<p>Living in a high cost city is a choice. There can be tradeoffs if you want to live in lower cost areas but the truth is that living in those places is a choice. </p>
<p>“Living in a high cost city is a choice. There can be tradeoffs if you want to live in lower cost areas but the truth is that living in those places is a choice.”</p>
<p>Sometimes it’s more of a choice, sometimes less so.</p>
<p>As well, if there is a correlation between high income and living in a high cost of living area, then moving to a lower-cost place may result in a substantial loss of income. The lower cost of living may compensate for the move, or it may not.</p>
<p>I know federal government employees who took lower paygrades to move out to lower-cost areas. They actually made less money, but wound up with a much, much higher standard of living. But because they were federal employees, the reduction in paygrade was modest, and the effect was overwhelmed by the cost of living reduction.</p>
<p>In my own case, because I own a business that’s local, moving to a new region would mean, at least in the short run, likely extreme or even total loss of income. I’m not sure that would make me better off, LOL.</p>
<p>I don’t know what to do about private schools. They are trying to escape the old reputation as a refugee and breeding ground for the rich. I don’t think we can force them to take any student or charge anyone a particular price, though. Maybe index their nonprofit tax exemption somehow?</p>
<p>My main point is that at least the public schools should be considered an engine of the economy serving us all, instead of as a business serving their students. Public higher education should be paid from tax revenues just like public primary education, for pretty much the same reasons.</p>
<p>“My main point is that at least the public schools should be considered an engine of the economy serving us all, instead of as a business serving their students”</p>
<p>But as the percentage of adults achieving degrees increases, the middle class keeps shrinking. I’m not sure that college education is any longer an “engine of the economy.” It seems to me that the number of relatively-high wage jobs isn’t increasing very fast, and may be decreasing. The only thing college is doing is making a zero-sum game, sort of a credentialing arms race, where jobs that once didn’t require a college degree now require it, but where the overall number of high-paying jobs isn’t increasing along with the number of people getting degrees. Pretty soon, Starbucks will require a degree to be a barrista. </p>
<p>Part of the problem is that politicians, most recently our President have in essence supported the notion that “everyone” has a right to a college education, and should get one. Folks, sorry to be contrarian here but that is just not supported by facts. This pushes kids into college that have no business being there because “everyone should go”. So many would earn more, and be happier with technical skills, trade skills, and other “Non college” experiences. Many countries around the world know this and have prospered because of it. For federal and state governments to massively fund college educations for the general populace is not only a waste of money, it also drives up college tuitions (we have the proof of that) and puts adults into situations for which they are neither prepared, nor help them.</p>
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Here’s an idea: have every single family pay at a same rate, for example 10% of their after-tax income, per child, for college. This is exactly like the “flat tax” that some billionaires keep whining for. That’s not progressive, but it’s not nearly as regressive as the system we have now with a maximum fixed price.</p>
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<p>lol…are you saying that millionaires should have to pay 10% of their after-tax income for college? Are you serious? </p>
<p>you think Bill Gates should have to pay 10% of his after-tax income for his kids’ college? If so, he’d just open up his own univ …and all the richies would send their kids there and pay a flat rate…or send their kids abroad. You can’t force a private to charge ANY particular price. The gov’t doesn’t own these schools.</p>
<p>Such a system is called a ‘graduate tax’. They are not that uncommon. It would basically just replace the current student loan repayment system with the US one that works through the tax system.</p>
<p>The argument over what is middle class deflects the real issue that notjoe clearly shows: college costs have gone up dramatically. And have gone up much faster than inflation. And State governments have dramatically reduced their support for state colleges. Student debt is now very high. While there is financial aid for some, that can also include a lot of loans.</p>
<p>I agree with much of what you say notjoe. However, government loans are not the key cause of rising college costs. There have always been national direct student loans (I had them back in the day), and they only cover a small portion of tuition. </p>
