<p>But college is really no different from many other goods and services. I know people with multiple homes, fancy cars, lavish lifestyles, who agonize every time an elderly parent needs medical care or a device (automated bed lift?) not covered by Medicare or Medicaid. I want to say, “Are you insane? Write a check for gods sake. One less pair of Ferragamo shoes this month- why should you be making phone calls to try and find a doctor who will write the orders so you don’t have to pay out of pocket when there are indigent elderly people out there who have no backstop?” But of course you can’t. And truth be told, if we all think it’s crazy that elderly people with resources (and wealthy children) are sucking the health care system dry… well, vote for people with enough %^&* to touch that third rail and fix the system.</p>
<p>There will always be people looking for OPM (other people’s money) regardless of how much they have. My local newspaper just published a scathing analysis of how much our town is paying for kids with disabilities to be educated in private schools out of district. A portion of this is absolutely legitimate… and I don’t begrudge those parents a nickel. But savvy parents and lawyers now know how to game the system to get the taxpayers to pay for their kids private schools. It’s insane, it sucks money away from basic instruction for everyone, it creates an arms race where every kids deficiency somehow can get pathologized into a disorder which can then get services…</p>
<p>But I digress. I don’t believe it’s easy or fun to pay full freight out of a 200K income if the plan is to write a check every year. I’m not criticizing or demonizing the OP. This is reality. If you look around at other people who are similarly situated who have multiple kids in college, the truth is that they’ve either been living well below their means for over a decade to save; are taking on loans in both their names and their kids; have “gold plated benefits” from work such that they don’t have to sweat too much over their future retirement or health care costs, or are lucky enough to have a lot of home equity or other assets which they are spending down or borrowing against.</p>
<p>There really are no secrets here except for ROTC, generous merit schools, the military academies, Cooper Union, or a college overseas (lower ticket price but you’ve got to deal with currency fluctuation and travel expenses as a risk factor). </p>
<p>One suggestion though for the OP- try to avoid having your D get fixated on any one school until you’ve all worked through the finances. Partially because of size, and partially because of age, a lot of the state flagship U’s tend towards white concrete/big parking lot style of architecture. Your kid might even get excited about one or two of them. And then you show her Dartmouth or Princeton or Wellesley and the gig is up. So taking the attitude that “we’re going to explore lots of academic options. Some may be unaffordable. Some won’t accept you. Our goal is to find a place where you can thrive and which we can afford–so understand that this is a learning opportunity, OK?” And then repeat about 30 times!</p>
<p>Who could have imagined back in 1991, when my D was born, that 4 years at a state school would cost an average of $100,000, and 4 years at a private school would be over $220,000, and going up every year? I thought we were saving plenty until she was in high school and the reality started to loom. My sister’s son is 12- how much is his education going to cost in six more years? We also pay out-of-pocket each month, trying to save as much as possible for grad school. Luckily, we both have kept our jobs and our retirement accounts. Thank god she is almost done.</p>
<p>Well we paid our EFC for the 100% need met school- minus maximum Stafford loans, summer income that went toward personal expenses & books - but oldest is covering grad school herself & I expect youngest will do the same.</p>
<p>Actually, our society is making these decisions all the time. Our society, with its massive expenditures on Medicare and Medicaid as compared with so much less on education, has decided that it “values” old people more than young people.</p>
<p>If you, and your spouse, both went to college, you probably expect that your kids will, too, and it is reasonable that you will look ahead to their going, and plan for it. But there are a lot of kids out there whose parents didn’t go to college, or went to a state school back when one could do that without encumbering oneself with vast debt. Their parents might not have expected to need to save so much, having had no experience with private school themselves. I’m not talking to OP’s situation, obviously, but to the fact that many parents are gobsmacked when their kids reach high school–or, even worse, after the applications are already filed–by the realities of such high tuition. The implication that they should have been thinking of it earlier may be true, but it assumes that they are of a socio-economic class that discusses financial planning in the kindergarten line. </p>
<p>It seems to me perfectly obvious that one needs to plan ahead to send one’s kids to college, if one is expecting to send them there. But lots of people who are truly middle class (and I define middle class as 50-150K) are not college-conscious–and there are many, many of us who are affected by disasters not predictable nor of our own making (who here saw their kids’ college funds decrease by half in the last few years?), who suddenly find that the gap between EFC and COA is starker than they ever expected. </p>
<p>Throwing around phrases like “class warfare” just ducks the issues, real and very, very personal, of responsibility and accountability, and the assumptions about choices and power that people like to assume other people have. Most of the people who are victims of the real class warfare of the last ten years had very few choices, and no power at all.</p>
<p>What do y’all think of the German system? My limited understanding of it, based primarily on the descriptions from German exchange students, is that university is free regardless of income, but far fewer students go to university there than here and are “tracked” on either a university or vocational school path by the time they reach puberty.</p>
