Are top private colleges mainly for poor people now?

[Anonymous]

No one is arguing against poor students getting free education, only against ludicrously high cost of colleges. COA should be lowered for all and payment tied to waivers for fee years in public service jobs at lower pay.

[Anonymous]

*few years

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No one is arguing against poor students getting free education, only against ludicrously high cost of colleges. COA should be lowered for all and payment tied to waivers for fee years in public service jobs at lower pay.

Hence PSLF.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people who claim to be "donut hole" families have lived lives of increasing lifestyle creep as their incomes have climbed up 200k, and then want to complain that they don't get enough need-based aid. Well, did you really need a new car every 5 years? Expensive vacations? To redo the kitchen?

If you want to argue that a family making over 200k is middle class, then live like middle class people -- budget, accept you won't be able to afford everything you want to do, and sock money away for retirement and college.

We make well under 200k and this is what we do, and we have friends making over who go out to eat three nights a week, drive luxury cars, and take multiple vacations overseas every year, have weekly cleaners, etc. Those people are not entitled to need-based aid. It's not my fault, or the college's fault, that they chose to just live nicer, more luxurious, easier lives instead of saving their additional income for their child's education. We've scrimped and saved and still won't have enough. AND work in helping professions. I don't cry myself to sleep over the doctors and consultants and well-paid feds who will be disappointed in their FA award while crying into their Tesla upholstery and trying to console themselves on the flight to Aruba. Boo freaking hoo.

That's fine but look what you've done. You've sacrificed your whole life only to be ripped off by a system where more than half the kids are practically going for free, while maybe a quarter of the parents are rich people for whom $320k is a fraction of an annual bonus. You are kind of the sucker here.

The kids who are “going for free” have parents who’ve made a LOT of sacrifices.

[Anonymous]

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Anonymous wrote:The opposite is true,

according to the new research by Stanford economist Raj Chetty and co-authors.They show that 14.5% of students in America’s elite universities (eight Ivy League colleges, University of Chicago, Stanford, MIT, and Duke) are from families in the top 1% of income distribution, compared with only 3.8% from the bottom quintile. That’s a dramatic overrepresentation of the richest Americans.

But think about it. We are talking about a 320k education. Why would the very poor and the very rich be equally represented? Also there are many moor poor people than very rich people so while very rich people are of course over represented they seem to be very much outnumbered by lower income people on campus.

What are you talking about? Op is only referring to "top" colleges. These places are need blind and have endowments in the billions. Affluent students are way overrepresented. Spend a week at a top college and see how many poor kids you can find. Good luck.

Yet the majority are receiving massive need based aid.

Massive for the lowest income ...possibly full ride and then down from there depending on the calculator. They do not this policy in any way. Plenty of families want to attend even if they are full pay or only getting awards of 10, 20, 30, 40 percent. But not all think it is worth it and they go to cheaper schools

not the lowest of incomes, or even low income. household incomes up to the 75th, 80th, 85th percentile in the us will receive "massive" aid from the top colleges. Over half of households in the us would qualify for free room, board, and tuition at stanford, for example. 80% of households ($150k) would receive free tuition at stanford. now, of course there is the argument that lower/lower middle/midle class kids are less likely to get into stanford et al. than their higher income peers. fair. still, not remotely accurate to say you need to be low, and certainly not lowEST income for "massive aid."

Yes, all of this is right. Which is why, for the tippy top schools, "donut hole" is a complete myth. In reality, schools accurately determine who can afford the schools and who is wealthy enough to pay up, even if those people are themselves in denial.

Yes because the schools are the all knowing arbiters of what is a reasonable expectation for a middle class family to pay for their product

Not fully "all knowing" but they have a fairly good idea. Yes, some people hit life events (medical usually), but many choose not to save despite knowing they make decent money. Make that choice, and you might not afford Harvard. But you will be able to afford right below it. So focus your efforts on that. Or make the choice to save more

This exemplifies the very snotty attitude of these schools to the petit bourgeoisie- the middlebrow mouthbreathers.

I simply do not understand why you feel so entitled to a "luxury product" when you cannot afford it? Do you do this with everything else in life? Genuinely curious.

Most are focused on complaining "it's not fair, we can't afford T25/elite universities" when the reality is majority of kids, even those with the stats are not going to get admitted anyhow. Life isn't fair, not everyone who wants to attend school X will get in.

I can totally afford it. That’s not the issue. I just don’t embrace this let them eat cake attitude. And I empathize because when I went to college my parents were not in the position I am now.

