Do families with $250K in income get financial aid? If not, how do they afford college?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

I'll be fine if no tax goes to private colleges and no one send their kid to privates colleges on my tax.
Fair enough?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

I'll be fine if no tax goes to private colleges and no one send their kid to privates colleges on my tax.
Fair enough?

+1

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

PP here. We don’t think we are middle class or have been wronged. We have had a good life, choose to have 4 kids, and don’t think anyone owed us or our kids $70K+ a year college educations so that we could have taken fancy vacations or live in a bigger, nicer house.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:We are over $250k but only recently and before that had childcare costs and our own student loans. Our goal is for our kids to graduate without loans and we are budgeting pretty tightly just for state schools since we got a late start. We do a lot of things mentioned here- drive old cars, live in our first house, limit meals out, etc. But honestly some of the posts in these threads are extreme. People claiming they NEVER take a vacation or eat out or buy a decent pair of shoes. WTH? Is a private school so much better that you never treat yourself? not so much on this threads but there are others that make the sacrifices seen SO great just to send a kid to a private school where most kids won't think twice about $. I had 2 friends in college whose parents mortgaged homes and businesses to send them. The stress was immense- one dropped out; the other developed a drug problem. Both moved far from their parents. How about some balance?

I agree, it is not smart to leverage yourself to the hilt to attend an expensive private school. In reality, most in the 200-300K range save for In-state and maybe a bit more. There is not requirement or need to save for 90K+ schools. If you have 50K/year saved, your kid can attend a lot of schools and at that income you could cash flow some, and just cut back a bit for the 4 years a kid is in school if that's what you want.

But I wouldn't never vacation, drive 15 yo cars, never eat out so my kid can attend a 90K university.

Also, most of us live where kids can earn $10K/year towards college fairly easily. Have the kid do that to help with costs. If they work PT during the school year (10 hours/week) they can earn even more. It won't hurt your kid to help with school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question says it all. I have been hearing all of my friends who are federal government workers saying their kids are not eligible for financial aid. But I don't think this is enough $ in income to afford $70K in college costs per kid per year. And it's not as though these families had extra income before their kids went to college - in this area, a mortgage, saving for retirement, and cost of raising kids will eat up all of that income. Where does the extra $ come from if they don't get financial aid?

- savvy investments - I look back and had I held onto my first property that would have covered private college
- family money
- only have one kid
- cash flowing some of it
- taking on a lot of debt/not saving for retirement
OR
Kids are not attending a 70K or more school

Without stating the obvious...two Fed workers with college age kids have a HHI or $375-400k. Ain't nobody getting aid with two Fed salary household.

I have been with the Feds since age 25 and make $200k. Spouse contracts for them and makes $280k. But even if he were in-house Fed like me we would be making minimum $400k. He made more when we were young and we still own our first home (rental property)--which is used against us as well for aid.

With those incomes, you could have easily saved and then cash flowed the rest for 85K+/year school. The rental was not used against you for aid. There was no chance you were getting any "aid"

Ummm. Yes. That’s what we did. We started funding 529 after birth of each kid. We aren’t taking loans. My point was people ask how can two Feds afford an Ivy/$85k. They fail to understand Fed salaries in the DMV. They are $400k HHI with two parents working.

+1000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We make less, we save starting at birth, make savings a priority, no vacations, etc. and state school.

Yep. Started saving when we were TRYING to have our first. Opened a 529 with monthly contributions of $25. Neither of us are "rich" but we are doing fine. Lived in the same house for 24 years. Only the past couple of years do we have combined salaries in excess of $250k. Limited our two children to $50K/yr each which pretty much limits them to public.

I call BS. You need the child's social to open a 529 plan, which isn't possible before they're born.

You are wrong. We opened a 529 in my SSN prior to my children being born, then transferred funds over once they were here/had a SSN.

Yes. One kid is finished with undergrad and has $75K left. We are leaving it. It will continue to grow for grad school or for their kids. That $75K will be 240K+ in 21-22 years. All with tax free growth. Will do same for our other kids. And once it's apparent grandkids are in the future, we will start adding yearly to the 529s to allow for more growth potential

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

Well once you choose to have 4 kids, you have a different trajectory for them, unless you are wealthy. Much easier to fund college for 2. But most from large families do pick in-state or privates with merit equal to in-state. Very few pay 90K/year *16+ years

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

This 1000%! It's all about choices. If you truly want your kids to have opportunities for 90K+ schools, you get a job making more or you choose to only have 1 or 2 kids. It was definately something we thought about when deciding how many kids. Each extra kid would add $1M of costs from birth to 22 (possibly more depending upon activities and therapies needed).
If you choose to have a large family, you most likely are willing to stick to state schools and that is fine. That is what majority of people do because it's the smart choice.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

because those schools have a lot of money and a lot of place for students. if they can give aid to the "poor" they can give it to middle class as well.

And there are plenty of schools that give excellent merit aid to everyone. Just not T30 schools. If you don't want to plan and save and actually pay for school yourself, you step down 1-2 tiers and get a great education for a lot less.

