In the USA a rich man, a middle class man, and a poor man are sitting at the table together. There is a plate of 10 cookies on the table for them.
The rich man takes 9 of the cookies, and then leans over and whispers to the middle class man, “You’d better watch out for that poor guy - I think he wants to take part of your cookie!”
Re #79
Its much more advantageous in the sciences, to have a broad based undergraduate education, rather than specialize too early. I can’t emphasize that enough.
She can specialize in grad school.
I suggest she consider physics/meteorology/astronomy, all which she could find at several schools in Arkansas, not to mention the other states in the consortium.
Didnt UAH offet ful tuition as well?
Don’t know about UAH, didn’t apply there. Also didn’t apply at Oklahoma or Kansas. Originally UAH was kept off the list because it was over 9 hours away from our home and she is not a fan of southern summers. We kept Louisiana Monroe as the safety because it was the closest of the 3 that were in the mix. We also removed Texas A & M and Florida State off the list because of distance and being in the deep south. We have family in Illinois and Iowa that would be a safety net of sorts that we don’t have in Texas, Alabama or Florida.
Emeraldkity4. I get the advice and in many fields I would agree with you. At every school that has meteorology, she will be taking so much chemistry, physics and calculus along with computer science and coding. And not to be smart or dismissive, but the field is very competitive and if you want to get in to the premier research institutions as a grad student, having a generic physics/astronomy degree from a small state university in Arkansas isn’t going to cut it at all. And I am curious as to which several schools she could find a degree as you state in Arkansas. The flagship school has a handful of meteorology classes as part of it’s soil and water degree, and it is the backup plan of taking the courses that would be needed elsewhere the first two years and transferring. But after perusing the catalogs of most of the other schools in our region, any of the generic type degrees you speak of would leave her deficient in many of the specialty classes that a specific degree in the field offers. If we send her to anything besides La-Monroe we are freely making that choice to let her follow her dream, and we will fund it as we can.
My only point of my original post in this thread was that we have historically for 20 years not been a wealthy family by most metrics, but because of finally reaching a point of some comfort right at the point of college attendance, the FAFSA assumes that people have certain amounts of money stashed away, or can afford certain amounts now. If I had been making the income we have now for the last 20 years, we would’ve applied at UCLA, Cornell and more pricey options. I feel that assets should be a larger component on the FAFSA and I also feel that merit aid should supersede pure financial aid at college. Students that are talented and have worked hard should be rewarded more. And I say that with a younger son that probably won’t qualify for much merit aid at all.
Talented students can be rewarded, but they may need to go farther to find merit aid.
Many families are not able to save a great deal.
our EFC with our oldest was $15,000. This was approx 1/4 of our before tax income which was just under $60,000. Eight years later, our income had increased, our deductions had decreased, and our EFC was $21,000. We did not have savings, but paid the EFC with our income, with loans and with student income.
You aren’t expected to pay the whole thing through savings if you don’t have any.
FAFSA is basically to show whether or not student qualifies for Pell, and how much subsidized loan.
Most money comes from the schools, and most public schools do not award merit.
The University of Alabama is often mentioned on CC as a school which * does award merit*, sometimes a great deal of merit.
and this is for students who are not in the southern consortium.
http://www.uah.edu/science/departments/atmospheric-science/ats-department
Yes, UA has been working to attract high achieving students with good SAT/ACT scores, and it is really easy to get full tuition scholarhip as long as you have 3.5 GPA and 1400 math+Cr or 32 act+.The threshold for partial tuition is 3.5 GPA AND 1280 math+CR or 28 ACT. This is for OOS, and in state requirement is lower.
Another school that gives generous merit aid is Howard University, which awards tuition, room AND board with 3.5GPA+ and 1400 math+CR. However it is unknown to non-black students because it is HBCU
@Darthelmet To extend your argument, I think that people who identify themselves as middle class, when they clearly are far wealthier than that, identify with the attitudes and values of “middle class.” They feel they work hard; don’t live lavish lifestyles; scrimp and save and strive to achieve more.
@premature_gray Doesn’t everyone (except some super-rich families) thing they work hard, not live lavish lifestyles, and scrimp and save? The only difference I see is that the poor can’t save, because ordinary living expenses (rent, utilities, clothing, food, etc.) already use up their entire income and they have nothing left to save.
Maybe that should be the definition:
If you have nothing left after paying for food, clothing, utilities, housing (one home), etc., you’re poor.
If you have something left for savings, you’re middle class.
If you have enough that you actually have to think about how best to invest it, you’re rich.
I not just the money, but how many people there are in your family. My parents are doctors, but god 8 kids and an additional stepbrother is a lot no matter how much you make.
So many colleges fail to take household size into consideration, if the children are not college yet.
This is why I probably will not be able to attend Cornell. The whole friggin system cuts the middle class. The poor go to college for free, the rich dole out the money for their kids and the middle class ends up struggling the most.