I can empathize with those who truly cannot afford it. However, if I put $791/month in a 529 starting when a kid is born (~$9500/year), I would have $322K when they turn 18 (assuming 7% rate of return). I'd argue that anyone making $200K should be able to do this, if they really desire Harvard for their kid. And if you couldn't put it in when they were 1 or 2, then catch up by putting in most of your salary increases and continue living with same budget until you are "caught up" But someone bringing in $11K/month after taxes should be able to put $791 towards college savings.

But many of us who are bringing in $10-11 K a month after taxes now were making not much more than half of that when our kids were young and also in day care.

And you may be earning nothing a few years later when you turn 55 and get laid off and can’t find a new job because of DEI.

So funny that you assume someone making that much money must be white. You’ve justified DEI.

Bingo.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people who claim to be "donut hole" families have lived lives of increasing lifestyle creep as their incomes have climbed up 200k, and then want to complain that they don't get enough need-based aid. Well, did you really need a new car every 5 years? Expensive vacations? To redo the kitchen?

If you want to argue that a family making over 200k is middle class, then live like middle class people -- budget, accept you won't be able to afford everything you want to do, and sock money away for retirement and college.

We make well under 200k and this is what we do, and we have friends making over who go out to eat three nights a week, drive luxury cars, and take multiple vacations overseas every year, have weekly cleaners, etc. Those people are not entitled to need-based aid. It's not my fault, or the college's fault, that they chose to just live nicer, more luxurious, easier lives instead of saving their additional income for their child's education. We've scrimped and saved and still won't have enough. AND work in helping professions. I don't cry myself to sleep over the doctors and consultants and well-paid feds who will be disappointed in their FA award while crying into their Tesla upholstery and trying to console themselves on the flight to Aruba. Boo freaking hoo.

We make around 200k. Kids have never been abroad. Most vacations are to relatives, but we'll do long weekends at a cheap OBX hotel. Our cars get replaced at the 15 year mark and are not luxury. We still will not be able to pay 4x our annual income to put two kids through college. It's not a big deal because they can go to state school, but people pretending that people should attempt to live in poverty for the off chance that their kid gets into Harvard are insufferable.

+1 My kid is going to a great state school, but that's because we can't afford expensive private -- donut family. It's ridiculous for UMC to be expected to pay the same as wealthy families. $220K in the DC area is considered MC, btw. A HHI of $280K is not *that* different to $220K after taxes.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people who claim to be "donut hole" families have lived lives of increasing lifestyle creep as their incomes have climbed up 200k, and then want to complain that they don't get enough need-based aid. Well, did you really need a new car every 5 years? Expensive vacations? To redo the kitchen?

If you want to argue that a family making over 200k is middle class, then live like middle class people -- budget, accept you won't be able to afford everything you want to do, and sock money away for retirement and college.

We make well under 200k and this is what we do, and we have friends making over who go out to eat three nights a week, drive luxury cars, and take multiple vacations overseas every year, have weekly cleaners, etc. Those people are not entitled to need-based aid. It's not my fault, or the college's fault, that they chose to just live nicer, more luxurious, easier lives instead of saving their additional income for their child's education. We've scrimped and saved and still won't have enough. AND work in helping professions. I don't cry myself to sleep over the doctors and consultants and well-paid feds who will be disappointed in their FA award while crying into their Tesla upholstery and trying to console themselves on the flight to Aruba. Boo freaking hoo.

This. I posted simliar earlier. I work hard to stretch every dollar, so we can pay for my kid's college expenses. Yes, we get good FA at her T15, but we are still budgeting 40K/r on under 150K. When they were little, we were under 100K. I do feel for people who maybe had 1 working parent, and the 2nd just went back, and now they don't qualify, but for those making 200k+ over the past 10, 15 years, I'm betting they bought more expensive cars, went on more vacations, sent kids to more expensive camps, and ate out more than we did. It is really tone deaf to complain about people getting need based aid. It is NEED based. Of course, there are a few exceptions, and I agree that college prices overall have gotten crazy, but if you spent when you felt like it, you shouldn't then get to feel entitled to need based aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people who claim to be "donut hole" families have lived lives of increasing lifestyle creep as their incomes have climbed up 200k, and then want to complain that they don't get enough need-based aid. Well, did you really need a new car every 5 years? Expensive vacations? To redo the kitchen?

If you want to argue that a family making over 200k is middle class, then live like middle class people -- budget, accept you won't be able to afford everything you want to do, and sock money away for retirement and college.

We make well under 200k and this is what we do, and we have friends making over who go out to eat three nights a week, drive luxury cars, and take multiple vacations overseas every year, have weekly cleaners, etc. Those people are not entitled to need-based aid. It's not my fault, or the college's fault, that they chose to just live nicer, more luxurious, easier lives instead of saving their additional income for their child's education. We've scrimped and saved and still won't have enough. AND work in helping professions. I don't cry myself to sleep over the doctors and consultants and well-paid feds who will be disappointed in their FA award while crying into their Tesla upholstery and trying to console themselves on the flight to Aruba. Boo freaking hoo.

