Stanford has been mentioned in many of the posts above. Regarding the cost at Stanford, the average net cost the per student has roughly followed inflation, like most other HYPSM… type highly selective colleges. While tuition has increased above inflation, so has FA and the portion of students claiming FA. A minority pays sticker price, and an increasing portion effectively pays no tuition.
For example, Stanford’s website claims 99% of families making $150k qualify for FA with an average grant size of $42k. 84% of families making $200k qualify with an average grant of $27k. Some specific numbers are below. The average inflation adjust net cost has a better correlation with economic indexes than time, due to more FA claims when the economy is bad. The average adjusted net cost is below both 1999 and 2016 during the depression periods in between.
Oldest CDS (1999): Net cost = $33k, Average FA = $8.5k, Net = $24.5k = $37k in 2017 Dollars
Newest CDS (2016): Net cost = $62.5k, Average FA = $24k, Net = $38.5k = $40k in 2017 Dollars
Stanford has been mentioned in many of the posts above. Regarding the cost at Stanford, the average net cost the per student has roughly followed inflation, like most other HYPSM… type highly selective colleges. While tuition has increased above inflation, so has FA and the portion of students claiming FA. A minority pays sticker price, and an increasing portion effectively pays no tuition.
For example, Stanford’s website claims 99% of families making $150k qualify for FA with an average grant size of $42k. 84% of families making $200k qualify with an average grant of $27k. Some specific numbers are below. The average inflation adjust net cost has a better correlation with economic indexes than time, due to more FA claims when the economy is bad. The average adjusted net cost is below both 1999 and 2016 during the depression periods in between.
Oldest CDS (1999): Net cost = $33k, Average Aid = $9.5k, Net = $23.5k = $35k in 2017 Dollars
Newest CDS (2016): Net cost = $62.5k, Average Aid = $27.5k, Net = $35k = $36k in 2017 Dollars
(Edited to include all sources of aid, including athletic)
What about top-tier, may I say “elite”, public universities? UCLA, UMich, and in my opinion the top of the chain Cal. In all honesty, they have cohorts too, especially the Regents programs as well as the engineering and business majors. I happen to feel like OP is separating the categories as if publics cant enjoy the benefits of being elite/top 20 (cal has been top 20 before several times), and also the flip side that elites cant have size issues (just look at Cornell’s undergraduate population of around 14,000. While not public size, still large enough to incur problems.)
There are a lot of discussions here about whether X college is worth the additional cost over Y college. Or A group of colleges are worth the additional cost over B group of colleges. But when everyone doesn’t pay the same price, those determinations are challenging and often meaningless.
The FA subsidies are one of the drivers of higher costs. Basic law of economics: subsidize something and you will get more of it and the price will increase. And if you look at the top ranked schools (what many people here view as “elite”), the percentage of people paying sticker is pretty significant.
You can’t just say that saving for children is a priority over saving for yourself. Remember, your kid can get a loan for college. You can’t get a loan for retirement.
Many financial planners say that you should save for college only after you save for your retirement. So if you have $7k to save each year, Put the first $5.5 k in an IRA (that’s your contribution limit), then put the rest in a college fund.
People can pick a college here or college there that doesnt follow the trend, but by and large the current college education is ovwrpriced and as outpaced common sense.
Financial situations of families are more complicated and nuanced than many on this board would admit. If you didn’t save $300k for college (per kid) so the story goes here, education isn’t a priority. Without knowing of course anything about any given families’ financial situation. Though why should that matter? LOL Financial aid is a snapshot (taken 4 times in a college career) but there is an 18-22 year family history behind it. Favorite tripes here of course are luxury cars and fancy vacations. Never mind that most people who are struggling with paying for college own/take neither. I have friends who both drove BMW 760s and took 5 3-week luxury trips to exotic and expensive places each year (in peek season each time of course) and then sent their kids to state directional (after two years at local community college living 4 years at home of course) so that must be everyone’s problem. LOL
Exactly @saillakeerie The scenarios are not as cut and dried as some propose. @CU123 Believe it or not, there are families who value education and cannot afford their expected familial contribution. Simply bc you can does not mean those who can’t have squandered their money or have spent frivolously. Even if your FA packages came back representing what you can afford, it does not mean all families receive enough FA from meets-full-need schools to make the schools affordable. (For example, if yours came back at $30,000 and you can afford it, great for you. But if another family’s comes back at $30,000 and they can only realistically pay 1/2 that, not so great for them.)
