@charliesch, at Ivies/equivalents, generally only 10% of the student body are internationals.
It’s the better state schools that are known to be strong in STEM that are taking in huge numbers of internationals (who pay the OOS rate rather than the lower in-state rate) who may be hurt most by the softening Chinese economy.
@purpletitan I know of such university and it has held the line on “in state” tution but at the cost of admitting fewer in-state students and more internationals…go boilermakers 
. I hope it does not come back to bite them…
@northwesty, add in Ivy-equivalents, and you have roughly 25K places each year at the Ivy/equivalent tier.
There are close to 4M kids born each year. Add in immigrants, and each percentile will have 40-50K kids. Let’s say 50K.
At current prices, roughly the top 5 percentile would be full-pay (yes, HYPS have very generous fin aid policies, but most Ivies/equivalents are not as generous). The Ivies and equivalents are certainly fine with selecting 12.5K of the most promising from a pool of 250K.
If you think that doubling the price would mean only the top 0.5 percent can afford to be full-pay, then that pool becomes only 25K. If the elites still want to fill half their school with full-pays (and they may not; fin aid would likely increase), they would be schools filled with mediocre rich kids. I’m pretty certain no elite wants that.
Which is why the list price is where it is (instead of, say, twice as high). The elites want to maximize the caliber of their student body as well as revenues.
You underestimate the Chinese people. Regardless of China economy the parents still want to send their kids to the US.
You certainly can complain! $280k over 4 years is something to complain about. It also should not be beyond the means of someone in that income bracket, IF (big IF) they have been saving for the past 18 years for ever increasing college cost. But I agree 100% that whether a family can “afford” it, or is willing to pay it, is a personal decision.
oh, wait a sec… probably not a good idea to take current year cost of $70k and multiply by 4. The 4 year cost could easily be over $300k.
“Which is why the list price is where it is (instead of, say, twice as high). The elites want to maximize the caliber of their student body as well as revenues.”
Purple – I hear you. The elites are trying to maximize their mission, which involves a number of trade-offs. They need to meet budget for financial aid, for full pays, for diversity, for high academics stats, for athletes, for legacies, for engineering majors, for French majors, etc. etc. etc. They don’t maximize for any one thing – to get diversity, for example, the schools give up some revenue. To get athletes, they give up some academic selectivity.
They certainly have enough demand that they could increase their sticker price for higher end incomes if they wanted or needed to. If you dial up the sticker price, you pretty easily manage the overall impact by adjusting some other knobs. Since SES and academic stats are so strongly correlated, there’s probably little tradeoff there.
Harvard net price calculator says $48K net price with $210K income, and that’s with zero assets and zero student income.
And schools that are not HYPS give no financial aid at the income. In the NYC suburbs, 5% is $247,596 and the 1% is $608,000. At $210K it would be difficult to save for two or three kids at private colleges at full pay, especially since most families are not making $210K for all 18 years of the kid’s life. Please . Of course many of those I know that are full pay have grandparent money that is helping substantially.
It would be much easier for the $210,000 income family to save for the kids’ college costs if they spend like they earned $70,000 (the probable approximate median family income for those with high school or college age kids) than if they spend to keep up with the Joneses who spend all of their $700,000 income.
It is difficult to save a single dollar for college regardless of your income and cost of living without a mindset which says that saving for college is a high priority.
There are people who work for me (so I know how much money they make) who have lifestyles which I could never aspire to. They don’t participate in our voluntary retirement programs (which whisk the money out of your paycheck before you even see it- such a painless way to get the free money match), they basically use their annual bonus to pay off the credit card balance vs. using it for asset accumulation, and they are constantly robbing Peter to pay Paul (using a HELOC to up their cash flow because they’ve got no financial cushion).
If you start your working years with an eye towards saving and not consuming, you are going to have a much easier time paying for college, paying for retirement, helping an elderly parent with unexpected nursing/home care expenses, etc. Savings are a powerful tool for meeting your overall lifestyle objectives.
Of course it’s hard to save on a 210K salary when there are so many trips to take and meals to eat and clothes to buy and lessons to pay for your kids.
^ If someone does not contribute to a retirement plan in an amount that maximizes a company’s match, they are giving up literally free money their employer is willing to pay them, that also compounds tax free. It is literally one of the poorest financial decisions somebody can make.
That said, I would have to disagree slightly with what @ucbalumnus said in #48. If you live in the NY Metro, SF area, or other high cost of living areas, it is very difficult to live below your means, especially in that $150-250K earnings band. Those of us on this forum who value education and WANT to save for college will also tend to live in relatively more expensive areas with good public schools, or choose private schools if in less desirable areas. Both of these practices impact one’s ability to put away big $$ for college.
