raise its rankings)?</p>
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<p>As others have pointed out, almost all state schools (including many state flagships) do NOT promise to meet full need; many cannot and do not even promise to meet full need for in-state students. The problem is mostly due to the fact that most state schools do NOT have “nice endowments” and for any state school with a run-of-the-mill endowment, grant/merit money spent on OOS kids does directly take from the pool of money for grant/merit money for the in-state kids.</p>
<p>Technically, any money spent on OOS kids takes money from the taxpayers of that state. I am not saying schools are wrong to do so, but as a simple factual matter it is true. Money is money. If the school could get by with less, then in theory taxes could be lowered or the money redirected from the state budget to provide other services to the people of that state. Just because it comes from an endowment doesn’t mean that giving an OOS kid a scholarship isn’t taking money from the people of that state and providing a benefit to a person from another state. Money is, as they say, fungible.</p>
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<p>It’s well known on CC that this kind of student should go hunting for merit aid at private schools, or at OOS public flagships that are looking for top-notch academic talent. There are lots of academically talented students who choose Alabama or Pitt because of generous merit aid. I bet some of them come from families earning six figures.</p>
<p>Back to the OP:</p>
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<p>Yep, it’s crazy. 
The reason it’s crazy is because you would be gambling that your kid would 1) be admitted, and 2) be given only grants, not loans. If your kid isn’t admitted to a tippy-top need-based-aid-only school, then you’ve lost a year’s worth of income for nothing. If your kid IS admitted, but receives a FA package that includes lots of loans, you’re still stuck. Even more crazy, you’re giving up seniority. In this economy, giving up a job in hand is especially crazy. For the same reasons, it’s worthwhile to take the promotion. </p>
<p>The craziness might be worth it for Harvard, Yale or Princeton if the family were earning just over the $180k/$200k income caps for those schools’ generous need-based aid. If your family income was $185k and your kid had a shot at Harvard, would it be worth it to take some unpaid time off and bring household income down under $180k, so that COA for Harvard would be $18k instead of $55k? That might be a gamble worth taking (though I’d talk to a Harvard FA officer first). Since your household income isn’t near the limit for Harvard, you can have your son apply there and keep both parental jobs.</p>
<p>“There are lots of academically talented students who choose Alabama or Pitt because of generous merit aid. I bet some of them come from families earning six figures.”</p>
<p>I can tell you that this is a fact.</p>
<p>^^ Absolutely. Tulane and Miami too. It is merit aid, not need aid. Merit aid by definition is supposed to be need blind. If it isn’t, it shouldn’t really be called merit aid. Aid probably isn’t even the right word, although it is technically accurate. The connotation is that the recipient needs it, and often that is not true. It is a merit scholarship, regardless of need. A merit reward, if you will. Some people would say merit-based bribe, merit-based incentive, whatever. Not inaccurate either, since the point of many of those schools offering generous merit scholarships to top students is exactly to get them to pick their school over Ivies and other higher ranked schools that don’t offer any or many merit based scholarships, especially to students whose families are in that income bracket where the reduction in cost is very attractive. While they may not know that on an individual basis when they offer it, they do know that some percentage will fall into that category.</p>
<p>I have posted this before, but I clearly remember the day that DD got her scholarship offer from Pitt. She held the letter in the air and said: “If Chicago doesn’t give me any money, I’m going to Pitt.” She had not even set foot on Pitt’s campus. The idea of graduating with no loans and no obligation to anyone (as in government programs where you take scholarship money and owe them time upon graduation) trumped the prestige factor.</p>