FAFSA - is middle-class waste time applying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My wife and I are both gs14 fed employee with combined income around $300k pretax. This is quite common for middle class in dc area. We’re told not to bother filling up FAFSA or any financial aid since we won’t be qualified for anything so we won’t apply. Is it true for anyone in our situation?

Now, if kid gets into a private college with annual expenses 70k+, how middle class manages to pay for it without any aids or scholarships?

Unless you've large debt or several other kids in college, it's unlikely you'll get any aid. By filing FAFSA, you can get federal and parent-plus loans. As far as expensive colleges with no merit money, you go extremely frugal and you use your savings, bonuses, overtime, borrowings from 401K, home equity loan etc.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Some non-need-based awards and scholarships required FAFSA on file.

No non need based award requires FAFSA, if any award does, it would go to someone with lower income, don't waste your time or expose your private financial information.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My wife and I are both gs14 fed employee with combined income around $300k pretax. This is quite common for middle class in dc area. We’re told not to bother filling up FAFSA or any financial aid since we won’t be qualified for anything so we won’t apply. Is it true for anyone in our situation?

Now, if kid gets into a private college with annual expenses 70k+, how middle class manages to pay for it without any aids or scholarships?

Unless you've large debt or several other kids in college, it's unlikely you'll get any aid. By filing FAFSA, you can get federal and parent-plus loans. As far as expensive colleges with no merit money, you go extremely frugal and you use your savings, bonuses, overtime, borrowings from 401K, home equity loan etc.

FAFSA no longer cares about other kids in college

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:You're not middle class.

Yup. They are poorer than poor who can at least use aid to send kids to any school they can get accepted at.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get all the outrage. You don’t have a right to send your kid to a private university. It is a luxury prestige item like driving a $80k Mercedes. If you can’t afford it, that is what public universities are for. DCUM parents are so insufferable.

Mercedes pays taxes, as a for-profit.

Private universities don't, as (supposed) non-profits.

Not every private charges $80k, many are in the $50k-$60k range. Lots are very nice schools.

Plenty of options available:

1. Save
2. Borrow
3. In-state public
4. Lower cost private
5. ROTC/GI Bill
6. Chase merit at OOS publics
7. Community college for two years and transfer

The real people with problems are the very low income folks who are rolling the dice on generous and need blind aid (that can go away at any time) and can’t pay cash for Community College or Directional State so everything is borrowed.

They wish they “only” had $30,000 cash flow a year to spend on JMU.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my income was $300k I would have zero problems being able to pay for my kid to go to an expensive, private college. You need a dose of reality

$300k puts you in a 30% combined tax bracket if you live in MD, about 27% in VA. Don't forget, SALT deductions are limited, so you will probably take the standard deduction.

If you are 50+, you want to max out your 401k contribution and add the catch up extra $7500, which brings it to like $30K per person.

So, your income will look something like this:

1. 60K 401k (assuming both are 50+ and contributing the max, which you should at that income level)
2. taxes around $60K to $65K

That leaves you with 300K - 120k = $180k.

Let's say your annual expenses is something like $100K/yr in just expenses. You would have $80k left. But that just pays for room and board. Travel and other costs will rack up more. That's just one kid. Many of us have more than one kid who will be in college at the same time.

You will also not have any wiggle room for large emergency expenses or even vacation. If your car breaks down (like ours just did), you'd have to get a loan at 6% to 7%.

My DC is at the state flagship with some merit aid. We told this DC, who had super high stats, to not do ED at the expensive colleges. We cannot afford it, yes, even with $300K per year. It would leave us with so little wiggle room, that we'd be eating hand to mouth for the next 7 years -- we have two kids, and DH is 60. We have enough in the 529s for in state. That would barely cover 2 years of private.

I think you are the one who needs a dose of reality.

+1000

This is so true!

