<p>Indeed. Let me rephrase. I do save (and I reiterate that I am not a thrifty person), so I find it surprising that anyone making anything in the vicinity of what I make isn’t able to save as well. If someone making 70 percent more than I make in a year can’t save, I find that shocking, truly. I have a mortgage, I go on nice vacations, I eat out too much, I fritter away plenty of cash. But there’s money in my kid’s college fund. But, whatever. Some people can’t or don’t save. I didn’t want to have a state school be our only option (and, as it is, the state flagship in Illinois is no bargain). But, I mean, really! Can we please not pretend $150K to $200K a year is not a comfortable income? Sure, it’s relative, but if you make that kind of money and have the feeling you’re struggling, look around a little bit, and not at your next door neighbor’s house. Talk about “First World Problems”!</p>
<p>Earning $200k in NYC is totally different than earning $200k in Texas because expenses are going to be very different. It also depends on how you budget/save money and how you spend, and what assets you have.</p>
<p>My personal opinion: Even if you’re earning $200k in NYC, that’s still a hell of a lot of money and I think it would be a tough sell to argue that you were truly unable afford the full price tag after so many years.</p>
<p>Honestly, if you stick to philosophy of never buying what you cannot afford, why to apply to Ivy’s? On the other hand, if family has decided to live beyond their means, why not apply to Ivy’s? It is a free choice, as well as complaining is also a free choice, but it usually does not help. All I can say, either choose Ivy or not, at the end it is going to be up to a kid to achieve at whatever place and be successful with his next goal, the name of his UG will not help, Ivy or not.</p>
<p>I am not in the habit of telling other people how they should spend their money or what they should or shouldn’t be able to afford. I know multi-millionares living in starter homes and driving klunker cars who give generously to charity and support elderly relatives in comfort, and I know people who are living on the edge and somehow every raise or bonus goes to paying down a visa bill which escalates rapidly. No matter what they earn it will never be enough.</p>
<p>But I will state categorically that discussions like this should begin in the nursery school pick- up line, not when your kids are HS juniors. I think that so many lifestyle decisions that young families make have wretched economic consequences down the road (rent vs buy, where to buy, should the lower earning parent quit to save money on childcare, spending on McLaren strollers and Mommy and Me classes vs. pushing a JC Penney special or second hand stroller and banking every extra penny; how and when to take a promotion at work, etc.) </p>
<p>I don’t believe that the colleges expect a family earning 200K to be writing checks for 60K for 4 years. They assume that saving for college began 16 or 18 years ago; that a healthy 18-22 year old will be working summers and during the year to contribute; that a parent with assets can either sell or borrow against those assets, and that after the kid has graduated, some combination of the parents plus the kid or just the kid will be paying off loans. Now this is America- so many people say, “I don’t want my kid to have to work”. Fair enough- but then you’ll have a gap which you’ve got to plug some other way. Some people say, “I don’t want my kid to graduate with loans”. That’s fine too- so you look at your assets (an income producing rental?) and decide to sell.</p>
<p>The problem comes about when families look at the whole picture and decide to pick and choose- i.e. they’re happy to write a check for what they can comfortably afford (20K per year?) but don’t want the rest of the mixture. Or that they’ll use the funds in the kids college account but won’t take out loans. Or they’ll take out loans but don’t want to use their assets. (“I can’t sell the beach house! Mummy and Daddy left it to me for future generations!”. So don’t sell- but you can’t expect the college to be more generous with you than it would be for someone with your income level and WITHOUT a second home!</p>
<p>Now there is a gap that even high earning upper income families just can’t bridge with the college’s generosity unless the kid wins the merit award lottery or is willing to “trade down” in the rankings to attend a school ready to invest merit aid dollars in raising their median stats.</p>
<p>All fine strategies. But just recognize that it is really tough on $200K per year to try and manage to pay for college in four years when the system is designed for a 20 year program of savings, current income from both parents and student , and future income.</p>
<p>Before this thread devolves into another debate on what is really middle class (and how $200,000 on the coasts is different from $200,000 anywhere else), I can tell you how we paid for D. </p>
<p>It was simple, really - we just saved and saved and saved. Whenever we got pay raises, we saved it. We stayed in our starter home - never moved up - and saved that difference in costs. Don’t get me wrong, we took some great trips and we ate out plenty during those years, but saving always came first. D had a college account established soon after she was born.</p>
<p>We used to make about $180,000 (so maybe the saving was easy, but really, the easiest part was just setting up that automatic withdrawal from checking every month and funneling that money automatically into savings.) Then I lost my job about a year before D graduated from high school. I eventually found another job, making about a third of what I did make (and I was by far the higher wage earner.) Let me tell you, I slept SO MUCH BETTER during those awful job-less months knowing that college would essentially be paid for through our savings.</p>
<p>I agree with Zooser and theGFG. H and I always assumed that college would be “on us” and that we needed to start saving right away to make it work. Scholarships were/are nice, but at the end of the day - the costs would be ours. We are just happy to be able to do it for D and thrilled that it worked out okay. D graduates in June with no loans on her part!</p>
<p>^It is easier to do it with multiple children provided they have an overlap in colleges. It is not uncommon for the second kid to be having a generous FA even for parents to be making 150k or more because they have deducted what you are expected to pay for your first kid out of your income.</p>
