<p>I wonder if the parents who are having such misgivings of being full-pay while the rest of us church mice, beg (which is what FA probably seems like to some) for a glimpse of the other half while getting a great education shed some of these “attitudes” onto their children?</p>
<p>Are these the students that are conflicted about which club to join or which friends to hang with while at HYPSM? Are their children wincing with the pang of one knowing the elitism is gagging? Or are they the ones which sling veiled insults about the lack of “good” parenting by casting aspersions about those on “financial aid/having others pay their way”?</p>
<p>Has it rubbed off on their kiddos to where it might change their childrens’ experience at HYP? Will their kiddos be slighted because their “snobbiness” doesn’t do well with those that are the truly “wealthy” (the students’ who need careers that are avocations, because the family already has enough money- can you imagine?)!!</p>
<p>Maybe the kiddos haven’t picked up on what is stewing beneath the surface of the parent’s resentment, but maybe, just maybe they have and that is hard to undue.</p>
How about the Federal and State governments where people who earn more pay more, generally substantially more in incime taxes? Let’s not turn this thread to politics but the two, income taxes and charging for college based on ‘need’, are really pretty much the same.</p>
<p>thumper-
Hide that income in a sheltere/deferred copmpensation company stock option plan and the vodka will be provided at no cost to you – FA = Finlandia Aid</p>
<p>Sorry…Dad II…your list of POIH’s daughter’s acceptances were a round about attack on his WHINING about being a full pay at MIT. You (wisely) pointed out that his kid HAD options…plenty of them. But of course they didn’t have the PRESTIGE CACHE of MIT or the Ivies. Good for you for using that old post…don’t attack others who do the same.</p>
<p>I just want to add…that POIH also stated at some point that he would be a full pay and was happy that the finances didn’t have to be factored into his daughter’s college selection choice.</p>
<p>I guess anyone can complain but the only complaint that counts is with your pocketbook. If no one was willing to send their kids to these colleges for full pay then the colleges wouldn’t be able to charge it. But there seems to be plenty of people willing and able (although sometimes complainingly) to send their kids to these colleges and so the beat goes on.</p>
<p>At the end of the day the posters here complaining about the full pay thought the value of their purchase (of the expensive educatoin) was worth it so they should be happy and content with their purchase.</p>
<p>I’ve been thinking the same thing, _dad, throughout this thread. </p>
<p>So POIH had several options. The ultimate decision he made was to agree to his daughter’s choice of college applications and her decision. As the paying parent, he had the option instead to:</p>
<p>Limit her college choices to those institutions which by default would exclude “undeserving” parents with incomes lower than his.</p>
<p>Or</p>
<p>Limit her college decision to an institution which by necessity includes only a small portion of families paying much less than his own. </p>
<p>Thus, he could have tailored his daughter’s list to (a) merit scholarship U’s/colleges; (b) need-aware U’s/colleges; (c) institutions out of the country (Canada, et al.; (d) high value publics (UC), with lower annual tuition and travel costs and the small honorarium, if the Regents had been granted. (Regents fully funds needy families.)</p>
<p>You can’t have it all. He’s not willing to compromise, but those are the compromises offered in this country. He had every opportunity to become aware of this prior to her college apps.</p>
<p>While I agree that FA is hardly completely transparent, particularly comparatively, there’s enough info even on CC for inquisitive families to know that MIT is not as generous with middle class+ families than some Ivies are. We know a student who was accepted to S and to Berkeley and to M for engineering. One parent was working at the time. I believe Dad’s income then was somewhere in the range of $65-70K. Student desperately wanted MIT, so in order for the family to afford it, she had to work 20 hrs/week during the academic year at M. It was grueling. But these kinds of choices are no secrets. They’re researchable, and at least deducible.</p>
<p>Going to college is not an entitlement, especially not to some of those top tier schools. As many have stated, there are some perfectly affordable state schools or private schools that offer a lot of merit aid. A smart kid from a lower income family is not any more entitled to go to an expensive private school than a stupid kid from a wealthy family (I know, it’s harsh). </p>
<p>I think many people could relate to POIH. He has lived responsibly, maybe even frugally to afford private K-12 for his daughter and then pay for full fare for college with 200k income. I know parents out there making 2 or 3 times of 200k, with boat and second home, but decide to spend nothing on their kids’ education.</p>
<p>There is something to be said to look at the sticker price and just decide, “Do I want to pay for it,” instead of “Lets see if I could bargain with them for a lower price.”</p>
