<p>1) It would really bother you, even if that other family had, say, three siblings in college at the same time and another sibling who was disabled, necessitating one parent to stay at home and increasing their overall medical expenses? You would <em>really</em> look at this other hypothetical family whose income is the same as yours and resent them? Wow. I would be <em>delighted</em> that the college I was supporting was making things possible for people who were having a rough time. Not resentful. </p>
<p>2) If what bothers you is not that MIT gives FA to those less well-to-do, but that they give some FA to people whom you perceive as equally well-to-do, then why didn’t you select a college that doesn’t give any FA to your income level at all – that is, caps their FA at a lot lower level? You certainly had that option. Your D didn’t have to choose MIT, you know. If it bothers you so much and all. </p>
<p>3) Do you also resent that some well-to-do kids receive athletic scholarships? My niece attends a top 10 LAC fully paid on an athletic scholarship, even though they can well afford it. If one of my kids were to go to that same school, we’d be full pay – even though we make appreciably less. Would the appropriate response be to be resentful of that? Or glad for other people’s successes?</p>
<p>4) And finally, in your example … “So the family making $200K with first child at Harvard gets TA of $15K. **With another joining Harvard ** the total FA becomes” Why does the second child have to join Harvard for Harvard to take into account that the family has several kids in college at once? Are families with such abject failures as average kids who attend average schools not to have those other students considered in FA calculations?</p>
<p>Yet if your D had chosen a school where she had a significant scholarship, it might very well be that you would pay less than a family with similar income whose child didn’t receive a scholarship. Wouldn’t that be equally unfair, for that other family to pay $50K and you only to pay (say) $10K?</p>
<p>Oh!! I get it now. I think it’s WONDERFUL that you are endowing MIT sufficiently so that they can now offer FA up to higher levels than they are currently! That is so terrific on your part!</p>
<p>Mojitos are perfect. Let’s whip up some nachos as well!</p>
<p>I have learned a lot from this thread. S is a junior and some type of aid will be part of his college decision for at least the first 2 years. We are self-employed and are hopeful that we move from FA to full-pay. BUT, no matter what happens, I’m not looking for fair. Life is not fair. His success is not dependent on H or Y. I’d never let him think that. No one owes us anything. I’d be so thankful if he did receive aid and like many others I’d be happy to be generous when able.</p>
<p>Problem stem from the fact that Harvard makes the expenditure upto 10% for AGI of $180K and make one family at 200K pay full price but giving FA to other at the same AGI. Doesn’t seem right to me.</p>
<p>Because it is the other child FA that need to take into account the first in college otherwise you are providing again double benefit to the same family.</p>
<p>I have posted before where I think at some of those elite schools they are missing a lot of good students with family income between 150-250k, especially if they lived at a high cost area like NE. Students in that income range end up borrowing a lot more money in order to afford those top tier schools, or they end up going to other schools where they could get merit money.</p>
<p>No one would have stopped the other family child to qualify for that scholarship because of their AGI.
But DD was not given FA at MIT because of her family AGI and not because she didn’t qualify for merit scholarship.</p>
<p>ParentOfIvyHope – would you be happier if Harvard went back to their financial aid policies from five years ago when they didn’t provide this kind of financial aid for the middle class? Only families much further down the food chain received financial aid.</p>
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<p>That’s very possible. Even with Harvard’s generous financial aid policies I still don’t think all families can afford to go to Harvard.</p>
<p>Harvard is a bad example for that, because it does give meaningful aid in the 150-250K zone, and because there’s enough unique value there for people to want to sacrifice. I have yet to see anyone turn Harvard or Yale down because of a $10,000/year difference, but go one step down the ladder and that happens plenty.</p>
<p>Colleges like the University of Chicago, or Duke – they have close to abandoned that income cohort.</p>
I understand that some families might be caught or get themselves caught in the middle if they’re at this income range or perhaps even higher but to put it in perspective, if they were ‘pay as you go’, i.e. had no savings they could put towards the education and didn’t take out any loans for it, at a $50K/year COA that effectively drops their income to only $100K-$200K for the 4 year period (and it’s hard to imagine that most families in the 150K-250K range weren’t able to save a bit up front and they’ll likely be able to save a bit afterwards). Even in higher cost of living areas there are many families who seem to manage on that level of income. Yes, they may notice the hit, and might even feel it, but possibly no more than many of those with a lower income (i.e. less than $100K-200K) feel every day. If it’s too much of a hit they can just choose to attend elsewhere at a lower cost.</p>
<p>Oh goodness, won’t someone think of the poor little upper middle class kids!</p>
<p>Look – there’s no system that will satisfy everyone. The line for FA has to be drawn somewhere. HYPSM are <em>more</em> generous than most in terms of how high they draw the line - and it <em>still</em> isn’t enough for POIH. They could draw the line higher to include POIH in the magic circle and make him happy – and then that would **** off POIH’s boss who makes $50K more and feels it’s not fair. Etc. Ad nauseum.</p>
<p>It would really help the 150K-250K crowd a lot if college tuition were at least tax deductible.</p>
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<p>It is not the ‘poor little upper middle class kids’ alone that are missing out. It is the schools (and their current students) too who end up with a skewed distribution of family incomes in the student body. Not good.</p>
<p>What’s a system that would solve it to everyone’s satisfaction (absent making tuition free)? That is progressive enough so that Richie Rich isn’t getting away with murder, but generous enough that POIH is pleased? I’m being really serious here. Sure, HYPSM can slide their scale up, but that just moves the problem from one set of people to another.</p>
<p>Getting something at a value price is not ‘getting away with murder’. The billionaire pays the same for the McDonald’s extra value meal as the homeless person. Nobody thinks it is unfair.</p>
<p>I would argue that college tuition is not a good place to practice ‘progressive’ economics. If we want to ‘soak the rich’ we can raise their taxes (and anyone who visits the politics subforum knows that I am all for that).</p>
<p>I believe it would be a good idea for HYPSM etc to drop tuition for all applicants to rates that are comparable to in-state tuition at state flagships, or slightly more. Maybe $10K/yr. And offer loans and/or work-study in case someone wants help meeting those costs. Only those who need the money will ask for it.</p>
<p>For even the poorest student, a Harvard degree would be worth $40K in loans. As has been pointed out, it could be life-transformative. The poor student who graduates from Harvard is not going to remain poor for long. He/She will be able to pay back the 40K pretty fast.</p>
<p>POIH, did you note JHS’ point above where two households, each with identical AGI, are in wildly different circumstances? Do you still think that AGI is the right / best metric, even when small business owners / principals, people living off trust funds, etc. may be able to manipulate the income stream in ways that people who pull a paycheck from a big corporation aren’t able to?</p>
<p>PG: Yes I did see the JHS point and still think AGI is the correct way because if some family have generated long term investment and choose to defer income then the family inherently is taking risk to potential loss of that investment too.</p>
<p>But the small business owner still can do the same thing and might accept lot more cash transaction and be eligible for FA. There is no safe guard against that in the present system too.</p>
<p>Catching that type of fraud is up to IRS and not colleges.</p>