Are top private colleges mainly for poor people now?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Both sides are fighting over the cake crumbs here. We should be focusing instead on the absurd costs instead of dividing ourselves between the really can’t afford its and the barely can afford its.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Bolded describes civil servants and lots of families making $70k-$170k very well.

Can you stop running your mouth, please? It keeps getting you into trouble. You know not of what you speak.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

Both sides are fighting over the cake crumbs here. We should be focusing instead on the absurd costs instead of dividing ourselves between the really can’t afford its and the barely can afford its.

+1,000,000

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You sound very ungrateful.

[Anonymous]

Many of you need to have a conversation with your kids before they get to college and seriously embarrass themselves. They are likely to meet a wide variety of students—racially, economically, sexually, politically and geographically. Lots of kids putting their feet in their mouths during my freshmen year of unfetter when discussions of spring break, childhood schooling, Greek life, financial struggles and travel came up.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many of you need to have a conversation with your kids before they get to college and seriously embarrass themselves. They are likely to meet a wide variety of students—racially, economically, sexually, politically and geographically. Lots of kids putting their feet in their mouths during my freshmen year of unfetter when discussions of spring break, childhood schooling, Greek life, financial struggles and travel came up.

*of undergrad

[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.

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.

+1 And most of our vacations aren't even that nice. I've never taken our kids to a beach resort or Disneyworld. Most of our vacations are to see family. We drive our cars for like 15 years. We chose to live in a nice neighborhood for the safety and schools, but that's about it. We live in a hcol area because of our jobs, but that's about it.

We don't wear expensive clothes; we shop at Old Navy and Kohls. I have no jewelry except my engagement ring.

We save a lot more for retirement because we don't have family money, and we don't want to burden our children with our retirement. And actually, we help out our families financially.

Colleges that take federal money for research should have their costs regulated.

It's ridiculous for them to expect families making $280K to pay the same as a family making $800K.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many of you need to have a conversation with your kids before they get to college and seriously embarrass themselves. They are likely to meet a wide variety of students—racially, economically, sexually, politically and geographically. Lots of kids putting their feet in their mouths during my freshmen year of unfetter when discussions of spring break, childhood schooling, Greek life, financial struggles and travel came up.

I'm sorry, but these kids are just mirrors of their parents. Do you think these parents get it?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spouse and I combined make just over $400k and live in Chevy Chase. My kid got into ND for class of 2027. But we are seriously thinking about sending her to UMD or Clemson, where she has money at both. We haven’t always made $400k, we have three kids and $330k is a lot for undergrad. Point is that you need to make a lot of money to not have to think twice about pricey privates.

You are the exact point of this thread. Even up to 400k of income, well beyond the threshold of financial aid, full pay at a private college is an iffy proposition. The upper middle class is being hollowed out at these schools, where the pricing architecture favors middle to low income and the very affluent.

But it’s always been an iffy proposition. Families have always decided (correctly) that a state school education was great. My own parents in the 90’s decided that they didn’t want to pay for an Ivy education since there were three of us and sent me to the state flagship honors program for basically free. Great decision. We will make a different decision for their grandchildren even though the relative cost is higher for us than it was for them. Making choices about whether to splurge on something that is not necessary will always be a personal choice.

But the point is, the math has changed over the decades. The cost of attendance has risen faster than inflation. Meanwhile, financial aid for low income students has become more generous thanks to swollen endowments. The top schools are increasingly becoming filled with kids who qualify for substantial aid (in fact a majority of students) and kids who qualify for no aid and their parents still send them there because they are very wealthy and money is not an object. This trend is only continuing. Perhaps soon all the top schools will look like Trinity College. A bunch of kids on financial aid and then like half the class filled with rich white prep school kids who like to party and don't really have much interest in books. This is where we are headed because pretty soon it will be 100k/yr and the number of families prepared to pay that kind of money will become lower and lower.

I cannot tell you what the market forces will do in the years to come but for now, this is simply not true.

http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/college/

Take a look at this graphic. Most people at Columbia (over 60%) is from the top quintile. "only" 14% are from the 1%. So 45% of the university is from the top 20% who are not "rich".

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spouse and I combined make just over $400k and live in Chevy Chase. My kid got into ND for class of 2027. But we are seriously thinking about sending her to UMD or Clemson, where she has money at both. We haven’t always made $400k, we have three kids and $330k is a lot for undergrad. Point is that you need to make a lot of money to not have to think twice about pricey privates.

You are the exact point of this thread. Even up to 400k of income, well beyond the threshold of financial aid, full pay at a private college is an iffy proposition. The upper middle class is being hollowed out at these schools, where the pricing architecture favors middle to low income and the very affluent.

But it’s always been an iffy proposition. Families have always decided (correctly) that a state school education was great. My own parents in the 90’s decided that they didn’t want to pay for an Ivy education since there were three of us and sent me to the state flagship honors program for basically free. Great decision. We will make a different decision for their grandchildren even though the relative cost is higher for us than it was for them. Making choices about whether to splurge on something that is not necessary will always be a personal choice.

