<p>Ok, I get it. State schools should be affordable to more of their tax payers and there should be good local options for college in the community college and local state school scene. I, for one, am all for taking the PELLS and loans away from the privates to bolster the state schools. </p>
<p>I am totally sympathetic with some of these kids who were accepted to their state flagship, their parents make too much for them to get any aid or enough and they can't go. A lot of the time, these same parents are fighting the net of financial problems like losing a job or business going down hill so to pay for sleep away college is not a wise financial move at the time. If I had the money, some of these kids would get an award from me.</p>
<p>I don't have an ounce of sympathy for those who feel entitled to go to GW, Emory, any of those schools that are PRIVATE. Why are these kids belly aching about this? No wailing about not being able to afford to go to Andover or Exeter when Not So Bright, whose parents are loaded are alums are sending him to such schools. Or the local private schools; you all know which ones I mean. All of a sudden when you graduate from high school, you think you are entitled to go to private school and have them discount their prices for you? And the governent, which I feel does too much already in this regard, should be helping you in this goal? These are PRIVATE schools, for goodness sakes. It's like saying you should be given a frigging car, a Mercedes is cheaper than the costs of some of these schools, because you don't want to take the bus. </p>
<p>These schools do not have to be fair. They want to make their money and give discounts to those they feel will further their own causes, and they have no obligation to give anyone a red cent of their own money. No sympathy here. I don't even think the government should be backing the loans and giving access to federal aid for those going to such schools. Let such schools fully subsidize their student body and divert those funds into making the public school better, more affordable and more available to all.</p>
<p>I agree with you. Perhaps part of the problem is how we are all told “find your perfect fit” and believe in the concept. The reality is, for many, the right fit is not the affordable (if there is one) public school. There is a huge gap between the ideal and the reality. In this country we can be very idealistic.</p>
<p>Well, the schools market fit very successfully, imho, in order to get the kids to borrow money to give the schools the financial aid they want and need.</p>
<p>That’s a tough question to answer, in part, I think, because state options vary so much from state to state. I’ve seen here that California state schools are a great deal for families making under the 80k income cap, but not so much for those making over. My state has just 3 state schools, none of which would be within commuting distance for students on my side of the state. I’m thinking sometimes private schools can be a better option. I also suspect your talking about something else (since none of this privates would be considered top, elite, highly selective, etc.), the notion that maybe the state schools, outside the flagship, aren’t good enough? </p>
<p>And honestly, I have no idea when or why that attitude developed. Nor do I understand it.</p>
<p>Mercedes, BMW, Land Rover, a lot of these pricey car companies advertise too. But there is that understanding that one has to come up with the money to drive on. Paying for college is tantatmount to driving one of those cars off the cliff each year in terms of finances. But the entitlement is still there.</p>
<p>I think states that have the situation as you describe, Ordinarylives, need to work on getting their state school accessible to more residents and affordable as well. CA has done an outstanding job in making their state choices way up there in the 3 R’s of Recognition, Ratings and Reputation. The affordability and accessibility of some of the schools, is where they need to do some work.</p>
<p>I live on the west coast so perhaps I am further away from this voice that is telling students to " apply & the money will come". </p>
<p>My kids are first gen. college, we are very blue collar, but it never occurred to us that our families expenses would be subsidized by taxpayers or the schools. Where are people hearing this?
(but because most of our lives we’ve had lowish middle income, including long periods of un & underemployment, our EFC was the same at an expensive 100% need met but no merit offered school as it was at an instate public school- so haters, have at it) However still 1/4 of before tax income. :p</p>
<p>I realize peer pressure is a powerful thing. When we began our family, we lived in the general neighborhood of Bill Gates ( actually I think he didn’t move in till later). It was a very nice neighborhood, excellent public schools, beautiful parks and I loved our house. But frankly, at that time it felt like families in the area were spending way more time & energy on accumulating things than I wanted or was able to and it made more sense to live where we fit in better ( we also moved to be closer to my grandparents)</p>
<p>My mom bought a condo down the street from where we lived and every day teens would drive to the park to eat their lunch, in their Range Rovers, Hummers, & on the weekends to share party locations )
If my Ds had grown up there, I daresay they may have had quite different expectations, than they do.
