Coming to Terms with Full Pay

[Anonymous]

The earlier you understand college costs and need-based aid, or lack thereof, for your level of income and assets, the better you can guide your child to an affordable list. Use Net Price Calculators widely to see what schools make sense.

There are schools lower in ranking that tend to provide merit discounts with less emphasis on need-based aid. Merit is another way to go.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I have a kid at School Without Walls and Wisconsin, Michigan and Maryland are popular destinations for full pay kids. There are lots of Questbridge and Posse scholars going to great schools, and a very small handful of full pay going to the likes of Tufts, Dartmouth, etc.

I’m still amazed though when you raise the systemic problem that so many top schools are only for the very wealthy and the poor today that you’re labeled a whiner. How is that good for those institutions and for society?

Newsflash: if the excellent students from the middle class stop going to the alleged “top schools” they won’t be the “top schools” for much longer.

You’re a sucker paying for a brand. That’s the whole story. You don’t have to play this game if you don’t want to.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Welcome to the 2 fed, full pay club, OP!

+100

But there is a huge amount of variety based on GS-level and step…

2 50-year old GS-14/step 10 would have a combined income of $440k, if that maxed out production each year.

I am a $220k/year Fed myself- even on my own my kid wouldn’t qualify.

I don’t understand this math. GS 14s don’t make 220k

I do. Base pay $195k as GS-14, Step 10. We get quarterly bonuses based on production. Another 15-20k for hardest work.

What agency? This is not even close to the norm, even in DC. How out of touch can you possibly be?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It's kind of maddening when you are full pay at colleges and your kid's roommates get substantial aid and live much nicer lives than your DC kids do.

I have 2 in college and we are full pay all around with a DC income of $400K. My kids' middle America roommates are both (fr and soph) on 50%+ aid but have cars on campus, much fancier clothing, have all sorts of spending money for eating off campus. My kids have never owned a car, eat in the dining hall full time, etc.

There is something to be said for living in a LCOL area and making under $200K. You go to college for free or at half cost but still have the same lifestyle outside of school as those of us making almost twice the income in a HCOL town.

They could have a bunch of credit card debt, you don’t know their situation.

Credit card debt with an upper class dual career fed income does not make them middle class. It makes them bad with managing money.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The political capitalist system is set up to get us peasants fighting with each other so we ignore the insane grift that’s happened around rising tuition and student loan programs.

Just like it wants working class people to hate on immigrants and welfare recipients.

The donut hole families are realizing their full pay tuition bill is subsidizing able-bodied parents who choose to stay at home when their kids are self sufficient teenagers. It’s not really the fault of those SAHMs, but the donut holers need some outlet for their frustration because costs are so out of line with the economy.

We’re told not to complain that we can’t afford to send our kids to places our parents were able to afford, like BC. Meanwhile, there’s a kid whining on Reddit right now that they were matched to Boston College on Questbridge and not Harvard.

The system will make you crazy.

Capitalism is the best financial system in the world.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:It gets easier when you realize you’re not alone.

In real life, I don’t think I know any dual feds with 2+ kids who have sent them to full-pay privates in the last 10-12 years. Many of the parents went to those schools. But to send their kids there is just irrational.

The kids who are going to those schools from the DMV are richer or poorer, or they have some kind of special circumstances: family money, a parent who works at a university that has some kind of tuition benefit, etc.

The private schools are full of dual fed kids.

Dual fed households ate in the top invome brackets in the country.

Just because they are not as rich as elon or the pelosis does not mean that they are not wealthy.

[Anonymous]

^ many agencies here are on the special pay rate table. Dual Fed families can be making $400k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It gets easier when you realize you’re not alone.

In real life, I don’t think I know any dual feds with 2+ kids who have sent them to full-pay privates in the last 10-12 years. Many of the parents went to those schools. But to send their kids there is just irrational.

The kids who are going to those schools from the DMV are richer or poorer, or they have some kind of special circumstances: family money, a parent who works at a university that has some kind of tuition benefit, etc.

The private schools are full of dual fed kids.

Dual fed households ate in the top invome brackets in the country.

Just because they are not as rich as elon or the pelosis does not mean that they are not wealthy.

