Why do donut hole families

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Complain about being a donut hole family? When there are thousands of colleges that could work between in state options and merit aid at lower tier privates and other oos public’s?l is it bc ivies and top 25 are not options?

Its because their kids don't get judged on their ability but on their parental assets and can't attend schools they are eligible for or want to attend. Unless parents are willing to sacrifice their hard earned savings and risk retirement , kids often can't afford anything but community college or some regional state campus with merit.

A true donut hole family should be able to afford $20-30K/year with savings and cashflow. That's well more than CC. Plenty of choices if you just try rather than complaining "we can't afford anything"

You still don't get it. Imagine a brilliant STEM student who already got into Stanford or MIT. But they end up going to a much lower ranked school ONLY because their family is too "rich" for FA and too poor to pay full ride. There's something wrong with that picture.

THAT WAS ME!!

And I have heard privileged douches my whole life make assumptions about someone's incorrect assumptions about people's intelligence when they find out where they went to college. My neighborhood is filled with these legacy Ivy types that thumb their noses at the state school kids.

I worked full=time every summer and had a part-time job all through high school and undergrad. My full financial needs=based friends didn't' have to work.

It was me too. And my problem with the so-called donut hole family is that you are all upholding the same myth that the best job applicants come from the best schools. That cultural assumption needs to change.

How heavily does your employer recruit at Salisbury State and Frostburg State vs. higher ranked schools?

They don’t hire new grads but obviously they hired me, from Ho Hum State.

Where did u go? 3rd tier state school?

A Big 10.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:Complain about being a donut hole family? When there are thousands of colleges that could work between in state options and merit aid at lower tier privates and other oos public’s?l is it bc ivies and top 25 are not options?

Its because their kids don't get judged on their ability but on their parental assets and can't attend schools they are eligible for or want to attend. Unless parents are willing to sacrifice their hard earned savings and risk retirement , kids often can't afford anything but community college or some regional state campus with merit.

A true donut hole family should be able to afford $20-30K/year with savings and cashflow. That's well more than CC. Plenty of choices if you just try rather than complaining "we can't afford anything"

You still don't get it. Imagine a brilliant STEM student who already got into Stanford or MIT. But they end up going to a much lower ranked school ONLY because their family is too "rich" for FA and too poor to pay full ride. There's something wrong with that picture.

THAT WAS ME!!

And I have heard privileged douches my whole life make assumptions about someone's incorrect assumptions about people's intelligence when they find out where they went to college. My neighborhood is filled with these legacy Ivy types that thumb their noses at the state school kids.

I worked full=time every summer and had a part-time job all through high school and undergrad. My full financial needs=based friends didn't' have to work.

It was me too. And my problem with the so-called donut hole family is that you are all upholding the same myth that the best job applicants come from the best schools. That cultural assumption needs to change.

How heavily does your employer recruit at Salisbury State and Frostburg State vs. higher ranked schools?

They don’t hire new grads but obviously they hired me, from Ho Hum State.

Where did u go? 3rd tier state school?

A Big 10.

So even your job doesn’t hire 3rd tier.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I think it's because it just feels unfair to people that if they were richer or poorer, their kids might have more options. It isn't necessarily unfair, or maybe it is, but this is how people feel. I also think that many donut hole families have parents who attended top private universities at a time when they were more affordable and it is a shock that their kids can't do the same, even though they have been saving for years. We are not a donut hole family, so this is just my guess as to how people feel.

Yes. It's if we were just a little bit poorer we could have gone to pretty much any school with financial aid and not have the very huge loans required to go to those private, selective LAC or ivy type colleges.

But you realize that narrative is a lie right? That you have fallen for a lie.

The vast majority of schools in this country don't guarantee to meet full need. Of the schools that do meet full need, most of them are going by a figure that requires loans, and those loans would be much harder for a lower income family to pay off than they would be for you.

I don't know any lower income kids who didn't work during college.

Low income kids working has shown that they miss out on internships/clubs. Now FA includes spending money do they don’t have to work.

