<p>If you to the state university in Washington and pay the full published fare, you are paying 48% of the cost of your education. The taxpayer and the endowment are picking up the rest. Doesn't matter what your family income is - you are receiving a 52% subsidy, because the state (i.e. the public) thinks it is important that you be there.</p>
<p>If you go to a first-tier LAC, and pay the full published fare, you receive a $22k scholarship per year, roughly 42-44% of the cost of tuition, paid for out of the endowment and the alumni fund. You are heavily, heavily subsidized, regardless of your income, but the private institution thinks it is important to fulfilling its mission that you be there.</p>
<p>In other words, all students, from millionaire to welfare mom's daughter, are heavily, heavily subsidized, whether ithey attend public or private institutions.. After that, the scholarships simply reflect the degree to which the institution wants you to attend in order to fulfill its mission. This has nothing to do with the applicant or her family, and everything to do with what the institution hopes to accomplish.</p>
<p>Canuckeh, your baiting reminds me of mom101...but you've struck a nerve. There are many CC parents with degrees from 'top' schools who are looking for (expecting?) financial aid for their children. </p>
<p>Not all teachers and social workers need financial aid for their children. I know many who pay full freight--though they might decide to pay for a less expensive school. </p>
<p>Also, an academic or employee of a top school would presumably qualify for giant tuition breaks for their children. A pretty fabulous perk, if you ask me.</p>
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<p>Also, an academic or employee of a top school would presumably qualify for giant tuition breaks for their children. A pretty fabulous perk, if you ask me.>></p>
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<p>Not at Harvard. Tenured profs are eligible for interest-free loans. That's it. Everybody else gets zip.</p>
<p>I don't know of mom101 (author?), but I don't consider by questions "baiting". I think it is quite fair to ask what is expected of the highly educated. What you say cheers is true, there is a child of 2 teachers on my floor who are paying full freight. Total income is $122,000. Both parents graduated from State Universities, saved for college and both always worked. Is it fair for a Harvard grad mom to stay at home and then seek Federal subsidies. That you would consider such a question "baiting" tells me a lot. Educational arrogance perhaps? My mom, uneducated, could not have considered not working to give me her undivided attention. As for Mini's claim that we are all subsidized, fine. But why should some be sumsidized more than others for choosing an easier route?</p>
<p>Years ago, I knew many well-educated women who stayed at home to raise their families. It was considered the norm. In fact, some male fellow students expressed hostility when I decided to go for a Ph.D. They saw my wish to have a career as feeding my ego and a source of competition for them, whereas they saw their own desire to go for the same Ph.D. as feeding their families. That kind of reasoning was a shock to me. Then I went to England and met a young woman who was denied the opportunity to work with a particular professor for her Ph.D. because he felt that, as a married woman, her place was at home, tending to her husband. He did not care that the husband fully supported her wish to study for the Ph.D. The rest of the department was sympathetic to her, but he was the specialist in the field she wanted to study, and there was no budging him. </p>
<p>Times have now changed. Social norms and expectations have changed. I currently do not know any well-educated woman who stays at home, though I know plenty who have gone into careers that do not pay very well.
So the choice is not between well-educated stay-at-home, idle moms and hard-working ones, but between men and women who earn different levels of income while making significant contributions to society in a variety of fields. </p>
<p>I'm fascinated that you seem to equate hard work with high income and lower income with "the easier route." Surely your mom, whom you describe as uneducated, must have worked hard to support you, though her lack of education precluded her entering some highly paid fields?</p>
<p>Well, the way I look at it, the rich are subsidized all over the tax code, but that's another discussion. Meanwhile, though, I haven't heard ANYONE on this board or elsewhere refusing their subsidy, either from the state school or the private one. Once that's said, the rest is just a matter of degree. I am happy to subsidize the millionaire's kids, both through my taxes and my alumni contribution, such as it is.</p>
<p>(For the record, my kids don't have any federal subsidy, or subsidized loan of any kind - just the Byrd Scholarship, which is academic, and not means-tested.)</p>
<p>Have to admit, though, my conscience is not clear. I support 220 children in India, and am helping to build 4,000 houses. I provide about 500 hours of essentially free services to parents and children across the country. Arrange benefit concerts for Israeli-Palestinian Families of the Bereaved, and the African Great Lakes Initiative (trauma healing services around the Rwanda-Burundi genocide.) Work on storytelling skills for health care professionals and healers. Provide planning for the state on the delivery of alcohol and drug prevention and treatment services, for both kids and adults.</p>
<p>Honestly, I could do more. But I'd have to reduce my income. (Am working on it.) But I didn't "expect" financial aid from any one. My kids earned it in the eyes of the institution. The schools wanted them around, and so they increased the subsidy that everyone else already receives. And that's just fine with me.</p>
<p>I began going back to school when my oldest was 4. I hadn't finished high school, but the community colleges are open to all and are very affordable. I met many parents who were in the same situation as I, this was very empowering and I would encourage any who are interested to go back to school, even if you think you are "too" old.