It's not your current income but what you've been doing for the last 18 years

Just gaming it out. A dual GS-15/10 Fed couple in the DC area, let's say, starting in 2007, after maxing their TSP contributions etc, puts aside 20K/year in 529s for two kids (which is 10-12% of their net take home). Even investing in a reasonably aggressive plan (Fidelity with a 7% growth rate net of expense ratios) only comes out to ~620K, which is just enough for 4 years of two T25 private school (or even U. Mich) costs. This calculation assumes a lot of things -- a reasonable mortgage (~3K/mo PITI), essentially no childcare costs, and common-sense expenses. So bottom line -- even for a family who is ostensibly well off like this one, with a tax-advantaged savings vehicle for college, a lot has to go right to be able to pay for a private college (e.g. Colorado College is $87K/year, U Mich is 80K/year). I am not sure how someone making half or two-thirds as much can save this amount.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my income was $300k I would have zero problems being able to pay for my kid to go to an expensive, private college. You need a dose of reality

$300k puts you in a 30% combined tax bracket if you live in MD, about 27% in VA. Don't forget, SALT deductions are limited, so you will probably take the standard deduction.

If you are 50+, you want to max out your 401k contribution and add the catch up extra $7500, which brings it to like $30K per person.

So, your income will look something like this:

1. 60K 401k (assuming both are 50+ and contributing the max, which you should at that income level)
2. taxes around $60K to $65K

That leaves you with 300K - 120k = $180k.

Let's say your annual expenses is something like $100K/yr in just expenses. You would have $80k left. But that just pays for room and board. Travel and other costs will rack up more. That's just one kid. Many of us have more than one kid who will be in college at the same time.

You will also not have any wiggle room for large emergency expenses or even vacation. If your car breaks down (like ours just did), you'd have to get a loan at 6% to 7%.

My DC is at the state flagship with some merit aid. We told this DC, who had super high stats, to not do ED at the expensive colleges. We cannot afford it, yes, even with $300K per year. It would leave us with so little wiggle room, that we'd be eating hand to mouth for the next 7 years -- we have two kids, and DH is 60. We have enough in the 529s for in state. That would barely cover 2 years of private.

I think you are the one who needs a dose of reality.

+1000

This is so true!

It's not your current income but what you've been doing for the last 18 years

Just gaming it out. A dual GS-15/10 Fed couple in the DC area, let's say, starting in 2007, after maxing their TSP contributions etc, puts aside 20K/year in 529s for two kids (which is 10-12% of their net take home). Even investing in a reasonably aggressive plan (Fidelity with a 7% growth rate net of expense ratios) only comes out to ~620K, which is just enough for 4 years of two T25 private school (or even U. Mich) costs. This calculation assumes a lot of things -- a reasonable mortgage (~3K/mo PITI), essentially no childcare costs, and common-sense expenses. So bottom line -- even for a family who is ostensibly well off like this one, with a tax-advantaged savings vehicle for college, a lot has to go right to be able to pay for a private college (e.g. Colorado College is $87K/year, U Mich is 80K/year). I am not sure how someone making half or two-thirds as much can save this amount.

At that income, I think they could save more. Your calculations leave a lot of discretionary income. I don't see where the assertion of no childcare and common sense spending really is supported. (Also my common sense is not eating our or doing Starbucks which all goes to savings, whereas someone else may think eating out several times per week is fine, and that can be about a thousand a month difference in expenses). They also have the 4 years the kids are actually in college to pay some in cash. I am one of the people in the 150 range. We have been saving for the past 10 years and plan to pay some as we go (and took the fed loan).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:If my income was $300k I would have zero problems being able to pay for my kid to go to an expensive, private college. You need a dose of reality

$300k puts you in a 30% combined tax bracket if you live in MD, about 27% in VA. Don't forget, SALT deductions are limited, so you will probably take the standard deduction.

If you are 50+, you want to max out your 401k contribution and add the catch up extra $7500, which brings it to like $30K per person.

