<p>It’s not even just a function of unclassy, it’s a function of accuracy, Quantmech. You hypothesized a Family A and a Family 1 upthread where Family 1 was the “bad” family who had nice cars, vacations, etc and didn’t save like virtuous Family A. But how do you know? Maybe Family 1 has an elderly relative they support or medical bills you know nothing of. Maybe the cars are from a relative who is a car dealer. Maybe they rock on finding cheap deals on Priceline. Point is, you don’t know. You can only assume. And you may be very, very wrong.</p>
<p>I am extremely grateful for the FA system that my children have benefitted from. It will never be a perfect system because it cannot take into account human motivation. Nor can it assess with objectivity what opportunities were or were not available to a particular individual, and what was or was not within his capability. Someone’s earning potential can be influenced by so many factors not readily discernable, such as physical and mental health, past and present family support, and the needs of one’s children. </p>
<p>The availability of quality day care or babysitting is one factor that influences whether a woman decides to work or stay home and for how long, which ultimately affects savings and earnings. We all know easy children who probably could have raised themselves. But don’t we also know children who require every ounce of blood, sweat, and tears a parent has? I have a bright, capable friend who for years ran her own tech. business. Lately, though, both her kids are in crisis and she has not been able to put in the long hours she used to or many hours at all. Her income has declined significantly. From the outside, someone could question why she isn’t working more to save for her children’s college educations and make a judgement about that.</p>
<p>So colleges can only deal with what is–not with what could have been or should have been.</p>
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<p>I think I need to recalibrate my subtle irony detector, or upgrade to a more recent model. :)</p>
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Bear with me, now … I may just barely be beginning to see the light … If I think it’s offensively dismissive and patronizing, it’s actually irony. Got it! I’m sure that will help me to enjoy the thread much more fully, in all its intricate layers of meaning. Can’t promise, though. Grad of a no-name school here.</p>
<p>And, sorry to be so gosh-darned slow, but is this irony, too?
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<p>Folks, if I thought there was a real chance we could have a constructive conversation about ways to correct flaws in the need-based FA system (for those of us who believe in it), I’d suggest we start a thread. </p>
<p>To whatever extent gaming exists, maybe we could suggest ways to close the loopholes. To whatever extent inequities exist, maybe we could suggest ways to correct them. </p>
<p>But I don’t know if that’s possible.</p>
<p>Edit: Or I guess we could just keep doing this. ;)</p>
<p>Pizzagirl, Family A and Family 1 are abstractions, intended as a test of the FA algorithm. I’m halfway inclined to think Family A (that would have been mine) was just ill-informed, rather than virtuous. </p>
<p>But if you go back to my earlier posts, you’ll have seen that we actually did know about our neighbors’ elderly dependent relatives. We sent them gifts, and if they lived anywhere nearby, we visited them. When people were hospitalized, or when they needed to be with family members at the hospital, we took care of their children. We visited them in the hospital, when that was allowed. We took meals to their homes, after they returned from the hospital. And other people did that for us. We knew a lot about other people’s lives, because we were close. Frankly, I miss that.</p>
<p>Yes, there was a bit of a tug of jealousy when we first figured out how FA actually worked–can’t hide that. But apparently we were ok about it, really, because when the time came and QMP was in high school, we did not buy a more expensive house or otherwise shift assets.</p>
<p>Post 362,
And GFG, I also appreciate your sensitive, perceptive, accurate viewpoint. Indeed, one cannot necessarily know from the outside what virtually mandates particular contracted-income situations, such as caregiving for a Special Needs child, an elderly parent, a child who has lost the other parent, etc. </p>
<p>And most of us Moms know so many mothers who made the decision that it was cheaper (having nothing to do with expected FA far into the future!) to stay home while hubby worked and children were little, than to hire nannies while Mom went/went back to work. That’s profitable when Mom earns a really profesional salary, and not true for a huge portion of the population.</p>
<p>Responding to cur, post 365:
Yes, I think a new thread would be valuable, one maybe focusing on a Clearinghouse approach to FA, shared universally by U.S. colleges, sort of like a UCAS in the UK, but limited to FA.</p>
<p>Dear Frazzled,
Lifting quotes out of context and then posting snarky comments about them is just not cool. If you want to keep deliberately misinterpreting my posts to make some sort of point that I’m an immoral person out to end FA and insult fire fighters then I guess that’s up to you. Somehow, I think what really irks you and a few others on here is the fact that (1) son got into Harvard, and (2) I have the unmitigated gall to not be forever grateful to send him no matter what the cost. That flies in the face of a lot of CC orthodoxy.</p>
<p>Now, for the record - my entire post. And yes, husband and I really do admire the fire fighter/police/teacher jobs. Hindsight is 20/20 but now that we look at the costs to us to achieve our income we think some of our old high school friends who chose this route were rather wise. They are retiring much younger, for one thing. </p>
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<p>Can anybody shed some light on the accuracy of some of the conventional wisdom on CC involving FA?</p>
<ol>
<li> That the student body of elite colleges are comprised substantially of those students whose families are either (1) getting significant amounts of FA or (2) are extremely wealthy(>250K). Those families making around 100K-200K can’t afford elite colleges and thus students from these families are ‘underrepresented’ at elite colleges.</li>