What schools do that? I'm a high school teacher, so I talk to lots of college students coming to visit during break. How many low income kids do you know who get FA and don't have PT jobs in college?

If they go T50, none. It’s part of their contract. They are given stipends for spending money, travel to and from home is covered, they are given living expenses for unpaid internships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:Complain about being a donut hole family? When there are thousands of colleges that could work between in state options and merit aid at lower tier privates and other oos public’s?l is it bc ivies and top 25 are not options?

Its because their kids don't get judged on their ability but on their parental assets and can't attend schools they are eligible for or want to attend. Unless parents are willing to sacrifice their hard earned savings and risk retirement , kids often can't afford anything but community college or some regional state campus with merit.

A true donut hole family should be able to afford $20-30K/year with savings and cashflow. That's well more than CC. Plenty of choices if you just try rather than complaining "we can't afford anything"

You still don't get it. Imagine a brilliant STEM student who already got into Stanford or MIT. But they end up going to a much lower ranked school ONLY because their family is too "rich" for FA and too poor to pay full ride. There's something wrong with that picture.

THAT WAS ME!!

And I have heard privileged douches my whole life make assumptions about someone's incorrect assumptions about people's intelligence when they find out where they went to college. My neighborhood is filled with these legacy Ivy types that thumb their noses at the state school kids.

I worked full=time every summer and had a part-time job all through high school and undergrad. My full financial needs=based friends didn't' have to work.

It was me too. And my problem with the so-called donut hole family is that you are all upholding the same myth that the best job applicants come from the best schools. That cultural assumption needs to change.

How heavily does your employer recruit at Salisbury State and Frostburg State vs. higher ranked schools?

They don’t hire new grads but obviously they hired me, from Ho Hum State.

Where did u go? 3rd tier state school?

A Big 10.

So even your job doesn’t hire 3rd tier.

I don’t know I don’t work in HR. Do you?

[Anonymous]

I'm not sure if this is true for all T50, but at many it is the case. It's like k-12 private school FA now includes SAT prep and travel abroad. The schools want all students to have the same opportunities, but tend to forget how much some full pay families are already sacrificing just to make the payments.

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I think it's because it just feels unfair to people that if they were richer or poorer, their kids might have more options. It isn't necessarily unfair, or maybe it is, but this is how people feel. I also think that many donut hole families have parents who attended top private universities at a time when they were more affordable and it is a shock that their kids can't do the same, even though they have been saving for years. We are not a donut hole family, so this is just my guess as to how people feel.

Yes. It's if we were just a little bit poorer we could have gone to pretty much any school with financial aid and not have the very huge loans required to go to those private, selective LAC or ivy type colleges.

But you realize that narrative is a lie right? That you have fallen for a lie.

The vast majority of schools in this country don't guarantee to meet full need. Of the schools that do meet full need, most of them are going by a figure that requires loans, and those loans would be much harder for a lower income family to pay off than they would be for you.

I don't know any lower income kids who didn't work during college.

Low income kids working has shown that they miss out on internships/clubs. Now FA includes spending money do they don’t have to work.

What schools do that? I'm a high school teacher, so I talk to lots of college students coming to visit during break. How many low income kids do you know who get FA and don't have PT jobs in college?

If they go T50, none. It’s part of their contract. They are given stipends for spending money, travel to and from home is covered, they are given living expenses for unpaid internships.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Complain about being a donut hole family? When there are thousands of colleges that could work between in state options and merit aid at lower tier privates and other oos public’s?l is it bc ivies and top 25 are not options?

Its because their kids don't get judged on their ability but on their parental assets and can't attend schools they are eligible for or want to attend. Unless parents are willing to sacrifice their hard earned savings and risk retirement , kids often can't afford anything but community college or some regional state campus with merit.

A true donut hole family should be able to afford $20-30K/year with savings and cashflow. That's well more than CC. Plenty of choices if you just try rather than complaining "we can't afford anything"

You still don't get it. Imagine a brilliant STEM student who already got into Stanford or MIT. But they end up going to a much lower ranked school ONLY because their family is too "rich" for FA and too poor to pay full ride. There's something wrong with that picture.