That's fine but look what you've done. You've sacrificed your whole life only to be ripped off by a system where more than half the kids are practically going for free, while maybe a quarter of the parents are rich people for whom $320k is a fraction of an annual bonus. You are kind of the sucker here.

What a ding dong. Most kids aren't going for free. You are really uninformed.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people who claim to be "donut hole" families have lived lives of increasing lifestyle creep as their incomes have climbed up 200k, and then want to complain that they don't get enough need-based aid. Well, did you really need a new car every 5 years? Expensive vacations? To redo the kitchen?

If you want to argue that a family making over 200k is middle class, then live like middle class people -- budget, accept you won't be able to afford everything you want to do, and sock money away for retirement and college.

We make well under 200k and this is what we do, and we have friends making over who go out to eat three nights a week, drive luxury cars, and take multiple vacations overseas every year, have weekly cleaners, etc. Those people are not entitled to need-based aid. It's not my fault, or the college's fault, that they chose to just live nicer, more luxurious, easier lives instead of saving their additional income for their child's education. We've scrimped and saved and still won't have enough. AND work in helping professions. I don't cry myself to sleep over the doctors and consultants and well-paid feds who will be disappointed in their FA award while crying into their Tesla upholstery and trying to console themselves on the flight to Aruba. Boo freaking hoo.

That's fine but look what you've done. You've sacrificed your whole life only to be ripped off by a system where more than half the kids are practically going for free, while maybe a quarter of the parents are rich people for whom $320k is a fraction of an annual bonus. You are kind of the sucker here.

The kids who are “going for free” have parents who’ve made a LOT of sacrifices.

Have they? How do you know that? Why are we so quick to assume a family with HHI less than 150k is so noble and deserving but a family that is 200k with some 529 money is a bunch of whiney entitled privileged bastards who should shut up and go to state school if they don't want to spend the rest of their lives as Walmart greeters paying off student loans?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people who claim to be "donut hole" families have lived lives of increasing lifestyle creep as their incomes have climbed up 200k, and then want to complain that they don't get enough need-based aid. Well, did you really need a new car every 5 years? Expensive vacations? To redo the kitchen?

If you want to argue that a family making over 200k is middle class, then live like middle class people -- budget, accept you won't be able to afford everything you want to do, and sock money away for retirement and college.

We make well under 200k and this is what we do, and we have friends making over who go out to eat three nights a week, drive luxury cars, and take multiple vacations overseas every year, have weekly cleaners, etc. Those people are not entitled to need-based aid. It's not my fault, or the college's fault, that they chose to just live nicer, more luxurious, easier lives instead of saving their additional income for their child's education. We've scrimped and saved and still won't have enough. AND work in helping professions. I don't cry myself to sleep over the doctors and consultants and well-paid feds who will be disappointed in their FA award while crying into their Tesla upholstery and trying to console themselves on the flight to Aruba. Boo freaking hoo.

That's fine but look what you've done. You've sacrificed your whole life only to be ripped off by a system where more than half the kids are practically going for free, while maybe a quarter of the parents are rich people for whom $320k is a fraction of an annual bonus. You are kind of the sucker here.

What a ding dong. Most kids aren't going for free. You are really uninformed.

If 65% of a class is getting $55k in aid on average (typical numbers) then a very large percentage of that must be full ride or close to it

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people who claim to be "donut hole" families have lived lives of increasing lifestyle creep as their incomes have climbed up 200k, and then want to complain that they don't get enough need-based aid. Well, did you really need a new car every 5 years? Expensive vacations? To redo the kitchen?

If you want to argue that a family making over 200k is middle class, then live like middle class people -- budget, accept you won't be able to afford everything you want to do, and sock money away for retirement and college.

We make well under 200k and this is what we do, and we have friends making over who go out to eat three nights a week, drive luxury cars, and take multiple vacations overseas every year, have weekly cleaners, etc. Those people are not entitled to need-based aid. It's not my fault, or the college's fault, that they chose to just live nicer, more luxurious, easier lives instead of saving their additional income for their child's education. We've scrimped and saved and still won't have enough. AND work in helping professions. I don't cry myself to sleep over the doctors and consultants and well-paid feds who will be disappointed in their FA award while crying into their Tesla upholstery and trying to console themselves on the flight to Aruba. Boo freaking hoo.

That's fine but look what you've done. You've sacrificed your whole life only to be ripped off by a system where more than half the kids are practically going for free, while maybe a quarter of the parents are rich people for whom $320k is a fraction of an annual bonus. You are kind of the sucker here.

