<p>Quantmech, what were your parents doing even knowing other people’s FA packages and savings in the first place?</p>
<p>Letting other people’s situations bother you is like having your kid complain that so-and-so did better in his SATs because he had a private tutor and didn’t have to take out the trash whereas he had only SAT prep books. Would you indulge such whining in your kids or would you tell them to focus on themselves and not worry about other people’s choices?</p>
<p>Is there a breakfast version of popcorn?? Poptarts, maybe??</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, it was a whole different era. I grew up in a town where people did not lock their doors, and during the day, women would just knock and then go into the neighbors’ houses (occasionally with some startling outcomes, but it was the way things worked). We had large circles of friends from different “walks of life,” as they used to say.</p>
<p>Implicit assumption: Women were stay-at-home mothers. Well, in that town, back then, mostly they were. It was just different. Many of the families had lived in the same town for several generations, at least.</p>
<p>People might view the same level of knowledge of other’s affairs as “intrusive” or “nosy” now. I probably would too, now. Not many kaffee-klatsches going on around here.</p>
<p>It just occurred to me: Some of my friends’ mothers knew my SAT scores, and at least one of them remarked on my scores . . . twenty-five years after the fact! Maybe she wrote them down. ;)</p>
<p>Pizzagirl…I am not sure I understand what you are saying since this is cyberspace and I don’t know you. Do you think that top 20 schools should only be for full pay students?</p>
<p>BTW…jym626 You are making me smile this morning. How about eggs with whole wheat toast?</p>
<p>Of course not. I’m just saying - any tendency a school may have to favor worthy poor kid over worthy rich kid with all the advantages would be exacerbates if tuition were free, because the adcom can easily see that the free tuition is lifechanging for poor kid, whereas rich kid? Eh, he already has all the advantages, if we (HYPSM) don’t admit him and he goes off to full pay elsewhere, he is still ahead of the game. </p>
<p>If I were the adcom at HYPSM dispensing free tuitions all around, I’d absolutely favor the poor kids over the rich kids. Why do I need yet another Harker kid who can always go to UCB and her parents won’t starve when I can help a poorer kid?</p>
<p>The current system does some of this already. I think making HYPSM free would exacerbate it, which is sort of the opposite as to what POIH would want.</p>
<p>Choices, choices…we all make them. Again I say…we are happy we could give our kids the college education of their choice. Would we have liked more money from the schools…sure…who wouldn’t. Do we feel that deserved to receive it…well…maybe. BUT it was OUR choice to fund these educations and we were happy to do so.</p>
<p>FYI we also looked into private high schools for both of our kids at one point in time. In our cases, we did not go that route. But it was a considered option…again…our choice.</p>
<p>Perhaps folks with high incomes which drive EFC should consider deferred compensations (stock options or the like) which will REDUCE their income to a level where they will qualify for need based aid at generous schools. Would this work? Seems like “gaming the system” to me…but if you’re a high wage earner and have a way to defer your compensation…well…I would guess there are folks who have done this.</p>
<p>Lemme see if I go this:</p>
<ul>
<li><p>for the 15k students that get to go to HYPed schools, financial aid at these “no merit aid” schools can be very generous, having with riches to generate the “110k family income gets 30-40k in aid” stories</p></li>
<li><p>for virtually all other schools, that kind of need-based aid is a fiction</p></li>
<li><p>the “black box” that is financial aid decision-making drives parents and students nuts; each college appears to have its own proprietary definition of “need” </p></li>
<li><p>the “Expected Family Contribution” number of the FAFSA is useful ONLY for qualification for federal loans; it is largely unhinged from college’s proprietary definitions of need</p></li>
<li><p>many colleges appear to apply their need calculations in combination with other non-financial factors</p></li>
</ul>
<p>Kei</p>
<p>the is largfely unrealted to the need the
ntributionj aid offers that a differ by </p>
<p>ar</p>
<p>Quantmech, I was just raised differently. Other people’s salaries and finances are not anyone’s business, nor is mine theirs. I wouldn’t even reveal that we are full pay to any other parent at my kids’ school. If they want to speculate how we can afford x, that’s their prerogative, but I certainly am not going to provide them any fuel. And why do I want to involve myself in gossip about how the Smiths can afford college A but the Joneses can’t afford college B? That’s their problem. Not mine.</p>
<p>I just want to note that apparently my attempts at irony in some posts slipped under the radar. I don’t think low-income parents are bad parents. I was trying - apparently unsuccessfully - to draw a parallel between calling prosperous parents unwilling to pay full freight bad parents. I was trying to point out that all parents have choices. We are not born into our station in life. The low-income parent who thinks the prosperous parent should pay full freight should consider that the prosperous parent may have made difficult choices to be in a position to pay full freight and now feels penalized for having done so.</p>
<p>I most certainly would not consider paying a penny to send my kid to a school without substantial socio-economic diversity. I want the kids of firemen at Harvard. I just don’t want the parents of those kids to tell me to shut up and pay full freight. The system that is great for them is onerous for me. Both our kids deserve to be at Harvard. </p>
<p>Mostly, though, I think these high endowment schools should either (1) charge tuition on a continuous sliding scale akin to income taxes so that the 200K family does not pay the same as Rudy Guilliani to send their kid to Harvard, or (2) stop charging tuition and throw FAFSA in the garbage.</p>
<p>Good summary Kei. My D seemed to get HYP type aid from Williams as well. But, others say Williams is not as generous. I thought you could look at endowments and predict but found Davidson aid was much more generous than Swarthmore and Smith who have much larger endowments.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>And I find lots distasteful and offensive about that post. </p>
<p>(1) Distasteful for any family applying to high-price-tag schools to be inquisitive about the finances of other people applying.<br>
(2) Distasteful to assume that other families worked less hard than you.