We have middle class income but that can range from $40,000 or so to as you describe canuckeh as over $100K or even $200K
Ours is much lower than I would like, but after I had to quit my job to spend the bulk of my time advocating for my child in the school system, I saw what a need there was for more community volunteers especially in the schools. WIth most families working full time, they don't have time or energy to do the tutoring, the fundraising for basic materials like books and printer paper, to hunt out more recent books for the school library.
I could not in good consience cut back my volunteer hours to earn money right now, although I am hoping the legislature increases school funding, so I can, it would be nice not to have to worry about our house falling down around our ears when we retire!
While I am not getting monetary benefits, I am getting lots of perks in learning about the students and seeing them work hard. It may be rewarding, but it isn't the "easy" way out by any means.</p>
<p>My point was not to make anyone defend life choices, but to ask the intellectual question: What should be expected of the highly educated. Anecdotal evidence on my dorm hall alone says that there are many highly educated stay at home mothers alive and well in the States, many of their kids being subsidized. I'd simply like to know how people feel about this. To be open about my own case, my mother was long a farm wife. About 8 years ago farming the land ceased to make sense and my father took low wage jobs around town. My parents had the choice of living a frugal life or my mother seeking what would have been domestic work. They chose for her to stay home. Her income would have been minimal. Right choice? It's food for thought.</p>
<p>I think we could also ask what do we expect of people who make well over what is needed for basic livilihood?
Who gets to choose what is basic?
Is it food clothing and shelter?
Does clothing include $200 NorthFace down jackets?
Do we expect them to give back certain amount to charities?
We don't require any body to give anything, expect perhaps not to cheat on their taxes.
( there are enough legal loopholes already)
We don't even require people to do community/military service as they do in other countries.
I don't have a problem with students whose parents have college degrees getting merit or need based aid.
I would like to see two years of community service required of every one after high school however. :)</p>
<p>What you see from talking to dorm-mates, is the consequence of culture shifts. Many of the moms of your dorm-mates probably went to college at the same time I did, when there was pressure for women to stay home and having a career was considered a self-indulgence. Betty Friedan's The Feminine Mystique appeared only a few years before I started college; it took time for its message to work its way through. </p>
<p>When my husband started work, his boss openly said he paid his female employees less than what he paid his male employees because "women are not the chief bread-winners for their families. Men are." I was reviled as selfish for wanting a career. When my children were young, people constantly asked whether I felt any qualms about putting them in daycare at a very young age, the implication being that I was an unnatural mother.</p>
<p>Some women of my generation married men whose own careers meant very long hours and who expected their wives to be at home when they got back, to basically take care of the house and the children and do the charity work that would enhance their stature in the community. Some of these women then went through divorce, and found themselves suddenly bereft of the financial support of their former husbands. Believe me, it's not easy getting back in the job market after you've been out for a while.</p>
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Some women of my generation married men whose own careers meant very long hours and who expected their wives to be at home when they got back, to basically take care of the house and the children and do the charity work that would enhance their stature in the community. Some of these women then went through divorce, and found themselves suddenly bereft of the financial support of their former husbands. Believe me, it's not easy getting back in the job market after you've been out for a while.
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Hours that my husband works also contributed to my decision to cut back hours, for years he worked nights and was gone from about 2pm till 11pm. Pretty much was not my choice, he also often worked required weekends( still does) that was pretty much neither of our choice. He isn't an attorney or doctor, he is a sheetmetal worker!
If I had a regular 9to 5 job our kids wouldn't have seen either parent much and I wouldn't have seen him awake for weeks at a time.
We didn't have kids not to see them and while I was probably the last one in my group that you would pick as having a "traditional" marriage, being the chief cook and bottlewasher, we decided that it was necessary for me get to sleep occasionally!