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<p>I’ve never seen any numbers to back up this statement.</p>
<p>The next two I’ve seen around here on CC, and they are contradictory.</p>
<p>2a. Full pay families subsidize FA families.</p>
<p>2b. The cost of educating a student at an elite college is much more than the college charges in tuition. Thus, even ‘full pay’ families are being subsidized to some extent.</p>
<p>Finally, I’ve also seen the two statements here that are also contradictory</p>
<p>3a. You are punished if you save any money for college. If two families have the same income, and one family has savings and the other families spends, the second family would get a significantly better FA package. Families are ‘punished’ for saving for college.</p>
<p>3b. Your FA package is determined mostly by your income. Savings do come into play, but for the most part it is your income that determines how much FA you will get. Thus, it is to your benefit to save some money for college, especially if you are at that 100-150K range.</p>
<p>I’m amazed that there are those who think I’d gloat over receiving FA. Perhaps that’s how the author of that statement would respond or project if the situation were reversed.</p>
<p>I’m amazed that people even care about other’s personal situations and then rush to judgement, assigning their values to everyone else.</p>
<p>At the very least I am happy that people can pay full tuition. At the very most,what I do is no one’s business and what they do is of no concern to me. We saved from the time the kid was born. There was never any intent to see how much FA we could get. We prepared as best we could with the intent of paying full tuition. We FA as a blessing. </p>
<p>Understand that more people than not are not aware college costs and FA. My true reality check came when that EFC popped up after I completed the FAFSA form. </p>
<p>Look consider it a blessing that you able to pay full tuition. We were prepared also and our income is not 200k. The grandparents were prepared to use the equity on the house.
I really am amazed at conclusions people high jumped to. So wrapped up in anger. </p>
<p>We"ve been asked to see it through one lens. Now try changing lenses. There are many types of lenses.</p>
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<p>I can give you this information for Stanford. 51% of the Stanford student body does not qualify for financial aid. Although the financial aid formulas are complicated, this amounts to 51% of families with incomes of $150k+. Stanford is 17% “low-income,” which at Stanford amounts to $60k or less.</p>
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<p>This is true. Although savings are tapped, savings are tapped a significantly lower level than income. A family that makes $150-$200k is going to be full pay almost no matter how they swing it - save for multiple children in college - and as a result, having savings is ideal.</p>
<p>Is it time for watercress sandwiches, petit fours and midday tea?</p>
<p>Isn’t it happy hour somewhere?</p>
<p>Apologies, sewhappy, for being uncool, snarky, and too much of a dim bulb to understand what you’re saying. Your posts about lower-earning professions sure seemed to be put-downs, but there’s no point in quoting them here because I wouldn’t want to take them out of context and I obviously didn’t understand them the first time around.</p>
<p>But really - what would I be doing on CC for 5-plus years if I’m irked by people whose children go to Harvard? I even know some of them in real life and can somehow plod on through the dim days of my existence (catching the irony there?).</p>
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<p>OK, so because you knew the Smiths down the street have an elderly grandmother that they support because you’ve brought fruit pies to grandma on occasion, you now have racked up mentally what it must cost to support grandma and therefore you’re adding it to the mental excel spreadsheet of whether the Smiths have saved as much as they “should have” or are “deserving” of FA at a given school? </p>
<p>How do you know what people’s houses are worth, other than at a very superficial, cursory level? How do you know what they paid for their cars and vacations? How can you possibly know about other obligations they might not share with you – what about treatment for mental illnesses, or being a quiet subsidizer of a relative somewhere else? How can you possibly know what debts they have – whether “good” (their own education, medical) or “bad” (credit card spending) – that impact what they’ve been able to save? And how do you possibly know what other people make or what their earning potential could have been, other than in very vague, general ballpark terms?</p>
<p>This doesn’t strike me as “aww, sweet, small-town values.” This strikes me as nosiness, honestly. It would never occur to me in a million years to make a linkage between “my neighbor supports elderly grandma, she’s a sweetie” and “what is the state of my neighbor’s bank account?”</p>
<p>Anyway, colleges ask for the things that are relevant in that regard when figuring out FA – support of others outside the household, other students in college, unusual medical bills, etc. Beyond that, what else can they do? They can’t be in the business of second-guessing whether people did enough. They have to take what presents itself at that moment as the situation.</p>
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<p>It’s happy hour somewhere. My treat! Oh wait – I’ll resent paying for you freeloaders! Maybe you should have made better lifestyle choices and then you could afford your appletinis.</p>
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<p>POIH, I am curious - do you think it’s discriminatory against one-child families that they might not get financial aid when a multiple-child family at the same level might? Is HYPSM “rewarding” families for having multiples? If so, I’d like my reward!</p>
<p>Pshaw, PG. Appletinis are so declasse’ . Please post the cc FAFSA* form (*Federal Aid For Subsidized Alcohol) and I will happily complete it… </p>
<p>I was gonna come up with a CC acronym for CSS but drew a blank. Anyone want to give it a go?</p>
<p>How about the discriminatory against having children more than four years apart? Financial aid would be less or none since no overlap during college although the family income/asset are the same.</p>