Middle-Class Gets a Raw Deal

Paying for College
1

<p>Is anyone else completely frusterated at how middle-class students are treated when it comes to financial aid?</p>

<p>I wound up applying to to 13 schools out of state, with pretty decent scores and EC's. I am officially limited to 1, maybe 2 out of state schools and 1 in-state school due to financial aid packages that just can't meet my family's needs. </p>

<p>I'm completely crushed. I realize that I still have that one chance, but the whole process just seems unjust. I tore my hair out preparing everything the colleges needed in terms of financial info for 11 or 12 of those schools, for it all to mean nothing!</p>

<p>Sorry. Just my rant of the day.</p>

2

<p>Do you mean that 11 or 12 schools did not come close to meeting your EFC? Or that your family can't afford its EFC?</p>

3

<p>And did you knowingly apply to schools you knew wouldn't meet your EFC?</p>

4

<p>So you can attend 2-3 out of the 13 schools you applied to? What's the problem?</p>

5

<p>almost,</p>

<p>Your feelings are justified! </p>

<p>The cost of attending college is completely out of control. Middle class (and even upper-middle class) applicants are the ones who suffer. So go ahead and rant!!</p>

<p>But congratulations on your hard work and accomplishments. Whether or not you end up attending your first choice, YOU are the type of person who will likely succeed in life regardless of which college you attend. (Small comfort, I know.)</p>

6

<p>ugh I know what you mean...
After taxes, we get about 57k but our EFC is 48k
We only have 50k worth of savings, so to go to the schools I got accepted to, I would be over 100k in debt for just undergrad! =/</p>

7

<p>"cost of attending college is completely out of control. Middle class (and even upper-middle class) applicants are the ones who suffer."</p>

<p>Who really suffers are the low income students. An often repeated fallacy on CC is that somehow it's easy for poor kids to afford college. That's not true at all.</p>

<ol>
<li>Most colleges do not meet 100% of students' financial need.</li>
<li><p>Many colleges that do meet 100% of students' financial need do this through large loans. Loans are hard enough on middle class students, but are even harder on poor students who usually can't rely on their families' help to do things like give them $ to buy their first homes, cars or apartment rental or moving expenses when they finish college and enter the permanent job market. Indeed, often poor students are having to provide some money to help their parents, grandparents or siblings. They also are likely to inherit nothing but debt, no assets from their parents.</p></li>
<li><p>The relatively few colleges that are very generous with poor students are also the most difficult colleges in the country to gain entrance to. Due to the inadequate schools that most poor students attend (because the quality of schools in the U.S. depends on the tax base of the schools' districts), most poor students have no chance at all of getting into places like HPYS. (Of course, the same is true of most middle and upper class students, but bad as the odds are for the well off, the odds are even worse for poor kids because of their weak schooling).</p></li>
</ol>

<p>I live in a state that provides very nice scholarships to in-state public colleges for students who have certain gpas and scores. What I've noticed is that most middle and upper class students get those scholarships, which often amount to full tuition at state public universities. Poor kids aren't likely to get that because due to their schooling, they don't get the SAT or ACT scores that earn them the scholarships. The best predictor of college board scores is the rigor of students' academic programs and schools in poor areas don't have strong AP programs.</p>

<p>Poor kids also don't get take the $800 Kaplan and other review courses that middle and upper class students routinely take where I live. The low income students' GCs also may be so busy with the major problems of students who are failing, have dysfunctional families, etc. that the GCs don't have the time to offer lots of guidance to the relatively few college-bound students in low income schools.</p>

<p>Indeed, I have known low income students who were selling their blood to help pay for their education in an in state public university.</p>

<p>"I am officially limited to 1, maybe 2 out of state schools and 1 in-state school due to financial aid packages that just can't meet my family's needs. "</p>

<p>I don't have a lot of sympathy for the OP. He or she can only go to one school and seems to have several choices that even include at least one out of state school. Many poor kids -- including high achieving ones -- feel lucky to be able to live at home and go to their local community college.</p>

8

<p>Nmom,</p>

<h1>1 and #2 apply equally to the middle class, except that the mid class students may get no aid at all (And that "family help" idea for homes and cars is pure speculation on your part.)</h1>

<p>Re: #3, even if the mid-class has slightly better odds of getting in, their odds of actually going is 0 if they get no aid!</p>

