Which private colleges have the best financial aid for donut hole families?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes and No. It IS about colleges selecting the students they want in their classes. But you are incorrect when you say it has nothing to do with broad economic or political philosophies. Read up on on what college admissions deans are doing to encourage wealth redistribution by pushing 30% of the class to be low-income, URM, first-generation, etc. And the essays are where the students try to show off their societal smarts to pass the political correctness test. Colleges are very much now about wealth redistribution and turning out the next phalanx of Social Justice Warriors.

College admissions deans have one very difficult job: Build a class that is consistent with the mission of the organization, while remaining within budgetary constraints. This often includes having students from different racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds. It has nothing to do with the reorganization of the castes of American society, and any AD that made that his mission would be out of a job after one cycle.

The fact that you don't know this is evidence that you have no idea how or why colleges set their admissions priorities, have never been near the process, and don't even know anyone who has.

Little do you know. Low income enrollment up; MC and UMC shut out; legacy admits down = wealth redistribution. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/02/26/college-enrollment-surges-among-low-income-students/#58cb2435293b

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:What the heck is a donut hole family? Where do these terms come from?!

Rich people pretending to be poor and expecting entitlements.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes and No. It IS about colleges selecting the students they want in their classes. But you are incorrect when you say it has nothing to do with broad economic or political philosophies. Read up on on what college admissions deans are doing to encourage wealth redistribution by pushing 30% of the class to be low-income, URM, first-generation, etc. And the essays are where the students try to show off their societal smarts to pass the political correctness test. Colleges are very much now about wealth redistribution and turning out the next phalanx of Social Justice Warriors.

College admissions deans have one very difficult job: Build a class that is consistent with the mission of the organization, while remaining within budgetary constraints. [b]This often includes having students from different racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds. It has nothing to do with the reorganization of the castes of American society, and any AD that made that his mission would be out of a job after one cycle.

The fact that you don't know this is evidence that you have no idea how or why colleges set their admissions priorities, have never been near the process, and don't even know anyone who has.

[/b]


Little do you know. Low income enrollment up; MC and UMC shut out; legacy admits down = wealth redistribution. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/02/26/college-enrollment-surges-among-low-income-students/#58cb2435293b

Can you read? Or do you just choose not to?

I said college admissions officers have objectives that "often includes having students from different racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds." This is according to their organizational objectives and not because of some conspiratorial national re-distribution of wealth plan. Huge difference, and the fact that you don't understand it is the reason for the last sentence in my post.

Put down the tiki torch, son.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the heck is a donut hole family? Where do these terms come from?!

Rich people pretending to be poor and expecting entitlements.

It is a term used in many contexts to describe people who earn too much to qualify for a program (medicare drug coverage) but don't earn enough to actually pay for the product themselves. This isn't a new term.

It is relatively new to apply it to college attendance.

It is only recently that people began to think they were somehow entitled to an expensive elite education. But different people save different amounts because circumstances and preferences differ. Then they get all bent out of shape when a poor kid gets a large amount of financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the heck is a donut hole family? Where do these terms come from?!

Rich people pretending to be poor and expecting entitlements.

It is a term used in many contexts to describe people who earn too much to qualify for a program (medicare drug coverage) but don't earn enough to actually pay for the product themselves. This isn't a new term.

It is relatively new to apply it to college attendance.

It is only recently that people began to think they were somehow entitled to an expensive elite education. But different people save different amounts because circumstances and preferences differ. Then they get all bent out of shape when a poor kid gets a large amount of financial aid.

Most of the people I know who would consider themselves as a donut hole family are couples who went to top colleges themselves, spent years in graduate school, spent many years paying off their student debt and find themselves in their 50s faced with having to deal with college tuition bills and adequately funding their own retirement. The schools they went to are now priced north of $70k and these schools typically only offer need based aid not merit based aid. It is a little tough to accept because most parents hope their kids will have at least the same opportunities they were able to experience. We had saved enough to send our child to a state school for four years when he was in middle school and that is a great feeling. The gap between UMD and a top 30 private school is around $50K a year and these schools don't offer merit based aid for the most part. We have tried very hard to save enough but it is really hard to save this much even with a six figure income especially since we have only enjoyed a six figure income for the last ten years. We are far from alone. I know lots of UMC families in a similar situation. It is a relatively new phenomenon and I don't think it is wrong to draw attention to this.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the heck is a donut hole family? Where do these terms come from?!

