Parents of full-pay kids want to end need aid.

Paying for College
81

<p>While I have not read through all of these posts, I have read some on this thread and other threads with a similar topic. I have become very interested in this topic since we made the decision to send our daughter to a high-priced private LAC without any financial assistance. We made this decision fully aware of her options for merit, athletic scholarship and of course less expensive public schools.</p>

<p>The financial implications of this decision, while not devastating, are life-changing. We are older parents who have worked hard, sacrificed and saved to send our children to private school and now private colleges. We will continue to live modestly and our retirement plans will be delayed indefinitely. However, this is our decision and we are very fortunate that it is a decision that we are able to make.</p>

<p>I believe that financial aid should be reserved for deserving students of low-income families and some middle-income families with circumstances that truly warrant need. However, there are many families with incomes in the same range as ours who have not planned accordingly and have not made education a priority in their life who expect financial aid and/or merit $’s. Those are the families I feel some resentment towards but perhaps my resentment is misguided. Many of the posts on CC have helped me to better understand the different positions.</p>

<p>It is very difficult to get a handle on just how expensive college is until you are faced with the reality. Colleges and universities don’t seem to want to talk $’s during the admissions process but they need to, after all, $50,000/year per child is a huge undertaking for even the most affluent families. I think colleges and universities need to do a better job of managing the expectations of potential students and their parents in terms of costs. </p>

<p>In my ideal world, college tuition would be reduced to a reasonable rate that most middle/upper income families, with some sacrifice, would be able to manage and financial aid would be reserved for the most needy and deserving students.</p>

82

<p>Kayleigh 3- I am glad you are open to seeing that financial aid with the middle class is not simply a matter or people making poor financial decisions. Many middle class families have limited monies as a result of the career paths they chose (eg: public service). Many also had college and grad school loans that took a very long time to pay off, may have had years when they could not work, had a special needs child that required one of the parents to remain at home (friend with autistic child did this and the child has made remarkable progress with mom staying home), may have dealt with major medical expenses or felt obligated to help with a struggling sibling (have another friend who is constantly sending money to her alcoholic brother's children). I could go on but the point is, things are not always as they seem on the surface. Comparisons to others are usually made with insufficient information and typically breed envy, anger and contempt. College does cost too much and, like you,being older parents, H and and I will be eating a lot of beans and rice and facing retirement issues, even with a bit of a grant!</p>

83

<p>
[quote]
Poor people who don't try, and don't value education or instill in their children a work ethic of some kind shouldn't get a penny for college. And those poor kids who get their college paid for.. most often don't finish anyway.. and those that do.. don't know where to go from there.

[/quote]
</p>

<p>If this is the situation at the school where you are the principal, then why are you still employed as one? I see you are in CT, if you were in NYC, your school would have received an F on thier report cared and you have been taken out of your job. Apparently, as the cheif administrator the buck has to stop with you and you are apparently not doing your due diligence (or at minimum not doing a good job at it) to to put interventions in place where a larger percentage students are not only able to graduate but are also informed as to what options they have after graduation.</p>

<p>When you are a prinicipal you are responsible for leading the charge to achieve educational success for every child regardless of situation of circumstance. You must also love the kids you have not the kids that you wish you had.</p>

<p>Unfortunately there are way too many administrator with your mind set and not enough who are truly agents for postive change in the life of a child.</p>

84

<p>Principal- your stories are so familiar. When I ran the day program, we had lice kits and personal hygiene kits (along with a shower) that we kept on hand and used with the kids as they came through the door. I don't know how many times I took a mom with black eyes to the domestic violence shelter and visited abodes that were called "homes". My most memorable on was a plywood shack addition that had been nailed to the back entrance a small trailer (this was my client's bedroom that he shared with several other kids). The toilet didn't work (they had an outhouse) and the family was heating this place with a wood stove! Mom was feeding a baby from a tin can full of pinto beans when I got there. I never could determine how many people lived in that place. The kid that lived here was more fortunate than most-his family loved him. After finishing high school in my program, he went to the local community college to study heating and air. I like to think that he made it.</p>

<p>My best to you. Part of why I moved over into community college teaching was the fact that it was so frustrating trying to help these kids because of their family situations. It got to be incredibly draining and a good deal of my idealism wore thin. I am now much better suited to helping adults since they do have more control in their lives. However, my young adults do carry the scars of their terrible childhoods and a good deal of my out of class time is spent being the support system for their dreams that they never had with their own families.</p>

