<p>Moderator Note: Sorry I came to this recent turn of events late. Please restrict comments to the OP, hold comments for tenaciousj to when they open their own thread. OT comments from here on out will be deleted.</p>
<p>OP: Your wife, you said, makes $175K and you are currently unemployed, but in the past you made enough so that your combined income was close to $300K. </p>
<p>Unless you had a situation of unusual medical expenses or something of that nature, I’m sorry, I don’t have a lot of sympathy. You have had 18 years to plan for your child’s education – to sit here at the eleventh hour and complain that you don’t have money – that you are down to a mere $50K in savings on those kinds of incomes – I’m sorry, that doesn’t sound like you planned well, at all. No one forced you to live to your income level; my H and I live well below our income level and started saving for our children’s education the moment they were born. We made lots of deliberate choices and didn’t indulge in “toys” / vacations / cars / houses we could have, because saving for their education was a priority to us. I wish you the best of luck, but again, you can’t have it all. My H and I were united that we would live in a crappy apartment if need be if it meant that we would have the money to send our kids wherever we wanted. You made choices – which is fine – but then you have to live with those choices.</p>
<p>SlitheyTove, you’re correct, I don’t think any college is worth $50,000 a year. But as I’ve reassured Pizzagirl several times, I believe everyone has the God-given, Constitutional, all-American right to throw their money away in whatever way they see fit. I may think the way you spend your money is stupid, but I’ll defend to the death your right to spend it that way. </p>
<p>What I don’t defend is someone with an income level that should make it possible to afford an overpriced school like Yale but who is making choices to spend that money in other ways who then complains when the trustees of Yale University decline to finance those other choices by giving his kids financial aid.</p>
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OMG, H*ll has frozen over. I agree with Annasdad 100%.</p>
<p>It’s not that cold here in Chicago, but I’ll agree with Annasdad as well on this. Everyone makes choices, and everyone has to live with them. The type of income the OP describes didn’t just happen overnight - he had to have had a comfortable income for some time now, and could have chosen to save for his child’s education. Having only $50,000 in savings off that type of income is insanely low to me.</p>
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<p>Too bad he won’t see your post jym626, considering you are on his ignore list. ;)</p>
<p>Nothing from the peanut gallery either. I forgot to mention, I am going to be a peanut, it’s my favorit nut.</p>
<p>Right, Ga2012mom, like anyone is really believing that claim. People are not as foolish as some may want to believe…</p>
<p>And understand why you aren’t in frozen tundra, PG. You still got a swipe/insult hurled your way in post #63.</p>
<p>I knew this thread was going in this direction…</p>
<p>Some will feel for you, some will slam you and some will help you…</p>
<p>As I stated, someone help the guy…that was his whole point of his post!</p>
<p>(Like all of you never did anything foolish with your $$…like the $4.65 I just spent for the Grande Skinny Peppermint Latte in my hand)</p>
<p>We post here, not just to help OP, but to help other parents in the future. If I allowed my kid to apply to a school like Yale, I would have been sure to have the money available. It is not rocket scientist to figure out how much I could afford and how much aid a school would give. There is no help here. He either wants to suck it up, take out an equity loan on his house and use his future earnings to pay for the tuition or tell his D right now to apply for schools which would offer merit aid. D1 didn’t get into Yale, even she was able to get a full ride to a second tier LAC. </p>
<p>It is great you spent $4.65 on a latte, but I am sure it is not in lieu of putting food on the table for your family. For me, making sure my kids got the best education possible is like putting food on the table for my family.</p>
<p>OK, here’s help. </p>
<p>OP, stop sitting around waiting for the real estate market to turn around. It ain’t gonna happen in time for it to help you support your kid’s desire to go to their dream school. Go out and find a job, even if it won’t bring in the megabucks you were making when times were rosy. </p>
<p>Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using CC App</p>
<p>Talk about hot places freezing over! I actually agree with oldfort! It must have been the earthquake! </p>
<p>Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using CC App</p>
<p>Getting in is the easy part…paying for it is not! If you have more than one child to put through college, live in an expensive area, and make 175K-200K (but at this level for just a few years)–top schools are unaffordable. Retirement funds get raided and equity loans are secured to pay tuition. Is it worth it? </p>
<p>You should be proud your child got accepted by Yale, but with her credentials she could have many great options at other places more affordable (places that offer merit aid, in-state w/Honors College, heck …look at Canadian universities). It’s not too late for her to apply to a few more colleges.</p>
<p>We had a similar wake-up call in October when we seriously looked at ED options at top 10 LACs. After a couple of FA pre-reads it was clear to our family that we couldn’t swing it unless parents and student took on large amounts of debt. So…D added three more financial safeties to her list (she has already received a full-tuition & fee scholarship from in-state U —she is so excited to have be chosen). My advice is to talk openly with your D about finances. There is no shame in turning down an IVY for financial reasons. Let her attend the highest quality program/college you can afford through your salary-based contributions and her summer & campus employment. It is also possible to consider a transfer plan (2 years in-state; 2 years private). Or, as others have said…save the IVY league for grad school!</p>
<p>The tough part is dealing with family, peers & teachers who assume that your top student will attend a top private. Your D will take her cue from you…if you seem stressed & disappointed she can only feel the same way.</p>
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<p>Wow, how rude AD. The OP said he made 50K, and that he was underemployed, not unemployed. Would you say the same thing if the husband made 175K and the wife 50K? Somehow I seriously doubt it.</p>
<p>That’s not what he said. He’s currently unemployed. Can’t point you to the post # (cell phone app doesn’t have #s) but that’s what he said. </p>
<p>Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I897 using CC App</p>