Rich people pretending to be poor and expecting entitlements.

It is a term used in many contexts to describe people who earn too much to qualify for a program (medicare drug coverage) but don't earn enough to actually pay for the product themselves. This isn't a new term.

It is relatively new to apply it to college attendance.

It is only recently that people began to think they were somehow entitled to an expensive elite education. But different people save different amounts because circumstances and preferences differ. Then they get all bent out of shape when a poor kid gets a large amount of financial aid.

Most of the people I know who would consider themselves as a donut hole family are couples who went to top colleges themselves, spent years in graduate school, spent many years paying off their student debt and find themselves in their 50s faced with having to deal with college tuition bills and adequately funding their own retirement. The schools they went to are now priced north of $70k and these schools typically only offer need based aid not merit based aid. It is a little tough to accept because most parents hope their kids will have at least the same opportunities they were able to experience. We had saved enough to send our child to a state school for four years when he was in middle school and that is a great feeling. The gap between UMD and a top 30 private school is around $50K a year and these schools don't offer merit based aid for the most part. We have tried very hard to save enough but it is really hard to save this much even with a six figure income especially since we have only enjoyed a six figure income for the last ten years. We are far from alone. I know lots of UMC families in a similar situation. It is a relatively new phenomenon and I don't think it is wrong to draw attention to this.

And income and purchasing power for most Americans have not increased in decades. This affects families, and also adds to the fear and pressure parents are feeling to try and ensure their kids have a shot of a decent financial future.

From the Pew Research Center Aug 2018: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades
BY DREW DESILVER

On the face of it, these should be heady times for American workers. U.S. unemployment is as low as it’s been in nearly two decades (3.9% as of July) and the nation’s private-sector employers have been adding jobs for 101 straight months – 19.5 million since the Great Recession-related cuts finally abated in early 2010, and 1.5 million just since the beginning of the year.

But despite the strong labor market, wage growth has lagged economists’ expectations. In fact, despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.

The disconnect between the job market and workers’ paychecks has fueled much of the recent activism in states and cities around raising minimum wages, and it also has become a factor in at least some of this year’s congressional campaigns.

Average hourly earnings for non-management private-sector workers in July were $22.65, up 3 cents from June and 2.7% above the average wage from a year earlier, according to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s in line with average wage growth over the past five years: Year-over-year growth has mostly ranged between 2% and 3% since the beginning of 2013. But in the years just before the 2007-08 financial collapse, average hourly earnings often increased by around 4% year-over-year. And during the high-inflation years of the 1970s and early 1980s, average wages commonly jumped 7%, 8% or even 9% year-over-year.

After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

NP - It means that two kids with incomes of $200,000 can be walking around campus, living in the same dorms, taking the same classes and one pays substantially more for the experience because their parents were frugal. It IS backwards.

Somewhat, but not as much as you might think. Since parental assets are counted at 5% in the calculation of the EFC, if you had saved $200,000 for college, it would only result in an EFC of $10,000 higher than the other student that saved $0. Perhaps fair, perhaps not, but either way it is not a huge difference. Income matters much more.

Unless one of your assets is rental property. Then you will not qualify, even if family income is below $200k.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes and No. It IS about colleges selecting the students they want in their classes. But you are incorrect when you say it has nothing to do with broad economic or political philosophies. Read up on on what college admissions deans are doing to encourage wealth redistribution by pushing 30% of the class to be low-income, URM, first-generation, etc. And the essays are where the students try to show off their societal smarts to pass the political correctness test. Colleges are very much now about wealth redistribution and turning out the next phalanx of Social Justice Warriors.

College admissions deans have one very difficult job: Build a class that is consistent with the mission of the organization, while remaining within budgetary constraints. This often includes having students from different racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds. It has nothing to do with the reorganization of the castes of American society, and any AD that made that his mission would be out of a job after one cycle.

The fact that you don't know this is evidence that you have no idea how or why colleges set their admissions priorities, have never been near the process, and don't even know anyone who has.

