<p>I don't think our tax structure is progressive. The wealthy definitely benefit more---way more.</p>
<p>Pssst...Mini....the millionaires' kids aren't at State U (most of them, anyway).</p>
<p>You don't know my state. (Ever hear the term "Microsoft Millionaire"? Where do you think they overwhelmingly send their kids?)</p>
<p>Allmusic, the data suggests otherwise. I think Georgia has discovered, to its dismay, that a program designed to boost the number of first generation college students in the state by giving merit aid has had the unfortunate consequence of RAISING, not lowering, the average family income of its students. There is an abudance of high end BMW's and Mercedes on campus; kids who could afford to go elsewhere are sticking around, taking the subsidy, and the only one's hurt by it are the poor students who still can't afford college, and of course, the taxpayers of the state of Georgia.</p>
<p>This income redistribution is a tricky business.</p>
<p>There are plenty of rich folks at state u's in Texas, but there are even more at SMU. ;) And for a real treat drive around the parking lots at Ole Miss and Alabama. I almost got towed/redtagged . My 100,000 mile but still nice truck looked so out of place amongst the economy cars of choice - the BMW 3 Series and MB SLK's.</p>
<p>"It is about time that those poor slobs with kids who have to go directly to work and can't afford the community college are allowed to stop subsidizing the millionaires' kids at the state u."</p>
<p>mini,</p>
<p>Don't know about where you live, but I can't believe there are many of those "poor slobs" in our area to do all that subsidizing. Our community college has no application fee, is $20 per unit, and offers financial aid and an installment payment plan.</p>
<p>I wonder who is subsidizing these students?</p>
<p>We have MANY 18-20 year olds who are working two-jobs close to full-time to help support their families, or are married with kids, and the husband is in Iraq. My wife use to work with a bunch of them at the local nursing home. IF they manage to pull-off PART-TIME at the community college (taking 3-4 years), they are now being denied admission to the state university so the U can take full-pay OOS students. (This assumes they can afford the state u. - many can't.) In the meantime, because there is no income tax in our state, they support the millionaires' kids at the U through a regressive sales tax.</p>
<p>Ah. Well. I would guess perhaps fewer millionaires are sending their kids to the Zoo, but who knows.</p>
<p>mini,</p>
<p>Well I guess that goes to show that you can't make so many generalizations if you want to be accurate.</p>
<p>Our local community college has the highest transfer admittance rate to the state university system over all other transfers.</p>
<p>We also have a very healthy state income tax to subsidize those community college students.</p>
<p>It's fascinating how "liberal" some people are until it comes to their own wallets--then suddenly those poor folks are gettin' all the goodies. Soooo unfair.</p>
<p>This thread has been an eye-opening experience for me; I just didn't get it before.</p>
<p>I don't mind an state income tax- at least I could deduct that from what I owe federal-
what I hate is we vote for new taxes- fine- everyone calculates what percentage increase that means
Then the assessor gets a new software program and decides to increase the value of everyones home- without having stepped foot in the neighborhood for decades
However- those 20 single family homes that were just razed in a 3 block area, now hold condos- so the appreciation per city lot- is just getting translated to those who haven't put a condo where their house is yet. ( OMG I am sick of condos)</p>
<p>In looking through papers- our house was assessed at 1/4 of what it is now just 10 years ago- we haven't done anything to it.
