When the reality of college cost hits. Cannot do dream school.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My niece got into her dream school, an Ivy. Cannot make the numbers work, two-teacher family making just over 200k, expected to contribute 75k per year (roughly 20k per year in aid), have two other kids (twins three years younger), sizable medical expenses. They simply bought a home at a good time and have a lot of equity, ruining financial aid calculations, and they aren't selling their house to pay for college. My sister is heartbroken and feels like she failed her kid. This is not a good feeling.

Kid could take out loans, work summers and on campus. Family can cut back on vacations, etc.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

I’m actually with this person. All of the Ivies either exclude home equity or cap it at a low multiple of income when considering how much the parents have in assets. Most (all?) also take into account medical expenses not covered by insurance.

I ran the Columbia (who I think uses the highest multiple of income for home equity) NPC calculator quickly with the limited info OP provided and some generous assumptions and it only had a family contribution of $19k, with Columbia picking up $78k. There are some major assets missing from this story.

I ran it again with even more generous (and probably unrealistic) assumptions and it spit out a family contribution of $29k with Columbia covering $68k. Something is missing here.

Did op kid get into ivy or columbia? Why are you mentioning Columbia?

Because, as stated before, Columbia is the harshest Ivy with regard to home equity. So if home equity is truly the problem, Columbia should spit out the least favorable number. Everywhere else would be better for a high home equity case. And yet the expected contribution from Columbia is still quite low.

Hence, there are missing assets from this story.

harshest how? yale doesn't exclude any real estate, even primary.

Yale is more opaque about how they calculate EFC. In any event, I ran the Yale NPC with $1.2 million in home equity and a handful of other assets and it still spit out a family contribution of $31k, with Yale covering $60k. Still something missing.

on what income? I asked Yale about this and it's 1x income. also what did you put in as a "handful" of other assets. like what about the 529s for 3 kids.

See, I believe Columbia is 2x income which I why I used that originally.

Assumptions for Yale were $200k income, $5k in interest/dividend income, $70k in checking/savings, $50k in investments, $50k additional in sibling assets, $5k in income and assets each for the student. $1.2 million in home equity as previously indicated. Seem like fairly generous assumptions.

Did the same for Cornell and it spit out $42k in contribution with the school covering $51k. Getting closer but still not that close.

Agree there are large missing assets to this story. Or. OP is a troll.

I stated explicitly in my original post that my sister has a good deal of home equity but it's not about to sell her long time home to send her child to college. I think we can all agree that the middle class gets screwed in this process. Several other teachers have commented here in similar situations. You make too much for meaningful aid but not nearly enough that you can afford such a huge sticker price. And people should not have to sell their houses to send their kids to college. Which my sister is not going to do. My niece will probably end up at her state flagship and be fine. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't stink to have to tell your child that you cannot afford their dream college after they work their butt off for years and years. Can't we all agree on that?

I think most people can agree with that. But the point of some of these comments is that the numbers don’t make sense based purely on what you described. $200k income and high home equity with sizable medical expenses mixed in (which are generally considered) doesn’t get you a $75k bill. So the point people are making is that there are some other assets somewhere. Whether these are easily usable for college is unknown but there is some part of the picture that is missing.

Yup. I am another poster who believes the math just doesn't add up. This is a highly unusual situation and there must be other circumstances the OP is not disclosing, such as family inheritance, or other assets. Go and work the cost estimators for the ivy schools or top SLAC and they are far more generous. The FA scenario described is more common for a decent but not top dream school.

I don’t understand why people are so surprised. We make about $225,000, own a house that has appreciated, and save $12,000 a year for retirement. My son is a freshman in college.

I spent an entire Sunday running net price calculators for 100 private colleges and put them into a spreadsheet. They ALL were over 50k and some were over 70k. We realized we absolutely can not afford private school without significant MERIT aid.

So I told my son, you can apply to private colleges but unless you think you are getting merit aid we cannot afford them. He is at a top public university that we can afford.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

That is exactly what Ivies (excluding Princeton) ask of families such as described. We were in the same position last year with slightly higher income and the schools asked for between $63k and $72k. It’s obscene how bad the financial aid is at the Ivy league level.

Not to be a turd by why do the schools "owe" you aid? Going to an Ivy is a privilege, not a right. If you can't make it work, I'm sorry. Lots of other great schools out there that might be cheaper.

And sorry if people have multiple kids. Should have thought about that before having more kids (I feel a bit worse for those with twins). I knew what I wanted to be able to pay for for my kids and that having more than two kids would prohibit that, so we stopped at two. Three would have been nice but the sacrifices weren't worth it. Plus the fact that you get more aid if you have two kids in college at the same time but less if kids are further apart? That makes no sense.

Seriously! My spouse and I work hard and saved from when kids are little for college. No one owes this family anything, they could've saved.

The family realistically could not have saved *checks notes* $360,000 per kid (i.e. over $1,000,000).

If they started when young, yes, with stick market increases, come now.

[Anonymous]

I think we have over 250k for two kids right now (over 500k total) and we've never put more than 6k in a year for each. Usually 4-5k.

