<p>Well, there are certainly a lot of strong emotions on this thread! Look, I get that financial aid is a difficult topic, but many of the comments on this thread are quite unbecoming, in my opinion. As others have said, repeating whatever version of the welfare queen scenario ad nauseum--even if you <em>know</em> it to be true--will not accomplish anything. People always cheat the system, but that doesn't necessarily mean that the system is totally broken. </p>
<p>You know what? Elite college educations have always been expensive, and the financial aid for economically middle and low class people at these schools is better now than it ever was. Way back in the day, my mother, the daughter of a bricklayer, received essentially no financial help to attend Princeton, and graduated with such a large amount of debt that she curled up on the floor and wept when she saw a bill. And yet--that bill went away, eventually, and guess what--the Princeton education never did. Was it easy to pay down such a large bill? Obviously not. As you can well imagine, my parents worked very hard and lived very leanly for at least 10 years after my they graduated, and would have done so longer had she not eventually entered a lucrative career (my father worked too, but architecture takes a comparatively long time to build up to the comfortable income level). </p>
<p>This is not to suggest that everyone should take on whatever huge amount of debt that they are offered--that is a very personal decision, and not one that I would attempt to make for another person. But I think that an education--whether it be "elite" or not--is available to most every middle class student and family who gets in the game early and plans ahead. </p>
<p>Indulge me while I make some assumptions: as far as I know, there is no instate public school education that costs greater than $30,000/yr. I would think that even at the low end of the economic middle class, a minimum of$5000/yr contribution could usually be scraped up, for a $20,000 total. A student who worked 30 hrs/wk for 10 wks of the summer at $6/hr (I hope that's not too high of an estimate--that would be really low for where I live, but I know that in less wealthy areas it could be lower) would earn $1800/summer. Assuming they could work 3 HS summers and 3 college ones, that would be $10,800. If that student also worked 15 hrs/wk for 35 wks during the school year for the same wage, 7 years of working would yield $22,050. With parental contributions and work money, we have $52,850--a significant portion of the most expensive possible in-state tuition bill, although not enough to reasonably cover with loans. </p>
<p>However. If this family, which is so carefully planning ahead, is also able to save a bit of money (say the equivalent of $5000/yr), if the student works more hours and/or gets a better wage (not a guarantee, I understand) (an additional 10 hrs/wk during the summer and 5 hrs/wk during the school year over the stated periods = $10,950), $83,800 can be covered by the family. The rest--for the most expensive in-state public school--could be not unreasonably covered by loans and/or a year or two in community college. Hard? Absolutely, and I don't claim that that is not or should not be seen as such. But I know plenty of kids in my probably slightly wealthier than median income public HS who work this many hours and more than a few who work a whole lot more (essentially full time jobs during the school year, which I do not recommend or advocate), and these figures are for full price for the priciest in-state education. Community college, a cheaper public, or a school that offers substantial merit aid are all ways to cut the bottom line and the loans to reasonable levels. </p>
<p>For sure, choices are more limited when operating on a strict budget, especially if the student is not an academic/athletic standout that can pretty readily acquire merit aid. But a college education? That can be had, even for the poor, squeezed middle class--I see the people in my school do it all the time. Their choices largely are't real fancy, but in my obsevations the students are happy and the objective--an education--is reached. </p>
<p>I know that my methodology is not perfect--I didn't allow for taxes and assumed that all earnings would go to the college fund and not the cell phone bill, and I know that those things make a difference in the real world. But I also assumed a pretty low wage, a pretty low parental contribution and a pricey public education. I still think with loans and/or community college, even an pretty expensive education could be financed this way. </p>
<p>(P.S: I understand that the assumptions I made may not be true for every single case. It was merely an excercise to illustrate how a middle class family of pretty modest means could possibly finesse a relatively expensive college education. Feel free to point out any serious flaws in my assumptions, but understand that I make no attempt to claim that this can work for every.single.family.)</p>