(3) Distasteful to assume that even one accepted student to the same school your child was accepted to, comes from a family of “profligate” spending, let alone that there is some mythical large percentage of profligate spenders receiving generous FA from the school.
(4) Distasteful that all of the above reeks of a desire for exclusivity. (Because the fact is, if you are unable through your own efforts to meet tuition costs, you are unable to attend any U which does not generously aid.) The family in question wants to ensure that only those families who can meet tuition costs unassisted should have the “right” to attend. Only that is “fairness.”
(5) Distasteful that more than one person on this thread believes that their own personal spending and saving habits deserve to have some priority value in FA distribution than those who truly never had the money to save in the first place.</p>
<p>Yes, I’m sure that there’s an occasional cheater in FA award reception. Just as there is the occasional grand liar on college applications who does manage to hoodwink admissions officers and land an acceptance. But make no mistake about it: in the middle and upper middle class, including in the area in which Harker is situated, there are lots of student cheaters (at privates and some publics) who have perfected the art of academic cheating and have made it a semi-professional team effort. Ditto for certain similar areas in southern CA and in posh pockets along the East Coast. Not making any insinuations about any particular student, just that there are undoubtedly more upper-class students who have achieved grades dishonestly than there are FA award recipients at HYPSM who have received their awards dishonestly. In my profession, I have occasion to see an awful lot of this first hand, including in the SV.</p>
<p>Any overlap between middle-class families who choose to “spend all their money” on vacations and extra homes, and families with high achievers who are admitted to the Elites, is minuscule. The priorities don’t compute, as someone said earlier. Generally, the personal value system is not there to support such an effort. It is upper-class families who can comfortably afford private tuition and still take expensive vacations. I don’t think they think it’s “unfair” that they have it all.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I think this is a good idea, but Harvard and kin really only need to charge $65,000, tops. In that sense, someone making around $250k (a little higher than your approximate) would still pay as much as than Rudy Guilliani.</p>
<p>bovertine-
Love that COL calculator- very helpful for older s’s new job search.</p>
<p>Momma-three-
You serving breakfast? ! Wahoo. Lets make some Mimosas too. This might be a long day. </p>
<p>Back to the topic at hand, I agree that this system, with its cloaked, veiled, seemingly uneven and unfair FA calcualtion methodology does cause people to gripe. Those who are able to make choices about how to spend their money may then complain that someone got a better deal. Not sure if this is reasonable or unreasonable. What is unreasonable to me is when people game the system and then gloat about it (not speaking ot anyone directly here-- just venting). </p>
<p>As for allowance- we have planned to provide this (it comes out of the $ we saved for their education) through their college years. But, we put it in savings every month and they draw on it as they need it. It has been a great learning expereince for them (money management0 and they are building nice nest eggs. There is a longstanding joke in our house that whenever the kids visit/come home, we slip them a $20 before they leave. I don’t nkow how old they will be when we decide to stop this tradition. Younger s didnt understand this when he was in HS and we visisted a cousin’s daughter at her college (I slipped her $20). Now he gets it.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Is this another failed attempt at irony?</p>
<p>Low-income parents do not think any such thing. Unlike some high-income folks here, we don’t try to dictate FA policy at any school, including the Elites. We don’t sit in judgment about (a) who deserves to be accepted in the first place (b) who deserves FA, and how much they deserve. As a matter of fact, several years before the author of the post quoted became a CC member, I advocated here on CC for more middle-class gap aid at the Elites. Apparently the institutions “heard” my suggestion and shortly thereafter coincidentally instituted greater FA distribution for middle class admits.</p>
<p>A number of posters on this thread do not get out enough. You have no idea how The Other Half lives, especially how they already have been penalized in ways you clearly will never have compassion for. When the compassion gene was being handed out apparently you were skipped.</p>
<p>Great posts, epiphany.</p>
<p>
I don’t know. I find this a much more reasonable post than those you’ve made on this thread before. Good job. And I agree with your sliding scale in theory. The devil is in the details. Your #2, not as much but …maybe. I’d have to see the numbers to see if it was sustainable long term. </p>
<p>But what do you mean by this?
</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>You speak with such authority for all parents whose kids receive FA. And you speak with the voice of one who knows about all parents who pay full freight and complain. It must be wonderful to be such an authority.</p>
<p>Can we define 3 categories:
low income
middle income
high income</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>Either do I, as a low-income student. I want everyone to be able to afford a college education - a good one. Heck, I think everyone has the right to a good k-12 education. On the other hand, I think there is a big gap between being able to afford a good education and being able to afford an elite education, but that is rarely acknowledged on CC.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I have to agree here. Although I am not as cool-headed as epiphany, I have similar opinions. That said, it is difficult for me to look at someone who is in the top 5% of income earners in the United States and feel sorry for them. That’s like feeling sorry for myself because I live below the poverty line in the United States of America. I have food, clean water, a house, and heck, a computer and an internet connection. Sure, my life has been difficult compared to middle class America, but I’m in no way trying to say that I have led a difficult life. $200k may “feel” like the middle class, and I understand your (rhetorical you) predicament, but please try to have a little perspective.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p>I don’t think anyone will agree because everyone wants to put themselves in the Middle Class. However, I did break this down statistically in another post.</p>
<p>
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