But the point is, the math has changed over the decades. The cost of attendance has risen faster than inflation. Meanwhile, financial aid for low income students has become more generous thanks to swollen endowments. The top schools are increasingly becoming filled with kids who qualify for substantial aid (in fact a majority of students) and kids who qualify for no aid and their parents still send them there because they are very wealthy and money is not an object. This trend is only continuing. Perhaps soon all the top schools will look like Trinity College. A bunch of kids on financial aid and then like half the class filled with rich white prep school kids who like to party and don't really have much interest in books. This is where we are headed because pretty soon it will be 100k/yr and the number of families prepared to pay that kind of money will become lower and lower.

I cannot tell you what the market forces will do in the years to come but for now, this is simply not true.

http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/college/

Take a look at this graphic. Most people at Columbia (over 60%) is from the top quintile. "only" 14% are from the 1%. So 45% of the university is from the top 20% who are not "rich".

The wealthiest people I know around here are not high income. Trust fund babies where maybe one parent works a glamour job. They aren’t collecting FA due to assets but their incomes put them in lower percentiles. Do these stats consider assets?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:You’re free to quit your job if being poor is so awesome. *Crickets*

I suspect a lot of families do somehow game the financial aid system this way. Like maybe one parent stops working. Getting 320k of aid bears a pre tax income of 80k or whatever

No, they shuffle assets around to hide their wealth. Actual MC people don't quit working to get more financial aid, because that also messes with retirement, health insurance, etc. You people have no idea what not being UMC/rich is like. And most colleges don't meet financial need with pure scholarship. It just means more 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.

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.

It's $20-25K extra per year. That's a huge difference. If you have been making that for at least 4 years before college you could have saved $80K in just that timeframe.

Why does everyone feel entitled to expensive private college? Just like most things in life, you go with what you can afford. There are literally still the majority of colleges that are/can be affordable for your family. Making $280K/year puts you in the Top 7-8% of all people in the USA. Let that sink in. You have so many more privileges than 92% of the people in our country.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:My spouse and I combined make just over $400k and live in Chevy Chase. My kid got into ND for class of 2027. But we are seriously thinking about sending her to UMD or Clemson, where she has money at both. We haven’t always made $400k, we have three kids and $330k is a lot for undergrad. Point is that you need to make a lot of money to not have to think twice about pricey privates.

You are the exact point of this thread. Even up to 400k of income, well beyond the threshold of financial aid, full pay at a private college is an iffy proposition. The upper middle class is being hollowed out at these schools, where the pricing architecture favors middle to low income and the very affluent.

But it’s always been an iffy proposition. Families have always decided (correctly) that a state school education was great. My own parents in the 90’s decided that they didn’t want to pay for an Ivy education since there were three of us and sent me to the state flagship honors program for basically free. Great decision. We will make a different decision for their grandchildren even though the relative cost is higher for us than it was for them. Making choices about whether to splurge on something that is not necessary will always be a personal choice.

But the point is, the math has changed over the decades. The cost of attendance has risen faster than inflation. Meanwhile, financial aid for low income students has become more generous thanks to swollen endowments. The top schools are increasingly becoming filled with kids who qualify for substantial aid (in fact a majority of students) and kids who qualify for no aid and their parents still send them there because they are very wealthy and money is not an object. This trend is only continuing. Perhaps soon all the top schools will look like Trinity College. A bunch of kids on financial aid and then like half the class filled with rich white prep school kids who like to party and don't really have much interest in books. This is where we are headed because pretty soon it will be 100k/yr and the number of families prepared to pay that kind of money will become lower and lower.

I cannot tell you what the market forces will do in the years to come but for now, this is simply not true.

http://www.equality-of-opportunity.org/college/

Take a look at this graphic. Most people at Columbia (over 60%) is from the top quintile. "only" 14% are from the 1%. So 45% of the university is from the top 20% who are not "rich".

From what I can tell the top quintile is 150k+. Again, we are comparing families in prime earning years against a pool of households that includes single people (young and old), young couples, etc. We might have a different understanding what poor or rich is. Bottom line is, half or more of the school is qualifying for lots of aid and half or more is able to shoulder $80k a year. Very bifurcated.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

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.

You sound very ungrateful.

I'm sorry what am I supposed to be grateful for? And to whom? and who the heck are you to tell me I need to be grateful?

[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.

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.

It's $20-25K extra per year. That's a huge difference. If you have been making that for at least 4 years before college you could have saved $80K in just that timeframe.

Why does everyone feel entitled to expensive private college? Just like most things in life, you go with what you can afford. There are literally still the majority of colleges that are/can be affordable for your family. Making $280K/year puts you in the Top 7-8% of all people in the USA. Let that sink in. You have so many more privileges than 92% of the people in our country.

I would ask, then, why do low income people think they are entitled to expensive private college? People who aren't even paying a penny--not just UMC types who wish it was 30% cheaper.