The New America: Elite Privates forever out of reach for UMC?
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Anonymous
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I’m almost 60 and I totally agree with the OP. The sticker price hike over the last 40 years is a shame. My parents struggled but they were able to pay for a SLAC for me without forfeiting their home or retirement funds or inheritances.
What bothers me is the expectation that my family should be one of the very very few that pays full price even though we are not wealthy-wealthy like those families around us who drive new cars and vacation all over the world and dress well and renovate their homes and have vacation homes and eat out whenever they want and etc. We’re living on one federal salary and we will have two kids in college next year. We’re applying but in spite of those quotes from top colleges’ websites I don’t expect any aid because (1) my in-laws left a little money to my spouse (2j we’ve been contributing to our retirement funds over the four decades we’ve worked, which makes us look rich and c) inside the beltway a normal house in a good school district is very pricy. A lot of it has to do with being older parents in an expensive town. If we were doing this at age 40 in flyover country we could look poor, get college aid for our kids, work 25 more years, and then really enjoy our golden years once the kids were gone. Okay, I’m ready to get roasted. |
Anonymous
Well I, for one, will give you credit for being honest and at least understanding the other side. I'll not roast you but simply ask you how you think it should work? (and we all agree costs for privates are too high) |
Anonymous
| Does OP know that sticker price is not actual price? There is a lot of negotiation that now goes on over the tuition cost for a potential student. |
Anonymous
I think you're underestimating the sophistication of private colleges' financial aid offices. 1, they don't consider retirement assets (though they are reported), 2, they consider your age and years of income-production afterwards, 3, they consider the cost of living of your location and tend not to consider the value of your primary residence (though this varies). The inherited money is an unusual thing, but it would only be considered at about 8% of its value if you haven't rolled it into retirement accounts. And considering that the median inheritance is 69k (divided up among kids so even less per person) 8% of that really isn't a lot. And if you inherited more than that, it is a windfall. |
Anonymous
Not 16:09, but I agree with them. You are mostly right about the financial aid approach (e.g. retirement isn't a consideration - but CSS schools do take home equity into account), but that doesn't speak to the comment that it is a shame that costs have risen so dramatically faster than inflation over the last 40 years. There is NO reason for that to be the case. PP's comment that "(w)hat bothers me is the expectation that my family should be one of the very very few that pays full price even though we are not wealthy-wealthy like those families around us who drive new cars and vacation all over the world and dress well and renovate their homes and have vacation homes and eat out whenever they want and etc." resonates with me because we are in the same boat. I'm 61, DH is 65, we have a lot of equity in our house. We have saved aggressively for college and lived pretty modestly to prioritize those savings. Our HHI is upper middle class, for sure - and therefore we are expected to pay full price. Although we have saved for twenty years, we cannot pay $600,000 in post-tax dollars for our kids' undergraduate degrees - we just can't. If we do that, we jeopardize our own security in retirement, and given the lack of any social safety net in this country, high healthcare costs, the high cost of long-term care (longevity and dementia run in both of our families), and our unwillingness to become a burden on our kids, we just cannot afford to take that risk. Most of the people on this thread are saying that (1) no one is entitled to an education at an elite school, and/or (2) choose something you can afford. Indeed, our kids ultimately chose schools we can afford, and they are making it work. But to PP's point, were the economics of paying for private college the same or similar to what they were in the 70s, our savings over the years would have covered everything just fine at schools that probably would have met their needs better. It is insane that costs have soared to such an extent that only the very wealthy and those who qualify for need-based financial aid can attend elite schools. One can both accept and deal with this reality, and be disappointed and outraged by it. |
Anonymous
Did you see the links in this very thread showing that elites give generous financial aid to incomes of $200K? |
Anonymous
Yes, I did. One of my children applied to one of those schools, was accepted, and received $5500 in federal loans. That's it. We can pay about $50K/year but the gap (total $80K+ over four years) was insurmountable for us. DC is at a lower-ranked school with a big merit scholarship. I have a friend whose daughter attends Dartmouth. The parents are working class and make under $100K together. The DD will graduate with about $30K in loans. Not everything plays out as those schools advertise. |
Anonymous
Sorry, but there must be more to those stories. |
Anonymous
There isn't. |
Anonymous
Well yes there is because you haven't mentioned your income or assets, only what you decided you could afford. There's more to the financial story. End. Period. |
Anonymous
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The generous policies that the top schools (the ones with no merit aid) brag about all assume “typical assets.” I don’t know what that means exactly, but it can eliminate aid for people who save. Yes, some schools ignore houses and most only take a small percent (each year, for each child) of the parents’ assets, but don’t those same schools expect the parent to magically divert about a third of their annual income to college, requiring loans or spending down other assets if one continues to live while the kid is at college? It’s been a while since I read all the formulae.
Anyway, maybe a typical school needs lots of full pay kids to offset the kids with need, but I don’t think Harvard, etc, really needs the money of the older parents in this conversation. |
Anonymous
Of course they don’t need the money they have the biggest endowment in the world. The question is what they think is fair to take, and best for the institution and for them to build the class they want.. That may not align with some families financial goals, and while unfortunate, certainly understandable. |
Anonymous
| Why don’t you all complain that you can’t afford a Maserati while you’re at it? people who have HHIs In the six figures complaining about not being able to pay for things is really eye opening. |
Anonymous
I'm years away from paying college bills so I'm not current. But I do remember when I was applying to colleges in the late 1990s that plenty of lower income people did not get generous financial aid packages you'd think they would. We're talking about the son of a secretary getting minimal financial aid at Stanford so he went to a lesser LAC on near free ride. Or middle class kids with two teacher parents still taking out large loans to go to an Ivy. So I concur you should not make assumptions that the top or rich colleges are always as generous as they seem. |
Anonymous
Except now the upper upper middle class is starting to balk at college tuition for these schools. We earn 500k and this should increase significantly. No way we are paying $300-400k per child in tuition. The ROI isn’t there. It’s just college! My opinion is that the market will correct over time. Also who wants to only go to school with the very rich and very poor? |