<p>boy do I agree with garland. Really, if you feel they have such nerve & are so "unfair," why would you want to go there?</p>
<p>Post 60: Yes! Not "last 20 years," but one year is enough. You think that zipcode doesn't count? That current model of car doesn't count? Equity in home? (While not tapped, an INDICATION OF YOUR NET WORTH & WHAT YOU PROBABLY CAN SPEND & MAYBE HAVE SPENT) Tax returns? Interest & dividend statements from institutions? You think everyone maybe puts their cash under their mattresses? </p>
<p>Amazing.</p>
<p>One year is not enough.</p>
<p>Not even close. ;)</p>
<p>Epiphany--The way i see it, is that I appreciate what I have, rather than gnawing on the suspicion that someone else is gettin' more. It makes for a happier life. There's enough real *misery in the world to fret on, without looking under rocks for perceived injustices against... *me.</p>
<p>
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We've been saving for 20 years and not over-spending, unlike most of the families around us, and now we're being asked to dump all our money into the coffers of an "elite" private school and borrow all the other money we'll need to pay exhorbitant tuition.
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<p>WOW you sound like my parents!!! I don't want to be a burden so I am going to go to state school, which luckily for me, is highly ranked.</p>
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It may surprise all you "middle class folks" who think that attending an "elite" college is a "right" - there are plenty of really bright kids at State Universities.
Justamomof4
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Being poor doesn't always work for financial aid. The even with financial aid there are plenty of kids who can't afford the "state U".
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<p>justaMomof4, my gc told me if I was a minority I would be golden. PPl with my stats who are minorities are going to schools my parents cant afford. They get a boost due to URM status. It is a little tough to have better grades/stats/EC's but get less due to other factors. I got accepted to ivy but it is state school for me.</p>
<p>I find it strange somehow that parents who didn't go to prestige (read: pricey) institutions themselves somehow feel it is an entitlement for the kids to. </p>
<p>Why? The cost of attendance full freight is less expensive now relative to the income/assets of the top 3% of the population (the target market) than at any time since 1980, and assets have increased well faster than cost of attendance. </p>
<p>The complaint seems to be that kids should be entitled to something their parents didn't have. It's nice when it happens, but I hardly see this as the major moral issue of our time.</p>
<p>(Cost of attendance for low-income students at state universities is another matter.)</p>
<p>wink wink yourself. (post 63) I don't get your point, except that you obviously believe that most poor people are crooks. Again with the stereotypes. No one in my part of the U.S., who lives the way you claim some posing as 'poor' do, is very interested in attending an elite institution, OR has the brainpower for that. So you've tracked a critical mass of those who collectively have applied for HYP & the like, AND been accepted to HYP and the like, AND received massive f.a. from HYP & the like, and many or most of them are living high on the hog? Really! Well then, I suggest you bring your information forward to several groups: start with the IRS, then work your way down to the particular State's tax agency, then to the particular "elite" colleges which are being supposedly ripped off. </p>
<p>But if your data is not compelling & convincing, I suggest you stop with the false rumors & the snarky smearing of TRULY poor people, who, as mini has pointed out on past threads, make up a fraction (under-represented) of elite institutions.</p>
<p><a href="And%20really,%20who%20on%20this%20board%20honestly%20knew%2018%20years%20ago%20that%20tuition%20would%20be%20$48,000%20per%20year?">quote=Bay</a>
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We knew it would be something. Maybe it is unreasonable to expect that you would have managed to sock away $200K per kid.... but why not $50K? Since the FAFSA formula only looks to the parents to contribute less than 6% of assets to college, a family with $50K in a college savings account only sees an EFC increase of less than $3000 by virtue of those savings -- and $50K in the bank could easily be leveraged into a combination of cash up front & loan payments to finance the full $200K. </p>
<p>I don't think it is parents who have saved for college who are doing the griping. I have yet to read a post from a parent who says, "we followed our accountant's advice and saved up all the money in a 529 account, and now it turns out not to be enough." Instead, the griping seems to always come from parents who accumulated assets in other forms and are reluctant to part with even a fraction of them. </p>
<p>If you have a lot of assets that are running up your EFC, then you can afford to borrow -- it is as simple as that. Just do a balance sheet and make sure that your assets are always more than your total debt, and you'll be fine.</p>
<p>My 17 year old is out of HS and available full time, but cannot get a job any place in our small town, yet. You would think that would be attractive. We are looking at her working in a nearby large town and living withh her sister, at hearly $4/gal for gas I don't want to see all that drving 20 miles to the job. So, it depends on where you are. Small towns (tiny) may not have that many jobs available.</p>
<p>ephiphany, I have no idea where you get some of your ideas. :)</p>
<p>garland (post 64). I'm with you. In terms of CC, our family is under-advantaged. In terms of much of my region, I, and my children, are under-advantaged. Nevertheless, I consider myself amazingly blessed. I received a premier education from an affordable, globally prominent state institution, & excellent public schools before that. My parents instilled a love of education in me, not a love of swimming pools (dstark). I'm not living in war-torn Iraq or a famine-engulfed nation. I have a job that I love & that suits me beautifully. One child is going to a premier private, the other to a premier public. Both of them earned their way academically into those institutions, and how. Many people have told me that I've had more than my share of tragedy in life, yet, like most I know, I can always find someone from the same background as myself, who has suffered more. And that's why I still do pro-bono work for education, btw.</p>