<p>I think the German system is too restrictive. [One of my relatives dropped out of high school, joined the military, served 20 years, went back to college and got a Ph.D. The German system would have given up on him decades ago.]</p>
<p>Our kids are first gen college, although we always had education as a priority & indeed when we were paying bills with odd jobs, we asked that grandparents give savings bonds instead of trendy toys for Christmas. ( they replied * You don’t expect them to go to college, do you*?- well yes- we did)</p>
<p>However, I would agree that some families are unaware of the options surrounding college & simply think it is out of their children’s reach.</p>
<p>They are unaware of using AP test scores for college credit, don’t know about Stafford loans or Pell grants. They think of community college only if they are interested in a certain vocational program & have never heard of programs like Americorps which will pay an educational stipend for your year of service.</p>
<p>They don’t see beyond their immediate future- as opposed to those families who make sacrifices because they can imagine a better life for their kids.</p>
<p>The schools they attend are too busy putting out fires to be able to do much guidance with even the superior students.</p>
<p>Perhaps we need more public service television. Sit coms that discuss how to get your kid to sleep through the night & the importance of participating in your childs school.</p>
<p>We bought $10K in savings bonds (no taxes if used for college) when our first child was born and I still have them in a drawer even though he has already graduated. They’re paying around 4% which is a lot better than other risk-free stuff so we’re just keeping them.</p>
<p>We didn’t have the internet back in the 80s and early 90s. I had access to Usenet and our corporate network which had a ton of forums on all sorts of things but I didn’t think to use it to investigate paying for college. I think that it’s a lot easier to figure this stuff out now with sites like this one and easy access to information at colleges and about colleges. It just requires looking into it when your kids are born or soon thereafter.</p>
<p>I remember public service television in the 80s and 90s and I thought that a lot of that stuff did influence kids for the better. It all seemed to go away in the 2000s.</p>
<p>“But the point is not to demonize other people’s choices- but just to recognize with choices come trade-offs.”</p>
<p>Amen.</p>
<p>I agree that the German system is too restrictive. That said, I believe the literacy and numeracy rate of their vocational grads and other bottom-50% students puts ours to shame. All of our peer nations do a better job than we do of getting everybody up to a minimum level, even as they are tracking those folks into waitressing jobs.</p>
<p>“descriptions from German exchange students, is that university is free regardless of income,”</p>
<p>-Economics 101 - “there is NO such thing as a free lunch”. If you want to pay much higher taxes and give much more power (and control) to government, no matter if your kid is going to take advantage of it or not, then your preference is socialized education (as well as socialized everything else). That is where we are going anyway, we are not the ones who will decide on that (which is apparent from very recent events). Just sit tight, it will come your way. But many others will not like this cup of tea.</p>
<p>Yup, you got me, MiamiDAP, I am a socialist when it comes to medicine and education. Proud of it, what’s more: a liberal, socialist, feminist, environmentalist hoping for opportunity for all. A member of the 1% who feels that the lucky ones should pay it forward. </p>
<p>England had almost no tuition, they made it some tuition and now they are 10-12k pounds. Interestingly, the government gives all students a loan, directly.</p>
<p>^and this system is not sustainable. There are not enough places in the university system for the applicants, and those who get a place have to pay a lot more than they used to. Hence, the student riots.</p>
<p>There is a trade-off between access and cost. If you want cheap, high quality higher education, you have to restrict access to the cognitive top 15%. How well does anyone think that tradeoff would fly in a country like the US?</p>
There are ways to jump back on the abitur track, but it’s not easy to do, especially if you need to work full time. One kid who was on the vocational track to be a draftsman in our office actually got excited about architecture and was planning to do some alternative track. I left the country and don’t know if he managed, but for a school loathing 16 year old being able to work and only go to school part time was a great option. For my other friend, getting pushed into being a bank teller was awful. (She was interested in languages and travel.)</p>
<p>marysidney,
It really does not matter how you call yourself or anybody else. it makes no difference. The difference is in a fact that none of countries with socialist systems have it good. The number is zero…and I have very unfortunate experience with that. However, we are moving in this direction, so you get your wish very soon. Just a warning, be careful with what you wish, it is not as good as your vision. Nice visions are awesome to have (who we would be without dreams?), real historical facts sometime prove then incorrect.<br>
I would be in great support of socialized jewelry. I would admire every diamond ring that I had for free. Wouldn’t you? It woudl make every person’s life much more rewarding, definitely no depressed and stressed out people. If one feels pushed, just look down on your finger, it will put you in much better mood immediately. It is amazing why nobody thought about it, it would save whole tons of money in health care.</p>
<p>I always thought that pay it forward meant that if you had received a helping hand then you should extend one in the future when the opportunity arises. That’s how I choose to live it.</p>