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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at around that income bracket with a highly achieving kid. We figured that we can cash flow the state flagship (UMD-CP is relatively cheap / subsidized), so we never opened a 529 or anything else that would ever impact our financial aid should the kid get into a top college. We also restructured our assets and savings to maximize financial aid.

We have been paying 30k-50k per year for an Ivy.

Can you give some examples of this? I know taking savings and paying off your mortgage is one strategy. Any others?

We bought Maryland pre-paid plan for another child after asking the grandmom to open the account. She put 100 dollars into it and we put in 50K. Did not have to report those 50K on the CSS profile for the older kid. We expect we will be in a different income bracket in 10 years for the little one, and will benefit from having a 529 plan of some kind for a modest sum. Plus, that's our last child.

We prepaid all of our expenses a full year ahead before filing FAFSA/CSS. I was leasing an office; we paid rent a full year ahead etc. You need to move cash into invisible assets.

We cash flowed as much of college as possible. All money went to expenses, retirement savings, or kid's college payments. We barely maintained a balance in our checking account, but also only took 30K in loans over 4 years. Balance on a checking account = less favorable CSS profile outcome. Stupidest thing to do is maintain 50K on the checking account just in case, run up a credit card balance, and borrow to pay for college, unless there is a tangible chance of loan forgiveness. The goal is to pay less for college.

We paid off a leased car and held onto it for a couple of months. Filed FAFSA/CSS. It was not a fancy car and did not tip off any luxury scales. It was basically a vehicle, so to speak, to contain about 30K. Once financials were awarded, we sold it at a profit since cars appreciated, and used the profit to avoid taking out a loan that semester.

Once kid was accepted to CSS profile meets needs school, I started my own business finally. My first two years of trials and errors were effectively sponsored by my kid's university. During that time, in between financial cycles, we sold an old rental property and purchased an office for my business.

None of this will help people with 1/2 million in savings, but it helped us as a normal middle class family. The fact that the universities can use 5% per year of the 529 account ear-marked for another child is ASININE, so we had to avoid that. Pay off EVERYTHING, avoid any live money on checking and savings accounts. Remember retirement savings cannot be used as a part of CSS profile, so maximize those accounts to keep live money off of your checking account. That's it

[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.

But they DO give aid to people who are actually middle class. Between 200&250 k is the top income where need based aid starts to end, depending on assets (and depending on school—ivies/elites are the most generous). 200k is not middleclass, it is well into the upper middle class, more than 3x average. Many examples on here about parents with 250k who have made it work for full pay , with no loans. Just because you cannot make it work because you wanted private k-12 or huge vacations or spend 2k a month on Starbucks (someone posted that), does not mean you deserve financial aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Technically $199,999.99 is less than $200k

Do you actually think that the aid schools give is materially different between those who make $200K and those who make $199,999 (all else being equal)?

[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.

But they DO give aid to people who are actually middle class. Between 200&250 k is the top income where need based aid starts to end, depending on assets (and depending on school—ivies/elites are the most generous). 200k is not middleclass, it is well into the upper middle class, more than 3x average. Many examples on here about parents with 250k who have made it work for full pay , with no loans. Just because you cannot make it work because you wanted private k-12 or huge vacations or spend 2k a month on Starbucks (someone posted that), does not mean you deserve financial aid.

please stop with the nonsense, with the huge vacations and 2k Starbucks (what???). in the DMV, 200k is middle class. any decent home is million dollars now.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:in the DMV, 200k is middle class.

The median HHI in the DC area is $120K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

But they DO give aid to people who are actually middle class. Between 200&250 k is the top income where need based aid starts to end, depending on assets (and depending on school—ivies/elites are the most generous). 200k is not middleclass, it is well into the upper middle class, more than 3x average. Many examples on here about parents with 250k who have made it work for full pay , with no loans. Just because you cannot make it work because you wanted private k-12 or huge vacations or spend 2k a month on Starbucks (someone posted that), does not mean you deserve financial aid.

please stop with the nonsense, with the huge vacations and 2k Starbucks (what???). in the DMV, 200k is middle class. any decent home is million dollars now.

So much of this depends on when you bought your house. We have neighbors with the same modest home as ours that bought theirs for $300k and we feel lucky to have paid $650k because now the homes near us are $800k. We are in outer Moco so if had to commute everyday, yeah- we would have to pay $1M for not much of a house. I suspect some of these commenters who claim they sacrifice Starbucks, etc bought their homes in the 90s and have a small mortgage and equity to play with.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

But they DO give aid to people who are actually middle class. Between 200&250 k is the top income where need based aid starts to end, depending on assets (and depending on school—ivies/elites are the most generous). 200k is not middleclass, it is well into the upper middle class, more than 3x average. Many examples on here about parents with 250k who have made it work for full pay , with no loans. Just because you cannot make it work because you wanted private k-12 or huge vacations or spend 2k a month on Starbucks (someone posted that), does not mean you deserve financial aid.

please stop with the nonsense, with the huge vacations and 2k Starbucks (what???). in the DMV, 200k is middle class. any decent home is million dollars now.