Little do you know. Low income enrollment up; MC and UMC shut out; legacy admits down = wealth redistribution. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/02/26/college-enrollment-surges-among-low-income-students/#58cb2435293b

. If legacy admits are down, it means we are getting closer to a meritocracy. I think that is good.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Yes and No. It IS about colleges selecting the students they want in their classes. But you are incorrect when you say it has nothing to do with broad economic or political philosophies. Read up on on what college admissions deans are doing to encourage wealth redistribution by pushing 30% of the class to be low-income, URM, first-generation, etc. And the essays are where the students try to show off their societal smarts to pass the political correctness test. Colleges are very much now about wealth redistribution and turning out the next phalanx of Social Justice Warriors.

College admissions deans have one very difficult job: Build a class that is consistent with the mission of the organization, while remaining within budgetary constraints. [b]This often includes having students from different racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds. It has nothing to do with the reorganization of the castes of American society, and any AD that made that his mission would be out of a job after one cycle.

The fact that you don't know this is evidence that you have no idea how or why colleges set their admissions priorities, have never been near the process, and don't even know anyone who has.

[/b]


Little do you know. Low income enrollment up; MC and UMC shut out; legacy admits down = wealth redistribution. https://www.forbes.com/sites/prestoncooper2/2018/02/26/college-enrollment-surges-among-low-income-students/#58cb2435293b

Can you read? Or do you just choose not to?

I said college admissions officers have objectives that "often includes having students from different racial, cultural, and economic backgrounds." This is according to their organizational objectives and not because of some conspiratorial national re-distribution of wealth plan. Huge difference, and the fact that you don't understand it is the reason for the last sentence in my post.

Put down the tiki torch, son.

Well, I see the high school and college students are trolling tonight. Too bad / / / /because there is much to discuss about what is wrong with our nation's colleges and universities. For those of you who actually want to learn, google "what's wrong higher Education/college America" or "crisis in higher education" or "what's wrong with today's education system". "what's wrong with the American University System" etc. The articles from the Chronicle of Higher Education and Forbes are particularly good. https://www.bing.com/search?q=whats+wrong+higher+education+today&form=EDNTHT&mkt=en-us&httpsmsn=1&plvar=0&refig=49210097cc61400d9164360207472d12&PC=DCTS&sp=-1&ghc=1&pq=whats+wrong+higher+education+today&sc=1-34&qs=n&sk=&cvid=49210097cc61400d9164360207472d12

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

NP - It means that two kids with incomes of $200,000 can be walking around campus, living in the same dorms, taking the same classes and one pays substantially more for the experience because their parents were frugal. It IS backwards.

Please describe the alternative, and why it is an improvement.

How about students go to colleges that they can afford, based on their parent's income, and colleges have to bring tuition back down to some reasonable level? This whole argument is based on a false premise, which is that college tuition makes any sense at all. The federal government built a big funnel that poured student loan $$ into colleges, which allowed them to jack up their tuition to ridiculous levels to pay for extra administrators and climbing walls and a gold-plated student unions. The chickens have come home to roost for the graduates who have to pay back those loans, and future students have learned the lesson. So, here we are, with lower income parents getting financial aid, middle class parents getting "tuition discounts" and "donut hole" parents trying to figure out how to pay the still-inflated tuition without loans.

And, no, the answer is not that the federal government subsidize the ridiculous tuition, because unlimited access to money is what got us into this mess in the first place. I can't believe that some so-called "progressives" believe that having non-college educated American taxpayers subsidize upper-middle-class students is defensible (lower income people already get financial aid). "Oh, but Wall Street will pay!" Sure. None of that will trickle down to the average person. So we impose huge taxes to subsidize tuition for the children of upper middle class people so they can pay for ridiculous bloated bureaucracies on the college campuses that contribute zero to the GDP and contribute nothing to the actual education a student receives.

And don't say "Look at Europe!" Those countries limit the number of people who go to college, and your fate is pretty much determined before you're twelve. If you want to have a system where people who can get into top 30 colleges go for free, and no one else has a chance, go for it.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:What the heck is a donut hole family? Where do these terms come from?!

Rich people pretending to be poor and expecting entitlements.

It is a term used in many contexts to describe people who earn too much to qualify for a program (medicare drug coverage) but don't earn enough to actually pay for the product themselves. This isn't a new term.

