<p>“system gives out in total about 120 Billion on college aid and loans”</p>
<p>Post your data source.</p>
<p>“The dirty little secret here is that the reason college costs so much is that the level of government largess is driving the cost of college at a pace that makes most other expenses seem like a bargain.”</p>
<p>again post your sources. In many states the amount of support per student has been declining for years. At the fed level, the primary source of government grants at the undergrad level, Pell Grants has not kept pace with inflation let alone COA. The primary source of gov aid over the last decade has been loans, through which the government and numerous private institutions have made huge amounts of money and many students have been left with crippling loans. What we’ve seen is tremendous demand for higher ed, but declining government support for lower income and even middle income students with the result being the stratification of college access along income lines. If you have access to data to support your higher ed claims, please post it.</p>
<p>“but I also believe that the system would be much more fair without subsidy”</p>
<p>Without even the current level of subsidy, millions of well qualified lower income student would no access to college. How is that “fair”. Everyone pays taxes.</p>
<p>The sad thing is, no one acknowledges how unfair it is that a child is branded by his or her parents’ income, even though there’s no legal obligation that they have to pay one red cent for him. Even if he’s 17! What you fail to realize, is the only legal obligation is care up to 18. You take responsibility for whatever they do, but you don’t take responsibility for whatever they don’t do.</p>
<p>If you make $250,000 a year and you’re a tyrannical parent who hates postsecondary school and will not pay one red cent for your kid after they’re 18, that’s it. No college. They’d be lucky to even attend community college. </p>
<p>The system for rating EFC takes no consideration to the fact that parents might not contribute at all! But no one judges that. They just say, “Oh well.” </p>
<p>As for the original post, you absolutely won’t have trouble getting into a school with a low EFC. In fact, one could argue a college would prefer you. You have access to lots of subsidized aid programs and grants. But it depends. As far as Ivy League is concerned, oh they’ll take you. They’ll take you, pay for you, write you off on their yearly and take pictures of you to show how generous they are. </p>
<p>Certain schools are good if you’re low EFC - Ivy Leagues, some privates (Washington U in St. Louis) and state schools.</p>
<p>Percentage of low income students at Ivies is very low. Low EFC has an impact on admissions at many privates and at many colleges both public and private the subsidized programs and grants you mention won’t be enough to enable enrollment. This poster won’t be much affected because of the specific college choices but most people with 0 EFC are heavily impacted - just don’t have the money.</p>
<p>Not to hijack or in any way diminish OP’s post, but rather, to expand on the topic of 0 EFC’s… </p>
<p>What if most of the household’s income comes from someone other than a parent, who has no legal relation to the student (e.g., unmarried partner of a parent) significantly contributes to the household? My other actual parent, (Who we will refer to as “Parent 2”), who I see maybe once/twice a year is not in the picture at all. However, Parent 1 did file Head of Household. Although I do live off of Parent 1’s income mostly, what about Parent 1’s partner, who makes 10x more than her, but also has other bills and doesn’t contribute that much, but some, to the “family’s” income. Parent 1’s partner has only been apart of the household for a few months. Should they be included in the numbers?</p>
<p>What is a partner? The only connection that matters is marriage. Anyone else is just a roomate, boyfriend or girlfriend, i.e., not in the equation, as far as FA goes. They can voluntarily give financial assistance as a gift, but that is not an obligation that FA takes into account in predicting need, because it just as quickly can disappear.</p>
<p>The ultimate incidence of all forms of taxation is on consumers. Both the federal government’s expenditures and the expenditures of state governments are supported by multiple forms of taxation, and you, your neighbors, I, and everyone are all taxpayers, whatever our incomes.</p>
<p>Just another input on the 0 EFC, even though it doesn’t talk much about what you already are;</p>
<p>I ended up having an EFC of 0, but I believe rightfully so. My parents are said deadbeats and am now under the legal guardianship of another relative. The FAFSA determined that I was an independent student, so I only had to include my tax info. I wouldn’t feel right by allowing my guardians to have to pay a bunch of loans so I could go to college, when really I’m not even their child, even though they did take legal and financial responsibility for me.