There seem to have been some posters with $200,000+ incomes who choose expensively in food, clothing, utilities, and one home (and don’t have unusual large expenses forced on them like huge medical bills, litigious ex-spouses filing expensive lawsuits over what should be trivial matters, etc.) so that they save nothing and feel “poor”.
Generally, only those of the poor students who manage to get admitted to the good-financial-aid schools (and don’t have financial-aid-disqualifying conditions like divorced uncooperative parents), which are generally the most selective ones (and it isn’t completely free, since the schools expect a student contribution), would have a cost advantage over non-poor students. Of course, students with those stats can often get full rides at some less selective schools, but non-poor students can choose the same schools and scholarships. And growing up poor tends to throw more roadblocks and disadvantages in one’s way to high achievement that can gain admission to highly selective good-financial-aid colleges or get full ride merit scholarships, compared to growing up non-poor.
@girl456123, your parents made a choice to have 8 or 9 children. Do you think Cornell should subsidize you because your parents chose to have 9 children? Really?
edit. "Middle class " families don’t have 9 kids and DR’S for parents.
Exactly…I would prefer to be mid classes who have more colleges options than poor classes who HAVE to apply for top schools for financial aid
@girl456123 apparently you are hating on poor kids because your parents CHOSE to have 8 kids, therefore do not have money for your college education. No one asked your parents to have that many kids, and since they can’t just dump them in orphanage(otherwise it would extremely immoral) they have to take care of you and your children, and if they don’t have(or don’t think they have) enough money to send all 8 kids to colleges, it’s their problem, not colleges. Also, I don’t know about you, but it seems like you didn’t do any(or enough) researches on merit scholarships. Since you got in Cornell, you would have been qualified for some generous merit aids in other schools, but apparently that doesn’t matter anymore since it’s long past deadlines.
You do not seem to realize that poor kids are technically FORCED to apply for top schools with generous financial aid because otherwise they won’t be able to afford colleges. Are you saying that poor kids shouldn’t go to colleges because they are “leaching your money”? Or, are you saying you would prefer to be a child of parents who make below poverty line so that you could have better financial aid?
Personally, if my money is used for poor kids’ financial aid, I would actually be VERY happy that I am helping them
@girl456123 Have you discussed with your parents how much they can contribute to your education? Who paid for their college and med school? Did they not save anything for your schooling? Your resentment is misdirected.
This whole system of allowing the poor (family income of 65 thousand or less for a lot of ivies) for free has yet even help close the financial gap yet or make much of an impact. They did this with low income housing years ago, undercutting the middle class with housing and now they are doing it with college. Methods that undercut the middle class is only beneficial to a very small group and burdens a much larger group. When my family members came to north america without any money, no one handed them money for college or housing. They worked for it and built themselves and their families up from poverty. People are never going to learn to work hard if everything is just handed to them on a silver platter. If you are smart and determined enough, you will rise from poverty. This is not the case because many people are waiting for the government or colleges to just give them the money. This method of colleges and government being someone’s rich daddy can only work to a certain limited extent.
Students from poor families who get scholarships work much harder than average students. Colleges just dont give away money to them. Sob story isnt what get poor kids to colleges. Your view on poor people are very dangerous and apathetic. I have seen poor kids with no particular proofs of hard work and I tell them it is their fault for their own troubles.
I dont know when your families came to USA but durinf your parents era, FA wasnt well established as it is now at all.
Beyond the econometrics that seek to define ‘middle class’, I like such touchstones such as …
*the ability to provide for a modest family - a couple three kids ; yeah more kids are greater than m/c, but as long as all the rest is proportionately calibrated, more kids are cool for middle class-dom.
I’d like to know which top colleges are supposedly admitting significant numbers of poor students. “Need-blind” admissions means you have to get IN before you get the need-based financial aid; getting in is hard enough when you have the advantages of well funded schools, test prep courses, etc.
Seriously: take any school that has need-blind admissions and that pledges to meet every student’s full financial need, and tell me what portion of their students come from households with incomes below the poverty line.
If you didn’t know, the threshold to be impoverished is pretty low: http://aspe.hhs.gov/poverty/15poverty.cfm
A family of four with a total combined household income above $24,250 makes too much money to be considered in poverty.
I’m not saying none of them can get in to top schools, but there is probably a very good basis for the stereotype of those schools being full of kids from money.
@girl456123 said:
It’s probably safe to assume that your parents are not ‘Doc Oct’ with a brood of octuplets. Therefore, since you & your sibs are staggered in age, it should be quite managable on two doctors’ salaries to send 8+1 kids sequentially to colleges that cost the equivalent of in-state public U. There are other fish in the sea besides Cornell, and those other fish are attractive and grant generous merit aid.
Who’s they?
What are you talking about re: housing and what’s that got to do with college?