Our family earns $120K / year, but there are a few things that are not reflected in this dollar amount. 1) I went back to school to earn my PhD in my mid-30s, which resulted in four years of loans and minimal income; 2) we were hammered by the housing downturn, losing a significant amount of $$; 3) we both commute long distances to work, so we spend a significant amount of our after-tax income on transportation (about 10%); and 4) due to promotion and tenure, I have just started earning a comfortable income. So, with two college students next year, we appear reasonably well-off, but feel like we are just finally getting our feet back under us. Of course, what the FAFSA sees is the income, with no consideration of context.
Middle class means you can’t live off of government assistance like the poor, but you’re not financially stable enough to not have to worry about it like the rich.
The poor can’t live on only government assistance, either. They work long hours to make lousy minimum wage money and still need assistance to get by. And even then it’s often not enough.
There was an article this week about a Maryland “kitchen worker” who with all 7 of his children, all died from carbon monoxide poisoning because their electricity had been cut off and they were using a generator in the house. It’s a heartbreaking story, single parent (although his ex wife says he wasn’t, for some reason, and also says she had been paying CS), he was working, they were eligible for assistance.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/04/07/carbon-monoxide-poisoning-family-maryland_n_7016092.html
Life is HARD when you’re poor. And DANGEROUS.
Understand, but I see poor and poor with 7 kids differently. Working long, lousy hours is enough to scrape by while you get your life together if you don’t have a bunch of children to raise. Life would be a lot less HARD if people weren’t putting themselves in that position.
@FCCDAD “Life is HARD when you’re poor. And DANGEROUS”
well said…
This could be a silly question ,but what happens in this scenario? Let’s say there is a small kid from very rich(definitely upper class) family whose parents died, and the relatives, whom s/he never had seen before, takes over the family’s wealth and other goodies, say company, real estate, investment, etc…Now this kid grows up and apply to go to colleges, and since s/he is not eligible for FA, s/he would have to turn to his relatives who are now his/her guardians. However, if his/her guardians say " oh we are not paying a cent for you because_________(say, too expensive, or you should pay on your own hard work)", what would happen? Will that make no difference? How will the kid have to pay for colleges?
In your scenario, the orphaned child would be independent at age 18. Either she inherited her parents’ estate and can spend the money herself on her education, or she is basically destitute and on her own and will get FA.
The government and schools certainly cannot expect her dead parents to pay, and cannot expect her to pay for her own education if she doesn’t hold and control her parents’ estate in her own name.
Why do you say the orphaned child would neither come into her inheritance (and thus have assets), nor be eligible for FA (when she has no assets and no parents)?
@TU0515 If you read the article, it says he took his kids back from his ex after he found his ex wife had moved her new man into her home, who was abusing them. So he didn’t have much choice, leave them where they were being abused or raise them himself.
You seem to be suggesting that we should restrict who can have children, and when, according to their finances? Or instead that we should further punish them for having (or being) parents who are poor? He was poor and raising seven children; you would simply tell those children, “tough luck for you, because your parents should have understood their poverty before conceiving you”?
You say, “Working long, lousy hours is enough to scrape by while you get your life together if you don’t have a bunch of children to raise.” Statistically, you’re just plain wrong; it is nearly impossible to “get your life together” and rise out of poverty in this country. Basically, if you’re poor or born into a poor household, you’ll very probably be poor for life.
This guy’s kids, if they had lived, were not headed for top schools; they were not even college bound; in fact, there’s a good chance that they would never even have finished High School. And they didn’t put themselves in that position, they were born into that setting and raised in that setting, with little hope of ever even rising to middle class.
I just assumed the kid wont have any FA due to her “income”. I tried to describe “greedy relative” scenario
The scenario you described seems to assume that the greedy relatives inherit all the assets of the deceased parents, while the surviving child inherits nothing (or very little), which would be highly unusual and ripe for a court challenge by the surviving child.
Yup, that is what I thought
I do agree with the unspoken thought that accurate & comprehensive health education, including sex Ed should be taught in all public schools.
Additionally, every community and high school should have free contraception and health care available for low income students & families.
Did this family own their home?
Carbon monoxide detectors are required in many areas and rentals should be inspected for their installation.
