<p>page 75 says 5% of assets are assumed to be available for aid.</p>
<p>I guess I miss where this is supposed to be earth shattering.</p>
<p>let's put it this way. Two families start 18 years ago in identical financial situation. Family A spent they could and Family B save they could.</p>
<p>IF, only if, both their kids get into the same type of 100% need meeting school and reviewed under the same rules, Family A could get more FA. The saver could be punished.</p>
<p>However, if you don't save and fail to get into a 100% need meet school, then what? </p>
<p>This is almost like the need to pick a safety school. O.K. I am not going to argue against myself here.</p>
<p>It was relevant enough for Collegeboard to list it as an issue.</p>
<p>It's relevant to family B.</p>
<p>It isn't relevant to most people.</p>
<p>But it is relevant to family B.</p>
<p>So what are you suggesting? </p>
<p>That schools should "punish" the children of parents with poor saving habits by not providing them with financial aid?</p>
<p>You saved, and thus you can pay for college without going into debt. Wasn't that your goal?</p>
<p>"If the day comes when the top private universities in the United States are effectively free"</p>
<p>This does chill my blood if some current trends continue. Let's take the top 20 private universities and the top 20 LACs for good measure, and add up how many students that accomodates. Some CC-ite will know that off the top of their head; I'll just wild-ass-guess it as a generous 60,000 students. That group would go to college for free, more or less. The rest of the college-bound population would go down a few paths. There would still be the private option, which would remain pricey. There would be the public option, which is getting increasingly pricey. Unless there's a massive infusion of aid from both public and private sectors, low-income families are going to be entirely frozen out. I can't imagine that the middle and high income families will be too happy about a state of affairs where luck in getting one of those coveted private spots plays such a huge role in finances.</p>
<p>It's an inversion of the marketplace, where now suddenly homes in the Upper East Side and Beverly Hills are cheaper than in Brooklyn and Van Nuys, and even cheaper than in Watts and (dunno what the NYC analogue is). Worse, the costs in all those surrounding areas continues to climb.</p>
<p>No they were saving for a rainy day & in their world it hasn't gotten cloudy yet. That money isn't for college- it is for
"something else"
Well our rain already hit- so we spent it.
Are we competing against families who have been lucky enough to have had sunny weather for 20 years?</p>
<p>What I am really saying is family B has the right to be angry without all the personal attacks.</p>
<p>Families like Family B pay more for school many times.</p>
<p>Whether that should be changed or not is a very complicated issue.</p>
<p>But there is nothing wrong with family B being pi@@ed.</p>
<p>Family B doesn't need to be lectured to about the plight of poor people.</p>
<p>Perhaps, but when you are talking to people in less stable financial situations it is disingenous to expect sympathy.</p>
<p>The people who are really getting "screwed" (as OP graciously put it) are those in the middle class outpriced by the costs of the STATE schools they have been paying taxes for. </p>
<p>U Colorado/Boulder just announced over 9% tuition hikes... U of California just announced 7% hikes in student fees... both of these schools now cost well over $20,000 a year. And well out of the range for the truly middle-middle class/</p>
<p>An offbeat idea:</p>
<p>Maybe FA should be based on the family's net income during the past 18 years?</p>
<p>NotReady - that's an interesting idea, but a paperwork nightmare. It would have helped me since I own my business and, had '06 income been used, I would have done better with FA. Since I had a great '07, no FA. Of course, I had to use '07 income to pay back '06 loans so I didn't really have any more for tuition. It never dawned on me to quit working so I could have another bad year or to whine about having a good year. Anyway, it would work similarly to elder care law where assets are looked at 3-5 yrs back so someone can't turn all assets over to kids and enter a nursing home on the state's dime 6 months later. </p>
<p>Does anyone still add "in bed" to the fortune in the fortune cookie? Every parent talking about the "best school" should add "that we can afford" after that statement.</p>
<br>
<blockquote> <p>NotReady - that's an interesting idea, but a paperwork nightmare. <<</p> </blockquote>
<br>
<p>Agreed. Remember when we could income average on our taxes?</p>
<p>Please, everyone, re-read epiphany's post no. 316. Who the heck are these mythical "Family B"s that you have all heard about, who are making 160,000, living the high life, and GETTING ALL THIS FINANCIAL AID?