85

<p>Yes I am a person who works in a Title I NYC public school where every student gets free breakfast and lunch, where there are gangs, single parents households students in transitional housing (homeless) and all the other things you have mentioned, but still they get my best work everyday and I don't count it robbery to do it and I am proud to do it.</p>

86

<p>sybbie719:</p>

<p>First of all, I have been an admin at this school for less than 6 months. Secondly, the school is a failing school as is pretty much every other school in the city. The city is bankrupt and is run by the state overseeing board. If you can't figure out where this is, its also the city where our jolly ex - governor - the one who ended up in jail is now on the payroll for >100k a year because he can attract business.</p>

87

<p>I was also thinking that that these things sound like school.not restricted to inner city or urban schools. It also sounds like you were moved mid year against your will, it is usually only in emergencies that changes happen during the school year. I m sure that was very difficult.</p>

<p>It is a matter of degree, but many things have always happened. I grew up in a fancy suburb, when walking to elementary school, a man used to expose himself every day to kids, I was sexually assaulted on the grounds of my junior high by a group of students after school...kids went to school hungry, after their parents who had been out drinking didn't buy food.</p>

<p>Where my daughter goes to school, kids are assaulted when walking home,open drug deals in the gas station parking lot across the street. Where my older daughter worked was a magnet for homeless students, one childs mother stopped taking them to the shelter to sleep, because of the no drug policy, and began selling her kids prescribed medication to obtain her own illegal drugs, they slept under a nearby bridge.</p>

<p>At one of the cities most popular high schools, two friends plotted to kill a third, and even though it was reported multiple times to school administrators, the plot was carried out and he was beaten and stabbed to death.
These things are part of life now, but it doesn't mean that we have to become cynical and callous.</p>

<p>Lice is very contagious- and doesn't mean you are "dirty".
Example, it wasn't long ago, that my daughter, who attended the same elementary school where Bill Gates and Jeff Bezos currently send their kids ( well Bezos just moved), had a lice problem and every child had to be checked daily.</p>

<p>Off topic, but my daughter who also rode ( horses) shared helmets with others at the barn, she got lice :p. None of the conventional treatments worked, I tried everything over and over again, the only thing that worked was washing her hair with lavender based shampoo, after putting rosemary oil on it over night.</p>

88

<p>emeraldkity4: not to perpetuate off topic, but we used extra large sized coffee filters to put inside of the shared helmets for bicycling to prevent just that!</p>

89

<p>My son put this on his blog, the hazarder . blog spot . com</p>

<h2>he wanted me to post it here. I sent him a link to this thread and this is his response to it.</h2>

<p>First, I apologize for the lack of new posts over the last two days. I had work and homework and wasn't near a computer for very much time, and the time that I was at a computer I was reading.</p>

<p>Having addressed that, let me launch into my broadside against schooling in this defunct, backwards, stupidly capitalist country that we live in.</p>

<p>1) Poor people get worse education, unless they happen to live in a very rich neighborhood (which they don't) where there is a public school that their rich neighbors pay into (which doesn't happen either). This happens because public school get money from the property taxes that the people in its neighborhood pay. The poorer the neighborhood, the less money the school gets. Also, the poorer the neighborhood is, the less economic mobility you find and the more broken the homes are (single mothers, husbands beating wives, grandparents raising kids). Teachers are paid less in these schools and because of the environment that the students come from (some students have experiences events that produce attitudes that might not be "school-friendly") they don't receive the best treatment from the students. See this story for an example from Philadelphia. 6abc.com:</a> Students Break Teacher's Neck 2/23/07</p>

<p>2) The government forces colleges to play a part in this cycle of poverty affecting education affecting poverty. How? By allowing the system to exist as it currently does. State schools cannot give full rides to everyone that they accept. Private schools cannot give full rides to everyone that they accept. But it is critical that they do just that. Any child that is intelligent enough to attend a Harvard, Chicago, Stanford, Penn State, FSU, Michigan, or Ohio State should be going to that school. Inner city kids who are unknowingly severely disadvantaged are plotted against again when they have to apply to the same schools as the kid who grew up in the house with the lawn, who ate dinner at a table with a degree-holding mother and father, who went to the private school with the AP classes and the senior trip to Florida, and who hasn't had to work to support himself.</p>