<p>Re: scholarships, it all depends on which state you live in. Our state schools (CA) are extremely generous to low-income students. And the top 12% of every high school is guaranteed admission to a UC.</p>

<p>I'm not saying the "poor" have it easy. But with the way the "system" is currently set up, a high-achieving "poor" kid may likely have more choices than the high-achieving mid-class kid.</p>

9

<p>zanna, are you sure you're figuring that right? That EFC sounds very high for that income and savings level.</p>

10

<p>I'm with northstarmom on this one. I guess I think it's sad to see kids who say things like this, but I sort of blame their parents, and the culture at large. It seems like the middle class cultural standard has changed over the past 50 years, to involve more credit card debt, less savings, more living at the edge of one's income. Unfortunately, with the increase in the cost of colleges, this means that when the time arrives to pay for it, parents don't have the savings or financial plan in place to do so, or they haven't managed expectations for their kids about what they can afford. </p>

<p>I wonder sometimes if the first time some of the students who are disappointed are hearing about the financial limits of their family is during the college app process. For example, my ex-husband grew up with parents who were middle class and gave him the usual trappings of that -- a car when he turned 16, family vacations, clothes, etc. When it was time for college, they had "planned" with some Gerber insurance/college plan, which gave him the money to go to the nearby state university. It was about that time that he found out that they had 3 mortgages on their home, and basically had been in debt for much of his childhood, paying for the trappings of their life. </p>

<p>Over and over it seems that pretty much what kids are saying is, "My parents have made financial choices that don't allow me to get financial aid for the schools they thought I would grow up and attend, and that's not fair." It may not be fair, but I think the "unfair" lies not with the financial aid process, but with having to live with the consequences of one's parent's financial decisions.</p>

11

<p>Sure, a high achieving poor kid is likely to have more choices than the high-achieving middle class kid, IF the high achieving poor kid has a good enough guidance department and school that he gets the guidance and scores to attend a top college. That "IF" is capitalized for a reason: The odds are long that the high achieving poor kid won't have the kind of school and guidance advantages that most middle class and affluent kids have.</p>

<p>I have seen high achieving poor kids get advice from GCs that include telling them that SAT/ACT scores are a matter of luck, so don't bother to prep for them; and don't bother retaking an ACT score of 14 because it was 2 points higher than the city's (Detroit's) average.</p>

<p>If CA is indeed financially generous to low income students, that's very different than what's the case in virtually all other states. I'd be interested in hearing about the aid packages that very low income in state students get from California schools. What percentage of financial need is met and how much of the packages are loans.</p>

<p>"And that "family help" idea for homes and cars is pure speculation on your part.) "</p>

<p>Virtually every high school senior whom my sons went to school with had a car that the kjids' parents paid for or helped pay for. My middle class kids were rare exceptions in not having cars.</p>

<p>Most middle class and upper class people I know got gift help from their parents in buying homes. They also got help with things like getting furniture, which sometimes were castoffs from their parents, but at least the young adults didn't need to start from scratch. And probably most middle class people will get some inheritance from their parents (particularly from their parents' homes). The parents also may offer some financial help with grandkids' educations.</p>

<p>Poor people tend not to own their own homes, and are likely to need support from their adult offspring instead of being able to financially assist adult offspring, including young adults who are in college.</p>

12

<p>In checking the US News Premium College website, here's what I see for California publics that I picked at random. I don't see any indication that low income students are getting some kind of great deal.</p>

<p>Cal State Long Beach
Only 45% of undergraduates financial need was fully met excluding Plus loans or other private loans.
The average need based loan for freshmen was about $2,200; for all undergraduates was about $3,300
The precentage of need met was 78% for freshmen, 82% for all undergrads.
Only 2% of freshmen are from out of state.</p>

<p>At Cal State Fresno
31% of first year students' need was fully met as was 39% of all undegrads</p>

<p>Average need-based loan excluding Plus and other private loans, $2,300 for freshmen; $3,200 for all undergrads</p>

<p>Average need met was 74% for first year students, 75% for all undegrads
Only 1% of freshmen are from out of state.</p>

<p>UCLA
Need fully met: 36% freshmen; 40% all undergrads
Average need-based loan (excluding Plus & private loans) $4,400 freshmen, $4,900 all undergrads. For instate, $4,269 for freshmen; $4,600 for all undergrads.</p>