Luckily, we’ve been able to work it out with the private school that I’m attending and they offered me a full ride. </p>
<p>Of the other two schools that I applied to, an OOS school was going to award me all but 1K in scholarships, and another private school wasn’t too bad of an offer, but it would have been tough for me to do it alone.</p>
<p>Congrats, Haydew! I’m so glad you found solid choices! Some 0 EFC kids do very well in their college search but we just don’t hear from them as much as the ones who can barely afford community college. Good luck!</p>
<p>If nearly half of households end up with 0 EFCs, the whole FA process will collapse.</p>
<p>That said, I think the headline consists of families with enough deductions (mortgage, etc) that puts their taxable income under the limits. Many of those families do NOT have an EFC 0.</p>
<p>It is one thing to consider here on CC. The median family income in the U.S. is around $50,000 which would barely disqualify a student for Pell grants but unfortunately make it pretty difficult to go away to most colleges in America. I suspect the average income of people posting on CC is double that, would be interesting to find out, but I bet we’re not dealing with the average American family here on CC.</p>
<p>This is misleading, because just about all United States households pay heftily the very regressive tax that supports Social Security and Medicare. That’s not considered “federal income tax” on your tax form, but it’s a form of tax that most people pay, and that low-income families pay at a higher percentage of their overall income than high-income families. </p>
<p>And, again, all consumers in the United States pay various forms of federal and state taxation indirectly, by buying products that are offered at higher price because their producers have been taxed.</p>
<p>Well,the first source for 80 Bn 4 years ago was a college aid night that I attended. I heard the 120 billion figure on a college advice show on the radio this year. I then found an article linked to WSJ that stated a huge increase was coming and they did not know how it would all shake out. The dept of education website states now that 95 billion is allocated for loans and grants,but it also states that the savings by the government will get by servicing its own loans [I think they said about 65 billion] would go toward Pell grants The DOE website did state that their budget was to DOUBLE and increase by 150 billion this year. Of course,that budget will be spent on primary,secondary,and college,but with a 150 billion increase overall,I think the 120 billion overall to college is in there somewhere. I read through some of the plans,and some of the programs for college were buried inside elementary education.
It was interesting [on the DOE website] to read the example of how a lawyer could pay back the example debt of 160,000.00 The example had a lawyer taking a job as a public defender at 40 K a year;he could deduct a poverty level of about 18K from that and pay 10% of the remaining 32K, or $3200.00 a year. If the lawyer continued this for long enough,the remaining debt would cancel because of his lack of income. I think that if you throw in these types of loan forgiveness based on income of college grads,it will result in that 120 billion figure if not much more being spent on loans and aid by the government. Draw your own conclusions on how much profit the loan program will make once the income based payment and debt forgiveness gets rolling…
Sorry if my sources seem a little soft to you, but the point I am trying to make is that when a lot of government money gets spent on a business sector like college,the cost of the product the business sells is likely to increase quickly.That is why the COA might be increasing faster than other areas of the economy.</p>
<p>“When a lot of government money gets spent on a business sector like college,the cost of the product the business sells is likely to increase quickly.That is why the COA might be increasing faster than other areas of the economy.”</p>
<p>I hear that sentiment expressed in many right wing blogs, and it usually is used as an argument to cut federal government aid. But most privates at the undergrad level are not funded by the fed gov and many have large numbers of full paying customers. The publics are primarily funded by the states. The states could decide to restrain costs anytime they want. I’m not making the connection between rapidly rising COAs and pell grants and loans. Most people getting pells can’t really afford to go to most colleges and many colleges have declining numbers of Pell grant students. It seems to me that COA is mostly driven by increasing salaries, benefits and operating costs, not student aid. Government aid going directly to the student is the scapegoat for the failure of colleges to rein in costs, cut salaries, positions etc. Aid over the years has fallen short and continues to fall short of need, even if COA’s are cut or held stable, as is being proposed in NJ, aid has fallen so far behind that most lower income and lower middle class students would still not be able to attend. Cutting federal aid is not going to lead to lower COA’s, it’s simply going to keep lower income students from attending college, and continue the trend to stratify college access according to income.</p>