THAT WAS ME!!

And I have heard privileged douches my whole life make assumptions about someone's incorrect assumptions about people's intelligence when they find out where they went to college. My neighborhood is filled with these legacy Ivy types that thumb their noses at the state school kids.

I worked full=time every summer and had a part-time job all through high school and undergrad. My full financial needs=based friends didn't' have to work.

It was me too. And my problem with the so-called donut hole family is that you are all upholding the same myth that the best job applicants come from the best schools. That cultural assumption needs to change.

How heavily does your employer recruit at Salisbury State and Frostburg State vs. higher ranked schools?

They don’t hire new grads but obviously they hired me, from Ho Hum State.

Where did u go? 3rd tier state school?

A Big 10.

So even your job doesn’t hire 3rd tier.

There are 'great' options for everyone, it just so happens that those 'great' options make everything post graduation an uphill battle

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:The family in my neighborhood that were poseurs bragged about saving zero for their kid's college tuition. They had massive credit card debt, took $20-30k vacations flying first class, drive very high-end cars and were decked out in high-priced designer duds.

Their kid qualified for financial aid and they aren't paying a cent.

The responsible suckers that are scrimping and saving and pouring everything into 529s and miss the cutoff for aid are screwed when they can't afford the top 10-20 schools their kids get into and they watch kids like my neighbors get full aid. This idea that donut hole families are just not saving is such cr*p, and in high cost areas it's even crazier to assume that. $150k for a family of 4 in the DMV is not much. It certainly won't support the $75k-80k of any private, Ivy or out of state...and the $40k for 2 kids each at UVA is rough...that's if their kids can even get in there.

This post doesn't even make any sense. If this neighbor family is so poor that they qualified for full ride (most students who qualify for financial aid have loans as part of the package, very few get enough need-based grants to cover everything) then if they are truly buying all of these things on credit they must be massively underwater. It will all come crashing down eventually and their free-ride kids will not emerged unscathed either. Be grateful you have more sense than that and move along.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:The donut hole is a myth that poor savers tell themselves. Decisions have consequences. Buying a larger house or nicer car - spending more for vacations and fancy summer camps are all decisions.

College costs are not unexpected. You have nearly two decades to save.

Plus, you don’t have to save for the most expensive college. All of you who consider yourselves middle class- that means kids stay at home and go to college or they go to an instate college. That is what middle class parents have done for generations. Paying the full amount for high end tuitions for private schools are for rich families not yours.

But that's the problem, college expenses have become exploitative for most family budgets. As PP suggests, your entire adult life you're now supposed to be either saving for college or paying off your loans. It's basically become a third layer of taxation in addition to state and federal.

College costs are INDEFENSIBLE here in the US. No other country in the world has such expensive university education, and yet many have excellent institutions. It IS exploitative.

It's like the cost of healthcare in this country. It does not need to be that high! Other wealthy nations do it for much less.

But here capitalism rules, the federal government has very little regulatory control compared to other countries... and we are left with this. Very little upward mobility in an erstwhile upwardly mobile country.

So you're all right where universities want you, suckers: bickering amongst yourselves, and forgetting that you are all being exploited BY THEM.

+1

Only in the US would people compare a university education with a luxury car.

Because only in the US do people feel entitled to the tippy top ranked universities for their kids, no matter what.
Most of Europe is not attending Cambridge or Oxford for undergrad. They are attending a nearby local university. Their kid was "tracked for college" sometime around 12/13 yo and if they do well on the testing that day, they may not be eligible for a STEM major 5 years later. Nobody is saying you can't get an education. We literally have hundreds of great choices, many offering merit. There are ways to attend college for minimal costs, you just wont attend a Top tier university. Just like much of Europe does not attend a Top tier university for their undergrad.