Oh, I see Maryland only requires them in new construction and in school buildings.
What a shame.
http://www.ncsl.org/research/environment-and-natural-resources/carbon-monoxide-detectors-state-statutes.aspx
Having 7 children will make just about anyone poor
I feel you Shaker 2008. Our family was at $85K this year, the year our firstborn goes to college. Four years ago we
were at $68K. I have been a teacher for 22 years. I started out at $25K a year 22 years ago and now make $46 K a year because I drive a bus additionally. My wife has been promoted recently to office manager after being an office worker for 15 years. Our bottom line is that when our children were young, we were making a combined AGI of maybe 50K in a good year. We have very little assets other than our cars and home which is only valued at $100 K with only a third paid off. Yet our EFC is $13K a year, with many of our college options sitting at 30-20K a year net cost after our child received some merit aid for her 4.0/ 32.
It has been a very disappointing year that started with excitement of visiting colleges. Our child’s major that she has wanted to explore since middle school is only offered outside of our state. We felt that our valedictorian daughter would get the type of merit help that we did back in 1989, but things have most definitely changed. We will gladly help out the 13K expected contribution, but what to do when Wisconsin’s COA for us is still around 35K?
Here is a lesson for kids who don’t qualify for FA: study hard and get merit scholarship. Look at me, a state university gave me full tuition!
Being middle class basically means being screwed over by your government no matter what political party you vote for.
It means large chunks of your income are taken from you every paycheck to pay the salaries of government workers, to pay for benefits to the poor as well as the disabled, the drug addicts, the lazy, the cons and the crooks, to pay for the cost of prisons and to pay for the rich who lobby the govt for subsidies and breaks. Lastly, the middle class have to pay their own way in this country and forever wonder when the axe will fall and what they’ll do when it does. It’s better to be middle class but it’s a rat race lifestyle. You won’t get the cheese. To many people are clinging on to you, slowing you you down and taking for themselves.
Being middle class means paying for all the necessary and unnecessary evils a civilized society requires. If only we could’ve chosen freedom over security. It’d be a heck of a lot cheaper.
@Arkansasdad what is the major?
Wisconsin is trying to fix budget for education by increasing costs for grad and OOS students.
What is the major that you can’t find instate?
Have you researched the schools that participate in the Academic Common Market?
Out of thirteen states to offer her instate tuition, she didn’t find anything?
http://www.sreb.org/page/1304/academic_common_market.html
And if you live outside of the South
http://www.collegeview.com/articles/article/save-money-on-out-of-state-schools-with-tuition-reciprocity
When people in the US (not sure how it is in other parts of the world) discuss “middle class” they aren’t talking about any kind of specific income range. It is more of a really broad identity that most people in the country view themselves as being a part of even if their income falls into extremes which we would think of as belonging to another category. Because the term is so nebulous, so many people identify with it and have their own notions of what it means. This is why politicians always talk about “helping the middle class” or “middle class economics.” Besides the fact that it avoids making them sound like a communist or puppet of the rich, the phrase could be interpreted by almost anyone as applying to them. So even if the politician’s policies don’t ultimately help them, they might vote for the candidate anyway.
So it isn’t terribly surprising that people who are worried about paying for one of the most expensive things in life, their ideas about what they are entitled to based on their perceived economic condition may be a little warped.
What they’ll do is become one of the “poor” who are looked down on by people whose lives have been much more fortunate. You’re not getting the “cheese”? Do you live in a safe neighborhood? Do your kids have access to a good public primary and secondary school system? Do you have access to adequate medical care? Do your children have enough to eat? If you’re so eager to live more cheaply and take advantage of those gov’t benefits, it’s easy enough to qualify; quit your job and give away your money.
Madison85,
The major is atmospheric science. Not a single program in Arkansas. And like someone else pointed out, the “Academic Common Market” supposedly would be a help, but there are only 3 schools offering it, UAH, Louisiana Monroe, Jackson State. We have visited Louisiana Monroe and have been offered a generous scholarship as well as out of state tuition waiver. It is our safety school. But it is program with only 2 professors versus much larger ones at Iowa State, Illinois, Wisconsin etc. Do we go the cheap route or bite the bullet for a Research One institution that will offer research opportunities as a freshman, which she desperately wants?