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Ah-ha! So you DO read my posts after all. No surprise here :)</p>
<p>And no, it wasn’t apparent just from PG’s post. Don’t even go there. Oh wait-- you’ll credit GA2012mom. Yeah, right :rolleyes:</p>
<p>Mea Culpa AD, you are correct but I still say that was a rude comment. MANY people are unemployed these days and you don’t know if the OP is out pounding the pavement these days or not.</p>
<p>Wait-- didn’t the OP say he was self employed, here:
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<p>OP-
In all fairness, your situation is painful and understandable. There were several articles last year about very successful executives who lost their jobs in this awful economy and who were then struggling to keep their kids in school. It is hard , however, for many to put our/themselves in that person’s/your shoes. </p>
<p>If you were living off your income alone for many years (you said your wife got her job in 2010, when you were able to stop the bleeding from your savings?) and you were hit by the downturn in 2008, did you exhaust all your savings in 2 years? Were you able to ratchet back the unnecessary purchases and live on a tight budget? Many of us have been hit by the downturn in the economy. My family was in the middle of a very expensive remodel of our house when my husband was laid off a few years back, and we lived on my income and some savings for the 9 months he was in between positions (fortunately we had saved in advance for the remodel, though we did scale it back as a result of the layoff and the need to help my father with cash flow). He (DH) did qualify for unemployment, but it was a drop in the bucket.</p>
<p>I would suggest you call Yale’s FA office and discuss the extenuating circumstances with them. Many school’s will look at these situations and take them unto consideration. You also said you will have a younger one in college in a few years, so you can calculate what your EFC will be then. That said, you’ll still be facing 2 in college and that’s not inexpensive.</p>
<p>Many of us who have been on these boards for many years have seen these situations in past years. Some families try to work any jobs they can, often 2 jobs each if necessary, to bring income into the family. Certainly it will not be be easy to replace the income of a highly successful RE consultant in CA, but something is better than nothing, and as you indicated earlier, you made a stab at a new business venture which unfortunately did not pan out. Time to see if you can find something with a steady income and benefits, even if it is at a significant income reduction. Of course, I am sure you already know this.</p>
<p>I think all many are saying is that those who have lived like the pig in the three little pigs who built his house out of bricks have trouble understanding it when it looks like others who may have built theirs out of straw are having an eye-opening experience. </p>
<p>No one saw this awful economy coming, or how long it will last. </p>
<p>Good luck in your conversation with Yale. Boolah Boolah.</p>
<p>OP here — </p>
<p>was away for a few days and surprised by the number of comments. as I read through them, I am starting to feel like a tourist who has wandered into some sort of war between seasoned adversaries battling over theological issues.</p>
<p>point of clarification since some of the commentators seemed to be confused by this – I was not intending to post a poll inquiring as to how many readers feel sorry for me. I understand and am grateful for the fact that even after our family’s setbacks (which are shared by so many), we are in the top 10%. Nor was I posting an appeal to the Yale trustees. I understand that they probably do not spend their off hours on CC.</p>
<p>Yes, my W and I have made certain choices, and we are prepared to live with the consequences of those choices. One of those choices was to keep D in private school all these years. We tried public school twice over her K-12 experience, and both times we found it to be a terrible fit for her. So today we have a D who is happy, well adjusted, loving of others, full of life and surrounded by friends. This may be somewhat off topic, but I feel in my bones that less than all of these descriptions would be true of her today if we had pulled her from her school.</p>
<p>Now there are consequences. We may not be able to afford a private. If that is the case, we are willing to live with it. We have always told our Ds that we would even consider privates only if they are admitted to one that offers more opportunity than the excellent UC system offers to California residents. We are now at that point. If a really happy private school K-12 experience means she goes to UCBerkeley or UCLA rather than Yale, it will be something our family can live with. Before concluding that this is not an option, though, I wanted to hear whether the CC had any good tips.</p>
<p>As usual on the internet, I have to sort through the postings by the vapid self-righteous moralizers emboldened by their anonymity cloak in order to find those good tips. </p>
<p>Thanks to those who pointed out that part of the problem might be that Yale is adding our IRA/SEP contributions back into our Adjusted Gross Income. I was surprised that no one thinks private, merit based scholarships are going to make much of a difference. As several pointed out, we are scouring the internet, school counselor office, etc, and will apply for every one we can. But the consensus seems to be that this will not be a game changer. </p>
<p>Thanks to those parents (largely moms, interestingly) who shared their stories of sacrifice. </p>
<p>Thanks SlitheyTove for your story about the farm girl who ended up at Yale for graduate work. </p>
<p>As to those who inquired about sacrifices we have made, how we could be down to $50k in savings, etc., I could fill you in on our families’ finances since 2004, but that would just invite a further flame war and not contribute to the communities’ or my family’s knowledge about financial aid choices.</p>
<p>Thanks Pathways for sharing your family’s story.</p>
<p>Thanks also to those who recognized the immense geographic cost/income differences, fair or not. If you can indulge me one minor rant about self-employment, FA treatment here also seems somewhat unfair. At same point W was interviewing for $175k government consulting job, she was also looking at $120k government salary job. She was only offered former, not latter. If she had taken second job, our financial situation would be exactly the same, because the subsidized health insurance and retirement plan would have more than substituted for SEP savings, health insurance and self-employment tax. Yet FA Officers (and I suspect most commentators here) would gladly recognize the need for FA in that case but not in the self-employment case.</p>
<p>Practical question – I have heard Yale considers household home equity but Princeton and Harvard do not. Does anyone know if that is true?</p>