These people were the brunt of the OP's bitterness, and if they do exist, it's impossible to imagine them existing in large numbers, as epiphany eloquently pointed out.</p>
<p>
[quote]
family B has the right to be angry without all the personal attacks.
[/quote]
Family B can feel whatever they want to feel, but those of us on the lower end of the economic scale are not going to appreciate nor sympathize when they rant about how they are getting "screwed". </p>
<p>First of all, the OP is not "middle class". The OP is in the upper-income, didn't- qualify-for-need-based-aid class. I'm "middle class" and I qualify for pretty close to the "average" amount of need-based aid that shows up on stats... which is nothing near a full ride, nor is it free of loans. So like other truly middle-class parents, I took out loans, my kids took out loans, my kids worked 2 or 3 jobs at a time. (Yes, someone pointed out that work-study hours are capped, but no one ever told my kids that they had to stop at work-study.). </p>
<p>Secondly, the OP has choices. There are several merit-giving private colleges as well as public schools that have offered the OP's daughter a reduced-fee education.... but the OP is whining about "getting screwed". Since I've got a kid graduating from a state college, I don't buy that either -- I think the upper income earners in this country are very fortunate that so many excellent schools are so generous with merit aid. </p>
<p>If they don't think that the handful of schools that do not offer merit money are worth taking on debt or making a sacrifice of any sort... then they don't have to send their kids there. If they think those elite schools are worth it, then they should be grateful that they have the means to make the choice -- because it is a choice. </p>
<p>If the point is...."I feel bad because I can't send my kid to the school she most wants to attend"... ok. I felt bad too, telling my son to turn down his first choice when they didn't offer financial aid. I felt bad telling my daughter that we couldn't afford her first choice either. So my kids selected among the colleges we could manage. I say "manage" because, like other truly middle class parents, I have only a pittance put away toward retirement, I live in a house that would be deemed a fixer-upper if I ever tried to sell it, I'm racking up debt on my own in order to send a kid to college .... and I feel very grateful to all of the colleges that offered reasonable funding for my kids whether or not they accepted those offers. And glad to see that my son also had the opportunity of attending as state college where half the kids qualify for Pell grants; somehow it didn't kill a NM Scholar to attend a lower-tier state school.</p>
<p>
[quote]
page 75 says 5% of assets are assumed to be available for aid.</p>
<p>I guess I miss where this is supposed to be earth shattering.
[/quote]
Well, for a family has been saving up 'peny by peny' since day one when they started to make money. This is 'earth shattering' deal.</p>
<p>dbwes: Not only are there people making 160K a year, living the high life and getting aid, there are people making much much less and living the high life. It's called BEING IN DEBT. It would surprise some to know that there are people who's income is 30k and have bought 500k houses (where the median price is ~350k) with no money down. It isn't unusual - this is why there is a subprime mortgage mess.</p>
<p>Evidence, please.</p>
<p>
[quote]
Well, for a family has been saving up 'peny by peny' since day one when they started to make money. This is 'earth shattering' deal.
[/quote]
</p>
<p>Seeing your capital assessed at 5% per year is a shattering deal, but taking 100% of someone else's is more acceptable? </p>
<p>Should they force the private endowments to increase their distribution above 5% per year, so you can keep your nest egg and all its annual income? Would that make you feel less screwed?</p>
<p>DocT -- I'm well aware there are people who live beyond their means, are house-poor, or in debt. I specifically asked how many people have actual proof of high-income families with no savings that are actually getting all this financial aid that people in this thread are complaining about. Even if said high-income, no-savings EFCs are somewhat lower (and I don't believe I've seen the proof on this either), they would simply qualify for even more loans. Again, please re-read post #318.</p>
<p>I don't see anything in post 318</p>