Not even paint or get a new roof :o</p>
<p>I know plenty of wealthy families who are sending their kids to our state Us either b/c their kids are not students, or b/c the school works for them and they can pay 10-15,000 less/year than at a private after merit awards are subtracted from the sticker price.</p>
<p>Ekity,</p>
<p>Have you checked out zillow.com ? I refinanced my house and had to pay a professional appraiser to give me the same figure I found on this site. The good new is, my property tax assessor's computer uses a program that gives a result less than this. (Sorry off topic)</p>
<p>
No, it is largely OBJECTIVE, with a set of standards developed from objective numerical guidelines which are applied uniformly across the board, in a set formula -- and it happens to be tiered to a lower-middle class living standard than to a higher one. </p>
<p>It is ridiculous for people to argue that $65K is not enough to live on when Garland & I obviously live on less --- I'm not dead, my bills are paid, I've got a car in good working order and a house with a roof over my head. </p>
<p>The "self-sufficiency" numbers are not a concept I made up -- it is an objective standard, arrived at by agencies which specialize in such things, which is used to arrive at higher numbers than the federal poverty index, and is supposed to essentially give the figures necessary for meeting basic needs in a given area. (food, clothing, shelter, taxes, necessary insurance, day-to-day living expenses -- NOT meals out, movies, retirement savings, or college, which are all something beyond basic needs). The federal poverty index numbers are the even lower numbers that are used to determine things like eligibility for food stamps or free lunches at school. </p>
<p>Those who rail against the college financial aid system do not seem to understand it. For example, as Oldinjersey noted, it DOES have a subjective component that allows financial aid officers to take into account special circumstances, such as excess medical bills or the need to support an infirm family member. It is that subjective element that allowed my daughter to qualify for a Pell grant this year -- the financial aid people at her school used info about our expenses from my schedule C to offset the income, and revised the FAFSA that I had previously submitted. </p>
<p>All the federal aid put together won't make a dent in the tuition at Harvard. If Harvard announces that henceforth every family with less than a $60K income can attend for free -- or if they extended the same largess to families with a $120K income -- it would have nothing to do with the federal aid system. It is just the way a private college determines pricing in order to enable desired students to attend. And even though I make much less than $60K, my daughter doesn't get to attend school for free, because that's a Harvard program and she doesn't attend Harvard. </p>
<p>I had a FAFSA EFC last year of $5600, which Barnard recalculated to around $2800 -- and Barnard expects us to actually contribute around $13K to her education; Chicago would have wanted us to contribute around $25K. The UC's --which do rely solely on FAFSA -- wanted around $7K. Those numbers are based on 2 in college, and my son turns 24 this year, so he drops off the calculation for next year and my costs will go up -- my guess is that I will have a FAFSA EFC of around $12K and end up paying Barnard around $20K for my d's sophomore year. </p>
<p>So what it all means is one figure to determine eligibility for subsidized loans, and a figure at least $8K higher at a "100% need" school to actually pay for college, which I can fill (if I have to) out of my $50K income with a PLUS loan. I'm sure I would have enough out of my current income and assets to meet my FAFSA EFC of $5600 -- but none of the colleges offered my daughter financial aid that would meet that figure. My kid was among the top 5 in her high school graduating class, with good enough credentials to be accepted at Barnard & Chicago. What about the kids who are merely in the top 10% of the class, with B+ averages? Where does the financial aid "system" leave them? </p>
<p>The answer is that those kids don't get into 100% need schools - so they are not attending colleges that will fill the gap between federal need based aid and actual cost of attendance, and they instead attend the type of schools where the federal aid is at least enough to pay their tuition costs. </p>
<p>I'm not complaining about the extra costs I have to pay at Barnard -- I never in my wildest dreams thought my daughter would be accepted there or afford to attend; I spent all last year trying to fire up my daughter's enthusiasm for UC Santa Barbara. And I'm very willing to pay the difference for the Ivy League caliber education. </p>
<p>But I am irked when people have so much, much <em>more</em> than I do in the way of material assets and who don't understand the system, create fictionalized scenarios based on the false notion that they are being penalized for their savings. It adds insult to injury when someone opines that an amount of money far in excess than I ever earn is not nearly enough to make ends meet. I am keenly aware of the plight of the probably 40% of the populace that has less than I do -- and I don't envy them one bit. But it doesn't seem that the 6-figure earners have any real concept of how MOST Americans live. </p>
<p>The bottom line is that if I suddenly had an increase of after-tax income to $100K, I'd probably come out at the end of the year with $50K to spare, because my lifestyle only costs about $50K to sustain. I understand that if I made that kind of money regularly, I'd probably experience an upward creep in expenses, as I started to take more and more thing for granted -- maybe I'd start to get my hair & nails done regularly, or shop for clothes someplace more expensive than Ross; maybe I'd hire a housekeeper to come in an clean my house once or twice a week; maybe I'd add HBO to my cable package. Pretty soon it would probably cost me $70 or $80K to pay all my annual expenses.... but I don't think that would make me forget that I was better off than almost everyone else. To me, more money would mean that I would have the ability to buy more things with it, and I would be grateful for the opportunity to spend my own dollars on the things that I want. I already am, because from where I sit, a $50K annual income actually feels pretty good -- maybe because I spent so many years living on less.</p>
<p>I'm really shocked at the posts I am reading since i've been gone.
