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

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

+1
It is a bit early in the thread to be so rude. OP ask a very question.

So is the takeaway that elite colleges like Ivies, NESCA, are open to the rich and the poor, but not those in the middle?

No. Read the whole thread. Lots of middle class get sid at these schools. Many of us posted about our experiences.

[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.

But, look at this thread carefully: The MIT, Cal Tech and Harvard type kids of parents earning $250,000, who are truly unusual kids and need an unusual environment, can usually go to those schools or near equivalents without the parents eating catfood.

It’s the normal bright kids who are usually well-served by going to a school like Towson who are going to Towson.

So, the wealthier deserve Ivy, but the poor should be happy with Towson?

So much is off base here. Firstly, someone making 250k should be able to save a good bit over the years. We made 110-140k and saved about 100k for each of 2 kids. Started in elementary school. Did not eat cat food.
Secondly, these schools offer aid to most families at/under 250k with normal assets.
Finally, families in this income range have had so many enrichment resources for there kids. They can still help them even if at *gasp* state school. If they have spent willy nilly, not saving at all, that is just poor planning.

[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.

But, look at this thread carefully: The MIT, Cal Tech and Harvard type kids of parents earning $250,000, who are truly unusual kids and need an unusual environment, can usually go to those schools or near equivalents without the parents eating catfood.

It’s the normal bright kids who are usually well-served by going to a school like Towson who are going to Towson.

So, the wealthier deserve Ivy, but the poor should be happy with Towson?

So much is off base here. Firstly, someone making 250k should be able to save a good bit over the years. We made 110-140k and saved about 100k for each of 2 kids. Started in elementary school. Did not eat cat food.
Secondly, these schools offer aid to most families at/under 250k with normal assets.
Finally, families in this income range have had so many enrichment resources for there kids. They can still help them even if at *gasp* state school. If they have spent willy nilly, not saving at all, that is just poor planning.

For the most part, an upper middle class kid won't be dramatically effected going to an ivy or state school, while a low-income kid has a disproportionate effect on their lifetime earnings. People on these threads don't understand how destructive the cost of public institutions can have on low income students, even with "tuition off."

[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

CSS now asks if there are any accounts for which student is the beneficiary. So, they are onto the 529 in other family member's name racket.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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

CSS now asks if there are any accounts for which student is the beneficiary. So, they are onto the 529 in other family member's name racket.

Our older is not a beneficiary on the 529 account bought by the grandparent for the younger sibling.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

+1
It is a bit early in the thread to be so rude. OP ask a very question.

So is the takeaway that elite colleges like Ivies, NESCA, are open to the rich and the poor, but not those in the middle?

No. Read the whole thread. Lots of middle class get sid at these schools. Many of us posted about our experiences.

$250 is NOT middle class. It is a very comfortable income so it comes down to lifestyle choices. I don't get greedy people who refuse to make sacrifices and demand financial aid when some of us sacrifice and save and are responsible parents.

[Anonymous]

we make about 275k and receive 40k in aid annually from princeton

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

So, the wealthier deserve Ivy, but the poor should be happy with Towson?

Anyone who gets into an Ivy, other, maybe, than Brown and Cornell, and really needs aid gets plenty of aid.

The question is Oberlin vs. Towson.

And the answer is: Oberlin is for the rich, the poor and middle-income kids who are brilliant or who have parents who take out Plus loans.

Maybe Kenyon or Denison is for some middle-income kids who aren’t quite brilliant but who are very serious students and are burning with desire for a liberal arts education.

Towson and JMU are for most poor and middle-income kids because, really, how many even want a rigorous liberal college arts education? Even plenty who want a liberal arts education might strongly prefer a laid-back approach with ordinary good students at the local Jesuit college or second-tier public university.

Those students were in the top half in high school, but they weren’t in the top 1 percent, they weren’t all that excited about the life of the mind, and they have no need whatsoever to be in a class full of valedictorians and National Merit scholars.

[quore]So much is off base here. Firstly, someone making 250k should be able to save a good bit over the years. We made 110-140k and saved about 100k for each of 2 kids.

Agreed.

But my impression is that most people I know who have been on that income path and have high-performing kids have at least been able to send their kids to a state flagship or the equivalent, even if they weren’t fantastic savers and don’t have rich relatives.

Finally, families in this income range have had so many enrichment resources for their kids. They can still help them even if at *gasp* state school. If they have spent willy nilly, not saving at all, that is just poor planning.

One important point is that schools like UMBC and George Mason can be great schools that are on the make. They can provide the same preparation for career success for a great kid as Cornell or Michigan.

Going to Towson may mean the kid doesn’t have quite as many mind-blowing encounters with celebrities and big ideas as a kid at Johns Hopkins gets. But a school like Towson knows its main job is to prepare students for the kinds of jobs that regular people normally have, and it might really do a better job of preparing typical students for a career than a school with a higher list price would.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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

+1
It is a bit early in the thread to be so rude. OP ask a very question.

So is the takeaway that elite colleges like Ivies, NESCA, are open to the rich and the poor, but not those in the middle?

No. Read the whole thread. Lots of middle class get sid at these schools. Many of us posted about our experiences.

$250 is NOT middle class. It is a very comfortable income so it comes down to lifestyle choices. I don't get greedy people who refuse to make sacrifices and demand financial aid when some of us sacrifice and save and are responsible parents.

buying a house in a good school district where you don't need to spend 3 hours commuting is also being a responsible parent. do you even live in DC?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:we make about 275k and receive 40k in aid annually from princeton

good to know; thanks. and kudos to your child and to princeton.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We opened 529 plans when our kids were born and have been saving steadily since. Unless you have a trust fund, grandparents willing to pay or inheritance, there is no other way to do it other than slow and steady saving.

We have enough for $100K a year (and any extra will go towards grad school, if kids don't use that up we will reallocate to any grandkids).

100k will cover 3 years of a state schools, maybe a little less.

I’m PP above. We started saving at birth and have $100k set aside per year (ie $400k) for each of our kids. The key was saving early and on a regular schedule.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:we make about 275k and receive 40k in aid annually from princeton

People need to understand it’s about liquid assets. $$ in savings, 529s, CDs, brokerage accounts (other than 401k) will disqualify you from financial aid even from generous schools like Princeton no matter how low your HHI.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we make about 275k and receive 40k in aid annually from princeton

People need to understand it’s about liquid assets. $$ in savings, 529s, CDs, brokerage accounts (other than 401k) will disqualify you from financial aid even from generous schools like Princeton no matter how low your HHI.

sounds like they punish excessive savers.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we make about 275k and receive 40k in aid annually from princeton

People need to understand it’s about liquid assets. $$ in savings, 529s, CDs, brokerage accounts (other than 401k) will disqualify you from financial aid even from generous schools like Princeton no matter how low your HHI.

sounds like they punish excessive savers.

You mean families that live well within (or below) their means.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:we make about 275k and receive 40k in aid annually from princeton

People need to understand it’s about liquid assets. $$ in savings, 529s, CDs, brokerage accounts (other than 401k) will disqualify you from financial aid even from generous schools like Princeton no matter how low your HHI.

sounds like they punish excessive savers.

You mean families that live well within (or below) their means.

if your only debt is your mortgage, and you are saving for your retirement, you live within your means.