<p>What I’m saying is that just because Princeton or Yale or whichever school is affordable for your kid, that doesn’t mean it is affordable for your coworkers kid, or your kids classmates family.</p>
<p>Just because DadII posted some information here that one particular “middle income” family got good financial aid from the schools doesn’t mean that another “middle income” family would also get aid.</p>
<p>You are exactly correct, bigtrees, which is exactly why the original post is really pretty useles without further information as to that person’s financial circumstances.</p>
<p>I ran acriss this [Federal</a> TRIO Programs 2008 Annual Low Income Levels](<a href=“http://www2.ed.gov/about/offices/list/ope/trio/incomelevels.html]Federal”>Federal TRIO Programs Current-Year Low-Income Levels) delineating the classification for low income by family size. Again, it is income only-- not assets or investments or grandma’s trust fund.</p>
<p>
I agree. ;)</p>
<p>From post # 1:
Yup-- got that right-- has been saying it all alone 
Correct statement might be that SOME students from “middle income families” (whatever the definition of “middle income” is, and here is an interesting discussion on the definitional quagmire [FinAid</a> | FinAid for Educators and FAAs | Middle Income](<a href=“http://www.finaid.org/educators/middleincome.phtml]FinAid”>http://www.finaid.org/educators/middleincome.phtml)) along with other significant financial considerations, might get these packages. Otherwise it simply looks like a cloaked attempt at some friend of the op’s bragging rights.</p>
<p>parentofivyhopeful—With no disrespect I sincerely doubt that you are middle class. Your daughters living allowance at MIT is very generous and certainly out of the middle class standards for upper middle class full pay parents. My son at MIT has not received anywhere near the amount of money you are providing to your daughter.He instead has learned to cook so his money is used for weekend entertainment. Unless someone is claiming what their income and assets are then the posts that followed the OPs are really useless to other parents. </p>
<p>I have on many ocassion suggested that parents not have their children rule out the IVYs, MorS because these schools are very generous for highly qualified students with a low EFC. In our families situation Cornell was far more generous than MIT (thank Goodness because we have 2 kids at Cornell). The state school my daughter will be attending is costing us more than MIT or Cornell.</p>
<p>JohnAdams12: I don’t think #33 tells all the truth. Princeton computed our EFC to be $65000, even more than MIT and Stanford.</p>
<p>I think you missed the fine prints “most who get FA have 2 or more children in college”.</p>
<p>I have no doubt POIH considers himself to be middle class because 80% of Americans (give or take) identify in the middle class.</p>
<p>But I do doubt that POIH falls within Middle Income, which is somewhere around 40,000 to 65,000 a year.</p>
<p>momma-three: I’m not sure what to make of #45, but the only intention of my posts were to make sure that people realize that even HMSPY are not generous with their FA as these institutes try to depicts and there are many small prints like
“parent cash assets”
“home equity”
“Multiple Children in college”
etc.</p>
<p>bigtree:
</p>
<p>Certainly we don’t fall anywhere near this range but I never thought of this as middle income.</p>
<p>I agree with POIH on this-</p>
<p>From his posts I think we are less affluent than him, but our income is much more than 40-65K - this would be a subsistence level in our community.</p>
<p>We live in a high cost of living area; we drive cars that are 7 and 13 years old. We have 2 younger children to support. We live in an average house. And we cannot afford a 50K private for our S, based on the EFC that is calculated for us. This EFC is based on current income, and does not take into account previous lower income levels, and significant debt that we have (from major house repairs and medicals bills, not vacations and plastic surgery)</p>
<p>40K in our community for a family of 5 would probably qualify you for subsidies on various things such as the lunch program, after school programs, etc.</p>
<p>The middle income value I listed is the US Census Bureau average for the US in 2008. The band is for the middle quintile (40 - 60%).</p>
<p>If you make more than that, you should be pleased to know that you make more than 60% of US households. </p>
<p>The OP originally said that a middle income family can get financial aid. Perhaps this explains it a little better why some middle income families can get aid. </p>
<p><a href=“http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf[/url]”>http://www.census.gov/prod/2009pubs/p60-236.pdf</a></p>
<p>You can’t really judge middle-income by the people who post on CC though. From my observation, the population here seems to be overwhelmingly “working rich” (ie, extremely affluent in comparison to most Americans, but still have to work hard for it). This sort of influences our impression of what “middle-class” (a notoriously nebulous term already!) is.</p>
<p>A very interesting thread. Would OP care to share some stats, not identifiable, of his friend’s kid that may shed some light on why he/she made into HYPSM? Few kids are so lucky, but some were and some will be. Interesting to know.</p>
<p>Our EFC is more than half our income. I can understand why many families have lower EFCs because of medical or other circumstances out of their control, it still feels unfair to be penalized for being frugal.</p>
<p>
</p>
<p><a href=“http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/896071-ivy-selective-school-rd-results-2014-comparison-summary.html[/url]”>http://talk.collegeconfidential.com/college-admissions/896071-ivy-selective-school-rd-results-2014-comparison-summary.html</a></p>
<p><<we will=“” plan=“” more=“” carefully=“” with=“” my=“” son,=“” becuase=“” when=“” i=“” have=“” 2=“” in=“” college,=“” need=“” to=“” know=“” ahead=“” of=“” time=“” what=“” kind=“” fa=“” we=“” be=“” looking=“” at–can’t=“” off=“” by=“” 20k!=“”>></we></p>
<p>TKsmom: Having two in college (assuming that your kids are at generous schools with large endowments) makes all the difference. Our EFC was cut in half with two in school. Your situation may change enormously for the two year overlap that you have.</p>
<p>We have four in college at the same time. We have been fortunate to have received financial aid for the first three. My youngest who did not apply to a top 20 school has cost us the most money. My sons at Cornell have cost us the least amount of money. It will be interesting to see Cornells package since my 1st son will graduate this year.</p>
<p>GTAlum: “So, to those with high stats, apply to at least one Ivy (even if not your first choice) for better financial assurance.”</p>
<p>I can hear it now…“I didn’t <em>want</em> to go to HYP, but it was all we could afford.” </p>
<p>:D</p>
<p>"I can hear it now…“I didn’t <em>want</em> to go to HYP, but it was all we could afford.”
LOL. My daughter pointed this out to me when discussing this the other day.</p>
<p>“Basically, as I have been saying all alone. Students from middle income families with high stats could go to these schools for much less than a state school cost. Even if the student gets a full tuition merit scholarship”</p>
<p>My D’s offer from one of the elite LAC’s (looking at the tables etc I suspect is about equal to HYPS) was significantly less than the sticker price of our top 5 public flagship. But she got a much more substantial scholarship (which I suspect most HYP admits would get) from the public. Plus, she turned down many “free ride” NMF offers. I suspect most HYP admits have less expensive offers than going to an Ivy. But, it seems that the price for a “middle class” family MAY be worth it for the education. At least that’s what we’re telling ourselves about D’s school (and it doesn’t even have the name recognition of an Ivy!) :)</p>
<p>D1 got more from Yale than UConn’s free tuition because UConn’s R&B was 12,000, and we have to pay 11000 total at Yale.
Yale beat UPenn’s 18000 parent/child contribution. We make over 120.000,have very few assets, a home equity loan and old cars, etc.
Fafsa only schools gave us nice packages also, but only one beat Yale by a couple of thousand.</p>