Although I grew up in a neighboring suburb and it was all I could do to wait till I was 18 to move away- I took the hippie ethos * very seriously*.</p>
<p>Generally especially in the Asian community from which this drive comes from is that a family’s standing in the community is determined solely by the college their child goes to. The difference between being praised for decades and being pitied and mocked is the difference between a shiny college and a state school which carries a stigma that will mark them for life with shame. For example a MIT graduate working as an accountant will always be showered win praise but the CC grad will be shamed wherever he goes even if he is a doctor.</p>
<p>OP: As long as private schools are marketing themselvs as open to all with both a holistic admissions process and need based money, then people are likely going to feel entitled. It begins with the school not the student. BTW- by an overwhelming margin, senior citizens get far more government entitlement money (SS&Medicare) than students. If you want to reign in the gvmt, start with senior citizens.</p>
<p>What can I say? I have both grandmas in my home. My mother doesn’t get $20K a year as a government employee widow. Because it’s not social security, she is one of the less than half of Americans who gets to pay taxes. Plus health care is about 10% of her tab. Plus she needs a med for COPD that costs her $60 a month along with some other non prescriptions things to help her with the side effects of the med and her blood pressure med (that’s nominal in cost). Needs glasses. Not covered Has teeth problems and dentures. Not covered. This poor old granny has been kicked down the stairs, imo. Talk about taking her eye-teeth! That we’ve supplemented her pension, met a lot of her costs and now I have her with me is why she lives a decent life. She nets out far less in her pension that the kids who got to our state Unis get for a full ride. I don’t see the generational theft at all. Anyone want to come and take some more away from this 88 year old woman who weighs 70 lbs, the widow of a veteran, government worker and mother of three?</p>
<p>Last time I checked US tax code, it appeared that these senior citizens were indeed entitled to those programs - they paid into them their entire working lives (whether or not how much they paid is enough is a completely different thread).</p>
<p>The Asian community where I live is compromised of a lot of Lao and Cambodian families. It doesn’t look anything like the community described in #9</p>
<p>The Asian community in the northwest doesnt look like that either.
They are pretty well assimilated.
( multiple generations of Chinese & Japanese families, slightly more recent Cambodian, Laotian,Vietnamese,Hmong, Korean, more recent Indian,Polynesian, Tibetan, Indonesian…)</p>
<p>Nobody “paid into” social security and medicare. That money went right out the door like any other tax. We need to start investing more in education, or the whole economy crashes, including our FICA Ponzi scheme. Then where will the senior citizens be?</p>
<p>I don’t see how investing in education is going to help the economy from crashing. Right now I see us taking out defaulted cosigned student loan amounts out of the parents social security. Yes, it’s happening. Those parents looked at those loans as an investment in their children. I’ve had people say those very words to me. A good start would be to redirect some of our resources that we are putting into educations so that they help families as a whole instead of keeping bunch of private colleges going.</p>
<p>In answer to your question, I think there is something wrong with a system where an upper middle class family (the people who pay the bills in this country) are expected to pay their kid’s way, often in full, if the kid wants to go to a private college, on the misguided premise that they can afford to pay $50,000 a year, while a kid from a poor family gets to go for free, or for very little. It seems that diversity often trumps merit nowadays. Further, if you are lucky enough to live in California, Michigan, or Virginia, your state flagship is very prestigious, and is a very good option for a kid with top academics, but if you happen to live in many other states, such as South Dakota or Rhode Island, not so much. Don’t we want our future medical students and engineers getting the best undergraduate education possible?</p>
<p>In short, the rich kids can afford to go to a private school, and the kid without money can often afford to go, because of financial aid policies, but the middle class------no.</p>
<p>In our case, our K1 is attending a U and gets some grant aid.
Would have the state U been cheaper, yes…the state’s academic aid for instate quality students would have helped some.
Though the state flaship is MUCH MUCH bigger and the educational experience would have differed significantly.
Also our K1’s EC was not available at the same level at the state flagship.</p>
<p>With K2 that same state flagship I mentioned above would swallow her up and spit her out…it is waaaaaay too big. And our HS’s GC isn’t even convinced our K2 could get in…
as so many great instate kids get turned away since out of state admits pay a much higher COA</p>
<p>So in the end I think both of ours will have gone to privates.</p>
<p>DH and I both went to a state school (out of state for us) and paid that out of state rate. Our K2 might apply to the school, and despite being a double alum and out of state admit, is still not a shoe-in.</p>
<p>I think it’s a an interesting question, Cptofthehouse! If a Mercedes dealership were to have a policy where it identified drivers they felt would contribute to the public perception of the Mercedes brand, and they felt that culture would be improved and the brand would be enhanced by making a Mercedes available to a limited number of middle income and lower income drivers, and they screened potential owners from a throng of eager beavers who were exemplary people with exemplary driving records and fashion sense to boot, and to those chosen they sold the Mercedes for the prices of a Kia or a Hyundai… I wonder if people would be steamed about being denied their right to a cheaper Mercedes. Maybe they would. Who knows. As a friend’s grandfather once said, “People are funnier than anybody.”</p>
</p>
However still 1/4 of before tax income. :p</p>