<p>% need met: 83% freshmen and all undergrads</p>

<p>Incidentally, only 4% of freshmen are from out of state.</p>

<p>P.S. I am middle class. My S will have to take out major loans to attend his dream school, a private. Still, I feel lucky: Our family has a choice as S could have gone to an in-state public for free. I also know that my family can afford to help my S pay back his loans, and my husband and I have retirement savings, so my S probaby won't have to be responsible for us in our old age.</p>

13

<p>while i do agree that that lower income kids are less likely to receive finacial support from parents, i still feel that the financial aid system is somewhat unfair because personally, my parents were born in a low income family where their parents' income fell way below the poverty level</p>

<p>however, my parents have both worked extremely hard throughout the years by saving money and sacrificing any dreams of having a vacation and because of their frugality, we are considered by the financial aid office as "middle class"....it's unfair because our lifestyle is extremely limited (we rarely eat out, buy new clothes, gadgets, have a 18 year old car etc) yet we're still being punished for trying to save money? come on, there are families out there and in my school who make twice of what my parents make and still received more financial aid because they choose to live an extravagant lifestyle instead of saving money for college and some of my peers' parents are sneaky enough to set up bank accounts in their native countries where some of their relatives still live there</p>

<p>"Poor kids also don't get take the $800 Kaplan and other review courses that middle and upper class students routinely take where I live. The low income students' GCs also may be so busy with the major problems of students who are failing, have dysfunctional families, etc. that the GCs don't have the time to offer lots of guidance to the relatively few college-bound students in low income schools."</p>

<p>some pple who are considered middle class can't afford such classes mentioned above, what i do is just check out sat prep books from the library for FREE, i think that there's too much generalizations about middle class families having the ability to fully pay for college</p>

14

<p>I don't think that anyone here said that middle class people have the $ to fully pay for the college of their choice. However, middle class people are ahead of virtually all poor people in terms of being able to pay for college because middle class people tend to have more assets and financial stability consequently can afford to pay more for college and to also borrow more than poor people can. Middle class people also typically can find an in state public university to be affordable even if that means their student must live at home. That's not the case for many poor families. </p>

<p>When it comes to things like Kaplan classes, certainly all middle class people can't afford them, but from what I've seen, they're more likely to be in schools that offer SAT prep at a reduced fee or as part of classwork. Middle class people also are more likely to have their own cars and to have the transportation, time and money to get to libraries or to buy review books.</p>

<p>Families who carry large credit card debt due to an extravagent lifestyle don't get more financial aid than do families without such debt. It's possible that some of the honest families that have higher wages yet got more financial aid than your family did obtained that aid because of difficulties (such as medical related expenses) that their kids don't know about or didn't reveal to you. Most kids don't know lots of details about their parents' finances.</p>

15

<p>I agree with you Haberdashery. My husband and I work extremely hard for everything that we have and since our kids were in pre-school we have saved money for them to go to college some day. We are a middle class family and neither my husband or I have been to college. I have talked to many of my son's classmates about college, efc, and scholarships and it is sometimes upsetting to me that our efc is higher because we have saved money by sacrificing, we both took second jobs last year to try to save more for college and also my son has worked as well...so I feel we are punished for working hard and sacrificing. (sad thing is that we have nowhere near the money that we actually need after all this saving) </p>

<p>My kids attend a tiny little school in the midwest but are trying to get the most from it. My oldest has a 4.0 unweighted gpa and 31 ACT (he has never prepped for it and there is NO WAY we could spend $800 for such a thing). Many of his classmates are getting financial aid in the form of grants and need-based scholarships too. Those same classmates drive much newer cars, as do their parents, and spend their money going out and buying clothes and such. Some of the kids have even chosen not to work this last summer so that they can enjoy. So they have lower incomes and no savings and they get government money. I do not think it is right at all. I realize that these students are probably not considered poor in the sense that some are speaking of...but apparently they are "poor" in the governments eyes. I think the system encourages people to remain poor so that they can get more assistance. </p>

<p>All I ever think about this past year is how I can send my boys to college without going into debt. How long will that old minivan last? Can my husband and I continue to work two jobs? Will my son be able to keep his grades up so that he can keep the university merit aid scholarships? Where is my second child going to choose to go to college? But if we would have not taken second jobs, not saved for college all these years or maybe taken a year off work....we would indeed get some grant money. SAD!</p>

