<p>Perhaps someone who has taken exception to my comments would point out where I have spoken ill of people who are poor.</p>
<p>AlwaysNAdventure,</p>
<p>Good points about choices. We all make choices we have to live with. Sometimes it’s about jobs. Sometimes it’s about who we marry. Sometimes it’s about seemingly frivolous spending. And sometimes circumstances we can’t control take over.</p>
<p>I know that as a middle class parent, we have qualified for decent financial aid. Are we poor? No. Do we shop at Target? Yes. I have never had a manicure. I haven’t been on a plane in 20 years - our vacations are minimal trips to local places. Our kitchen looks like it’s out of the 50s. Our kids never had a TV in their room and think shopping at Kohls is a big deal. Both parents have ALWAYS worked. I bring up these examples, not to complain, but to suggest that frugality is a value and a choice. </p>
<p>I appreciate every amount of fin. aid we have gotten. And we have not gotten it at every school. But it really is a gift.</p>
<p>Any one can shed income and assets before his kid is in those college years and have a go at those wonderful scholarship and financial aid opportunities. I know someone who sort of did that in a divorce situation so that his kids got full PELL and other goodies at schools that use FAFSA only. So it can be done. </p>
<p>There is not enough money and there is not likely going to be much more, so the lines are drawn as they are. The aid is often inadequate for low income kids at most schools as they do not meet need most of the time, and even a small gap can be undoable when a family is in true financial crisis. </p>
<p>My state has what I consider reasonable state tuition costs and a state financial aid program so that those of low and middle income have some money from there, but it still will not cover sleep away options, even in state ones. And our state schools gap even low income kids. So we have in NY a model where most anyone can afford to commute from home, but when it comes to going away to school, you gotta ante up unless you qualify for merit money. Not a lot of that flowing either. For private schools, it’s all up to them. Even most privates have some merit money. Harder to get, with less out there for the most selective schools, but really out of the top 25 USNWR ranked national universities, half do give merit money.</p>
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<p>I thought the rate was a bit under 6% a year, but assuming 6% BobWallace you’ll be paying out a total of 46% of your savings at minimum. Compounding doesn’t make a big difference in how much FAFSA adds to each child’s EFC be they youngest or oldest–each will cost you about 15% of your savings. </p>
<p>Most importantly, this is assuming that your children are attending schools that meet need. If they go somewhere that gaps them, you either stay within budget or pay out more…from your savings.</p>
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<p>I’m not sure I understand what point you are trying to make.</p>
<p>I don’t want to quibble over the numbers - my point was that if approximately 50% of every dollar you save will later be a financial aid penalty, it’s an unpleasant pill to swallow and a disincentive to save. Of course I save anyway, but I’m still allowed to gripe about it if I want.</p>
<p>BobWallace, of course you can gripe :). I do think it’s important to note that you are being penalized 15% of each dollar you save per child. I wouldn’t want some lurker to mistakenly think that there’s no point in saving because half of it is just going to be whisked away! </p>
<p>There certainly is the multiple kid tax! A friend of D2’s was accepted to Harvard but will probably be going to another great but not tippy-top school with big merit. The friend comes from a very well-off family, but is the oldest of five, and laying out $1.25+ million for college :eek: is just not in the game plan.</p>
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<p>Exactly, NotYourBusiness. No other entities could get away with demanding full financial disclosure by their buyers, and then setting the price based on that data. We don’t let people who sell cars, houses, and other major purchases do that.</p>
<p>And, as has been pointed out above, the other financial aid fiction is the packaging of loans as part of an aid offer and even as a reduction in price. A $30,000 car still costs $30,000, even if you get a loan for a big chunk of that.</p>
<p>I do see a trend, though - families are getting smarter about the actual cost to attend college, and are looking at outcomes to determine if there is good value in a particular school/major.</p>
<p>Roger no one is “demanding” you lay out your income and assets. Feel free to not file for FA, keep your information to yourself and pay the sticker price.</p>
<p>If you want the school to pick up some of the cost they are going to want to know why you think you need help and they get to decide if you need it.</p>
<p>That seems standard for any discounting/aid/subsidy. Free lunch-income limits. Sliding scale at the doctors office-they want income info.</p>
<p>If you don’t want to take part in the system–don’t</p>
<p>Jamiecakes,</p>
<p>The moment all full payers get out of your kid’s school (probably Chicago), good luck sustaining operations there. Be careful what you wish for. </p>
<p>Moreover, this still does not make “aid” = “gift” in all cases. You know this, and I think that the title of this thread that you started is deceiving.</p>
<p>Notyourbusiness, that is hardly happening. The lines are longer than ever for the privilege to pay for these most selective schools.</p>
<p>I suspect we are probably very different in how we feel about this issue. College is costing me about 30% of my take home pay (with only taxes and insurance figured in, no retirement etc) and I am not crabbing about that.</p>
<p>I consider my son’s aid (Grants) a gift and I appreciate it. If he didn’t get good grants and he ended up at a SUNY I would be fine with that too. If I was wealthier and paid more or allowed my son to choose a school that didn’t meet need I wouldn’t crab about it.</p>
<p>Your repeated point about ‘discounting’ etc. just doesn’t resonate with me.</p>
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You see this as noble, but I see it as sad. :(</p>
<p>I have to agree with the earlier poster who said that the bill is the same, all that changes is when you paid it. If you saved the $30k, if you get loans for it, or if you don’t send you child to that school. However- I really think seniors run into this problem with assisted living care. Some people have to liquidate all of their assets for care and others (who have no assets) are cared for by the state. Only irritating if you know that they ate out a lot, took trips a lot, and bought wave-runners. These 2 people can end up sharing a room for eldercare.</p>