<p>^Very well put, speedo, and I agree wholeheartedly! COA increases are also attributed to enrollment management strategies (raising tuition resulting in application increases due to mistaken perceptions that cost always equates to quality) and the building boom on so many campuses for non-essential facilities to attract students, and parents, looking for better amenities. It’s ridiculous to suggest that the small increase ($3,000) in maximum Pell awards over the TWENTY years have contributed to this, just as the fairly modest increase in Stafford loan limits have not. These have been reactionary measures, driven by the increases already taking place, in an effort to maintain some access to higher education for lower and middle income students. The feds have tried to rein in costs by passing a bill last year that would tie federal aid to schools to reasonable cost increases. But that measure doesn’t address the inflated starting point so many schools have. I believe responsibility for that rest squarely on the shoulders of the colleges who often had little need or incentive to aggressively control their costs.</p>
<p>The latest revision to Pell, which ties future increases to inflation, resulted in a relatively small ($200) increase for next year. But why tie it to inflation when college costs have shown no relationship to that index? College costs have increased much faster than either inflation or household income and this has been going on for a long time now. If governement grants were tied to the true average increase in college costs, the budget for Pell grants would quickly become unaffordable unless funding priorities change drastically.</p>
<p>I love the quote opening this 2003 report, which easily could have been written today:</p>
<p>"“College costs are oblivious to inflation rates and a tough economy. Higher education is
deemed such an essential piece of the success puzzle, colleges feel justified in routinely kicking middle -America in the teeth.”</p>
<p>This is not true at all, btw. As a former DoD financial analyst, I can safely say that the millions (or billions in the case of military applications) that the government invests in R&D programs greatly reduces the cost of commercial applications for these technologies when they come to market. In addition, it often greatly reduces the time it would otherwise take for innovations to be made available. For example, without government funding, products such as GPS systems, computers, and other common devices would have a much higher price due to the need for companies to recoup their initial investments.</p>
<p>“…school and will not pay one red cent for your kid after they’re 18, that’s it. No college. They’d be lucky to even attend community college…” interesting statement. For Medicaid benefits, the spouse can “refuse to make their money available” it is called spousal refusal, and even though the state could go after the refusing spouse to recover the monies, they never do. So Medicaid is granted to the spouse whose partner refused to share his resources/income. Too bad the FAFSA doesnt have a section for “parent refusal”. But, in the case of private colleges, the FAFSA is a guide, not the ultimate determinant of expected contribution. The IDOC actually is more of the ultimate source of realistic information. A personal financial statement explaining special circumstances and what to expect from absent or noncustodial parent fills in the gap. Even if it is not in the requirements or the checklist of items to submit, we always have included the Financial statement with our application package.</p>
<p>So,in the 2003 report is it the kicked in the teeth comment the only thing we are going to discuss,or should we look at the entire report? Start reading at page 13 about Westminster College. Continue on to page 14, and the dean of students seems to describe the college aid cost push spiral much as I did. Remember that I am using the study that you quoted…
Speedo, I also hoped you would comment on whether I did a good enough job by quoting my sources. Instead ,I just get accused of using some conservative thought process. I could care less if my thoughts are conservative on one topic or liberal on another. I never let one political group or the other influence what opinions I should have. That is really just a way to change the subject away from the main point I was trying to convey. I would think that when the budget of the Dept of Education doubles in one year,that there is a lot of money coming to financial aid for college. If that is not the case,perhaps we should find out just where it is actually going to be spent.
In 2005. Our family was in a pretty stressful situation. As with many parents,we wanted to do all we could to get the best education we could find for our daughter. She had athletic talent,with full rides waiting at two decent schools,and finally a 3rd full ride at a big division I program, but she also was challenged by a friend of hers to go for a better academic challenge. I will tell you that with all the scholarships she secured, we still would have had to say no to her had it not been for the FASFA based stuff ,including student employment,that she got. So in other words,the taxpayers allowed us to upgrade her education to a private college. Keeping the OP in mind, we felt a little guilty as well because our business cycle made for a low EFC. I do not happen to believe that money comes from the government. It comes from the taxpayers. I am under no illusion that for the last few years that our family forced other people to pay for an upgrade in our daughters education.Maybe she will earn enough that she will pay back all that she took in taxes,and maybe not. When she first applied to this college,it was just to show her that it was not affordable. None of us could believe it when the numbers came back. It still does not change the fact that other taxpayers were forced to help us upgrade her education, and that really makes one stop and think.
I wish you well on your endeavors, and hope you find a way to pay for college.</p>