<p>The disagreement should not be between “rich” and “not rich”. Clearly, even if they can’t go to the school of their dreams, “rich” kids tend to have more options and, in most cases, easier lives. That being said, there should be some consideration in financial aid analyses as to cost of living and things like whether the parents have a pension or not. If you make $125K and have a great pension and retiree health benefits and live in a less expensive part of the country, you may be able afford private school tuition with little effort. If you have that same income and live in a high cost area, you may be making a choice between college tuition today and future retirement living expenses and so it can be much more difficult to come up with that money. However, there is never going to be a completely fair system or a way for colleges to evaluate the nuances of every family’s finances. </p>
<p>You cannot legally force private schools to do anything… but you can wave the money carrot (tax exemption, eligibility to do federally funded research, eligibility for their students to get Pell grants, etc.) in front of them with any strings attached you like.</p>
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<p>This isn’t wrong, but it’s a little weird to say. Hell, living is a choice itself. </p>
<p>You have to go to where the jobs are. There aren’t many in low-cost areas. They’re mostly in NYC, Chicago, Austin, Seattle, and the Bay Area. </p>
<p>Even when there are good jobs in lower cost areas (lower salary, but lower COL to compensate)… these days there is the concern of job security. Smaller areas often have limited options if you need to find a new job. </p>
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Is it somewhat odd to include Austin in this list? The COL should be much lower there.</p>
<p>Re: Austin as a city where the jobs are.</p>
<p>I recently heard that Samsung has a semiconductor plant which manufactured the main computer chips (A5, A4, etc.) for Apple’s iPhones prior to iPhone 6 and 6 plus. (However, the main computer chips for iPhone 6 and 6 plus are/were now mostly (70% of them) manufactured by TSMC in Taiwan and 30% of them by Samsung (not sure whether it is made in Austin or in Korea.) Almost all chip testing after the chips have been packaged, which may cost an amount of money equal to that of manufacturing the chip wafers, is likely done in some countries in Asian, not in US.</p>
<p>Other than likely Intel, almost no companies in US keep investing in fabs as it costs too much. That is, most US hi tech companies are now fabless chip companies.</p>
<p>The last time I heard about it, The top 3 fab technology buyers (which buy those insanely expensive semiconductor manufacturing from US equipment companies in US): Samsung invested 20 billions, Intel 10.5 billions and TSMC 9.5 billions. (The company like TSMC could hire up to 4000 workers, most of them with a technical degree in a year, for a company with about 40’000 employees.)</p>
<p>There is a recent rumor that TSMC with some funding from Apple’s “war chest” will start a fab in upper state NY (IBM’s semiconductor division seems to have had an advanced fab there and I am not sure how long it will be interested in investing in this industry - the profit margin and the risk level may not be good for them to be in this industry anymore.) I think US may still be very ahead of all others in the semiconductor process/manufactoring equipment technology and makes a lot of money there.</p>
<p>It seems whoever has a larger “war chest” (meaning: the invested money) has a higher chance to win. Intel has a large war chest (as compared to TSMC, but not necessarily as compared to Samsung.) However, both Apple and Qualcomm (which essentially produces almost all high-end mobile chips for all smartphones) have a much larger war chest than Intel. Some claims that if Intel (and Microsoft, its “friend”) could not sign on with any or both of these two big players, it will have an uphill battle because it just does not have a large enough war chest to sustain the competition in the long run. (Whoever throws in more money over a long time will likely win in the fab business.) But all of these are just speculations.</p>
<p>In case anybody here is interested in this, I recently learned about TSMC from this 2011 IEEE Spectrum article (it is NOT a technical article.)</p>
<p><a href=“Morris Chang: Foundry Father - IEEE Spectrum”>http://spectrum.ieee.org/at-work/tech-careers/morris-chang-foundry-father</a></p>
<p>Morris Chang was educated in US (Harvard College, MIT and then Stanford.) He had been working for TI and GI before he was recruited by Taiwan’s government for this job. Almost all of his circle of friends and also his wife strongly discouraged him to take this job (a government’s job? Especially it is not a first-world government?)</p>
<p>He had never been in Taiwan until he was recruited for this job. I also heard that he occasionally took the public transportation to work, at the ripe age of almost 80, just because he did not want to risk being late for a meeting.</p>
<p>I am really enjoying this thread! It is nice to see this issue discussed with a minimum of drama.</p>
<p>There are so many good points here I don’t know what I could add to the discussion. I agree the biggest issue is the cost. Why has it gone up so much? I too think it’s too much money but I have been told loans are not the issue so I am baffled. </p>
<p>I agree these is never going to be a fair way to do this. It does seem to me that there are a few very easy things that aren’t very complicated to do that would help level the playing field-the easiest and in my opinion fairest one is to add a cost of living adjustment (COLA) to the financial aid calculation. </p>
