<p>@warbrain I cannot think of a particular school, but I can speak of something similar that I have noticed. I have noticed that some acquaintances have outright denied good job opportunities so that their children can go to college for essentially nothing next year. These acquaintances have also denied jobs so that they can stay on welfare and not work. </p>
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This statement made me feel that I am poorer than I thought. I would think a family like these will not have a hard time to pull it off, unless they have too many kids.</p>
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Anecdotally, during the years when you pay for college, there’s a “threshold” when it comes to FA where unless you make a lot more, you’d actually be worse off by earning a little more when the additional tax paid and the “loss” of FA are taken into consideration.</p>
<p>@Benley, I think it’s at that level that --but maybe not so high as 300K, but certainly in the150-180K, that families struggle with even the FA at elite schools. At Harvard, with 175K, with no assets, parents are expected to contribute 27K, and the student 3K. </p>
<p>The universities all need to take a look at their operating budgets and cut unnecessary expenses. There is so much waste at these schools that it’s hard to believe there isn’t some way to lower the tuition.</p>
<p>^^Sure, 150-180K families struggle even with FA, but those that make over 200K can struggle too because they’d pay almost double the amount of what 150-180K families pay. And they are paying more taxes too. It’s not a comfortable position to be in for sure. Then you are not supposed to be comfortable when you pay for college right?</p>
<p>@mcat2 $150,000 will get you far in Flint, MI. In NYC, that won’t get you very far unless you find a way to beat the system and live in affordable housing. Maybe that was an exaggeration, but nonetheless asking a family give up 1/3 of their income for one child is no easy task when they live in an area with a high cost of living.</p>
<p>@Benley </p>
<p>Well, there is an expectation to save, and maybe also to take out some loan. </p>
<p>@AnnieBeats, We ain’t living in NYC. We luckily lived in the south when our child went to college. A private one and full pay for the first two years, with about two-thirds of the family income you mentioned. We mostly relied on the savings accumulated since child’s birth. Many may think we are financially unwise or even crazy for doing this, considering the situation we were/are in. But our family are “ALL IN” as far as the child’s education is concerned and consider the consequence later (e.g., maybe can not afford to retire in this country when we are old 
) Our child now takes about one-half of financial burden from his “future income” (student loans) now and we chipped in the other half which the school asked us to pay. In our situation, we really can not afford to pay for 8 years even with our efforts in savings since child’s birth. There is a thread about parents having to spend more than $240k to raise a child excluding the college tuitions. If this is true, I think we have spent $600’000 including the tuitions.</p>
<p>There is another family with the similar income and they sent TWO kids to private colleges. I am amazed by what they have managed to do.</p>
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<p>Doesn’t Harvard do some scheme like if your family makes below 180K you spend at most 10% of your income on tuition, and if above 180K you’re full pay? So there.</p>
<p>I don’t know of specific other examples but I’m almost certain they exist. The government doesn’t seem to understand this either. Almost every social safety net can penalize people by eliminating their subsidies when they make just slightly more. </p>
<p>Sure they can cut tuition by shaving expenses. When I went to college there was one phone on the dorm hallway for 30 students. We had electric fans in the windows in September and May when it was hot (no A/C). The dining hall closed at 7:30 pm and the “snack bar” closed at midnight. If you had a food allergy you told the nice folks on the cafeteria line- there was one nutritionist to support the entire campus/student body. If you had a learning disability or were blind/used a wheelchair, it was up to you to figure out how to manage- there was no office of Student Support Services. If you needed medical attention during the weekend or late at night, your roommate called a cab and took you to the ER of the local hospital (or called 911) since the last health care appointment was at 4:30 pm. There was a big computer lab on campus and if you needed IT support for a class you were taking, you made an appointment (no “on call” tech support). The gym was for athletes and folks on the team- if you wanted to work out or just to play recreational tennis, you had to sign up and got to use the facilities when the teams and coaches didn’t need them.</p>
<p>And of course- who remembers making coffee with an immersion heater, a mug, and a packet of instant?</p>