I long to go back in the workforce sometimes I admit, if only to get the validation when people ask "what do you do". To reply " I raise money so that your kids teacher can hand out worksheets" doesn't get the response I am looking for.</p>
<p>So Marite, what has changed and what hasn't? My peers will be graduating into a challenging economy. Grad school is a must if we are to achieve at the level we are capable in most cases. The needs of the home, the community and the children have not changed. Yet making a living in this Country has and the cost of homes and schools, and their relative affordability has. My girlfriend, whose mother graduated from Wellesley in 1984, has a highly educayed mother who never worked outside of the home a day in her life. Her mother recommends marriage over grad school, an idea my girlfriend shudders at. There are other well educated mothers in my peer group who have had high level careers and of course everything else inbetween. There is much discussion here about what we will do. Should we go for the Ph.D. in philosophy or will be be sorry later because we won't be able to afford top schools for our kids? The economy has made law and business schools harder than ever to get into. Watching top colleges grad have a hard time landing jobs is sure to result in pragmatism. So there is discussion about being subsidized if we become teachers. Yet we really wonder if society will continue to subsidize the highly educated. There are those who think not. One article I read pointed in the shift within affirmative action from all minorities to low ses minorities at many schools. It makes sense, we have many options and will have some consequences of those we choose.</p>
<p>Educational arrogance? No actually, I pay full freight and wouldn't dream of seeking financial aid. But that's me. My S qualified for a merit scholarship in secondary school and we turned it down.</p>
<p>Also, fyi, there is a history to the Parent's Forum. Your question has been well covered in the past, often by posters with an axe to grind--hence the suggestion of "baiting."</p>
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<p>My girlfriend, whose mother graduated from Wellesley in 1984, has a highly educayed mother who never worked outside of the home a day in her life. Her mother recommends marriage over grad school, an idea my girlfriend shudders at.>></p>
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<p>Your GF's mom must pray that her daughter never gets divorced. This has been a key factor in middle-class women's loss of income. </p>
<p>As for career choices, I cannot tell you what to choose. I followed my heart and did well. My H also followed his heart, but has had a rockier career path than I because of his discipline. In college, however, everyone would have predicted that he would have plenty of job opportunities, whereas I would have had a harder time landing a job. </p>
<p>When I was in college, the preferred "career" for young women was secretarial until they got married. Soon after I began working, most of the secretaries were eliminated. We were all expected to learn to use computers and handle our own typing. Secretarial schools closed. A decade ago, computer science was all the rage. Now jobs are being outsourced and that major has lost some of its luster. </p>
<p>Biotechnology is now a hot field, but who knows what it will be by the time you get your advanced degree? Who knows whether many of the jobs won't be outsourced? And even if you could be certain that jobs would continue to be plentiful, is it possible for someone who is in love with, say Renaissance poetry, to force himself or herself into a major that will prepare him/her for a job in biotechnology?
Find out what you really like, strive to be your best and enjoy the college years.</p>
<p>Find out what you really like, strive to be your best and enjoy the college years.</p>
<p>I'll second that, Marite, and add that if you pursue something you enjoy, chances are you will find the financial rewards you seek--at whatever level. In all likelihood, at least 1 of the 10 in your group will CHOOSE a lower financial level. </p>
<p>Not that I understand the conversation. Financial stability wasn't a topic "back in the day". When we were sitting out on the quads, we CERTAINLY weren't talking about the ability to send our kids to private school!</p>
<p>Financial stability is a big topic now. While change is constant, there is no doubt that a top MBA will amke more than a philosophy Ph.D. If you want to know where class comes into play at an ivy, I believe it's in career choice. I jsut got off the phone from the weekly call to my parents in which my Dad asks if I've decided on med school. In his mind, MDs are the epitome of success. There is no changing his mind. Yet I do not feel free to make the choices my upper middle class friends consider. I have parents I'll need to help, maybe a wife at home, and I do want to have a full life with a nice home, travel and good schools for my kids. No trust fund backup here. I really do wonder how much I would enjoy my passion for philosophy in 15 years if it meant a limited life in terms of what I can afford. I don't think I love it enough and think I can lover other things that will provide as well.</p>
<p>Several of my closest friends in college became doctors. What's interesting to me is that all decided to become doctors because of a desire to help people. I knew these women well, and none ever expressed the wish to become a doctor for financial security.</p>
<p>If I were a parent pushing a kid into a field for financial security, I'd pick something like business school. I wouldn't pick medicine. IMO it requires that a person give their hearts and souls to the field, and I don't think that people who are just in it for the money would choose to do that. The time demands are horrendous as are the hours. i know that executives work hard, too, but they have more leeway because what's at stake is not life and death.</p>
<p>I understand where your dad and you come from. But even in medicine, there has been a lot of change. If you go into highly specialized fields, you can certainly make lots of money (but then you also have to repay huge med school bills); but if you go into general medicine and get employed in an HMO, your earnings will not be as high, and, if what I read is accurate, the frustrations of dealing with insurance companies will be considerable. My mom had the same idea that your dad has about medicine. She tried to pressure me into a pre-med major. Problem was, I had no aptitude whatsoever for the sciences. I went for a humanities major instead. I have never regretted it.</p>
<p>You can certainly major in something and minor in philosophy; that is something you can pursue your whole lifelong provided you get some basic training in college. But I still want to caution against thinking that some majors are the key to financial stability.</p>
<p>Canuckeh, the dirty little secret of the current economy is that there are plenty of unemployed MBA's-- top schools, mid-tier schools, bottom of the barrel schools. If you are looking for a magic potion... take it from us parents... there isn't one. Work hard; be honest; do what you love; go to bed at night knowing you tried to make the world a better place. Anything material on top of that is gravy. I know a Harvard Law School grad working as a teacher's aid (can't become a teacher without a master's degree in her state... and a JD isn't a master's degree according to the powers that be). When you look at the people from her class advancing to partner at Skadden Arps and Sullivan and Cromwell, it's easy to forget that the degree is no guarantee...</p>
<p>Humanities can be wonderful preparation for law school. Depending on what kind of law you'd choose to go in, and how well you do on the job, law can be very lucrative.</p>