What are middle class families really paying for Ivy league school admissions?

<p>Sorry, but do not think about labels, 120k is like for some aid.</p>

<p>200
No, only a very few are in your situation.</p>

<p>Yikes, 200k is very rich to me. Although if you have a lot of bills… I guess it matters how much you save versus how much you spend. I don’t know any college that will consider 200k middle class. I am acquainted with a middle class family with a son at Cornell. Based on their jobs, they definitely make less than 100k annually. They pay very little. It was cheaper to send their son to Cornell than Ohio State…these were the moms exact words.</p>

<p>Just an anecdote.</p>

<p>My post was to Dad II, not to OP.</p>

<p>Have not read the whole thread, but seriously I am not having sympathy for the financial situation…more than one rental property? Can’t you just sell one and pay for school with the proceeds? Rental properties are investments, investments are kind of like savings, and when one has bills to pay they use their savings/investments. We chose to put our $ in mutual funds, that is what we will sell to help pay for college. The OP bought property…(of course, it may be underwater but that’s another story.)</p>

<p>I guess I’m saying he is nuts to look for FA at that income and with investment properties. Sounds like he raised a good kid and hopefully she’ll get rewarded with merit aid.</p>

<p>My mutual funds and stocks are under water. Not the same since they aren’t mortgaged, but I cannot sell them for what I paid for them and they don’t pay rent. Darn.</p>

<p>$200K can feel “middle class” in terms of college purchasing power because our income has fallen so far behind increases in tuition since the 1970’s. </p>

<p>In the early '70’s, my sister attended Grinnell. At the time tuition/room/board was under $10,000. (I don’t have exact figures.) My father was a family physician in a mainly blue collar small town, not a specialist. He was netting around $100,0000/year. So a great education at a private college cost only 10% of his take home pay. Easily paid for without having to scrape and save for years. My parents owned one home, ever, which cost less in 1949 than a new car does today. They had payed off their 20 year mortgage the year she started college.</p>

<p>Fast forward a few decades. The cost of private college tuition has increased 439% while income has gone up only 147% since 1982 , when I entered the workforce. My husband is a physician in the military. His pay and benefits are relatively equivalent to what he would net in private practice, but in order for us to “feel” that private college tuition /room/board costs of $60,000 are comfortably available to our children (as our parents did in the 1970’s) he would have to be netting $600,000 a year. Not even close.</p>

<p>And because we moved quite a bit for a number of years, we don’t have our mortgage paid off, as some of you have been able to do. </p>

<p>So, to me, although we have a fine income, and aren’t hurting by any stretch if the imagination, we do FEEL the pinch of paying for college … More than I would have predicted, and certainly more than our parents, working in the same field decades ago, felt.</p>

<p>Now ECC why would you go and get all logical like that? Lot’s of folks here are having way to much fun bashing the OP!
Unbelievable the amount of animosity that has been demonstrated here. Either offer positive unemotional information to the gentleman who asked the question or move on.</p>

<p>Salary is only one part of the wealth picture. Passive income, debt, etc all come into play, DadII.</p>

<p>Really, no one is “bashing” the OP. You talk about money, people get riled up. eastcoascrazy is being reasonable and making good points. That’s just how she is! (I don’t know eastcoascrazy, of course, but she always does seem to be a voice of reason.) Some people got hung up on the idea of a $200K income being “middle class.” Whatever definition social scientists might put forth and whatever class you may feel you are in depending on where you live, most people are going to have a hard time calling someone whose income is in the top 5 percent (and a $200K income is more like the top 3 percent, I believe) to be “middle” class. But whatever. Life is expensive these days. Most people don’t feel rich. And a college education is REALLY expensive. And the cost of college has outpaced increases in income, as eastcoascrazy has pointed out. What I am saying is that regardless of how it pinches for the OP or anyone else, it doesn’t change the fact that schools are going to figure someone with an income of $200K is better able to afford what they’re selling than someone with an income less than that. And formulas at most schools are going to consider that person a full-pay customer. So, knowing that, what are you gonna do? People have shared their own stories about how they’ve made the finances work, strategies for finding schools that give good merit aid, and wisdom about accommodating oneself to the idea of a state school if that turns out to be the best option, etc.</p>

<p>The points that were made about planning when your child is in kindergarten are very valid, but not everybody has college on their radar–or they think either that “my kid is smart so he’ll get a full ride,” or that, somehow, there is automatic financial aid for kids who otherwise couldn’t afford it. There is an expectation that college will happen–and, in fact, who would have thought 16 years ago that college would be over $55K at private schools now? And even at a state school, $15k isn’t affordable for many. </p>

<p>Lots of people who got through college themselves without too much debt, without having to sweat it because their parents, like eastcoastcrazy’s, could afford it, are finding now that the equation is not the same. </p>