We did invest it in the most aggressive options. we got lucky with returns.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think we have over 250k for two kids right now (over 500k total) and we've never put more than 6k in a year for each. Usually 4-5k.

We did invest it in the most aggressive options. we got lucky with returns.

Exactly, there was poor planning here.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

That is exactly what Ivies (excluding Princeton) ask of families such as described. We were in the same position last year with slightly higher income and the schools asked for between $63k and $72k. It’s obscene how bad the financial aid is at the Ivy league level.

Not to be a turd by why do the schools "owe" you aid? Going to an Ivy is a privilege, not a right. If you can't make it work, I'm sorry. Lots of other great schools out there that might be cheaper.

And sorry if people have multiple kids. Should have thought about that before having more kids (I feel a bit worse for those with twins). I knew what I wanted to be able to pay for for my kids and that having more than two kids would prohibit that, so we stopped at two. Three would have been nice but the sacrifices weren't worth it. Plus the fact that you get more aid if you have two kids in college at the same time but less if kids are further apart? That makes no sense.

Seriously! My spouse and I work hard and saved from when kids are little for college. No one owes this family anything, they could've saved.

The family realistically could not have saved *checks notes* $360,000 per kid (i.e. over $1,000,000).

If they started when young, yes, with stick market increases, come now.

They would need to have saved $1,450 a month for the last 18 years (where all money was invested in the S&P, which yielded an average annual return of 13%) to have that kind of money. They are two teachers with three kids. That almost certainly would not have been feasible (or wise), especially during the crucial early savings years when they're slammed with childcare expenses of at least $2,000 a month per kid. Be real.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think we have over 250k for two kids right now (over 500k total) and we've never put more than 6k in a year for each. Usually 4-5k.

We did invest it in the most aggressive options. we got lucky with returns.

Assuming your kids are 18, that means you averaged minimum 16% annual returns and significantly outperformed the market. If that's replicable, you should go work for a hedge fund.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My niece got into her dream school, an Ivy. Cannot make the numbers work, two-teacher family making just over 200k, expected to contribute 75k per year (roughly 20k per year in aid), have two other kids (twins three years younger), sizable medical expenses. They simply bought a home at a good time and have a lot of equity, ruining financial aid calculations, and they aren't selling their house to pay for college. My sister is heartbroken and feels like she failed her kid. This is not a good feeling.

Kid could take out loans, work summers and on campus. Family can cut back on vacations, etc.

+1.

Why is someone else, in this case the Ivy's endowment, responsible for paying for OP's relative to attend her dream college.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Not much sympathy. Teachers typically have summer gigs while we all work through the summer, tutor and get cash on the side, pensions, full health insurance, school break time off AND PTO and sick time. Am I missing something?? I work a normal job and get 3 weeks a year and a bit of sick time and 6 holidays. My vacations are college visits to show demonstrated interest. We managed to save from when kid was little for full pay T10. Best feeling to tell my kid we thought about his future.

Too bad your empathy skills aren't quite equal to your savings prowess. My sister and her husband do work summers to even make 200k. I also have sizable medical expenses due to a chronic condition. I'm sorry that your work benefits aren't particularly good.

I’m looking at the Moco salary schedule for the 2025-26 school year. A teacher with 13 steps and a masters is $102k.

[Anonymous]

All I can say is Emory has better financial aid than this Ivy school. We are in a similar situation and we are contributing ~$30k a year, but we have another kid in college. We’ll see how it plays out next year.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:I think we have over 250k for two kids right now (over 500k total) and we've never put more than 6k in a year for each. Usually 4-5k.

We did invest it in the most aggressive options. we got lucky with returns.

Most middle class Americans can not afford to fund retirement for themselves, try to buy a house, pay for daycare AND have an extra $12,000 to put toward college. It isn't realistic for most middle to upper middle class parents unless they had family money to help them out with buying a house and/or childcare.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To everyone comparing to NPC, sometimes they are simply inaccurate- whether that be because schools have different budgets this year or whichever other reason. DS, according to NPCs, would pay 25-35k at most Ivies. They received three acceptances on Thursday, all of which were from 45-60k. Other top 20 non-Ivy schools were much more generous. OP, I feel for you.

True. SLACs are usually more generous as well.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

That is exactly what Ivies (excluding Princeton) ask of families such as described. We were in the same position last year with slightly higher income and the schools asked for between $63k and $72k. It’s obscene how bad the financial aid is at the Ivy league level.

Not to be a turd by why do the schools "owe" you aid? Going to an Ivy is a privilege, not a right. If you can't make it work, I'm sorry. Lots of other great schools out there that might be cheaper.

And sorry if people have multiple kids. Should have thought about that before having more kids (I feel a bit worse for those with twins). I knew what I wanted to be able to pay for for my kids and that having more than two kids would prohibit that, so we stopped at two. Three would have been nice but the sacrifices weren't worth it. Plus the fact that you get more aid if you have two kids in college at the same time but less if kids are further apart? That makes no sense.