<p>Several Ivy colleges show them giving aid to families with 200k but if you look at fine print, it always mentions those with additional kid(s) in college.</p>
<p>^^^ Apparently I cross-posted with Blossom, but her post kind of echoed most of mine. H and I usd to joke that saving over time is easier than panicking at a late date. It’s not like we couldn’t see college looming ahead of us when D was a baby… it was always there, waiting.</p>
<p>Yes, they do give better aid if you have other children in college. I don’t know the specifics of the math behind it, unfortunately, but it’s still quite pricey (assuming high income).</p>
<p>My D2 did get a little bit of need-based money, but it was very little and I think it was merit in high heels. But she did choose a college that wasn’t nearly as expensive as she could have and she did get some merit money. She started classes this week for the semester and called me this morning to tell me how glad she is to be there because there are so many classes geared to her specific interest. We are able to pay what remains of her tuition/fees on a monthly basis without selling any organs and she is happy as a lark. Does it get better than that?</p>
<p>Amen, Zooser! The other day my D told me, out of the blue, how much she loved her school and how appreciative she was to us, her parents, that she wouldn’t have any loans to pay off afterwards. (I’m NOT slamming anyone who has/had loans - I’m just saying that it is nice not to have any.)</p>
<p>“all of them are quite frugal compared other similar families in our neighborhood (no luxury cars etc).”</p>
<p>This is what I get stuck on. If you go live next door to the Trumps, the fact that you’re frugal compared to other families in the neighborhood is meaningless. Frugal is a question of what you’re buying compared to what you earn and what you want to spend in the future. If your neighbors stopped throwing money away, it wouldn’t change how frugal you are. It’s a luxury choice to live among rich neighbors. It’s a luxury choice to live in a big coastal metro area (including Chicago). If you work in an industry that only exists in those areas, which is true of only a small minority of residents, that was also a choice. No one is born into the publishing caste or the corporate-law caste. Most of us could have moved to Tulsa or Birmingham after college/grad school and had a perfectly nice life there at a fraction of the cost. Doctors and accountants and so on probably come out ahead there compared to NY and DC. I could have done that, but I think the perks of the big city are worth the cost. So do all my neighbors, or else most of us would leave. (Zoosermom’s family story is quite unusual among CC parents.)</p>
<p>Speaking of the Chicago area, even in the New Trier district, they have condos and dinky townhouses. You can get a 3-bed, 2ba in Wilmette for under $250k. It isn’t necessarily the school district that costs so much – it’s an attractive single-family house with a yard and a room for each child in that school district. Some folks are already making the compromises, like having kids share a room, that would make it easy to pay $50k/year on a $200k salary even in Wilmette. But I just don’t see that you have to spend practically your whole take-home on $200k in order to give your kids a secure life, even in arguably the best school district within a thousand miles. You have to spend it to get the lifestyle you want within that school district. Which is great – I just want to distinguish one from the other.</p>
NYC municipal workers (of which my husband is one) have residency requirements. But that only means they must live in the five boroughs, so there are a range of housing options.</p>
<p>The funny thing is, even though NYC has the highest cost of living, it was the only place I was able to successfully land work after graduation – sometimes choice isn’t free-range with respect to cost of living.</p>
<p>And newsflash, even in the NYC area you can live modestly on less than $200,000 a year and afford college. Really. Your kids can even go to pretty good public schools. Though probably not Scarsdale.</p>
<p>I don’t know how you can judge how others are doing based simply
on income.</p>
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<p>If you can do it, then why can’t someone else in the $200K zone?</p>
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<p>Going for the best school district is a choice. We all have to make
choices with our income. We just went the home-schooling route with
one parent at home. Lower overall income but lower overall taxes too.
This gave us great flexibility on where we could live.</p>
<p>So our stats: slightly over $100K salary, 15% (of salary) charitable
contributions, maxed 401K, usual insurance expenses, property taxes,
federal income taxes, no state income taxes, no state sales taxes,
small house, old car.</p>
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<p>I made the move a long time ago for the same salary but much lower
cost of living. I didn’t actually know that the cost of living was
much lower until we got here. Moving from MA to NH was like getting
a massive raise.</p>
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<p>Good choice!</p>
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<p>We looked at moving into a bigger home at three times the price of
our current home in 1998 and 1999. I thought that prices were nuts
then and then they really exploded and I watched with amazement but
no desire to chase something without a lot of liquidity. I was reading
sites like the home bubble blog regularly and other bear forums that
detailed the ridiculous stuff going on in the real estate and real
estate financing markets back in 2001, 2002 and 2003.</p>
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<p>Yup, lots of good options there.</p>
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<p>I’d like to see sticker prices come down but that’s hard to do when
there’s so much “aid” floating around (I’ll cite our Vice President’s
recent comments on university affordability).</p>
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<p>That’s the peace of mind that comes from budgeting and planning which
is a lot nicer than depending on the kindness of strangers (financial
aid committees). </p>
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