So, your income will look something like this:

1. 60K 401k (assuming both are 50+ and contributing the max, which you should at that income level)
2. taxes around $60K to $65K

That leaves you with 300K - 120k = $180k.

Let's say your annual expenses is something like $100K/yr in just expenses. You would have $80k left. But that just pays for room and board. Travel and other costs will rack up more. That's just one kid. Many of us have more than one kid who will be in college at the same time.

You will also not have any wiggle room for large emergency expenses or even vacation. If your car breaks down (like ours just did), you'd have to get a loan at 6% to 7%.

My DC is at the state flagship with some merit aid. We told this DC, who had super high stats, to not do ED at the expensive colleges. We cannot afford it, yes, even with $300K per year. It would leave us with so little wiggle room, that we'd be eating hand to mouth for the next 7 years -- we have two kids, and DH is 60. We have enough in the 529s for in state. That would barely cover 2 years of private.

I think you are the one who needs a dose of reality.

+1000

This is so true!

It's not your current income but what you've been doing for the last 18 years

Just gaming it out. A dual GS-15/10 Fed couple in the DC area, let's say, starting in 2007, after maxing their TSP contributions etc, puts aside 20K/year in 529s for two kids (which is 10-12% of their net take home). Even investing in a reasonably aggressive plan (Fidelity with a 7% growth rate net of expense ratios) only comes out to ~620K, which is just enough for 4 years of two T25 private school (or even U. Mich) costs. This calculation assumes a lot of things -- a reasonable mortgage (~3K/mo PITI), essentially no childcare costs, and common-sense expenses. So bottom line -- even for a family who is ostensibly well off like this one, with a tax-advantaged savings vehicle for college, a lot has to go right to be able to pay for a private college (e.g. Colorado College is $87K/year, U Mich is 80K/year). I am not sure how someone making half or two-thirds as much can save this amount.

Yes it is very challenging when selecting only the very most expensive schools for both kids with no merit aid at either one and also not paying anything out of cash flow and also no loans.

“Paying cash full tuition for twins at NYU no loans and we are a donut hole family” is not the scenario for 99.99% of people out there.

BTW if you are easily saving $20,000 a year every year without a serious lifestyle hit then paying off PLUS loans for your kids is going to be trivial, just apply that 20 large for a couple of more years post graduation, you have now bought a couple of extra years of “savings”.

Also if you live in the DMV and think Michigan Undergrad is really worth 2x(!) the cost of UVA or W&M or UMD I can recommend some really great mental health professionals.

All of the “gaming it out” is “you can’t actually afford it without some real sacrifice and even then it may not work”, there is no secret hack magic bullet other than extensive saving or picking a cheaper school or chasing merit.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:I don’t get all the outrage. You don’t have a right to send your kid to a private university. It is a luxury prestige item like driving a $80k Mercedes. If you can’t afford it, that is what public universities are for. DCUM parents are so insufferable.

We are doing that as a luxury which is why we only have driven Hondas.

Big difference between:

“We drive fully paid off 2021 Honda Accords that are well insured and well maintained”

And

“We share a 2010 Honda Civic and hopefully nothing breaks on it this week”

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:My HHI is $180k and we save aggressively for college. If those of you with HHIs at $300k aren’t saving at least as much as I am, I just don’t even know what to say. I also have a child with autism and expensive therapies, and I have a disability. We live in a condo though because it’s all we can afford.

? who said we didn't save. But it's still not enough to pay for $80k/per yer per child. So, my kid is at a state flagship. We saved enough for that. The date based 529 funds didn't grow that much - 3 to 4% maybe. I learned that the hard way, so I pulled some of the funds out and into an equity fund. Those are doing better, but it's dependent on the stock market.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

The real people with problems are the very low income folks who are rolling the dice on generous and need blind aid (that can go away at any time) and can’t pay cash for Community College or Directional State so everything is borrowed.

They wish they “only” had $30,000 cash flow a year to spend on JMU.