I could say a few things but I'm not going to.</p>
<p>Calmom, yes or no, is the financial aid system subjective or not.
Think about it before you answer.</p>
<p>You know, I read some of these posts and it's like a story.</p>
<p>Two people are talking and one says, "I have diabetes". </p>
<p>Nevermind.</p>
<p>I'm just amazed.</p>
<p>The FAFSA is based on a set formula, which makes it objective. Plug in the numbers and you get an answer based on the numbers you plug in.</p>
<p>Just like the tax system. Does IRS care if my dog gets hit by a car and I have to pay a $3500 vet bill? No. Do they care what it really costs to support a kid? No. There are rules about what be deducted and what can't, and how much of a tax exemption you get per kid, and it works out to the benefit of some people and the detriment of others, depending on whether their expenses fit the definition of what IRS says they may deduct. </p>
<p>Truthfully, the biggest financial problems I faced over the years was what IRS expected me to pay -- for years I was on a tax payment plan because I simply did not have the money to pay the bill when it was all tallied up. And that was a lot worse than anything I ever faced with college expenses, because I don't have a choice with IRS. With college it's very easy -- if my kid can't afford to attend school A, then the kid goes to school B. What's really cool is that California has all these CSU's that charge LESS for a year's tuition than I used to have to pay for day care when the kids were small -- so I see a basic college education as being very affordable for families in my income range. If my daughter wants a better college -- fine -- but it's no different than the choice between a cheap used car or a more expensive new car; we will buy as much car as we can afford.</p>
<p>"I had a FAFSA EFC last year of $5600, which Barnard recalculated to around $2800 -- and Barnard expects us to actually contribute around $13K to her education; Chicago would have wanted us to contribute around $25K. The UC's --which do rely solely on FAFSA -- wanted around $7K. Those numbers are based on 2 in college, and my son turns 24 this year, so he drops off the calculation for next year and my costs will go up -- my guess is that I will have a FAFSA EFC of around $12K and end up paying Barnard around $20K for my d's sophomore year. "</p>
<p>Calmom,</p>
<p>Wow, I'm dizzy. Doesn't sound very "objective."</p>
<p>The set formula, what is in it and what is not in it is subjective which makes the whole process subjective.</p>
<p>The colleges may be trying to help the people most in need, and it may do a good job, and filling in the form with little numbers may be objective ( the numbers may be objective), but the process is subjective.</p>
<p>Wow, you guys have a weird definition of "subjective".</p>
<p>Bay - my point is that colleges do NOT meet routinely meet EFC. EFC is a number that establishes eligibility for federal aid dollars. My daughter was eligible for a $2625 stafford loan at every college she applied to. </p>
<p>How can a formula based on a set of rules that applies equally to everyone be considered "subjective"?</p>
<p>I feel like Woody Allen at the beginning of Manhattan trying to figure out the best way to get his message across.</p>
<p>The idea of financial aid, to give the money to the most needy students is objective.
The way it is carried out is subjective.</p>
<p>"How can a formula based on a set of rules that applies equally to everyone be considered "subjective"?</p>
<p>What the rules are is subjective. The fact that it applied to everyone does not make it objective.</p>
<p>If I go into a room of 100 people and say I am going to choose the most beautiful woman, that is objective.
When I choose the woman, that is subjective.</p>