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<p>Wow, excellent point. </p>
<p>“Swear to me how much money you have in income and assets and then I’ll tell you what the price is”</p>
<p>How crazy would it be if everything in life worked that way.</p>
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Actually, there are plenty of situations where this happens, it’s just not a business model used by many corporations.</p>
<p>If your daughter goes to Planned Parenthood to obtain either healthcare services or a prescription for birth control, her costs will be based upon her financial situation - they call it “sliding scale” fees. This is common with many non-profits.</p>
<p>If you join your local YMCA, and have a low income, your membership fee will be based on a sliding scale - those members paying a lower fee get exactly the same membership, and use the same facilities. They also may get a further discount on various other fees (or might even have them waived.</p>
<p>Most colleges and universities are non-profits just like Planned parenthood and the YMCA. You won’t see huge financial aid package as the for-profit schools. They don’t spend their own money providing scholarships. If you have financial need, you get the government aid (grants and loans) and then you get other loans underwritten by the school.</p>
<p>If you think it’s lousy to end up with $30,000 of debt for a college degree try $30,000 of debt to learn to cut hair and give manicures over the course of 10 months - I kid you not!</p>
<p>Financial aid in the form of grants and scholarships are not a right, but I wouldn’t go so far to call them a gift either. They are an enticement because the school think you will bring something they want to the table.</p>
<p>I feel emotionally and intellectually torn between the desire to help others with more limited circumstances and the idea that some are getting an unearned benefit at the expense of others. While there are cases to be made for each side of the coin, I cannot reconcile the idea of subsidizing someone else’s children’s college education while struggling to pay for my own children’s education. I simply cannot listen to one more parent brag about their great financial aid package and the great school that their kid is attending as if they somehow earned that aid. I want to make then understand that financial aid means that someone else is paying their children’s way to a better future. They are getting a benefit that was not earned. I’m not proud of it but I must admit to resenting those parents while finding some encouragement that at least their children will have better opportunity for their futures. It balances me out and I move on.</p>
<p>But then again, maybe I would feel differently about the whole thing if I were getting my own handout.</p>
<p>Well, those who did get the aid packages from selective colleges did earn it. You have to do the work in high school to be so selected at such school, and pick the schools that will accept you and that process is why we have this entire forum. It’s not an easy process. Then there is that lottery aspect of it.</p>
<p>I struggle to pay for health care costs, for our housing and a lot of choices, and do not begrudge the fact that the taxes I pay, and believe me, we pay a lot, goes for those who don’t have the money to do so. When my kid was undergoing treatment for leukemia, I didn’t have a drop of jealousy for those whose kids were on SSI and state insurance plans. Not a bit. They didn’t earn those benefits either. I’m grateful that our school district, that I have not used, having had all of mine go to private school even as I probably pay more into the district than most people with our very high property tax, provides a good education for all of the kids who live in it, even the many who pay NO taxes towards it. I’d rather have those kids in school, a good school, with a good chance to be contributing adults. Yeah, I complain about how much I pay, but the bottom line is that it is good that the system is the way it is.</p>
<p>For college, the way the private schools have honed into the federal money is what bothers me. I’d like get their mouths off the federal teat, yes, I would. If they want to provide scholarships and aid for students, that 's fine, and I understand that it is part of what I am paying for, and I do pay–am not entitled to a dime of financial aid other than unsub loans. Good for them. But, I feel that the way the system is set up is not efficient. But I don’t blame them for taking advantage of it. Of course they will and of course we will when we can.</p>
<p>“I consider my son’s aid (Grants) a gift and I appreciate it.”</p>
<p>That’s very fine, Jamiecakes, but the title of your thread “Wait…hold on…aid is a gift not a right” seems to imply that all aid is a gift and everyone has to feel the same. I did not see any qualifiers in the title of your thread regarding when aid is a gift or not. Nor did I see any qualifier regarding this being a matter of opinion.</p>
<p>Well, it is a gift, in that you cannot expect to get enough money to afford a private school. That one of those schools will give you anything is truly a gift. I don’t know what else to call it. PELL is an entitlement as are the Stafford loans if you qualify. But anytime you get anything that requires a decision on the part of someone else who is looking at your merit to decide whether you are even in the door to be eligible for anything, it’s no longer an entitlement.</p>
<p>Clarification point:</p>
<p>It seems in this and in some other recent threads we are seeing a “war” between (near) full payers and aid recipients.</p>
<p>I do not want to speak to other folks, but speaking about myself, my discontent has two main roots:</p>
<p>1- The lack of appreciation by some people who call full payers as “entitled”.</p>
<p>2- The lack of perception that this crazy educational model is creating problems for the large majority of students. Even if you or your family is lucky enough to be an aid recipient at a good school, you have to recognize that the entire US colleges pricing model is completely out of whack. Many, many people from working, middle, and upper-middle class end up not going to college or with sever student loans debt. The guaranteed student-loans model, which creates incentives for schools to not control costs, and the opaque price-discrimination model, that creates incentives for schools to jack up prices even more and to make price-comparison very difficult, only exacerbates the problem.</p>