And I’m sure Harvard’s $50+ BILLION endowment appreciates all the sacrifice. We shouldn’t have a system that requires such deprivation when colleges are sitting on tax protected billions. We are the suckers. Chileans took to the streets when universities were too expensive. We shame each other for taking a vacation.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is arguing against poor students getting free education, only against ludicrously high cost of colleges. COA should be lowered for all and payment tied to waivers for fee years in public service jobs at lower pay.

Hence PSLF.

Explain how someone can use PSLF to pay for 4 years at a private university or an OOS school

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:No one is arguing against poor students getting free education, only against ludicrously high cost of colleges. COA should be lowered for all and payment tied to waivers for fee years in public service jobs at lower pay.

Hence PSLF.

Explain how someone can use PSLF to pay for 4 years at a private university or an OOS school

Parent Plus Loans are eligible for PLSF.

But why should one attend an OOS school?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people who claim to be "donut hole" families have lived lives of increasing lifestyle creep as their incomes have climbed up 200k, and then want to complain that they don't get enough need-based aid. Well, did you really need a new car every 5 years? Expensive vacations? To redo the kitchen?

If you want to argue that a family making over 200k is middle class, then live like middle class people -- budget, accept you won't be able to afford everything you want to do, and sock money away for retirement and college.

We make well under 200k and this is what we do, and we have friends making over who go out to eat three nights a week, drive luxury cars, and take multiple vacations overseas every year, have weekly cleaners, etc. Those people are not entitled to need-based aid. It's not my fault, or the college's fault, that they chose to just live nicer, more luxurious, easier lives instead of saving their additional income for their child's education. We've scrimped and saved and still won't have enough. AND work in helping professions. I don't cry myself to sleep over the doctors and consultants and well-paid feds who will be disappointed in their FA award while crying into their Tesla upholstery and trying to console themselves on the flight to Aruba. Boo freaking hoo.

That's fine but look what you've done. You've sacrificed your whole life only to be ripped off by a system where more than half the kids are practically going for free, while maybe a quarter of the parents are rich people for whom $320k is a fraction of an annual bonus. You are kind of the sucker here.

The kids who are “going for free” have parents who’ve made a LOT of sacrifices.

Have they? How do you know that? Why are we so quick to assume a family with HHI less than 150k is so noble and deserving but a family that is 200k with some 529 money is a bunch of whiney entitled privileged bastards who should shut up and go to state school if they don't want to spend the rest of their lives as Walmart greeters paying off student loans?

Wow you’re a real peach. You’re basically saying you think poorer people are lazy freeloaders.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:A lot of people who claim to be "donut hole" families have lived lives of increasing lifestyle creep as their incomes have climbed up 200k, and then want to complain that they don't get enough need-based aid. Well, did you really need a new car every 5 years? Expensive vacations? To redo the kitchen?

If you want to argue that a family making over 200k is middle class, then live like middle class people -- budget, accept you won't be able to afford everything you want to do, and sock money away for retirement and college.

We make well under 200k and this is what we do, and we have friends making over who go out to eat three nights a week, drive luxury cars, and take multiple vacations overseas every year, have weekly cleaners, etc. Those people are not entitled to need-based aid. It's not my fault, or the college's fault, that they chose to just live nicer, more luxurious, easier lives instead of saving their additional income for their child's education. We've scrimped and saved and still won't have enough. AND work in helping professions. I don't cry myself to sleep over the doctors and consultants and well-paid feds who will be disappointed in their FA award while crying into their Tesla upholstery and trying to console themselves on the flight to Aruba. Boo freaking hoo.

That's fine but look what you've done. You've sacrificed your whole life only to be ripped off by a system where more than half the kids are practically going for free, while maybe a quarter of the parents are rich people for whom $320k is a fraction of an annual bonus. You are kind of the sucker here.

The kids who are “going for free” have parents who’ve made a LOT of sacrifices.

Have they? How do you know that? Why are we so quick to assume a family with HHI less than 150k is so noble and deserving but a family that is 200k with some 529 money is a bunch of whiney entitled privileged bastards who should shut up and go to state school if they don't want to spend the rest of their lives as Walmart greeters paying off student loans?

Wow you’re a real peach. You’re basically saying you think poorer people are lazy freeloaders.

I don't know who they are. Probably for the most part they are teachers or civil servant types who don't make much but have a lot of job security and good benefits and maybe even pensions (that don't get considered in FA analysis). I'm just saying, the mentality seems to be the "underprivileged" are these noble and beautiful creatures while the hard working professional classes, clawing their way towards a decent life for their families, are entitled privileged whiney ungrateful bastards who need to shut up and go into debt or send their kid to state u... This all dovetails with all these narratives of unearned privilege that are popular now.