So much of this depends on when you bought your house. We have neighbors with the same modest home as ours that bought theirs for $300k and we feel lucky to have paid $650k because now the homes near us are $800k. We are in outer Moco so if had to commute everyday, yeah- we would have to pay $1M for not much of a house. I suspect some of these commenters who claim they sacrifice Starbucks, etc bought their homes in the 90s and have a small mortgage and equity to play with.

I agree. You’d actually have to pay 2 million to be close. We paid $1 million for our close-in modest house in 2009 and it’s now worth $1.9 million with no upgrades. $1.9 used to be the knockdown/new builds. Those are now $3.5 million.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

But they DO give aid to people who are actually middle class. Between 200&250 k is the top income where need based aid starts to end, depending on assets (and depending on school—ivies/elites are the most generous). 200k is not middleclass, it is well into the upper middle class, more than 3x average. Many examples on here about parents with 250k who have made it work for full pay , with no loans. Just because you cannot make it work because you wanted private k-12 or huge vacations or spend 2k a month on Starbucks (someone posted that), does not mean you deserve financial aid.

please stop with the nonsense, with the huge vacations and 2k Starbucks (what???). in the DMV, 200k is middle class. any decent home is million dollars now.

Colleges, generally speaking, do not take into consideration for financial aid how much it costs to buy a house or the cost of living where an applicant lives. And they often do take into account the equity parents have in a home.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

None of this will help people with 1/2 million in savings, but it helped us as a normal middle class family. The fact that the universities can use 5% per year of the 529 account ear-marked for another child is ASININE, so we had to avoid that. Pay off EVERYTHING, avoid any live money on checking and savings accounts. Remember retirement savings cannot be used as a part of CSS profile, so maximize those accounts to keep live money off of your checking account. That's it

ok. what's that the 5% rule you are referring to? is having a 529 for my younger kids going to affect the older one? thanks

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

But they DO give aid to people who are actually middle class. Between 200&250 k is the top income where need based aid starts to end, depending on assets (and depending on school—ivies/elites are the most generous). 200k is not middleclass, it is well into the upper middle class, more than 3x average. Many examples on here about parents with 250k who have made it work for full pay , with no loans. Just because you cannot make it work because you wanted private k-12 or huge vacations or spend 2k a month on Starbucks (someone posted that), does not mean you deserve financial aid.

please stop with the nonsense, with the huge vacations and 2k Starbucks (what???). in the DMV, 200k is middle class. any decent home is million dollars now.

Colleges, generally speaking, do not take into consideration for financial aid how much it costs to buy a house or the cost of living where an applicant lives. And they often do take into account the equity parents have in a home.

yes, use the home equity if you need. or save earlier, or buy a smaller house. it is not college's job to give financial aid to people who have household incomes of 200+.

[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.

That’s a lot of rationalizing on your part. While I agree that public universities are more than sufficient and in many cases superior, I disagree that some “blame” should be lodged at OP or other families in question. No where else in the world charges students $90-$100k each year to attend college. It’s absurd. Most families can not save $360-$400k…PER CHILD.

So yes, public university it is! No arguing there. I dislike this rationalizing and blame people start getting into “you aren’t owed anything” blah blah, as if people are the problem. People are not the problem. Most people are doing the best they can with little resources and in a punishing system where we have expensive health care, no pensions, no child care and exorbitant college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We are at around that income bracket with a highly achieving kid. We figured that we can cash flow the state flagship (UMD-CP is relatively cheap / subsidized), so we never opened a 529 or anything else that would ever impact our financial aid should the kid get into a top college. We also restructured our assets and savings to maximize financial aid.

We have been paying 30k-50k per year for an Ivy.

Can you give some examples of this? I know taking savings and paying off your mortgage is one strategy. Any others?

We bought Maryland pre-paid plan for another child after asking the grandmom to open the account. She put 100 dollars into it and we put in 50K. Did not have to report those 50K on the CSS profile for the older kid. We expect we will be in a different income bracket in 10 years for the little one, and will benefit from having a 529 plan of some kind for a modest sum. Plus, that's our last child.

We prepaid all of our expenses a full year ahead before filing FAFSA/CSS. I was leasing an office; we paid rent a full year ahead etc. You need to move cash into invisible assets.