Wait a sec here. Most of the UK doesn't go to Oxbridge because they can't get in, not because they can't pay! We are talking about getting in to schools you can't pay for. In France for example, if you get into Polytechnique (the top engineering school), your tuition bill can be covered by military service following your studies, or in most cases, your first employer pays off your bill as part of the job offer. You rarely hear about someone in France qualifying for one of these schools and not going because they can't afford it.

The bolded is true in the US too. That's what ROTC is.

As a spouse of retired Enlisted, there is no way I'd let my kids do ROTC or anything else military related in college. They go to state schools that we can afford to pay for and if they want military afterward, they can go in as an Officer not oweing anything.

Donut Families can afford state schools. They can afford a lot more if they budgeted right. If you choose to pay for expensive housing, etc. that is your choice but then don't complain you cannot afford college. We live in a sh@t shack that is in a "lesser" neighborhood so we can afford college. No one cares where your kids go to high school. In all reality for many professions now, they don't care if you go to a private or public. The degree is what is important.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Poor people do not have more options. Most truly poor people are not in the college pipeline.

Exactly. While most of my HS friends attended college, any one I knew in the same economic strata as me did not. These donut hole folks truly do not understand what it means to be poor/working class. There's no donut - we're just in a hole.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think it's because it just feels unfair to people that if they were richer or poorer, their kids might have more options. It isn't necessarily unfair, or maybe it is, but this is how people feel. I also think that many donut hole families have parents who attended top private universities at a time when they were more affordable and it is a shock that their kids can't do the same, even though they have been saving for years. We are not a donut hole family, so this is just my guess as to how people feel.

But the "poor people have more options" thing is a myth.

I think that people who complain about being a "donut hole" family are implying that things are better on the other side of the hole. But in reality, it isn't. And continuing to use the term when that's been pointed out, is basically a dog whistle, because once you know how college financial aid works, complaining about being a donut hole family means that you think that actual middle class (not DCUM middle class) and low income families don't deserve what you deserve, which is affordable college choices for their kids.

Now, if you want to complaining that EFC's are unrealistic for many families. Or that college costs too much. Yes! Those are very valid complaints, and things worth advocating around. But the idea that college is only a financial burden for some subset of kinda rich but not very rich people is simply untrue.

This should be the end of the thread right here.

yes, that comment is mic drop worthy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I never complain about it. But if I ever mention that we're not willing to pay higher than in-state prices, I get attacked for that position.

By whom?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:The family in my neighborhood that were poseurs bragged about saving zero for their kid's college tuition. They had massive credit card debt, took $20-30k vacations flying first class, drive very high-end cars and were decked out in high-priced designer duds.

Their kid qualified for financial aid and they aren't paying a cent.

The responsible suckers that are scrimping and saving and pouring everything into 529s and miss the cutoff for aid are screwed when they can't afford the top 10-20 schools their kids get into and they watch kids like my neighbors get full aid. This idea that donut hole families are just not saving is such cr*p, and in high cost areas it's even crazier to assume that. $150k for a family of 4 in the DMV is not much. It certainly won't support the $75k-80k of any private, Ivy or out of state...and the $40k for 2 kids each at UVA is rough...that's if their kids can even get in there.

This post doesn't even make any sense. If this neighbor family is so poor that they qualified for full ride (most students who qualify for financial aid have loans as part of the package, very few get enough need-based grants to cover everything) then if they are truly buying all of these things on credit they must be massively underwater. It will all come crashing down eventually and their free-ride kids will not emerged unscathed either. Be grateful you have more sense than that and move along.

Yup. PP is probably a lying sh*t-stirrer.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Because not all donut hole families can afford in-state options. I don’t think a family that can afford a state school but can’t afford an elite private is a donut hole family. Growing up with a teacher and a factory worker for parents, my family didn’t quality for most aid, but didn’t have enough to save and pay for all of college either. I got a lot of scholarships, loans and work study /co-op money to augment what my family was able to contribute.

Let me explain another way -
A woman who has to quit working because she can’t afford childcare on her salary - even just paying a neighbor or a family member to watch her kid - is a donut hole family.