I agree that many do live beyond their means keeping up with the Joneses, and that does not help with college savings, but if your job forces you to be in San Francisco to earn that good living, you are forced to make very difficult choices about lifestyle, commute times, and stress, which in many cases win out over saving for college. Of course I concur that if someone wants to limit their commute in high cost areas, that that is a lifestyle choice, and it will impact their college savings ability. My point is that many people in high cost areas cannot save for college, despite a “good” salary in the $200K range, and not living lavishly, just because of the high cost of housing.
It’s all about priorities as @blossom stated above. Otherwise how do the other 5 million people get by on 1/3-1/5 of that income?
This is true. Some folks with low-income may have no choice but to live in squalid housing in high-crime areas with bad schools. Other folks who make more may decide that they’d prefer to live elsewhere rather than save for college.
Are we the only ones who stopped at two kids partly because we wanted to fully fund their college education? I am genuinely curious. It wasn’t our only reason, but was definitely a factor.
@intparent, you are not alone. My husband and I planned on 2 kids, knowing it would make sense for us financially.
We also married right out of college, but waited to start our family until we were 30. It allowed us to have fun, “couple time” prior to raising our children…though we were still relatively frugal, which in turn, allowed me to stay at home with the children.
As for housing we chose our residence in part because of the school district. However, within that school district there were different housing options. We went for location and the mid-point of our price range…and I’m so glad we did. A mistake I’ve seen over and over is the “house rich, cash poor” scenario.
For every person who says that they need to live in New Canaan or Darien CT to commute to their jobs (both very expensive suburbs with virtually no low end housing) you can point them to Norwalk, CT (the town next door, which is walkable from parts of New Canaan and Darien) which has diverse housing stock, good shopping, a big, highly regarded hospital, etc.
I find the argument “I must live in my 4,000 square foot home with the three car garage because of my job” very tiresome.
I planned to have 2 children - stopped at 1, 'cause none of the others took… My husband has a daughter from a previous marriage.
We did decide to stay in the house that husband bought with his first wife, though, (after much discussion and soul-searching - this is not the house I would’ve picked out for myself…) because we wanted to save more for both D’s college and retirement.
We originally planned to move, to a bigger house.
We paid off the mortgage shortly before my stepdaughter entered college - and my own D was still in grade school. We stopped paying child support at the same time, and suddenly we had some extra cash. Even after paying her tuition. Our first thought was to look for that new house. We didn’t look too long before realizing we were looking a gift horse in the mouth. We had one child at home, no more on the way, a nice 3 bedroom house (albeit small and modest) in a nice neighborhood in a good school district and NO HOUSE PAYMENT.
We decided to stay and up our savings for D’s college and retirement.
Just by staying in this house, and not buying another one; and by keeping our cars for over ten years before buying another; and by paying off credit cards every month, we have been able to - travel more, save enough to pay all of D’s college costs, save enough in retirement to still maintain our current lifestyle. Imo, we also have a very comfortable lifestyle - although some of our peers think we’re eccentric tightwads. Well, compared to them we are…
We are in the top 5%, I think, so yes, that helps. But people in our income bracket think they need a lot of things they don’t really need, and it’s actually a want. You don’t need a new car every three to five years, you don’t need to stay in 4-star hotels, you don’t need to fly first-class, your kids don’t need a bigger room, or their own playroom, or their own bathroom, you don’t need a formal dining room and living room.
Forego those things and you won’t need to go into debt for any college or university.
We also live in a big metro area, housing is higher here than surrounding areas, and we still treat ourselves to nice experiences and a few toys… I really think the secret is staying out of debt. And one of the biggest debts you can take on is a house (aside from college and car loans).
And I do think the housing boom in the 90s messed up a lot of people’s finances, across income levels. People upgraded to huge houses they didn’t need - but they could get the loan and they did. We almost did. I’m forever grateful we did not.
I do agree with Cameron121, though, in that San Francisco is probably an exception to being able to live below one’s means. My stepdaughter, and a friend of mine, are in the Bay area. Housing prices and rents there are beyond crazy.
http://quickfacts.census.gov/qfd/states/06/0667000.html indicates that the median household income in San Francisco is $75,604. Surely, a household with double or triple that income can figure out how to live and perhaps save some money for their kids’ college (and lower-than-private-school-cost UCs, CSUs, and community colleges do not seem to have the stigma that state universities in some other states have, so these are more likely to be seen as viable options).
“It would be much easier for the $210,000 income family to save for the kids’ college costs if they spend like they earned $70,000.”
Sure you can always spend more or less no matter what you make. But the $260k per kid full pay zone is going to be out of reach for all but the most extreme savers at an income level of $200k or so. For two kids that’s over $500k. That’s an entire second house for a family at that income level (since a 2.5 ratio of income to house value is pretty typical).
That’s why Harvard gives financial aid to families at that level. And especially why all those merit aid colleges exist…