For families who can afford their EFC, the conversation is very different than for families who can’t. Financing college is far from a simple “don’t buy luxury cards or go on expensive vacations in order to save enough to pay for college. The top colleges will make up the difference between your savings and what they cost.” :))
A rule of thumb is 1/4 of your gross income for those in the donut. If you can’t or don’t want to pay that than you don’t value an education from a top private university. Which is fine, but call it what it is.
@CU123: . . . don’t value as much something else. For instance, retirement savings or financial security.
So say that a family has 8 kids. Gross salary is 4X full-pay at a private.
If this family can’t spend over a quarter million per kid on college (over $2M total), do they not value education?
Note that at that income, even the cash flow wouldn’t work if 3 are in college at the same time as total taxes would probably be around 1/3 or more.
They would have a negative amount of cash flow left over to live on.
Is there a family in the US that expects their kids to go to college who have 8 kids without understanding that this will be a monumental task from a financial perspective? I know a few very large families (6+ kids). The kids do 2 years at a CC and then the state U. Or they live at home, take public transportation to a local college, keep their HS jobs. One sibling is at West Point. One worked for a few years and then did college the hard way- a credit at a time.
We should set as the norm a family with 8 kids and their ability to be full pay at a private for each kid???
@blossom, well, certain people on this thread (not me) seem to think that if this hypothetical family didn’t manage to send all 8 kids to full-pay top privates (assuming they are good enough to get in), then that family simply doesn’t value an education from a top private.
@OHMomof2 That number sounded low with that level of income. I went to CB’s site and ran the numbers (and assuming at least some savings and retirement contribution…the numbers I put in were fairly low) and at MIT, the number came out around $26,000, not $16. That sounds more realistic bc our expected contribution with much lower income is close to what your number states for 2 of those kids.
Fwiw, since we are probably the token family of 8 on CC, our kids mostly do not overlap by much (there are 21 yrs between the oldest and youngest and they are all spaced out), so not much of a familial break due to multiple in college at the same time.
But equally, none of our kids up to this point have chosen to live at home and commute. The 4 yr college bound kids have all earned enough scholarship $$ that going away to college has been affordable. Our one child who decided to pursue a 2 yr Allied Health degree had to move away bc our state only had one licensed program in the entire state and it was 4 hrs from us. (I am thankful that our 10th grader does think she wants to live at home bc it is just a break from the application treadmill.)
Anyway, thanks @PurpleTitan. Yes, we value education. Quite a bit actually since I have spent my adulthood teaching our kids. But, no, not enough to sacrifice the existence of our younger kids in order to have funded our older kids an elite school attendance. Different values and priorities, but not squandered $$.
“A rule of thumb is 1/4 of your gross income for those in the donut. If you can’t or don’t want to pay that than you don’t value an education from a top private university. Which is fine, but call it what it is.”
That ignores home equity which figures heavily in the calculations at most private schools. Is it a good idea to spend 20% of your home equity (since its counted at 5% per year) per kid that goes to college. If you are in your late 50s when the last kid graduates, how are you going to pay off your mortgage before you retire? The FAFSA formula is tolerable, but counting home equity in the CSS Profile is what really makes a difference to the decision if you live in a high cost area where home prices have increased rapidly.
@Mom2aphysicsgeek I’m sure we could combine all sorts of assets and retirement and home equity and whatnot to get different answers.
My point was that with three in college, most colleges won’t take the EFC for one and multiply it by 3 to produce negative income, which was the example I was responding to. Still true with an EFC of $26K (each kid) - that’s not much more than the cost of one in college, full pay.
@Twoin18 Rules of thumb aren’t perfect, they do however give a good starting point. Many are shocked on here when their EFC comes back at a quarter of there gross.