<p>And the same assumption that one’s kid is smart so will get into X college that makes it so hard to manage expectations (in one’s family, on CC, in oneself), fosters the idea that money is going to available for one’s kid, because it ought to be. </p>

<p>I don’t want to make a political statement, but I do think that these discussions should point to a need for our society to acknowledge that education is an investment that we all need to make, and that it requires a shared sacrifice for us all, to make it affordable for all who can benefit from it, so that we can benefit from an educated workforce. But I think we also need to acknowledge that, unlike high school, college is not of benefit to everyone. Our goal shouldn’t be that everyone should go, but that everyone who should go, can go.</p>

<p>Maybe we need a College Confidential forum for Babies - when you have a baby, you go to the forum for ideas on how to save and plan for college funding when they get older. A lot of this is about planning and it’s a lot harder to make it work when you start looking at finances when your kids are in high-school.</p>

<p>Our oldest attended a school, that like the Ivies, met 100% of need. We are middle class. We paid our EFC. While schools that meet 100% of need are generally expensive & competitive for admission they are a great deal for middle income families.</p>

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<p>Glad things worked out for you.</p>

<p>I assume that you did some planning in the past to meet your EFC though.</p>

<p>Yes we did plan, since my H works in an industry that has regular strikes and layoffs. We are living in our 2bed1bath starter house. We camp locally for vacation, work on our house & cars ourselves…</p>

<p>For clarity I am in full agreement of the points ECC was making. Our family has saved for over 20 years, and we have a significant amount of money saved. We own a Duplex out right that produces $26,000 a year in rental income. We have a ton of equity in our home etc. etc.
Having stated these things there is tremendous economic uncertainty out there. My wife is in education and the cutting and consolidation that is going on in the field of education has a lot of experienced people losing their jobs, I am self employed and have to provide for my own retirement. So the you earn this much you much be rich contention irks me at times.
My primary point is that there should be a bit more sensitivity to everyone’s economic circumstances no matter how well off you believe that person to be. In addition the expense of a college education is beyond any thing I could have ever imagined it escalating to.
I am certain the OP was looking to receive information with out inciting a class war thread.</p>

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<p>We planned too…but differently. On the advice of our financial planner, we contributed the maximum to our retirement plans. The idea was to get as much in those accounts as possible before our kids went off to college. THEN if needed, we were going to reduce our contributions to retirement during the college years.</p>

<p>In our household both parents are full time professionals. My entire take home pay went to paying for college costs for the full time our kids were in college…every penny. It went in direct deposit and went out auto withdrawal…for seven years. It was our decision to fund college in this way…and it worked for our family.</p>

<p>^We did the same as you, thumper1, without anybody’s input, we do not have advisors. The only diff. is that paying part of story was for Med. School, not UG (was covered by Merits)…In addition, just if we loose our jobs (there is no way under sky that we can find another job at our age), we file FAFSA every year, so D. will have an option of loans (which may work differently for UG, any way). No need based in Grad. School, they are considered independent (in some ways, which is very confusing area). There are couple other options besides loans though.<br>
When you plan, you have choices unless some higher power removes them.</p>

<p>I’m thinking that there must be a real mindset difference, too. I understand marysidney’s post that “not everybody has college on their radar–or they think either that “my kid is smart so he’ll get a full ride,” or that, somehow, there is automatic financial aid for kids who otherwise couldn’t afford it.”</p>

<p>But maybe I’m just not wired that way.</p>

<p>My H and I thought about all these options, too, back when we started D’s college fund (literally, at birth). Of COURSE D was going to be a brilliant kid with all kinds of college scholarship offers. But maybe not. We figured we’d save the money anyway.</p>

<p>Maybe there as some kind of great financial aid out there for people who couldn’t afford college. But maybe not. We just saved the money anyway.</p>

<p>Again, I think that H and I are just different, maybe overly cautious, maybe too much the sticks-in-the-mud. I know it’s my nature to plan and to save, and I really don’t like to rely on the financial kindness of strangers. That’s just me and my choice - as Blossom said. it’s all about the choices you make.</p>

<p>^From my perception of things (this is just an opinion, which might not be true at all), having saved $$ fro college might lower kid’s chances of getting either Merit or need based awards. I understand that many here would have a different opinion.
However, having Merit $$ is not a hope, it is also a plan. The kid has to know (starting at 5 years of age) that doing homework and doing it the best possible way is priority #1. It works the best when the kid is already involved in some EC’s that she loves. then telling her that she cannot go there until her homework is complete in the best possible way, it will work like a charm. Completing homework this way will insure all A’s in any k -12. Here is another side of planning. We had a small talk with our 5 years old and somehow it resulted in her very deep understanding of priorities that she followed all the way thru graduating from college with consistantly positive results. There is no magic / genius required, academic programs are designed for average hard working kids. So, if you hope for something, put out plan to achieve it, if it is not working, adjust it. At the end it will work!</p>