There is no college cost crisis

Parents Forum
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<p>Nope, I learned that facet of finaid a long time ago.</p>

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<p>Sorry, but it is not MY argument. It is the policy of those with the money, the 7 Ivy League schools that jc’s kid applied to. It’s their money, they set the rules (unless you wish to socialize them into lowering their prices?)</p>

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<p>Assuming that is an economic argument – which I doubt – the “tax” as you call it is totally voluntary. JC voluntarily sends her D to an OOS public and pays OOS rate to do so. Clearly, she thinks the cost (“tax” in your terminology)) is worth it. Otherwise, her D could have gone elsewhere.</p>

<p>btw: the cost to educate one student at a private college can run upwards of $80k. Thus, even the highest earners are receiving a discount, by paying the full, but subsidized rate.</p>

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<p>No at Harvard the family only pays a maximum of 10% of their income per student. So with an income of 120k you would pay 12k per child instead of 100k. The family would pocket 75k in FA per year total. A family making 250k would get zero in most cases though there are some exceptions where they might get a little.</p>

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<p>Is this really the right policy for America? </p>

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<p>Policy for America!!! This is a policy of a very few top colleges whose alums donate tons of money to subsidize the policies of the college. AMERICA has a very limited system of financial aid that “gives” the same amount to a family earning $100k that it “gives” to a family earning $250k … an unsubsidized loan.</p>

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<p>bluebayou obviously we are unlikely to see things the same way but the system is very much in crisis and the big implosion is coming because very soon most of the state schools will be forced to dramatically increase their costs due to the massive budget deficits. As I said before the future is visible in the new costs for tuition at UC for law and medical school which approach the private schools. Your argument that the cost of educating an undergad is 80k is pure nonsense. Very few resources at the top universities are used on undergrad education. Instead the schools have more administrators than teachers and are more concerned on construction projects than teaching. Nothing will change until the gov’t stops flooding the system with money and we stop pretending that most HS students are benefited by going to college.</p>

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<p>I don’t think you are right, SAY.</p>

<p>I think with 2 kids, Harvard gives discounts for those families that make 240,000.</p>

<p>Check out the Princeton financial aid calculator. I was playing around with your two scenarios and pretended that both families had no assets other than their homes. </p>

<p>The family that makes 240,000 a year received almost 30,000 a year in aid. The family that makes 120,000 received 45,000 a year in aid.</p>

<p>I also assumed that the family that makes 240,000 a year pays 50,000 in federal income taxes and the family that makes 120,000 a year pays
10,000, so that probably skews the numbers…</p>

<p>Which gets me back to this…how do you know what people actually make and what they are worth?</p>

<p>Edit…ok i changed the 10,000 income tax to 20,000 for the family that
makes 120,000 a year.</p>

<p>So…for two kids in college, the family that makes 120,000 a year,
receives 15,000 more in aid than the family that makes 240,000… But there are other variables.</p>

<p>Why do you pay less if you are sending a kid to private high school? What’s up with that? Princeton is subsidizing families that send their kids to private high school? </p>

<p>That’s fair?</p>

<p>The aid that Princeton and Harvard give out…pretty good.</p>

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<p>kelsmom these top schools get huge benefits from the US taxpayor in many subtle ways. The main issue is that very few American acutally understand how this crazy system works. Keep in mind that it’s all tied together in a legal monopoly where all the schools get together and fix the prices. Again please explain why the 120th ranked private school has the same price as the ives especially when almost half the students overall never graduate. This conudrum is starting to be understood for law school where it make almost no sense to pay tuition to attend a third tier school. After all there surely must be some connection between to cost of the education and the value of the education. The college system is really not much different from the public school unions in that they are mostly concerned with their own interests rather than the education of America’s youth.</p>

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<p>dstark the exact amount depends on the school and your other assests. But even with two in college most people making 250k get very little aid. Remember in that article Harvard only gave 100 families with incomes over 200k any aid. I know many familes in that income range and none of them get anything worth discussing. Let’s open it up and ask the posters making over 250k how much any received in FA.</p>

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<p>[Financial</a> Aid Overview](<a href=“http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k51861&pageid=icb.page248616]Financial”>http://isites.harvard.edu/icb/icb.do?keyword=k51861&pageid=icb.page248616)</p>

<p>Last paragraph.</p>

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<p>Particularly since I base (most) of my arguments on facts. :)</p>

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<p>Actually, that is verifiable, factual “nonsense”. Check out Williams, for example. A LAC has to pay market rates for faculty and other services, but has no real grad programs on which to pull in research.</p>

<p>I do concur with you that States are in a world of hurt, and that includes their higher ed systems.</p>

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<p>The main issue is that very few American acutally understand how this crazy system works.</p>

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<p>Ummmm, yeah …</p>

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<p>Dstark and Bluebayou…Our kid’s K-12 private prep, although expensive, costs a fraction of college tuition. This school does distribute FA; however, unlike colleges, it’s given only to those who fall near the poverty level. Again, we prioritized, worked very hard, and sacrificed to send our children to private school as the publics in our area, we felt, were not an option. </p>