<p>I agree that the model is flawed in that families up to the $180k income limit pay no more than 10% of their income, but families over that are on the hook for the full $50k or whatever a year. A smooth transition to full pay, with families earning between $180k to, say, $400 or $500k, would seem fairer. That’s hardly the fault of the firefighters and the teachers, though. </p>
<p>Regardless, you made changes in your working life long before HYP revamped their aid policies. Your kid could well have been denied from the single-initial schools that offer incredibly generous FA, and ended up at a school where the income cutoff for aid is much lower. Or, your kid could have decided to attend Swarthmore or Pomona or Brown instead of Harvard, in which case you’d still be on the hook for the full cost at an institution which can’t afford to pay for everyone. Would you then feel as angry about the firefighter’s kid who has a lower COA?</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>It’s much easier for high-income parents to decide not to spend money then for low-income parents to decide that by golly they’re going to earn more money by changing their careers. </p>
<p>Some prosperous parents do make the choice to not play ball, or their kids decide that the money can be better spent elsewhere (say, for med school rather than for an Ivy undergrad degree, to use a totally random example. ahem. ). Yet your family did decide to play ball, at least for this particular child. I’m not clear on if you wish you had taken more of a stand, or if you wish that more families would resist the pressure to pay more than they can afford for their child’s college education. There are certainly enough families around who are willing to play ball that there’s no pressure on schools like Harvard to change their policy. That would be a tough choice to make.</p>
<p>I think POIH is trying to make a distinction between the situation of his own kid (whose parents were more than willing to pay whatever it takes) and the situation of other kids (whose parents do not want to pay full freight regardless of their ability to pay). </p>
<p>
</p>
<p>The difference often is: “My parents don’t have it so I dont have it”, versus “My parents don’t wanna pay, so I don’t have it”.</p>
<p>Very few 18 year old students have 200K of their own funds. They are dependent on the generosity of their parents or other adults, and failing that, the generosity of the financial aid office. </p>
<p>Given current financial aid policies that mandate parental income consideration, the children of ungenerous wealthy parents are in a really bad place. Why is this so hard to understand?</p>
<p>This is not about POIH’s D, by the way, nor about my own D. I believe he is perfectly willing to pay full price for his D’s education, and so am I. But there are some parents of good means, who, for whatever reason, won’t pay. Their kids are caught between a rock and a hard place.</p>
<p>…not to mention, low-income families with highly capable students have far fewer financial options for college which match the student’s ability. If parents don’t have the wherewithal to provide the gap between merit award & COA, a merit $-college admission will not be a realizable decision for that student. Ditto if parents don’t have practical loan options. Most low-income families would never be able to select from a list as full & varied as that of POIH’s daughter. Rather, they would be looking to the small circumference of generous FA schools: their in-state public, if FA funding is plentiful there, the elites, especially the Ivies, if they are in excellent range of qualification, or low-cost community colleges with excellent transfer options. That does not include restricted access to college visits, due to lack of travel funds. If anything the system discriminates against the low-income, not the high-income group.</p>
<p>vicariousparent, it is not that no one understands that the children of ungenerous wealthy parents are in a really bad place. I dated one through hs and the start of college, and I saw how hard my friend busted his butt to stay at our t20, and I have nothing but admiration for that.</p>
<p>However, I can’t think of ANY solution to this “problem” that doesn’t leave the door wide open for every wealthy family to all of a sudden proclaim that they don’t wanna pay full price. That’s why they require such drastic “proof” (e.g., student is legally independent, no longer a tax deduction on parents’ taxes). Can you think of a better solution that would help the genuinely-stuck kid whose parents can afford to pay but refuse to, that doesn’t open the door to fraud from other kids whose parents can afford to pay but will pretend to refuse to?</p>
<p>I think people stopped relating when he claimed that FA from HYPSM – the most generous schools in the country, who help people at far higher income levels than most other colleges can afford to – was “discriminatory” and that it “punished” him / his daughter.</p>
). Yet your family did decide to play ball, at least for this particular child. I’m not clear on if you wish you had taken more of a stand, or if you wish that more families would resist the pressure to pay more than they can afford for their child’s college education. There are certainly enough families around who are willing to play ball that there’s no pressure on schools like Harvard to change their policy. That would be a tough choice to make.</p>