<p>Beliavsky, certainly you can pick a slice of the population in which $140,000, or whatever number you want to pick, is not a particularly high income. However, what’s the point? This does not help the vast majority of the US population, which simply does not live in households so well-to-do.</p>
<p>Beliavsky doesn’t concern himself with any of the “little people” who aren’t as bright, don’t make as much, and certainly aren’t worthy of a college education. Well, maybe a few diamonds in the rough, but nothing that a college should engage in any time scouting out or rewarding, not when his dollar is being ponied up to do so.</p>
<p>I think selective colleges should contact students and their guidance counselors in 11th grade with PSAT scores indicating they could be good candidates. Maybe this is already being done.</p>
<p>People who advertise their superior compassion while continually slandering other people and exagerrating their views ought to look in the mirror.</p>
<p>The point is that a couple of 50-year-olds with income of $140K may not really be richer than a single with income of $100K or a couple of 25-year-olds with income of $60K (whose incomes will likely grow), so increasing their EFC to high levels may not be fair.</p>
<p>Well put…There seems to be an element of…“hey I have to pay full price so I’ve got to position this in my own head to make it palatable. Hey…let’s do this…I will feel better if I make YOU out to be an ogre so I will bloviate from my self built pedestal about my extremely developed social consciousness, my highly evolved empathy skills and my obviously superior humanity. Whew, that was close…now I can feel superior again.”</p>
<p>Its a ruse. Just because you have the median income does not mean you are middle class. In New York, the median income is in the 50,000 range. So, you can call that middle “class,” but it’s not, not really, not when you are living paycheck to paycheck with no pension.</p>
<p>We did once have a very strong middle class in this country, but it does not mean that we still do. But, as long as we buy the line that earning in the middle = middle class lifestyle, we are not aware of the diminishing lifestyle choices people really have.</p>
<p>Good point, PoetGirl. I know our income would not go as far in LA, SF or NYC as it does in Portland. It’s also easier to be middle class in rural areas as our kids do not face the same level of financial peer pressure that their cousins do living 45 minutes away in the most affluent city in Oregon.</p>
<p>We have friends and acquaintances who live a middle class lifestyle here on what is considered low income anywhere else. And many of them opt to have one parent stay at home – a luxury that many cannot afford.</p>
<p>H and I are starting to consider the possibility of moving out of the high priced area where we currently live. It is often tempting. The geographical differences in COL are huge.</p>
<p>The one parent staying at home is an interesting situation when it comes to need based aid. I have been the stay at home parent, but I could have gone and earned income. None of the FA forms take into consideration the earning potential voluntarily untapped. In our case need aid is not in the picture, but it’s easy for me to see situations where the decision to have a stay at home parent would bump a family into the need category. And arguably this ‘need’ is different that two parents working and still having income under the need threshold .</p>
<p>Agentninetynine–sure it’s an indicator but only a small piece of the puzzle. $100,000 goes a LOT father in some parts of the country then it does in others. In come areas that $100,000 is very upper middle class or upper class, in other’s you are living paycheck to paycheck. I don’t think it’s a “government” definition as much as it is a society definition. </p>
<p>A middle class family should be able to afford 'average" living space-house/apartment, whatever is the norm for that area, pay their bills without too much worry, be putting money aside for retirement, have health insurance and have a small budget for going out to eat once in a while and a few bucks left over at the end of the month. That is a pretty middle class lifestyle in the US no matter where you live. How much you make to do this, varies widely.</p>
<p>There’s a difference between saying that a specific individual should have been an admit and saying a specific individual should NOT have been admitted. I rarely see the second case on here. Of course, saying someone should have been admitted means that they deserved admission more than one of the few thousands of admits to a particular school, but it’s not the same thing as pointing out and embarassing specific individuals.</p>