It is relatively new to apply it to college attendance.

It is only recently that people began to think they were somehow entitled to an expensive elite education. But different people save different amounts because circumstances and preferences differ. Then they get all bent out of shape when a poor kid gets a large amount of financial aid.

Most of the people I know who would consider themselves as a donut hole family are couples who went to top colleges themselves, spent years in graduate school, spent many years paying off their student debt and find themselves in their 50s faced with having to deal with college tuition bills and adequately funding their own retirement. The schools they went to are now priced north of $70k and these schools typically only offer need based aid not merit based aid. It is a little tough to accept because most parents hope their kids will have at least the same opportunities they were able to experience. We had saved enough to send our child to a state school for four years when he was in middle school and that is a great feeling. The gap between UMD and a top 30 private school is around $50K a year and these schools don't offer merit based aid for the most part. We have tried very hard to save enough but it is really hard to save this much even with a six figure income especially since we have only enjoyed a six figure income for the last ten years. We are far from alone. I know lots of UMC families in a similar situation. It is a relatively new phenomenon and I don't think it is wrong to draw attention to this.

And income and purchasing power for most Americans have not increased in decades. This affects families, and also adds to the fear and pressure parents are feeling to try and ensure their kids have a shot of a decent financial future.

From the Pew Research Center Aug 2018: https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/08/07/for-most-us-workers-real-wages-have-barely-budged-for-decades/

For most U.S. workers, real wages have barely budged in decades
BY DREW DESILVER

On the face of it, these should be heady times for American workers. U.S. unemployment is as low as it’s been in nearly two decades (3.9% as of July) and the nation’s private-sector employers have been adding jobs for 101 straight months – 19.5 million since the Great Recession-related cuts finally abated in early 2010, and 1.5 million just since the beginning of the year.

But despite the strong labor market, wage growth has lagged economists’ expectations. In fact, despite some ups and downs over the past several decades, today’s real average wage (that is, the wage after accounting for inflation) has about the same purchasing power it did 40 years ago. And what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers.

The disconnect between the job market and workers’ paychecks has fueled much of the recent activism in states and cities around raising minimum wages, and it also has become a factor in at least some of this year’s congressional campaigns.

Average hourly earnings for non-management private-sector workers in July were $22.65, up 3 cents from June and 2.7% above the average wage from a year earlier, according to data from the federal Bureau of Labor Statistics. That’s in line with average wage growth over the past five years: Year-over-year growth has mostly ranged between 2% and 3% since the beginning of 2013. But in the years just before the 2007-08 financial collapse, average hourly earnings often increased by around 4% year-over-year. And during the high-inflation years of the 1970s and early 1980s, average wages commonly jumped 7%, 8% or even 9% year-over-year.

After adjusting for inflation, however, today’s average hourly wage has just about the same purchasing power it did in 1978, following a long slide in the 1980s and early 1990s and bumpy, inconsistent growth since then. In fact, in real terms average hourly earnings peaked more than 45 years ago: The $4.03-an-hour rate recorded in January 1973 had the same purchasing power that $23.68 would today.

This post has very little to do with this discussion. We aren't talking about "average workers." Average workers get financial aid. We're talking about people who make $200,000 a year. Your own study says that "what wage gains there have been have mostly flowed to the highest-paid tier of workers." Only 1.5% of Americans make over $200,000 per year. These are "the donut hole."

[Anonymous]

Stop. You are bsing.

In this area, 200k is middle class.

My DH is a fed contractor he makes mid 100s. I am a part time employee and have 2 jobs and make about 60. Somehow, because I now work, we don’t qualify for FA. If I quit my jobs, or if I divorce my DH, my kid would get FA.

Something is very wrong when working hard screws your kid or when a divorce (in name) seems plausible to afford college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Stop. You are bsing.

In this area, 200k is middle class.

My DH is a fed contractor he makes mid 100s. I am a part time employee and have 2 jobs and make about 60. Somehow, because I now work, we don’t qualify for FA. If I quit my jobs, or if I divorce my DH, my kid would get FA.

Something is very wrong when working hard screws your kid or when a divorce (in name) seems plausible to afford college.

That is enough income to save for college without needing financial aide.