<p>My sister’s three kids all faced $50k+ EFCs; my sister does not work outside the home but she and her husband own a small piece of investment property and that apparently really affects the numbers. My niece, knowing the story of our family and that her mother and I and our 4 other siblings all got good financial aid back in the day because there were so many of us and our parents made little money, lamented the fact that there were no big financial aid packages in her future. </p>
<p>I told her this. For 18 years she lived a life where her mother could afford to stay home; she and her brothers played varsity and club sports and their parents traveled with them to out-of-state meets, they took yearly vacations, they had everything they need. I got a big financial aid package to a big private school, but in the years before that, none of the kids in my family played sports or did any extracurricular activities (no money, no time because we all had part-time jobs supporting the family, no one to drive us around anywhere), we took maybe 3 vacations during my whole childhood; major dental and minor other medical needs were not taken care of; new clothes were rare. </p>
<p>If I had the chance to exchange my 4 years of relative “wealth” in college for the first 18 years of my niece’s life, I would in a heartbeat. I do think that the costs of private schools are staggering. But I find it hard to be sympathetic to kids who’ve had it pretty good in their lives up til college. </p>