<p>I am not blaming privileged kids for the unfairness in the college system. I am blaming the government for not realizing that this is the effect of unmitigated capitalism: One set of children who have grown up well because of parents who managed to either inherit or earn their social standing and another set of children who have (miraculously) grown up with an underfunded school system and parents who either or try or don't try to make the best for their children but who have come up short. The solution to this problem, one of the most glaring of America's numerous and looming threats to our global competitiveness, is not education credits or tax deductions. Those are just ways to put a festive hat on the rotting corpse of publicly funded education.</p>

<p>3) The solution is the government takeover of all education, from Pre-K (a necessity not afforded to those who, you guessed it, can't afford it) to college, paid for by a progressive property and income tax. No Child Left Behind deserves credit for demanding some kind of national benchmark. It needs to be revamped and refunded, and then applied with rigor to an equalized American education system. But the government cannot fix everything, and it should not be asked to. Parents need to take some responsibility and create home environments where studying is both possible and encouraged. And in return for this government service, products of this socialized education system should put in 3-5 years of work with the peace corps, a branch of the armed services, a community building group, or any other sort of organization that works to strengthen America or its people.</p>

<p>To redress the grievous ills of unequal learning, education should be free for all who want it, but those who take advantage of it must pay a price of service and work in their own lives to create people willing and eager to undertake efforts to better themselves.</p>

90

<p>Sorry, but I can't buy into his arguments. For all its faults, capitalism still beats socialism in my book. If government were to get involved in higher education to the degree it is involved in k-12, the result will be a continuation of the dumbing down of education into colleges. No thanks.</p>

<p>A neighboring district receives more money per student than my district. The education in that district ... no other way to put it ... s***s! The student population suffers from the myriad problems of low income urban America. The administrators who are allowed to run the district are completely inept. The parents in the district are unable to advocate for themselves or their children. Is this okay? NO!!! However, throwing more money willy nilly at this district is not the answer. Prek is paid for by Head Start, but I think there is validity to requiring all kids to go to preK and to pay for it. Studies have shown that early childhood education is key to setting a good foundation for learning.</p>

<p>As for requiring service from those whose educations are paid for, we do have Americorps. I am not too familiar with this program, but I assume this is an "after you've already paid for it" type of program. Perhaps some type of "before you pay for it" program could be set up, but here is the problem: What if the student doesn't finish school? What if the student refuses to perform his/her service? Heck, we can't get welfare recipients to do any kind of service for the money they get ... what makes us think every 21 year old is going to bother? What if the government pulls funding partway through? What if the government decides to pay the schools less (as happens in my home state!), and they are hung out to dry? </p>

<p>I absolutely think that helping underprivileged kids is essential to the strength of our country. I think that a radical overhaul of inner city schools is necessary ... there are models that are working, and they should be emulated in other cities. But I do NOT think capitalism is the cause of our issues, and I do not think that socializing our system of higher education will help. What we need are intelligent, caring people who insist that the education we already guarantee every child is excellent for every child. We need creative ways of helping those who need it most to afford college. </p>

<p>What we don't need is to move further toward a socialist society.</p>

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<p>sue:</p>

<p>has your son taken an Econ course yet, preferably Macro?</p>

92

<p>I think so.</p>

<p>For the record, I don't agree with everything he believes/writes :-)</p>

93

<p>FYI: Americorp only grants $4500.00 for college at the end of the year of service. Not much cash for the expense of college. It is a great program and does provide clothing, spending allowance/subsistance and health insurance during the service year.</p>

94

<p>I like hornet's posts.</p>

<p>I think the real culprit is a very expensive war that drains tax dollars and offers nothing but death. If we plowed this money into education, both in the US and Iraq, it would be doing a better job.</p>

<p>As a CC teacher I see my share of the kind of stories Principal describes. There are no words for how outrageous the situations some kids put up with are. But I do think that's a bit beside the point.</p>

<p>My H lost all our money for college after 9/11 for complicated reasons that had to do with the economy and personal problems he had. He is working really hard to rebuild his business, but bye bye college money. I have always taught except for three years when kids were babies. But teaching at a public CC I don't have the tuition exchanges that private colleges often provide employees.</p>

<p>Both kids do have need-based aid because my H incurred outrageous business debt. Both attend very selective LAC's. Aren't we helping our state tax payers by removing the burden of education them? I don't see whose business this is.</p>