<p>It’s nice to say that colleges should cut expenses. But then parents complain that there are only 5 career counselors on staff and not 10. Or that the med school advisor also advices law and fellowship students. And that when their kid went to meet with a Dean about a medical withdrawal, it took three days to get an appointment and the Deans should have enough time to meet with everyone. And when they called the Bursar to find out why there was an extra charge of $10 on their bill last month, it took a week to get it resolved (why can’t they just hire more people?) And my little snowflake can’t make it to Orgo at 9 am on a Friday so they need more sections and more labs so the class can meet at a convenient time.</p>
<p>Just scroll through the things that folks on here complain about in a typical month. Colleges need to do more, hire more, serve more, be more. Plus the dorms are dumpy- when are they going to fix those, and why won’t Yale let my kid bring a window air conditioner for the two weeks in September that it’s hot in CT? (answer- the dorm was built in 1880 and if every kid brought a window air conditioner, nobody would be able to charge their phones, run their fridges, and do all the other things that weren’t invented in 1880.</p>
<p>What I consider wasteful is someone else’s key priority. And vice versa.</p>
<p>I have my popcorn.</p>
<p>I’m going to just sit back and watch this one.</p>
<p>I think they moved away from that, though you need to get up to 250K to be full pay.</p>
<p>With respect to earning slightly more–if you earn 75K, you would be expected to contribute around 8K. If you then earn 10K more the next year, you would be expected to contribute around 10K. So around a 2K increase. I don’t know how much more in taxes that would be, but you would almost certainly come out ahead over the long run. Even if you had to take that extra 2K in loan for 4 years, I would imagine that it would be better to take that additional 10K over those 4 years.</p>
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<p>I think it should just be kept low too, but realistically it’s not going to be “kept low”, it’s going to go up for some - even most - and down for others.</p>
<p>There are a lot of colleges (indeed I’d say the vast majority of colleges) with tiny endowments that don’t offer much in the way of financial aid, and their tuition as it is may be as low as it would get.</p>
<p>Regarding saving for college, just like retirement, a little bit saved every pay period adds up in the long run. But, the system is penalizing those who have been saving diligently too as your assets might come back and bite you in the process of financial need evaluation. That said, I think your current household income is still the deciding factor. If you have been at a high income level for not very long and may not maintain the same level in the long run, well there’s your bad luck. </p>
<p>@blossom I see where you are coming from. With that being said, why raise the price of tuition and then spend much of your endowment on FA? That money could be used to improve facilities, and give students access to more things. Wouldn’t it make more sense to try to look at the average amount a student pays each year and make that be the tuition. Harvard spends millions on FA yearly. Why wouldn’t they just say, hey, let’s just lower the tuition so we can save the money we give in aid?</p>
<p>@Benley </p>
<p>At least with respect to Harvard, you aren’t penalized that much if you save. If you are a family with 175K in income, with 75K in a savings account, your total cost will be the same as if you didn’t have that in savings–31,725. At least that is what comes out when I do the FA calculator. Please check:</p>
<p><a href=“Net Price Calculator | Harvard”>https://college.harvard.edu/financial-aid/net-price-calculator</a></p>
<p>If you think about it, if you can save 4K for 18 years, then you should be able to save about 72K. That will give you 18K in savings to apply to that 31K each year. That means you would only have to come up with 13K for each year. That should be doable.</p>
<p>Its up to the state.
If they want to tax themselves to provide a bigger budget for education, or if they feel there are higher priorities.
However, there needs to be minimum level of education offered as determined by federal govt.</p>
<p>Private schools can do what they want, but for profit schools need to be above aboard at all times and inform potential students of that status.</p>
<p>^If they lower tuition, they can’t collect big bucks from the full pay folks. Most of the examples above are based on the HYP model. For most privates, 150-180k, with modest assets, is going to land you in the full pay, or nearly full pay category. After you deduct fed and state income taxes, FICA, insurance premiums, and 401k contributions (if you’re fortunate enough to be able to fund your 401K), you’re lucky to see half of that income. 50k-60k is an awfully big chunk. </p>
<p>@skrlvr 18 years ago, I doubt people thought that tuition would be where it is now. Did some research and some projections have college tuition being as high as $100,000 per year 18 years from now. It’s really hard to predict. Obviously saving does help, but going forward, families really have to consider saving about $8K per year, which isn’t easy. My husband and I had a convo about what we will be doing for our incoming baby and it is really hard to save thousands for one child while another is in college paying upwards of $40K per year. With that daunting $100K projection and the current cost of tuition, it seems almost impossible to manage.</p>