Once again, NOBODY is entitled to an elite education for free. But there are 3K+ other excellent universities that can be affordable for you.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

I'll be fine if no tax goes to private colleges and no one send their kid to privates colleges on my tax.
Fair enough?

The "taxes" private colleges get are largely research based. And I have news for you---the research they do is actually "cheap labor"---grad students doing it under professorial leadership for cheap/almost free vs paying for it in industry at 10x the cost. I'd prefer to keep all of this research in the USA and actually have the ground breaking innovations for medicine, etc to benefit our society (and me and my family and friends). So I do NOT want to stop this research. It benefits everyone and is so much cheaper.

Also, you don't get to decide how your tax dollars are used. I'd prefer we have a smaller military and not have wasted billions on unnecessary wars in the last 30 years, or that we actually used our taxes to fix the interstate highways and infrastructure. But I just have to pay taxes, don't actually get to line item select.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

because those schools have a lot of money and a lot of place for students. if they can give aid to the "poor" they can give it to middle class as well.

And there are plenty of schools that give excellent merit aid to everyone. Just not T30 schools. If you don't want to plan and save and actually pay for school yourself, you step down 1-2 tiers and get a great education for a lot less.

Once again, NOBODY is entitled to an elite education for free. But there are 3K+ other excellent universities that can be affordable for you.

why are you so angry? is it because you lived like crap for so many years so that you can save gazillion dollars for private colleges? and now you are upset that yes, those colleges give substantial financial aid to 250k families, as they should?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

I'll be fine if no tax goes to private colleges and no one send their kid to privates colleges on my tax.
Fair enough?

The "taxes" private colleges get are largely research based. And I have news for you---the research they do is actually "cheap labor"---grad students doing it under professorial leadership for cheap/almost free vs paying for it in industry at 10x the cost. I'd prefer to keep all of this research in the USA and actually have the ground breaking innovations for medicine, etc to benefit our society (and me and my family and friends). So I do NOT want to stop this research. It benefits everyone and is so much cheaper.

Also, you don't get to decide how your tax dollars are used. I'd prefer we have a smaller military and not have wasted billions on unnecessary wars in the last 30 years, or that we actually used our taxes to fix the interstate highways and infrastructure. But I just have to pay taxes, don't actually get to line item select.

I want the research tax money to go to public schools and any privates taking care of middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Four kids with an income maybe 20K higher than OP here. We started saving before they were born when we earned significantly less and had our own student loans, live in a small house that needs work, husband and I share one old car, no fancy vacations or extravagant lifestyle and have made saving for our retirement a priority too. Youngest of the 4 is now 2 years from finishing college. Three have gone to instate to UVA and the 4th was awarded a scholarship at a SLAC that made the cost of attending same as if she was in-state Virginia.

It’s called lots of sacrifice OP.

and that's something wrong in the US for the hard working middle class

Right here is the real point OP isn’t saying. You make $250k and you want a nice house, multiple nice cars, 2 vacations a year, AND be able to afford to send your kids to private university on someone else’s dime. You can afford public universities, OP. That is fine. Your kids will be fine. They aren’t “owed” an education at a $90k a year school. They aren’t “owed” financial aid. You could pay for it if you made a lot of sacrifices for many, many years. You didn’t and now you are annoyed. Why does everyone think private universities are meant for the middle class? They are not.

I'll be fine if no tax goes to private colleges and no one send their kid to privates colleges on my tax.
Fair enough?

The "taxes" private colleges get are largely research based. And I have news for you---the research they do is actually "cheap labor"---grad students doing it under professorial leadership for cheap/almost free vs paying for it in industry at 10x the cost. I'd prefer to keep all of this research in the USA and actually have the ground breaking innovations for medicine, etc to benefit our society (and me and my family and friends). So I do NOT want to stop this research. It benefits everyone and is so much cheaper.

Also, you don't get to decide how your tax dollars are used. I'd prefer we have a smaller military and not have wasted billions on unnecessary wars in the last 30 years, or that we actually used our taxes to fix the interstate highways and infrastructure. But I just have to pay taxes, don't actually get to line item select.

Also tax payers ultimately decide where the tax goes.
Hence, https://nypost.com/2024/01/11/news/bipartisan-congress-aims-to-defund-colleges-over-legacy-admissions/

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I want the research tax money to go to public schools and any privates taking care of middle class.

Once again, you won't define what is "middle class."

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Question says it all. I have been hearing all of my friends who are federal government workers saying their kids are not eligible for financial aid. But I don't think this is enough $ in income to afford $70K in college costs per kid per year. And it's not as though these families had extra income before their kids went to college - in this area, a mortgage, saving for retirement, and cost of raising kids will eat up all of that income. Where does the extra $ come from if they don't get financial aid?

When we made less than 200k we afforded $3500 per month mortgage, private school of 28k, and still saved 2k per month….saved more as we made more income ; only spend 3-4k a year on vacation and are good at budgeting. The 529 is not huge but 85k per year minus the 28k we are not spending on k-12, plus 529 cash is doable , for 2 kids even…
Full pay just takes planning, for the 200k + crowd

Technically $199,999.99 is less than $200k