No judgment or arrogance in this statement at all. LOL
@ChoatieMom I guess I didn’t necessarily mean that a full-pay student is paying directly for someone else’s education. Just that we will be supporting the school with our money more than a student who is getting a grant. And that student can take advantage of all the school offers just like our kids.
I’m also aware that being full pay can sometimes help a student. I’m sure colleges need some parents to full pay and that can’t hurt an application. So, that’s possibly a positive effect of having the money in addition to being able to provide choices for our kids. We’re not quite there yet, but it will be very interesting to see if we decide a school is worth full pay. It will depend where our kids can get admitted. Certainly not interested in paying $250,000 for any school and wouldn’t mind being able to retire sooner than later. We aren’t particularly young parents. 
Money is fungible. If they didn’t use endowment for scholarships they could use those funds for other things.
I understand, but I choose to believe that whatever amount the subsidized family pays hurts them to the same degree as the higher amount I pay. I wouldn’t want to trade places.
And I certainly don’t begrudge the kids being able to take advantage of all a school has to offer.
“Those discounts don’t mean much. In 2014, there was approximately $1.3 trillion of outstanding student loan debt in the U.S. that affected 44 million borrowers who had an average outstanding loan balance of $37,172.”
Those discounts are YUGE!! Of course those discounts matter. Which your numbers prove. If the average student loan balance is $37k, the net price being paid is obviously way less than full sticker price.
College is expensive for all families. But relatively few families are full paying full private school sticker price. The full pay demographic is highly over-represented on CC – upper middle class and higher families with kids angling to attend highly ranked and selective colleges.
Among the top tier privates, the majority doesn’t full pay. NYU (which gets excoriated on CC for being over-priced with low fin aid) is 47% full pay. Duke is 45% full pay. Anyone know of a school that is 50% or more full pay?
“Money is fungible. If they didn’t use endowment for scholarships they could use those funds for other things.”
The schools that do lots of merit aid don’t have big endowments. They run primarily on tuition dollars. Schools with big endowments are typically need-based aid only.
The college pricing model is shot through with cross-subsidies. Rich kids subsidize poor kids. Not so smart kids subsidize smarter kids. At state schools, out-of-state kids and taxpayers subsidize in-state kids. And on and on and on.
Just about every family can pick an option where they will be on the receiving end rather than the paying end. Problem is that the most attractive options tend to be on the paying side. Hence this thread…
Gosh. I think about it more like this. My sister is a single mom working as a 1st grade teacher in a poor state at a salary of 36K. She works a second job after school every day and gets home around 7. She makes dinner and grades and plans and does things like cut out 30 star shapes and 30 shell shapes (which is still working for her) and goes to bed. Then in summer she works in the summer school program and tries to take classes to keep up her certification. They live paycheck to paycheck. She has two kids in college and she saved nothing for them to go. She couldn’t even afford braces for one of them. Do they not deserve to go to college just as much as the lawyer’s child whose parent probably works just as many hours but makes 5 times the money, and is thus able to save for that college? Did that lawyer work hard and she didn’t? The way I see it she’s sacrificed a lifestyle so the lawyer’s kid can have a teacher in the 1st grade. Meanwhile all the lawyers around her in her idiot culture are supporting Devos instead of securing my sister’s livelihood. So yes, they can pay full price while my sister’s kids get some help.
@northwesty I agree with you. I was just responding to the point that scholarships are paid from endowments not other student’s tuition. Schools understand some parents would not want to hear that part of their tuition is paying the tuition of kids who are not paying full freight. If everyone paid tuition, tuition would be (or at least could be) reduced.
If the scholarship student’s bills are paid, s/he has just as much right as your kid to use every resource the college offers. There isn’t a contest to see who’s providing more support to individual colleges. If you don’t like how a college spends its money, don’t let your kid apply there.
“If the scholarship student’s bills are paid, s/he has just as much right as your kid to use every resource the college offers.”
Sure.
Seats in a college classroom are priced pretty much like seats on an airplane. Excluding first class, everyone gets the exact same product/experience – everyone arrives in Chicago at the same time.
But everyone pays a different price. The goal of the airline/school is (i) have all seats filled before the flight/semester begins and (ii) meet budget for overall revenue from the flight/class.