<p>dstark, I have no idea where you get your NON- "facts." You have provided no answers to my questions, except to come on here with cute little icons.</p>
<p>Just some thought for parents and students entering this process. If money is an issue (and it usually is), I recommend checking which schools tend to be more generous with merit aid, EARLY on. We crossed off Emory and Boston College because my son's chance of getting dollars there were ridiculously small (we told him he was welcome to apply but would likely need to share cost with us if he wanted to go there - he didn't like them enough to jump that hurdle).<br>
It helps to minimize the surprises. We guessed right on many of the private colleges that came through with $. And we were pleasantly surprised by what his State U came up with (a notoriously stingy place but still cheap at full price compared to privates - even with merit aid).<br>
For me, I can't go into a situation and ignore the price tag until the end - just can't. It's too big a number. Many of us have saved as much as we can (not all, I know). But if you're not willing to go into debt or bankrupt your retirement, you really have to be crafty and do lots of homework to make this work. Lots of GREAT threads on that topic on this board...a terrific resource for those in the early stages of the process. There are LOTS of great choices out there, especially for kids with stats good enough to get into a place like Emory. Go in with those eyes wide open...and forget about life being fair...never was...never will be.</p>
<p>
Your GC is mistaken. The financial aid formulas are the same no matter what the status. It is true that person who is a member of a minority group may be eligible for some scholarships (such as Gates Millenium) that aren't available to others, and that at some schools that may benefit from leveraging of aid to attract minorities.... but there are other sources of aid for those who are not URM's. You just have to find them. </p>
<p>As to the stats -- my daughter, who is white & the daughter of two parents with advanced professional degrees -- was accepted at about 5 colleges where her "stats" (test scores) put her in the bottom quartile. She "boosted" herself right up without relying on status -- I am sure that others can too. </p>
<p>It is easy to rely on a sour grapes argument that assumes that someone else got an advantage because of their skin color or heritage -- but the reality is that the people with the greatest advantages in our society are still those who are rich and white. I think it was a tremendous advantage to my daughter to have 2 highly educated parents, even though her parents are divorced and we are truly middle class (i.e., income at median level, not the 6-figure "middle class" that seems to be the norm on the CC boards). Many of my daughter's minority friends don't have that advantage, even if their parents earn the same or more than me; it is not as easy to excel in school, for example, if your parents are not fluent in English.</p>
<p>A family with $100,000 in a savings account (over and above the personal asset allowance) would only contribute about $5600 towards the EFC each year out of the account. Most of the EFC is made up of INCOME. I see a lot of misinformation here.....</p>
<p>dstark, those of us who are truly middle class do not have money for swimming pools. We are not spending money we never had. When I moved into our house 20 years ago, within a month after moving in the tile from the bathroom wall started falling off exposing the bare plaster underneath. It turns out that the people who sold us the house had done a shoddy job of pasting on fake tile to cover up an unfinished bathroom. I took duct tape and plastic garbage bags to cover it up. Guess what? 20 years later, the bathroom wall is still duct tape and garbage bags. That is the bathroom that my kids both used for their entire childhoods.... I never did find the money to hire someone to come in and do the tile work needed. (I'm planning on getting the work done just as soon as d. graduates from college - in the meantime, I'm still supporting her.). </p>
<p>So don't go ranting about swimming pools. If you had enough money to make a choice between a pool and a savings account, you are rich in my eyes.</p>
<p>Very disappointing thread. </p>
<p>Very disturbing thread. </p>
<p>I didn't like what the financial calculators at the elite schools told me either. And we couldn't afford it either. But I didn't blame that on poor people, or people who have less than me, or people that have more than me. I directed the blame toward the school with the arbitrary rules that made zero sense and myself for my part in not being able to write the check. The school sitting on the monster endowment that just sits there doing nothing more than making more monster endowment has some 'splaining to do...IMO</p>
<p>I have always stood up for what I thought was in the best interest of the forgotten middle-class in elite school FA, but my gosh. I had no idea the depth of anger some of y'all feel.I had no idea. (Edit: I think many of y'all may be upper-middle - but why quibble?) </p>
<p>Edit: This is very disappointing.</p>
<p>
[quote]
justaMomof4, my gc told me if I was a minority I would be golden. PPl with my stats who are minorities are going to schools my parents cant afford. They get a boost due to URM status. It is a little tough to have better grades/stats/EC's but get less due to other factors. I got accepted to ivy but it is state school for me.
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<p>seriously why do gc's say this stuff. Perhaps she meant if you were a POOR minority.
anxiousmom is correct - you are only expected to contribute a tiny PORTION of your precious savings. </p>
<p>epiphany - your words of wisdom are inspiring to me tonight - glad you are on my side.</p>
<p>Meanwhile this is the first time in their history that significant numbers of minorities could qualify as legacies at private prestige colleges.</p>
<p>Interesting that most of them are now finding ways to discount the legacy advantage....</p>
<p>Calmom, why are you taking what I said about swimming pools and personalizing it? </p>
<p>I actually said very little about swimming pools.</p>
<p>My point is two families with SIMILAR incomes are treated differently in financial aid. </p>
<p>The family that saves gets less financial aid then a family with similar income that spends.</p>
<p>That concept seems to be a problem with many on this board.</p>
<p>If I save $300,000 over 20 years and somebody else saves nothing but has made a similar income, why do I pay around $15,000 more, each year, for the same school?</p>
<p>Why can't I feel or think that is wrong?</p>