The private schools where so many kids are on family money that the schools host an annual “grandparents day”? Yeah, they’re not doing it on the parents’ fed salaries.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It gets easier when you realize you’re not alone.

In real life, I don’t think I know any dual feds with 2+ kids who have sent them to full-pay privates in the last 10-12 years. Many of the parents went to those schools. But to send their kids there is just irrational.

The kids who are going to those schools from the DMV are richer or poorer, or they have some kind of special circumstances: family money, a parent who works at a university that has some kind of tuition benefit, etc.

The private schools are full of dual fed kids.

Dual fed households ate in the top invome brackets in the country.

Just because they are not as rich as elon or the pelosis does not mean that they are not wealthy.

Are you talking about Catholic schools? Because we are dual feds with 2 kids at "Big3 schools" (St. Albans, NCS, Sidwell, GDS) and I can count on one hand the number of families I know like ours between 2 schools and we mostly know each other because we're such a rare demographic in the sea of law partners and private executives. It's pretty much impossible (and most would say stupid) to pay $115K (post tax) for private school each year on a pre-tax income of under $400K in the DMV. Almost all of the feds I know who have 2 kids at these schools have grandparents who pay all or part of tuition.

[Anonymous]

Dual-fed family here and we definitely don't make what is being bandied about here. Also, it's not like we started out where we are now with decades of a high salary.

[Anonymous]

Not uber wealthy and Full pay is a total rip off and annoying but we are still going to do it and we are grateful for our situation.

Dual income household- We earn and we save and now we will have to pay full price.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It gets easier when you realize you’re not alone.

In real life, I don’t think I know any dual feds with 2+ kids who have sent them to full-pay privates in the last 10-12 years. Many of the parents went to those schools. But to send their kids there is just irrational.

The kids who are going to those schools from the DMV are richer or poorer, or they have some kind of special circumstances: family money, a parent who works at a university that has some kind of tuition benefit, etc.

The private schools are full of dual fed kids.

Dual fed households ate in the top invome brackets in the country.

Just because they are not as rich as elon or the pelosis does not mean that they are not wealthy.

The private schools where so many kids are on family money that the schools host an annual “grandparents day”? Yeah, they’re not doing it on the parents’ fed salaries.

Maybe not the $55-60k schools, but very definitely the $35-40k ones.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Not uber wealthy and Full pay is a total rip off and annoying but we are still going to do it and we are grateful for our situation.

Dual income household- We earn and we save and now we will have to pay full price.

But … you don’t “have to pay full price”? And if you think it’s “a total rip off,” you shouldn't. No one is making you send your kids to these outrageously overpriced schools for undergrad.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Dual-fed family here and we definitely don't make what is being bandied about here. Also, it's not like we started out where we are now with decades of a high salary.

We are a 1 Fed family (spouse outside contractor Feds) and I do make what is being “bandied about”. That’s the “max out” salary.

But, my spouse was making $350-500k over the years before he scaled back after Covid- $300k. So $500k for us now, obviously full pay for everything - private HS and college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:It gets easier when you realize you’re not alone.

In real life, I don’t think I know any dual feds with 2+ kids who have sent them to full-pay privates in the last 10-12 years. Many of the parents went to those schools. But to send their kids there is just irrational.

The kids who are going to those schools from the DMV are richer or poorer, or they have some kind of special circumstances: family money, a parent who works at a university that has some kind of tuition benefit, etc.

The private schools are full of dual fed kids.

Dual fed households ate in the top invome brackets in the country.

Just because they are not as rich as elon or the pelosis does not mean that they are not wealthy.

The private schools where so many kids are on family money that the schools host an annual “grandparents day”? Yeah, they’re not doing it on the parents’ fed salaries.

Maybe not the $55-60k schools, but very definitely the $35-40k ones.

And? No one ever said that the typical dual fed family couldn’t afford college at all, just that they’re opting out of paying full freight for the most expensive ones. Which is the same choice these families you are pointing to have already made for high school.

And compare the college lists out of SJC or Gonzaga to the lists at GDS or Sidwell. Most kids at the more expensive high schools are going ED to full pay private colleges. Most kids at the Catholic high schools are going to state schools.