<p>If a working family of three lives in Chicago with an annual income of 100K, the parents are expected to pay the following when the kid goes to</p>
<p>UIUC 20K
UChicago 30K
UMichigan 50K
Harvard 30K</p>
<p>Am I about right? I need to think about it now and do it in two years.</p>
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<p>The figure for Havard seems way too high since they say the following on <a href=“http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/financial_aid/index.html[/url]”>http://www.admissions.college.harvard.edu/financial_aid/index.html</a> :</p>
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<p>So it seems to me that unless the family has a whole lotta assets that get added to Harvard’s Profile form or Harvard drastically changes its FA current policies, that family should be paying less than $10K/year, provided the kiddo is lucky enough to get admitted to Harvard.</p>
<p>The UMich figure seems to assume full pay? At UMich, the student would likely get the full amount of federal Stafford loans and not much more. In two years, yeah, that $50K/year figure might be a good guess.</p>
<p>As for UIUC and UChicago, I really don’t have any guesses. Does UChicago meet full need? If so, my guess is that the UIUC and Chicago EFC’s will wind up being pretty closes, as long as there’s not some kind of serious assets that appear on the Profile, but not the FAFSA.</p>
<p>UIUC sounds like the instate for this student. UMich is out of state…costs sound like what he/she estimates. UChi meets full need, I think. But they don’t have the same generous need based aid for high income earners that Harvard does (as noted above). </p>
<p>Of course, the first hurdle is to get accepted to Harvard.</p>
<p>Also, remember that schools that do not guarantee to meet full need probably won’t.</p>
<p>If a working family of three lives in Chicago with an annual income of 100K, the parents are expected to pay the following when the kid goes to</p>
<p>UIUC 20K - Sounds a bit low, you’d probably end up having to pay the whole COA since you don’t qualify for anything other then a loan and maybe some work-study. </p>
<p>UChicago 30K - probably about right if they say that your family contribution is about $30k</p>
<p>UMichigan 50K - OOS public, so you’ll have to pay for it all - may get a small merit scholarship (about $10k) and you’ll get a small loan and maybe some work study.</p>
<p>Harvard 30K - You’d likely have to pay much less then this (if your child gets in - Harvard only accepts about 5% of applicants). You’d likely only have to pay out about $11k-15k or so (including summer work contribution)</p>
<p>Do you think your child will have super high stats (very high test scores and high GPA)?</p>
<p>You should also include a couple of financial safety schools - schools that will give you big merit for stats - in case the family has some kind of financial setback between now and then…serious illness, loss of income, etc.</p>
<p>Is Harvard’s claim REALLY based on income only? It would be interesting to get some anecdotal info on that. I’m hard pressed that a family with income of $100,000 only has to pay $10,000 to go to Harvard. Seems like one of those too good to be true stories and if that is true then they would only require the FAFSA. I see this claim all over these forums.</p>
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<p>Sounds like a fairy tale to me too, or the odds of that happening is not much better than that of hitting a jackpot. I wonder if there is any real case out there when the kid has no hooks though qualified.</p>
<p>^That’s literally their policy. 10% of income for 120k-180k. $0 for 60k and under. Percentage decreases from 10% to 0 from 120k to 60k. So a family making 100k would pay less than 10k. “Hooks” are only for admissions, nothing to do with aid. Aid is the same rule for everyone.</p>
<p>Harvard’s policy assumes “typical assets”…whatever that means.</p>
<p>^They don’t count your house, so unless you have a bunch of sports cars, the income guidelines are pretty accurate. Though aid could be increased under special circumstances, like multiple children in college, or high medical debts.</p>
<p>If your child is a top student, the letter from Harvard will arrive in the fall explaining the policy.</p>
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<p>No need for anecdotes:</p>
<p>[Financial</a> Aid Overview](<a href=“http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k51861&pageid=icb.page248616]Financial”>http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k51861&pageid=icb.page248616)</p>
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<p>The odds of any one particular student without a hook getting admitted to Harvard pretty much are not much better than hitting a (minor) jackpot.</p>
<p>For what it’s worth, a quick search for “Common Data Set” on Harvard’s web pages leads to this [The</a> Office of the Provost | Common Data Set](<a href=“http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/common_data_set.php]The”>http://www.provost.harvard.edu/institutional_research/common_data_set.php) where you can download pdf’s of the CDS for 2006-07, 2007-08, and 2008-09. The tuition figures in this document are labeled as being for 2009-10. Don’t know if they simply haven’t yet posted their CDS for 2009-10 or if it’s well hidden.</p>
<p>At any rate, for what it’s worth, the Harvard 2008-09 CDS lists $130 Million in box for Institutional grant aid (page 17). Page 18 shows that 4266 of the undergraduates applied for FA; 3813 were determined to have need; and 3785 were given institutional grant aid. The average need-based grant for undergraduates is listed as $36,850. And using just the tuition, fees, room&board costs on page 15, I come up with a COA of just under $50K for that year. Now since Harvard says it is willing to give need based FA to families making up to $180K and since it’s a pretty common assumption that the average Harvard student doesn’t actually come from families making less than $60K/year (the level at which Harvard promises the student will pay $0), I think it’s a pretty good assumption that most of the students from families making around $100K really aren’t paying much more than about $10K or $12K per year.</p>