<p>And as for merit aid, Xiggi to the contrary, I still believe those students help their institutions. If not, why would it still be offered?</p>

<p>Bottom line: Let's get out of a costly war and stop worrying about how other people fund college. There are variety of options. I do think the quality of public institutions must always be supported, but I see no reason to mandate attendance at one of a student can uncover a more fitting option for himself and find a way to fund himself.</p>

<p>PS I would really prefer it if H had not lost all our money and I could have paid full freight on my lowly CC salary (yes I have a PhD.) That's what I was planning. FWIW: Kids were flat out rejected at need sensitive schools so our options were limited that way if that makes anyone feel better.</p>

<p>I don't understand the Puritanical attitudes on the thread. I don't begrudge some poor kid $125 sneakers. I can't afford them, but I have other accoutrements of wealth (like a PhD) to give me a sense of worth in our ridiculously externalized society.</p>

<p>My poorest friend always ordered steak when she went to a restaurant. She explained that it was her only way to fight poverty. Who am I to judge? (I often order an appetizer.)</p>

95

<p>I never order steak, because steak is really easy to cook. I want to order something that I don't have the time or skill to make.
:)</p>

96

<p>mythmom,
I think those wars are actually putting the world into a global food and energy crisis flat out right now but who listens to our opinions? Sigh!
Well I admit my family got into financial problems when dad died. So it kinda put me into a sense don't waste anything and a sense of urgency to be frugal since I knew I can't depend on anyone. So I guess it is hard to relate to generalized situations of the lower income being wasteful. I worked for everything after my dad's death and we used up the savings to face the debts my dad left.
But then different people have different situations and values. I never taken anything for free not even a lift and had worked all through HS to support myself. And I am happy with my ratty old clothes though probably that is why I never been asked on a date :). I admit I hate depending on anyone and kinda egoistic in that department so getting scholarship for school is my first time. It kinda put me off a bit because like I said I felt a bit shy asking for any help. But education is very important to me and studying is the only thing that has made me happy in all the mess I went through. I even study my old text books during my gap year now :)
Ain't I crazy.
BTW, I don't eat steak . I am a vegan!</p>

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<p>I know this is going to sound ridiculously simplistic given the complexities of many unfortunate situations but as an "affluent" parent who is being drained of every bit of wealth we have worked so hard to accumulate by taxes, huge tuition bills and charitable contributions, the thought of larger tax bills to send more kids to college does not sit well with me at all.</p>

<p>Son of SueinPhilly - Every "affluent" child with a degree-holding mom and dad sitting at the dinner table has a family story or stories that will demonstrate substantial hardship by their ancestors to elevate the family from poverty. None are stories of "hand-outs" or entitlements; they are stories of hard-work, sacrifice and perseverance. Every child has the power within them to break the cycle of poverty.</p>