<p>@mom2and is on target with her observations.</p>
<p>One thing that we have struggled with in our family is that because we’re a military family, we’ve moved a lot and we have never managed to buy a house at the optimal time. In our neighborhood in Northern Virginia, there were families living in houses that were exactly the same as ours but since they bought before the real estate market went crazy, their house cost them 245 while others in our neighborhood were paying over 400 K for the same exact house. Where we currently live, in a rural area, we again bought at the wrong time and paid a great deal for a house that ended up being worth much less in the current economy than we paid for it. At the same time, there are families here who are sitting on inherited acreage that is worth a great deal if you can sell it to a developer. </p>
<p>The problem with financial aid people even considering whether or not you live in a high cost area is that they still would actually need to know when you bought and what peculiar combination of circumstances might have forced you to buy at the height of the market or conversely sell when the market was really low. In our neighborhood when you bought your house seems to be the major variable which explains whether you’re the sort of people who go to the Caribbean over Spring Break or whether you’re the sort of people who staycation at home year after year after year. Just saying. … </p>
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<p>I don’t think that’s fair and here’s why. In the television industry we work in markets. Generally, the larger the market the more you get paid. Not long after my husband and I got married I left a job in a small market for a much larger one. The pay was double what I was making but involved a 90+ minute commute (one way). We could have moved closer like several of my coworkers did, but it would’ve involved scraping by in a much higher cost of living area. It was a much nicer area, granted, with beautiful neighborhoods and excellent schools, but it was also a more expensive place to live. I chose to continue the commute so we could have more money on hand for other things, including putting some aside for our children’s college expenses. I could have chosen to move and not had money saved for college, but that would have been my decision. When we make choices, it generally involves giving up other things. If I move to a higher cost of living area and expect colleges and/or my fellow taxpayers to make up what I couldn’t save for college, I’m asking them to subsidize my choice of lifestyle, and that’s not fair.</p>
<p>One reason college costs are rising: <a href=“Administrator Hiring Drove 28% Boom in Higher-Ed Work Force, Report Says”>http://chronicle.com/article/Administrator-Hiring-Drove-28-/144519/</a></p>
<p>But college admissions people already subsidize lifestyle choices. My neighbor chose not to work. SHe stays at home and makes really nice dinners every night and even has a personal trainer come to her house so she can do sit-ups in the comfort of her own home. Since her family’s household income is smaller than others – because she chose to stay home – the college gives her more financial aid.</p>
<p>Another family decides to have five kids, all of them really close in age. The college gives them more aid because they end up with three kids in college at the same time.</p>
<p>Heck, you could even argue that getting divorced is a lifestyle choice which has ramifications for financial aid, including perhaps getting a bigger subsidy from college.</p>
<p>Deciding to have your kids when you are in your early forties and your husband is in his late fifites is a lifestyle choice for sure – and yet financial aid will cut you some slack cuz you guys are closer to retirement age.</p>
<p>Some people would argue that having expensive infertility treatments instead of adopting is a lifestyle choice.
Having mom quit her job so she can homeschool the kids is a lifestyle choice. Moving to Africa to be a missionary is a lifestyle choice. But universities would give you financial aid for the second two choices but not the first, the one that a lot of people would argue isn’t a choice at all.</p>
<p>Actually, I think if you’re a libertarian that’s your default perspective, isn’t it? That ultimately everything is a lifestyle choice?</p>
<p>“Some people would argue that having expensive infertility treatments instead of adopting is a lifestyle choice.”</p>
<p>We did both - the adoption came after the $75K we spent on treatment for an additional $15K. We spent the next 5 years paying off that debt and at the time our income was much lower than now so it was a huge struggle. We did put that on the special circumstances part of Profile as it obviously hurt what we were able to save during that time </p>
<p>My kid did get a great FA package from his “need only” school and our income is right around $125K. We pay approx the cost of a SUNY and do that out of present income. Whether our circumstances made any difference, I have no idea. We also wrote about how we chose to send out kid to private high school and the reason we did - which is definitely a life style choice. </p>