16

<p>
[quote]
If CA is indeed financially generous to low income students, that's very different than what's the case in virtually all other states. I'd be interested in hearing about the aid packages that very low income in state students get from California schools. What percentage of financial need is met and how much of the packages are loans.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Nmom-</p>

<p>From UC systemwide website:</p>

<p>
[quote]
UC has financing options available to students at all income levels. Nearly two-thirds of UC undergraduates receive some form of financial aid, and UC enrolls more lower income students that any comparable university in the nation.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>Also, per same site, more than 30% of admits are "low income," and the low income fin aid package includes $4,500 in loans.</p>

17

<p>Nmom,</p>

<p>I'm not a fan of anecdotal evidence, but in contrast to your beliefs about middle class families, in my case my parents provided no funds for my car, house or furniture. My father was quite frugal, but he had to sell our house and move across the country to take a higher paying job in order to help pay for his 3 kids' college educations. No financial aid was available, and I worked 4 jobs in college and took out a student loan which I paid back on my own.</p>

<p>Meanwhile, several students on my dorm hall recieved grant aid covering 100% of need. And while their families had cash-flow issues ( ex., one from a family of 11 children, one had father who left the country), they certainly did not have any more educational impairments or disadvantages than I did coming into freshman year.</p>

<p>Honestly, I'm not sure what my point is anymore, other than my original complaint that college costs are outrageous for most everyone. There must be a better way for deserving middle class students to have access to more choices.</p>

18

<p>Bay,
I come from a middle class family, got need-based scholarships in college, took out loans, worked up to 30 hours a week during the school year and up to 60 hours a week during the summer. My family didn't give me money for a house, car, furniture, etc.</p>

<p>Still, most of my middle class peers got help buying cars, houses, furniture, etc. from their families, who also in some cases repaid any college loans my friends had.</p>

<p>Compared to most of my low income friends, however, I had a lot of educational advantages in that the public school system that I attended was excellent. The only low income people I know who had a better secondary school experience were those very few fortunate enough to go to the country's top prep schools through the ABC program. </p>

<p>Anyway, I agree with you that college costs are outrageous for virtually everyone except the truly rich. Yet, when I compare the access to higher ed that people of all economic classes have in the U.S., most still have far better options than they would have in virtualy any other country in the world.</p>

19

<p>Okay, I'll pipe in (against my better judgment) as one of these "poor" we are discussing. I've seen both sides of this fence. Whether you like it or not, Northstarmom is 100% correct, and the financial aid office quite frankly is not really more generous with us than with anyone else and that's if we can get there. I grew up in a rather sad school district and left in highschool to homeschool myself. I worked hard and had no resources but my own determination and the library. I eventually went to CC, where the aid office considered us "middle class" but I could get nothing from my mother so I paid for a few courses at a time on my own and got a high GPA. I couldn't even get accepted as a transfer with a 4.0 because I wasn't taking enough courses (this is what the admissions office told me of my rejection). So I gave up.</p>

<p>Now fast forward 15 years. I'm raising 3 kids on approx $10,000 a year without getting any government help. It's not easy, but we get by. I'm now "poor" by the standards of the aid offices. I have an EFC of 0. I was able to get enough aid now to go full time to CC and get accepted as a transfer. Now having 2 of the expected 3 aid packages gives me a bit of insight about this. With a $0 EFC, I will be over $40,000 in debt, at a state school, and that's if I accept the fact that there is a gap each year of about $5,000 (otherwise known as the money that should be providing room and board). So I don't see how anyone can say that better options are available to us. $40,000 in debt just for tuition and books, and the aid office isn't going to give me money to live (and don't even consider the cost of the dependents into the numbers). It was slightly better at the other school, and I'm still waiting on the third. But the middle class is not alone when it comes to large debt and gap.</p>

<p>That's not to say it's easier for the middle class or the rich, rather that no one should assume that the poor have it easier than the middle class. It's pretty even across the board as far as stinking offers, and quite frankly I had less resources to get to this point to begin with (and I'm not talking Kaplan test etc, I'm even talking about things like the fact that maybe 3 people I knew ever went to college and sure not my parents so I didn't even have anyone to ask about all this stuff when applying....I counted on the advice of C.C.).</p>

20

<p>Being one who grew up in the projects you get little sympathy from me. Okay, some..but still.</p>