<p>Bluebayou…Our D elected not to apply to Columbia because she recognized she had grown up in a sheltered environment and at 17 was not equipped for NYC, plus she didn’t care for Columbia’s core requirements. I’m really unsure why you feel it necessary to review my prior posts and mention that she applied to 7 ivys; so what? What’s your point? Furthermore, your mocking attitude of her choosing the nation’s #2 public school over others in part as an effort to save money is insulting. 28% of kids at UVA are OOS and a large percentage if them are full pay – again, I might ask, “So?” Our D wants to go to med school and knows the vast expense of what lies ahead. We have taught both of our children to try to obtain good values, and at 8K less than say Northwestern or others, UVA seemed to be a better value. This type of decision is why our family is in a financial position where we don’t receive ANY FA and why, unfortunately, part of our money goes to fund the education of others. (BTW…FA does not come exclusively from endowments. As Say has said, full pays’ tuition is redistributed to others.)</p>

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<p>So why not just charge everyone the same small amount of tuition, and everyone will be happy as clams? That should work out just fine & dandy.</p>

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<p>The “best and brightest” are having fewer children because it makes no sense to pop out 4+ children in a high-tech society. It’s also much easier and efficient to raise, educate, and distribute wealth to 2-3 children than to 4 or more children. Moreover, thanks primarily to modern medicine, children nowadays have a higher chance of survival into adulthood. I’m sure others can point out other reasons. </p>

<p>I doubt the “best and brightest” are having fewer children just because university tuition is high.</p>

<p>What I find curious is how a large # of these affluent people do not mind spending large sums of $ for luxury homes, cars, clothes, etc. just to signal they have the $$$ to do so but turn around and complain about high tuition at a small number of private, elite universities.</p>

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<p>[Financial</a> Aid & Scholarships - College Confidential](<a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/financial-aid-scholarships/]Financial”>Financial Aid and Scholarships - College Confidential Forums)</p>

<p>this. The cost of college is being funded on the backs of over-borrowing by 18-22 year olds. The banks are guaranteed payment. It’s an unethical financial bubble and the cost to the students being educated today far outstrips the long-term value to these kids who are too young to know better than to borrow at that rate based on 'hoped for" returns.</p>

<p>If you think this is “all right,” you might not care as much about the next generation as you believe you do.</p>

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<p>If you frequent that section of CC, then you are aware that students are cautioned over and over and over and over that there are cost-effective options & they need to find colleges they can afford without borrowing a whole bunch of money. And too many of these students (and parents!) insist on borrowing, anyway. Some folks can’t be protected from themselves.</p>

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<p>Kelsmom, my issue is with the banks taking advantage of the law, and with the law, itself.</p>

<p>If it were not illegal to default on student loan debt, then the banks would not lend to the students like this. No other lending is conducted this way. It’s criminal.</p>

<p>We already know that the impulse control section of the brain hasn’t even grown in in kids this age, and yet we hold them responsible for that debt, at those outrageous levels, for. ev. er.</p>

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<p>Hold your horses, now.</p>

<p>How about the message sent to these students and parents, from the President down to school counselors, that they need a college degree if they want to have a comfortable life? What about employers who won’t consider applicants without degrees for jobs that don’t necessarily require a degree? Or universities that act as gatekeepers to the middle class and don’t want to lose that position? </p>

<p>Hate to say it, but banks are hardly the “bad guys” here; they are acting like businesses, as they should, and pouncing on a lucrative opportunity. The law of the land says it’s ok; don’t blame banks for following that law. Either change it or deal with it.</p>

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<p>bluebayou I have shown almost all of your arguments to be wrong in many cases. If you read my post about the cost I clearly said university not LAC. Your only fact is that you believe the colleges(or substitute the gov’t) know better how to decide the "fair’ price families should pay for the exact same service. You didn’t even bother to argue that it wasn’t a form of socialism. </p>

<p>Enginox of course there are many reasons why families are smaller and I never said college costs are the only reason. But having managed a very large number of highly educated employees over the years I can tell you with certainty that college costs are among the top concerns. My point was that creating a very large education income tax for the highly educated successful families is a very poor policy. As always if something is subsidized you will get more of it and if it’s heavily taxed you will get less of it. </p>

<p>This is off topic but it reminds me of the argument constantly made in the media that the middle class are overtaxed relative to higher income people. This is of course a complete falsehood since most families making 50k and under pay no federal income tax at all. Then the “journalist” will go on to praise the European system when in fact the middle class of europe pay far more taxes. Yes the true rich get off easy but only because they don’t have much earned income and this doesn’t apply to the 250k crowd we are talking about.</p>

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<p>change the law.</p>

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<p>So what is a fair price? And should all students have to pay that price? If not, where do you draw the line … who pays how much? At what point should one be expected to pay more? And how would you go about making private institutions buy into this? </p>

<p>I am assuming the idea is that everyone should pay one price, because after all, the argument is that expecting those who earn more and/or save more to actually pay more is unfair. The only “fair” solution given this argument is one price for all … right?</p>