<p>"a combination of issues including rising college costs, smaller amounts of financial aid available, and difficult financial aid calculations that put the burden of paying for college on parents that can’t afford it."</p>
<p>Do you fall into this financial gap?</p>
<p>kinda. generally a good advice for those applicants is to apply to schools that are affordable or have good merit aid. it’s what I ended up doing!</p>
<p>Yup 
</p>
<p>Does the author know what he is talking about? A student cannot take out $200,000 in loans.</p>
<p>The student can take out those loans with a cosigner, usually the parents. But that is insane. That loan repayment on $200,000 would be well in excess of $2000 a month for ten years. That is a huge amount of debt for most new grads to have…and the payments staggering for most first job salaries. </p>
<p>Thank you for explaining about the co-signer.–Insane is right!</p>
<p>That’s the American middle class in a nut shell- <em>too poor and to rich</em>- to make university education with more than one child a reasonable course.
I gave up on reasonable. </p>
<p>Hmm, except that a family which is expected by JHU (who says they meet full need) to pay $48.5K should make enough to afford an in-state public school for their kid (having to borrow only a little, if at all). At least with some saving for college.</p>
<p>So the title shouldn’t be “Too poor for college”, it should be “Too poor for a private elite”, which is a shame, but most people have in-state options that are at least decent (and many publics have honors colleges now). Plus, a kid who can get in to JHU usually is able to get pretty substantial merit aid from various privates and publics that are lesser known, but may actually provide an education that is as good as (or even better than–JHU is much better known for its research prowess and hospital than undergraduate instruction) that at JHU.</p>
<p>I am so tired of this kind of crap. Sorry. That is the only word for it. </p>
<p>The author writes about a family that is complaining about how their child cannot afford a ridiculously expensive “dream school”. Given the numbers presented, that family should be able to afford a not-so-dreamy with merit money (if she can get into JHU, she probably can get merit somewhere else) or a public U. Clearly, they did not look at the NPCs or even at their own budget when she made her list.</p>
<p>When writers produce something about how students cannot afford to commute part-time to the local community college, then I will sit up and take notice.</p>
<p>These articles do not take a lot of VERY IMPORTANT things into to consideration as they want to sensationalize their numbers. FIrst of all, does anyone think that this family should not be paying ANYTHING for college? For a private school on top of that? That someone else should be paying for their kid’s room and board? That right there is a given what PARENTS should be paying for their kids. You want to send your kid away to college for the next 4 or so years, who the heck do you thing should be paying for their food, the roof over their heads and other basic living expenses. Also Hopkins is a PRIVATE school. The article should have focused on UMD or other in state public and what the TUITION costs are for them, not on what a private school costs.</p>
<p>The other sensational inaccurate thing was even the mention that the student take out $200K in loans. No. A teenager cannot take out those loans. Mom and Dad have to sign somewhere and take out the loans. If they had saves what is commensurate to their incomes or even their past income, if their student had saved something from baby sitting, summer jobs, birthday checks, there could have been something to offset the expense.</p>
<p>The article seems to be thinking that it’s just fine for a family with close to a $50K EFC to not to have saved a cent of money, not to have had some amount budgeted to pay for student’s living expenses and some, having an entitlement to go to one of the best private schools in the country. Makes no sense at all.</p>
<p>There are issues. It’ makes no sense that the cost of college has skyrocketed as it has., I agree. And some states should truly be ashamed when their state school costs are up there for residents. Also there are states that do not have enough colleges spread around so that those who are low income can commute from home and get a degree. There is a lot to complain about and rightfully so, but this article is terrible.</p>
<p>Maybe we should comment on the article and tell them to visit here on CC. The FAFSA is for eligibility for FEDERAL aid only. Doesn’t JHU use something besides FAFSA???</p>
<p>More garbage articles. They didn’t know how much the COA is at JHU until after she was accepted? Seriously? They had no idea the cost of the school before application? Did she only apply to JHU?</p>
<p>Sounds like tons of GARBAGE!</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Hopkins requires the Profile. Come on, just more garbage.</p>
<p>Kat</p>
<p>Forbes is a national magazine of excellent repute and I think it’s good that we see what the perspectives even they have of the college situation and how terribly they sensationalize the numbers. </p>
<p>Seriously, how much should we subsidize any family, any student who chooses a private school, and want to do sleep away there? How much should such schools cost? </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>They could cost less. But schools have gone to a “high tuition/ high aid” model where they’ve deliberately raised tuition to make fullpay families subsidize poor families.</p>
<p>That was a pretty bad article. There were so many things it left out. What was the family’s income? If their EFC was about 48K, they most likely have a pretty high income. Did they have any money saved for college? If not, why not? If articles like this really want to help families, they should explain the basics of how financial aid works and is calculated and that whenever possible, families need to be saving for college from the moment their kid is born.</p>
<p>It’s a stupid article with a clickbaity headline, but if you click through on the name of the parent in the article, you find out that</p>
<p>*The student was admitted for the fall of 2009. There weren’t any NPCs at the time.
*The family had a 529, but got hit hard by the financial meltdown.
*When faced with the realization that JHU was going to be too expensive, “We rejected outright Peterson’s core advice that we force our daughter to attend a second-tier college where she could negotiate for top-tier financial assistance based on merit.”
*The father only mentions FAFSA, not Profile. </p>
<p>
See <a href=“This Scholarship's Not For You”>http://www.forbes.com/2009/03/10/college-fafsa-financial-aid-personal-finance-retirement-scholarships.html</a>
Middle class income?
$100,000 savings?
</p>
<p>So the family could pay for two years and some at Hopkins tuition ? that brings their cost down even more. Really, how much or little should they be expected to pay with their income level and savings for a private school and having their kid rooming and boarding there? </p>
<p>I liked this suggestion:
One of the biggest financial aid secrets is that you can start getting scholarships and grants as a freshman in high school.</p>
<p>Their link from this statement doesn’t explain it, so what are they talking about? Since most scholarships are from the school, and/or would require merit or need evaluations not relevant 3 years ahead of time, I can’t imagine this is a very lucrative strategy. </p>
<p>The article aside, (sensational and inaccurate) please don’t turn a blind eye to the crazy inflation in higher education costs.
Bless our public universities. My state has some of the best. But when the middle class must look away from private universities, it’s not a good thing. Many more college kids come from the middle class than any other class.</p>
<p>And who thinks parents shouldn’t pay <em>anything?</em> I haven’t met those middle class people. Who thinks <em>some</em> student debt is a sin? Haven’t met those people either. But being middle class in this amazing country and not being able to consider private universities as an option for most? That’s not hunky-dory. </p>
<p>And that’s the real point. Don’t get lost.</p>