<p>For those who are interested in the first time freshman numbers from the Harvard 2008-09 CDS, here they are: 1146 of the first time freshmen applied for FA; 999 were determined to “have need”; and 992 of those 999 are listed as recieving need-based “scholarship or grant aid”. The average grant is listed as a bit more than $39K.</p>
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<p>That means about 60% of freshman class got FA that covered 70% of COA. It’s unbelievable. That’s probably one of the reasons why many people want to go there.</p>
<p>It’s depressing when you think of how to finance a child’s education. Regardless of the kid’s stats, the chances are high that you need to give half or more of what you bring home to his/her college. </p>
<p>If we can give homeowners loans (15-year or 30-year) and tax breaks, why can’t we give students 10-year or 15-year loans, with 10-20% down payment, and tax breaks? I’m sure the kids would become more responsible. Money should not be a limitation to where a kid wants and is capable of going.</p>
<p>We do have loan programs subsidized by the government and the PELL grant for the neediest families for higher education. The loans do allow payment over many years, and you don’t have to start paying until you finish college. If eligible, the interest on the loans does not start to accumulate until after graduation. We also have college tax credits and deductions. We do have all of these things…but it isn’t going to pay for what a private college costs or if you want to send your student away to a state school. Why should the government pay room and board for a student going to college?</p>
<p>The government plans pretty much allow any student to go to a local state school. The kids that may be left out of this picture are those who live far from any college, and those who have no public transportation to get to such schools and cannot afford a car. </p>
<p>We don’t expect subsidies for private k-12 schools, particularly for boarding schools. There are far more options for colleges. And many schools do discount the tuition in forms of financial aid and/or merit scholarships. </p>
<p>As it is, federal funds are being used to defray costs to private schools. Most colleges start their financial aid awards with the federal goodies before adding in their own aid. </p>
<p>A big problem with the way college costs are in this country has to do with the communication of the facts, the laying out of options and the complexity of the financial aid/merit award process. Because we have so many choices in colleges, and because US colleges look at a number of factors in determining whether or not they will accept you, the college application process has become extremely complex. With the common application, computers, copy machines kids are applying to more schools than ever and the whole application scene for the more privileged kids has become an expensive rite of passage. Bear in mind, that this is NOT how most Americans end up getting their college education. Just those whose families can support them through the process.</p>
<p>Why should the gov’t subsidize private schools? There is sufficient funding from the federal gov’t to attend a CC to start.</p>
<p>Several comments:</p>
<p>lake42ks says:</p>
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<p>While it is true that if you choose to send your kid to a private or OOS public that costs $50K/year and doesn’t meet full need, it’s quite possible for a family making $60K to $120K a year to spend half their take-home on college tuition, that is, in reality the family’s choice.</p>
<p>And almost any family making $60K+ can send their kid to an * in-state public * and typically pay less (and possibly a whole lot less) than 50% of their take-home income. Typically an in-state public’s COA is less than or about $20K, including room&board. Some states (including IL) are higher, but even the most expensive will still have an in-state COA of less than $30K for an on-campus resident. Stafford loans and state grants can reduce the out-of-pocket quite a bit in some states.</p>
<p>cptofthehouse says:
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<p>and Erin’s Dad adds:
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<p>Pell grants and Stafford loans (for the truly needy) and Stafford loans (for the rest of us) follow the individual student to where ever she chooses to matriculate. Since this money is tied to the student, it makes a whole lot of financial sense to the colleges to include the federal money first in a student’s FA package. And, again, because this aid is tied to the individual student, it doesn’t make sense to me to say to a middle-class student, “You can only take out a Stafford loan if you go to an in state public or CC.”</p>
<p>But the fact that Pell+Staffords will pay for a CC (or many four year instate publics as well), is a very good reason for saying that the federal aid is as generous as it needs to be, in my opinion.</p>
<p>Perkins loans and federal work study money are based on a combination of the student’s finances and whether the chosen college participates in the Perkins/federal work study programs and how that college decides to apportion the Perkins and federal work study moneys. And maybe there is a case to take Perkins money and federal work study money away from the private universities. The question is, would (or could) these institutions continue to award similar amounts of money from their own endowments?</p>