Some people pay zero (poor kids, genius kids, people using FF miles). Some people pay a lot (donut hole families, last minute business travelers).
It’s best not to worry about how much more you are paying than others. It’s not productive, it’s not going to get you anywhere, and frankly, if you knew then what you know now, would you do anything differently?
The way I look at it, if my kid pays the whole bill, leaving endowment $ free so a teacher’s kid can pay the bill, I’m ok with that. And if it allows a kid with nothing to get somwhere, I’m more than ok with that.
There is nothing else out there that works like this to make a good analogy. Maybe the last minute traveler bc his/her business usually pays? This is something different. Just let it go and be glad you don’t have the worry the other family does. You’ll feel better if you do:)
@redpoodles Wow. We are full pay and, fyi, totally oppose DeVos. Just because my husband has a good paying job does not mean we are Republican.
This has been an interesting (and painful) thread to read.
We have not been low wage earners all of our adult lives, nor have we been high wage earners. Rather, we’ve had some stagnant years and some roller coaster years, where gains in savings and investments had to be tapped during a stretch of unemployment or underemployment, or when high medical bills came in. Then, back on our feet, back to building up the savings and investments.
I knew we were going to be in trouble paying for college when I learned about NPCs here at CC and started running them. Recent earnings way too high. Past earnings history not stable enough to have socked enough away.
I don’t think it’s unfair, and really, I don’t feel sorry for us, it’s just what it is, how the world works. We are lucky!
My D16 does indeed have a chip on her shoulder, knowing she could be attending an elite school if only her parents had the money. Hopefully, one day, she’ll realize how lucky she is to have gotten that full ride scholarship at a OOS public flagship, and that it got her to where she wants to go, and debt-free.
@Midwest67 Your daughter will be happy she is debt free and you are happy that she got a full ride. You are living the dream. I cannot think of a better situation for you to be in. You have won the lottery.
MassDaD68 - this is not true that there is no financial aid for the middle class. I’m a single mom, recently widowed, with a middle class income. My D is at one of those schools where financial aid is given, even to people who make 6 figures. At the end of the day, it is costing me substantially less to send her to her college than it would be to send her to our state flagship. Coupled with scholarships she received, it really brought the cost of attendance down for her. The catch being, of course, that one’s kid gets into those schools that offer astounding aid. That said, I’d rather have substantial assets that I could afford to be a full cost of attendance parent, but I’m not. I am grateful that she’s at her school, engaged and learning, happy that it’s affordable, and not begrudging anyone their ability to pay full freight.
Bottom line for us is that we think the education our child is getting (at the oft maligned NYU) is worth what we are paying.
^its a great school…just so darned expensive and so little aid!
People can choose to do whatever they want. But choices have consequences. Becoming a teacher is a noble profession, but nobody ever promised it as a path to riches. And certainly not as a 1st grade teacher in a poor state.
Flip this around. Are you saying that someone who has put in the dedication and perseverance to not only take on the cost of law school, but furthermore become a successful lawyer should not be further rewarded than someone who chose an easier path? And keep in mind that the lawyers get the “privilege of paying full freight” only after paying much more in income tax than your sister.
Would she be happier if their kids weren’t in the class? Would she still have a job if that were the case?
Well, what strike me as odd is what kids are learning for $65k. Gender studies, or comparative literature degrees probably will not get you very far in the job market. D wanted to study pol sci a year ago, we told her to minor that if she wants, but she needs a job first. Pardon the practical first generation immigrants parents!!
If you are studying engineering (except financial engineering), nursing or education, is it necessary to go to full pay private schools when the state flagship can be just as good? D wants to do IB now, so graduating from a target school might be a must. Still I wonder if a degree from lower ranked public schools can be just as good and besides she might get higher GPAs!?
Interesting forum. We are in the same boat as many, don’t qualify for financial aid, can’t afford the EFC, and unfortunately don’t have money saved. (We have busted our butts sending our girls to private school since our district public school is scary.) Our daughter applied to a range of schools for this reason, Ivy, smaller privates, and in state, so we can compare the best school for the best price.
In trying to reach costs, I find the statistics misleading. All the schools advertise the average debit students have by graduation, however the student loans are small limited amounts, due to risks. Parent’s are the ones taking out huge loans to fund the education, and yet those stats are not reported. Anyone else find this frustrating? Or am I missing something.