I was an excellent student in school, but came from a large lower middle income family. I went to a top school that gave very generous financial aid. My education was wonderful, but I'm not sure I'd go that same route today. I didn't have extra money to fly home for breaks and always had to scramble to find some place to go while the campus closed. I also couldn't afford anything extra like joining a sorority or studying abroad like most other people seemed to do. I always felt a little excluded. It's not always the gift upper middle class people think it is. I think I would have been better off going to the non-flagship state school where I got a scholarship.

[Anonymous]

I would like to hear more from UMC people about how College is a special consumer good where family income shouldn’t matter and the net price should be essentially zero when literally everything else in the world is allocated by family wealth, including “free” public school (you have to be able to afford to live in the district).

You thought it was fair when you bought your way into everything else in your lifestyle, well now welcome to the big leagues.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My HHI is $180k and we save aggressively for college. If those of you with HHIs at $300k aren’t saving at least as much as I am, I just don’t even know what to say. I also have a child with autism and expensive therapies, and I have a disability. We live in a condo though because it’s all we can afford.

? who said we didn't save. But it's still not enough to pay for $80k/per yer per child. So, my kid is at a state flagship. We saved enough for that. The date based 529 funds didn't grow that much - 3 to 4% maybe. I learned that the hard way, so I pulled some of the funds out and into an equity fund. Those are doing better, but it's dependent on the stock market.

I think those age based funds are way too conservative. We did all equity in our 529 plan and then supplemented with I Bonds (interest is tax free when used for college).

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The real people with problems are the very low income folks who are rolling the dice on generous and need blind aid (that can go away at any time) and can’t pay cash for Community College or Directional State so everything is borrowed.

They wish they “only” had $30,000 cash flow a year to spend on JMU.

I was an excellent student in school, but came from a large lower middle income family. I went to a top school that gave very generous financial aid. My education was wonderful, but I'm not sure I'd go that same route today. I didn't have extra money to fly home for breaks and always had to scramble to find some place to go while the campus closed. I also couldn't afford anything extra like joining a sorority or studying abroad like most other people seemed to do. I always felt a little excluded. It's not always the gift upper middle class people think it is. I think I would have been better off going to the non-flagship state school where I got a scholarship.

I got the maximum Pell Grant as an undergrad and my (not so strongly endowed) private college gave me extraordinarily generous aid that made it cheaper than the directional State U I also got into.

But every year for four years: if this money doesn’t come through it’s all over, time to cross the fingers.

And yes, lots of ‘extras’ were not on the table. I couldn’t take film or photography classes because I couldn’t afford the film/developing.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

The real people with problems are the very low income folks who are rolling the dice on generous and need blind aid (that can go away at any time) and can’t pay cash for Community College or Directional State so everything is borrowed.

They wish they “only” had $30,000 cash flow a year to spend on JMU.

I was an excellent student in school, but came from a large lower middle income family. I went to a top school that gave very generous financial aid. My education was wonderful, but I'm not sure I'd go that same route today. I didn't have extra money to fly home for breaks and always had to scramble to find some place to go while the campus closed. I also couldn't afford anything extra like joining a sorority or studying abroad like most other people seemed to do. I always felt a little excluded. It's not always the gift upper middle class people think it is. I think I would have been better off going to the non-flagship state school where I got a scholarship.

I got the maximum Pell Grant as an undergrad and my (not so strongly endowed) private college gave me extraordinarily generous aid that made it cheaper than the directional State U I also got into.

But every year for four years: if this money doesn’t come through it’s all over, time to cross the fingers.

And yes, lots of ‘extras’ were not on the table. I couldn’t take film or photography classes because I couldn’t afford the film/developing.

Yes! I remember taking a painting class and I couldn't afford the paints! It was too late to drop the class. I had a PT campus job, but didn't have any extra money for a couple of months (I remember one tube of paint cost as much as I made an hour).