<p>@kandcsmom My parents made a similar amount as you, and paid more for my college. They did it (and I think this is what colleges expect) by just paying out of their income and living like they did if their income dropped by by that amount.</p>
<p>@purpletitan We are in Ohio. Stats are 3.9 UW GPA, 27 ACT as an unprepped sophmore, good ECs with some leadership roles and volunteer work. White female so esentially no hook. We can afford Bowling Green, YSU and Akron with some merit, MiamiU, OSU and Cinncinati with a little more. She has dismissed Shawnee, Wright State and OU. Her dream would be UK but only of she’s NMSF will that be doable. </p>
<p>@warbrain That’s a lovely thought but we also have a S19 to think about. There has to be another way than living on Ramen at 50. I should, with a side job, be able to save another 15000 in the next 2 years.<br>
And @warbrain I hope you thank your parents every day that they did that. </p>
<p>@PurpleTitan those shouldn’t have to be the only options for the group of people who are driving the economy</p>
<p>@kandcsmom:</p>
<p>Well, she’s a sophomore so that’s encouraging. Miami has some pretty big merit awards: <a href=“http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/index.html”>http://miamioh.edu/admission/merit-grid/index.html</a></p>
<p>I’m sure she’ll raise her ACT or SAT sores over the next couple years or so.</p>
<p>I think UK is pretty generous with merit aid. So is Mizzou:.</p>
<p>Doing well on the PSAT is key. Then a lot more options open.</p>
<p>@AnnieBeats:</p>
<p>Strangely, I get the feeling that your viewpoint would change if a zero was lopped off your spousal income.</p>
<p>She’s actually a junior, she took the ACT early “to see”. I’ve heard Miami’s merit is no longer guaranteed and it looks like they’ve lowered the botton tier award to 2000.00 a year. She did self enroll in the distance learning program at OU, and should have about 30 credits at graduation. We only have 2 APs tho. </p>
<p>@kandcsmom:</p>
<p>That’s good. Might be worthwhile to find out what publics take those credits.</p>
<p>Miami merit does look like it’s not guaranteed, but it seems like it’s more of a first-come/first-serve thing. Get your app in EA and if you meet the criteria, it seems likely that you’ll get the award stated. </p>
<p>We aren’t even talking 60000 a year colleges, just 25000. Just. Ha. I’ve saved 35000 but its not even close to enough. What do we do?</p>
<p>its unfortunate in a couple states public universities are more costly than others.
Then your best bet may be to look for merit aid at lesser known private schools.
Our states public universities are under $25,000 but just under.
We’ve paid out quite a bit more for our youngest to attend an instate public school, than we did for her sister to attend one of the $60,000 schools. But that was because one met need, and we had four people at home, one a child, at the time. Our income was also significantly lower as it was about 10-13 yrs ago.</p>
<p>But college expenses are meant to be paid from a combination of past/current/future income.
Most people dont have enough savings to cover COA, except for people who put enough in the guarenteed tuition program in their state. But generally by the time your kids are 18,19 years old, your income is higher than it was when they were born. Its not unreasonable to take a few years of lighter retirement contributions, and put it toward your kids education, if that is a priority.
If it isnt a priority and they still want to attend college, living at home can reduce costs by $10,000 or so.</p>
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<p>I totally agree. The same thing happened with the housing bubble and people buying more house than they could afford. However, if all colleges still had the shabby dorms and the cafeteria-style food that we had when we went to college, parents would simply accept that as the norm. Living at college used to be a middle-class existence; now it’s taken on many of the trappings of an upper-middle-class existence. The dining halls at Stanford are like an upscale food court in the financial district. Just the cost of hiring staff to man all those food stations must be prohibitive. I imagine that back when we stood in line to choose between meatloaf or veggie casserole, the cost of preparing those meals was a lot less.</p>
<p>You know, I have to say - having toured 15 or so colleges, where is all this “upscale whatever” I keep hearing about? I’ve not seen any climbing walls or obvious OMG-they-spent-so-much-money-on-that. And the only dorms that I saw that were gasp-worthy were those from grand 100+ year old structures, not brand new ones. Most of the dorms still appear to be the same cinderblock style stuff we had years ago. There are things that are nicer than “in my day,” but I haven’t seen anything gasp-worthy or particularly showy or that struck me as “well, that was a complete waste of $$.” </p>
<p>@Pizzagirl Well, there has been an arms race in the SEC. Some schools like Ole Miss and Texas A&M have made huge renovations to stadiums and athletic facilities.</p>
<p>@PurpleTitan Irrelevant. I grew up in a middle class home. Not upper middle class, but really in the middle. The only reason why my siblings and I could afford to go to college was because my parents inherited money and because my dad sold his childhood home. I know what it’s like to have just enough. My husband’s income has nothing to do with this. </p>
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These are arguably prudent investments, since football probably is a positive cashflow generator for those schools.</p>
<p>Well my stock answer comes with caveats (go figure…).</p>
<p>The United States’ economy was founded and has largely been built on the systemic ideals of Capitalism (AKA Free Enterprise), a system in which demand and supply interact to decide price.</p>
<p>If you used the US News (and other) rankings to identify the “elite” schools, then yes, you might say that the sticker price on the top-25 united ersities and LACs is out of the reach of most families.</p>
<p>However…</p>
<p>1) Most of those schools offer strong need-based aid, making the actual price charged competitive with in-state public tuition in many cases… and essentially, much of that instititionally derived aid is offered via a fairly socialistic mechanism, and…
2) US universities are really the best in the world (by nation…), if you believe in prestige rankings from the Times and other bodies. So you can get an outstanding education at schools not ranked in the top-25 or really anywhere close.</p>
<p>I think it still mostly comes down to working hard and making smart decisions (inclyding investments) to set yourself up to be in a position to meet that EFC for schools to which your child is accepted.</p>
<p>Because the top schools will help; and the rest, which are still pretty solid, do not tend to cost as much.</p>
<p>That said, tuition is growing far faster than inflation. Looking at instructor salaries, we can see (some of) how that is happening.</p>
<p>But…</p>
<p>1) Top instructors bring in research money for the school and add to its prestige, and…
2) Those are normal market forces.</p>
<p>Each of us is a private agent working on our own behalf in the marketplace. As such, each of us affects market movement. Sometimes the results might not seem fair, but it beats the heck out of having those rights/choices removed.</p>
<p>@purpletitan It’s Ohio University and we’ve been using transferology and checking on the BG website before enrolling </p>
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<p>The global rankings are driven by grad schools; that’s why the ordering of the American schools on the global lists looks very different than USNWR. US grad school admissions & pricing is an academic meritocracy-- grad school applicants don’t have have to pretend they are passionate about working in soup kitchens. Scholarships, assistantships, fellowships are awarded on the basis of academic merit, not financial need. </p>
<p>Well PhD programs are definitely more meritocratic in admissions since they are fully funded and provide a stipend. It’s actually more feasible to go to the top schools like Harvard and Princeton since the stipend is higher.</p>
<p>It’s interesting how few people know this. A lot of people are surprised when I tell that not only am I not paying tuition for a PhD, but I get paid.</p>
<p>I think it’s very problematic in undergrad that one’s choices are so impacted by their parents’ finances. If education is supposed to be an equalizer, it shouldn’t matter so much how much your parents can pay. Surely that is too idealistic and will never happen, but you would think it’s possible for the situation to be better than it is now.</p>
<p>Not all students at all graduate programs are fully funded with a stipend. And as the budgets of the NSF and NIH decrease, there has been less and less support for graduate students.</p>