We cash flowed as much of college as possible. All money went to expenses, retirement savings, or kid's college payments. We barely maintained a balance in our checking account, but also only took 30K in loans over 4 years. Balance on a checking account = less favorable CSS profile outcome. Stupidest thing to do is maintain 50K on the checking account just in case, run up a credit card balance, and borrow to pay for college, unless there is a tangible chance of loan forgiveness. The goal is to pay less for college.

We paid off a leased car and held onto it for a couple of months. Filed FAFSA/CSS. It was not a fancy car and did not tip off any luxury scales. It was basically a vehicle, so to speak, to contain about 30K. Once financials were awarded, we sold it at a profit since cars appreciated, and used the profit to avoid taking out a loan that semester.

Once kid was accepted to CSS profile meets needs school, I started my own business finally. My first two years of trials and errors were effectively sponsored by my kid's university. During that time, in between financial cycles, we sold an old rental property and purchased an office for my business.

None of this will help people with 1/2 million in savings, but it helped us as a normal middle class family. The fact that the universities can use 5% per year of the 529 account ear-marked for another child is ASININE, so we had to avoid that. Pay off EVERYTHING, avoid any live money on checking and savings accounts. Remember retirement savings cannot be used as a part of CSS profile, so maximize those accounts to keep live money off of your checking account. That's it

So, you essentially got rid of any emergency savings like 6 months of living expenses that you should keep just in case? I guess you can do that if your spouse’s job is very secure. You were also in a somewhat unusual situation of starting your business right at that time - your advice wouldn’t help those who work for W2. Also, you submit your docs every year, so you have to lay low for 4 years.

All in, you were a special case, and you took some serious risks. I don’t think your advice should be seriously considered.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

But they DO give aid to people who are actually middle class. Between 200&250 k is the top income where need based aid starts to end, depending on assets (and depending on school—ivies/elites are the most generous). 200k is not middleclass, it is well into the upper middle class, more than 3x average. Many examples on here about parents with 250k who have made it work for full pay , with no loans. Just because you cannot make it work because you wanted private k-12 or huge vacations or spend 2k a month on Starbucks (someone posted that), does not mean you deserve financial aid.

please stop with the nonsense, with the huge vacations and 2k Starbucks (what???). in the DMV, 200k is middle class. any decent home is million dollars now.

Colleges, generally speaking, do not take into consideration for financial aid how much it costs to buy a house or the cost of living where an applicant lives. And they often do take into account the equity parents have in a home.

yes, use the home equity if you need. or save earlier, or buy a smaller house. it is not college's job to give financial aid to people who have household incomes of 200+.

it's not their job to give aid to those making 30k either. they could live at shelters and beg for food. you are just spiteful.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

But they DO give aid to people who are actually middle class. Between 200&250 k is the top income where need based aid starts to end, depending on assets (and depending on school—ivies/elites are the most generous). 200k is not middleclass, it is well into the upper middle class, more than 3x average. Many examples on here about parents with 250k who have made it work for full pay , with no loans. Just because you cannot make it work because you wanted private k-12 or huge vacations or spend 2k a month on Starbucks (someone posted that), does not mean you deserve financial aid.

please stop with the nonsense, with the huge vacations and 2k Starbucks (what???). in the DMV, 200k is middle class. any decent home is million dollars now.

So much of this depends on when you bought your house. We have neighbors with the same modest home as ours that bought theirs for $300k and we feel lucky to have paid $650k because now the homes near us are $800k. We are in outer Moco so if had to commute everyday, yeah- we would have to pay $1M for not much of a house. I suspect some of these commenters who claim they sacrifice Starbucks, etc bought their homes in the 90s and have a small mortgage and equity to play with.

+1

[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.

That’s a lot of rationalizing on your part. While I agree that public universities are more than sufficient and in many cases superior, I disagree that some “blame” should be lodged at OP or other families in question. No where else in the world charges students $90-$100k each year to attend college. It’s absurd. Most families can not save $360-$400k…PER CHILD.

So yes, public university it is! No arguing there. I dislike this rationalizing and blame people start getting into “you aren’t owed anything” blah blah, as if people are the problem. People are not the problem. Most people are doing the best they can with little resources and in a punishing system where we have expensive health care, no pensions, no child care and exorbitant college.

+1 People on this board are always blaming other people for objecting to the insane cost of college. But as this poster notes, no where else in the world is college, public or private, so expensive. And even here it wasn’t this expensive until recently. While private college has always been considered expensive, if you apply a regular inflation adjustment to tuition, room and board cost from 1985 it would be about $50K not the nearly $90k it costs today (for those not getting aid). That is a big deviation. It is fair for people to have the opinion that things could and should be done differently at these schools.