98

<p>I going my final 2 cents today. Don't flame me if u all don't agree :)
One of the worst feelings I have been getting through all this latest threads regarding the lower income student and the need aid and merit aid associated with them is somehow these money is akin to hand outs, charity and welfare. Why does this sit hard with me? And leave a bad taste in my mouth? Has not the lower income student worked hard for her education to reach the same level of academic excellence as the higher income family kid?
But when a higher income kid receives merit aid, the parent says this is for the child's hard work being recognized. Very true. I agree. But why don't anyone seems to use this same reasoning when the lower income kid receives that same merit aid? Suddenly parents' incomes are being compared, saying this student will not be contributing as me to his/her education. Or somehow the merit has need prerequisites in it.
And another criticism is the poor are "demanding" money with a sense of entitlement to it for their education?? Uhmm..Well no one did that it. As I asked my uncle, "Did I come to your house banging your door for money?" First of all many of these income bracket students in HS care less of college and have lesser knowledge about need aid or any scholarship for that matter. The first time I heard bout Quesbridge for example is 3 months before I graduated. There was this middle class family lady in CC who told me she makes her son set aside 3 hours each day to seek scholarships. Since everyone needs money for college, why is not wrong for others to seek scholarship but the poor should not?
Another thing, why is another misconception that the poor are not prepared to fund their education. Here is the deal, for those high motivated kid wanting to go to college from lower income bracket, I assure those kids hold 2 sometimes 3 jobs in HS to fund their schooling, save wht they can even for their education. You know how proud I was when I saved 5000 for college? Small things to others. Hardly worth mentioning. But these students can't work to put in these same amount of hours akin 30 years like the hard working higher income families so they are not worthy to get their education? They have to stuff everything in 3-5 year periods between middle school and college of the real world job. They also shoulder the responsibility of their parents.
And for the poor kids fortunate to hv hard working parents willing to contribute and care for their education, those families scrape and save with a mother holding 2 or 3 jobs and the dad working both morning and night shifts. They contribute a huge amount of wht they earn after mortgage, debts to pay, etc to their kids' education. Still it isn't enough on their minimum wages. Some of these folks might hv been middle class pulled down the lower income because of job loss, business failure. It isn't their faults or their kids. Some family may have lost a breadwinner in their family. Still those children deserve to seek college education too. Another problem, those families have lousy credit that not even a relative will give them loan let alone a bank.
There are a lot factors contributing to the need aid. But here is the kicker. Most of those poor kids everyone is cursing bout taking their money either don't graduate of HS, finish HS to work n support their family despite maybe bein qualified to enter college, or after opening tht FA letter know they can't afford to walk down even their college halls. That is the reality.
And if my dad was alive, I will be studying college last year and he will absolutely helped me out. All my dad talked about was me going to college whn I was younger. And this point is to show tht being in lower income group doesn't mean they are ignorant folks who can't differentiate the value between the life changing/ building college education and a free meal. Those people aren't charity cases. They do their best to find the best way to fund their education like u folks down here who actively seek out scholarships and negotiate FA or seek funding for grad school.
Sometimes state schools like mine give horrible aid too. Where will these students end up?</p>

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<p>Skygirl -
If you read my previous post just above yours, you will be the "story" your children and grandchild will tell their children and grandchildren about in years to come. You have the intelligence, drive and I believe perserverance to be successful in whatever you choose to do. As soon as I get some more time I will PM you with a more personal story that I hope will inspire you.</p>

100

<p>Mythmom: I like your posts, too.</p>

<p>Skygirl: You are a sweetheart. You have incredible tenacity. When you finish college and move on, I hope you never loose your ability to have compassion for others.</p>

<p>Here is another one for folks to get mad about: How many of your high achieving kids would have gotten to where they are without tremendous support from you? For example, how many kids took expensive prep courses? Had the advantage of a parent hired tutor when the teacher was ineffective? Sent junior to expensive enrichment programs during the summer? Traveled abroad? Had a parent who could download information for them for projects when the workload got to be "too much"? Had a parent that could get a B changed to an A for junior due to effective arguing on your part because the teacher miscalculated a few points? Hired an expensive lawyer so your child could retain his admission to an elite college after being caught cheating? Paid 30-120 $$$ an hour for music lessons? Restudied the calculus so you could teach it to junior the summer before he took the course so that he could win that big merit scholarship and "wow" all of the teachers with his seeming mathematical brilliance? Please don't bristle at these examples, just breathe deep and think for a moment.</p>

<p>These situations aren't hypothetical and each that I have mentioned did happen at D's HS. Of course a child with that kind of massive support will achieve amazing things. Even my own child has benefited from my discount version of enrichment (eg: reading to her for 2-3 hour an evening as a preschooler-naturally she scored big on the verbal SAT).Would our kids have earned admissions to these expensive schools without all of that support? We really should stop the complaints and, as mythmom suggests, direct them toward our government, not the recipients of aid.</p>

<p>Mythmom makes a good point about symbols. I don't mind living in my modest home, in part, because I earned a few educational badges and am a fourth generation female college graduate (great g-mom taught music at a girl's college and great g-dad was a physician). I have plenty of symbols to support me when I feel inadequate or threatened. I also came from a family steeped in a service tradition. We should give back. How many of us really put that extra effort to befriend a person of another social class? I am not talking trips to Mexico to build houses or feeding homeless in the soup kitchen. How about dinner at your table?</p>

<p>When my D was in middle school, she went through a lot of teasing about our home (old and in a working class neighborhood). She even endured teasing about befriending poor kids and going to their homes. All of the teasing kids are now old enough to know that it is not PC to verbalize the crude judgments but the social class divide is invisible but apparent.</p>

<p>If we could quit assuming that everyone should do it "our way" and be grateful for the wonderful opportunities we do have and acknowledge the unique advantages most of our children have enjoyed we would all be happier.</p>