A woman who complains she can’t afford an English speaking nanny with a masters degree and Montessori preschool in her salary but CAN afford an in-home daycare or church based center is NOT a donut hole family.

Donut families are not a teacher and a factory worker. People who claim donut family are $140-400-500K a year in HHI.

We have made less around $120K till a few years ago and then it went up to $160K. And, we have saved enough to pay for four years of a state school and 2 years of graduate school (though may have to pull from other savings), still fund retirement and worked hard to pay off our house. YOU can do it but it's about life choices. You buy a $300-500K house, not a million dollar house. You take a cheap vacation every few years, not a few vacations a year. You drive the cars till they die, save for the next car and pay cash. You go out to eat at $15 and under a plate, not $30 a plate meals, etc. You shop at discount stores for clothing, food, etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Complain about being a donut hole family? When there are thousands of colleges that could work between in state options and merit aid at lower tier privates and other oos public’s?l is it bc ivies and top 25 are not options?

Its because their kids don't get judged on their ability but on their parental assets and can't attend schools they are eligible for or want to attend. Unless parents are willing to sacrifice their hard earned savings and risk retirement , kids often can't afford anything but community college or some regional state campus with merit.

A true donut hole family should be able to afford $20-30K/year with savings and cashflow. That's well more than CC. Plenty of choices if you just try rather than complaining "we can't afford anything"

You still don't get it. Imagine a brilliant STEM student who already got into Stanford or MIT. But they end up going to a much lower ranked school ONLY because their family is too "rich" for FA and too poor to pay full ride. There's something wrong with that picture.

THAT WAS ME!!

And I have heard privileged douches my whole life make assumptions about someone's incorrect assumptions about people's intelligence when they find out where they went to college. My neighborhood is filled with these legacy Ivy types that thumb their noses at the state school kids.

I worked full=time every summer and had a part-time job all through high school and undergrad. My full financial needs=based friends didn't' have to work.

It was me too. And my problem with the so-called donut hole family is that you are all upholding the same myth that the best job applicants come from the best schools. That cultural assumption needs to change.

How heavily does your employer recruit at Salisbury State and Frostburg State vs. higher ranked schools?

They don’t hire new grads but obviously they hired me, from Ho Hum State.

Where did u go? 3rd tier state school?

A Big 10.

So even your job doesn’t hire 3rd tier.

I don’t know I don’t work in HR. Do you?

Yes. I’ve worked in HR.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Complain about being a donut hole family? When there are thousands of colleges that could work between in state options and merit aid at lower tier privates and other oos public’s?l is it bc ivies and top 25 are not options?

Its because their kids don't get judged on their ability but on their parental assets and can't attend schools they are eligible for or want to attend. Unless parents are willing to sacrifice their hard earned savings and risk retirement , kids often can't afford anything but community college or some regional state campus with merit.

A true donut hole family should be able to afford $20-30K/year with savings and cashflow. That's well more than CC. Plenty of choices if you just try rather than complaining "we can't afford anything"

You still don't get it. Imagine a brilliant STEM student who already got into Stanford or MIT. But they end up going to a much lower ranked school ONLY because their family is too "rich" for FA and too poor to pay full ride. There's something wrong with that picture.

THAT WAS ME!!

And I have heard privileged douches my whole life make assumptions about someone's incorrect assumptions about people's intelligence when they find out where they went to college. My neighborhood is filled with these legacy Ivy types that thumb their noses at the state school kids.

I worked full=time every summer and had a part-time job all through high school and undergrad. My full financial needs=based friends didn't' have to work.

It was me too. And my problem with the so-called donut hole family is that you are all upholding the same myth that the best job applicants come from the best schools. That cultural assumption needs to change.

How heavily does your employer recruit at Salisbury State and Frostburg State vs. higher ranked schools?

They don’t hire new grads but obviously they hired me, from Ho Hum State.

Where did u go? 3rd tier state school?

A Big 10.

So even your job doesn’t hire 3rd tier.

My spouse went to a no-name school, ranked far less than Salisbury or Forstburg, and has done well enough with that degree. Those schools are fine.