Seriously! My spouse and I work hard and saved from when kids are little for college. No one owes this family anything, they could've saved.

The family realistically could not have saved *checks notes* $360,000 per kid (i.e. over $1,000,000).

If they started when young, yes, with stick market increases, come now.

As a teacher, it took 15 years before I got $100k. My kid was a junior in HS then. When he was younger, we qualified for free/reduced meals. There wasn’t any extra money to save anything. Be realistic. He got Pell grants in college. Not exactly rolling in the dough.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don't believe you

This is an odd post.

Under the circumstances OP has described, I don't believe an Ivy would require the parents to pay 75k. I just don't.

I’m actually with this person. All of the Ivies either exclude home equity or cap it at a low multiple of income when considering how much the parents have in assets. Most (all?) also take into account medical expenses not covered by insurance.

I ran the Columbia (who I think uses the highest multiple of income for home equity) NPC calculator quickly with the limited info OP provided and some generous assumptions and it only had a family contribution of $19k, with Columbia picking up $78k. There are some major assets missing from this story.

I ran it again with even more generous (and probably unrealistic) assumptions and it spit out a family contribution of $29k with Columbia covering $68k. Something is missing here.

Did op kid get into ivy or columbia? Why are you mentioning Columbia?

Because, as stated before, Columbia is the harshest Ivy with regard to home equity. So if home equity is truly the problem, Columbia should spit out the least favorable number. Everywhere else would be better for a high home equity case. And yet the expected contribution from Columbia is still quite low.

Hence, there are missing assets from this story.

harshest how? yale doesn't exclude any real estate, even primary.

Yale is more opaque about how they calculate EFC. In any event, I ran the Yale NPC with $1.2 million in home equity and a handful of other assets and it still spit out a family contribution of $31k, with Yale covering $60k. Still something missing.

on what income? I asked Yale about this and it's 1x income. also what did you put in as a "handful" of other assets. like what about the 529s for 3 kids.

See, I believe Columbia is 2x income which I why I used that originally.

Assumptions for Yale were $200k income, $5k in interest/dividend income, $70k in checking/savings, $50k in investments, $50k additional in sibling assets, $5k in income and assets each for the student. $1.2 million in home equity as previously indicated. Seem like fairly generous assumptions.

Did the same for Cornell and it spit out $42k in contribution with the school covering $51k. Getting closer but still not that close.

Agree there are large missing assets to this story. Or. OP is a troll.

I stated explicitly in my original post that my sister has a good deal of home equity but it's not about to sell her long time home to send her child to college. I think we can all agree that the middle class gets screwed in this process. Several other teachers have commented here in similar situations. You make too much for meaningful aid but not nearly enough that you can afford such a huge sticker price. And people should not have to sell their houses to send their kids to college. Which my sister is not going to do. My niece will probably end up at her state flagship and be fine. But that doesn't mean that it doesn't stink to have to tell your child that you cannot afford their dream college after they work their butt off for years and years. Can't we all agree on that?

I think most people can agree with that. But the point of some of these comments is that the numbers don’t make sense based purely on what you described. $200k income and high home equity with sizable medical expenses mixed in (which are generally considered) doesn’t get you a $75k bill. So the point people are making is that there are some other assets somewhere. Whether these are easily usable for college is unknown but there is some part of the picture that is missing.

Yup. I am another poster who believes the math just doesn't add up. This is a highly unusual situation and there must be other circumstances the OP is not disclosing, such as family inheritance, or other assets. Go and work the cost estimators for the ivy schools or top SLAC and they are far more generous. The FA scenario described is more common for a decent but not top dream school.

I don’t understand why people are so surprised. We make about $225,000, own a house that has appreciated, and save $12,000 a year for retirement. My son is a freshman in college.

I spent an entire Sunday running net price calculators for 100 private colleges and put them into a spreadsheet. They ALL were over 50k and some were over 70k. We realized we absolutely can not afford private school without significant MERIT aid.

So I told my son, you can apply to private colleges but unless you think you are getting merit aid we cannot afford them. He is at a top public university that we can afford.

I haven't done the same research as you because my kids are younger, but don't some schools exclude home equity and retirement accounts when determining aid? For example, you might have a house worth $3m, and retirement accounts worth $4m, but if your income is $150k and you have very little saved outside of retirement accounts, you might qualify for aid. Do I have this wrong?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I think we have over 250k for two kids right now (over 500k total) and we've never put more than 6k in a year for each. Usually 4-5k.

We did invest it in the most aggressive options. we got lucky with returns.

Most middle class Americans can not afford to fund retirement for themselves, try to buy a house, pay for daycare AND have an extra $12,000 to put toward college. It isn't realistic for most middle to upper middle class parents unless they had family money to help them out with buying a house and/or childcare.

It's realistic for UMC parents if they don't have student loan debt. We didn't have family money to help us when buying a house or with childcare, but because we didn't have any student loan debt, we were able to buy a house in our late twenties after law/grad school, max out 401ks every year of our marriage, and save $10-19k per kid per year in their 529 plans.