FAFSA - is middle-class waste time applying?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I don't think UMC families are saying that they should be given aid. Just lamenting that they cannot afford it, even if some insist that they can. Many of us have 529 accounts, but those funds didn't grow that much, even putting in more than $2500 per year per account, and we have multiple kids. It's enough for in state, but not 80k per year. When we started saving college was a bit cheaper. Several years ago, when my DC was in MS, we looked at an expensive private. It was $60K/year. Now it's closer to $85k per year. Saving $240k is doable. Saving closer to $350K is much harder.

If you still have 20 working years, I could see how you think you can afford to pull back on funding retirement, and save later, but if you are 55+, you don't have that luxury.

Obviously, saving only $2500/year/kid is not going to produce enough for $80K/year schools in 18 years (which will cost way more than 80K then).

Majority of kids have to pick schools they can afford, most cannot afford 80K/year, or they could but smartly realize that saved money would be nice to have for grad school.

Read bolded.. we saved way more than $2500 per year per account. We have two accounts per child. Still not enough to cover $80K per year per child given that the 529 didn't grow that much.

So why write it that way? How much did you save per year? Why did the 529 not grow that much? If you dont have it all in the growth market, it may not. But that is on you, as there are 529s that allow you to do that. You can pick one (may not be your state's) that allows you to select the MF to invest in. American Funds in VA is an excellent example. My kid's funds earned 8-9% annual on average during the aggressive years. We didn't pull back until age 15/16 to less aggressive.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh gosh, I am so sick of people making hundreds of thousands of dollars and trying to call themselves "middle class." We earn about $150K a year (here in the DC area as well) and I hesitate to call us middle class-- I think we're upper middle class, not quite rich yet but getting there. At $300,000 you are absolutely not middle class anymore- you're in like the top 5% richest households in the area.

Look, I get that paying for college is not easy even at $300K, but haven't you been saving? Even if you only saved like $10K per child per year (which shouldn't be too hard at your income-- we manage it pretty easily at half your income) that should cover most or all of the costs, depending on investment returns.

.

Oh gosh, I am so sick of people making assumptions about what others can afford. We make $350+. We’ve never had any family help. We lived on one GS-11 to gradually 14 in the DMV when our kids were little and could hardly pay the mortgage, much less save for college. One of our kids has a disability that requires expenses beyond medical that you’d never begin to understand.

We have high incomes in the last few years and our expenses are high. We still have our own student loans. College for a kid with our kids disability (if that happens) is DOUBLE private college and they will need help their entire life.

So I’m so sick of people jumping in on DCUM and saying off of one sentence about income “of course you can afford it, you made lifestyle choices or didn’t save enough.”

You just don’t know the complexities of someone else’s situation.

We will not get aid and our DC will go to a great state school with merit. We are okay with that. But don’t tell me what I can afford based on my income when I’m in my 50’s and my kid is 18.

$300,000 is rich.

Period.

It is rich here. It is really rich an hour drive away from here.

There is no way, no how, that a $300K income is middle class... even here.

Sure 300k comp in say Arkansas is rich, but not in this area. In this area you are getting by fine but by no means is someone making that rich, especially if they have kids. 300k in this area is solidly middle class (look at the average income in McLean for example, it's 250k, or say in 22207 it's 230k). 300k in this area (especially given high cost of housing and childcare) is very much an almost paycheck to paycheck existence.

The only way I would say that 300k is fine is if its a household where only the husband/wife works while the other takes care of childcare. Then yeah 300k is great, otherwise though (especially with super young children) dual income 300k just doesn't get you far.

BS.

$300,000 is very wealthy in this area, unless you are terrible with money.

$330k is middle class, just look at people living in the most expensive part of the highest income county in the entire country.

“But I don’t feel rich” they say driving their $80k Tesla back to their $1.8 million house after paying the $40 toll on 66.

Agree. It’s all very simple. If someone making $150K can send their kid to school, someone making $300K can, too. It doesn’t matter what aid the families get, it doesn’t matter how long the income has been $300k. The concept is proven. It’s possible to live on 150k. It’s possible to cover any school with the extra $150k, after taxes.

Now, is either family happy with their lot? Does either family want to sink money into education? Those are questions to explore. But the family making $300K has the upper hand. There is no package a family making $150K can be offered, that would change that statement.

State college, yes. IF we are talking $90k/year price tag and have more than 1 kid--it is going to be rough on a $150k salary in this area without family help/trust/grandparents, etc.

We have that income and could do it but we aren’t vacationing, crummy house, etc.

2 kids? $180k/year? Wow. $30k more a year than your annual income. I’m sure there are expenses other than college too: food, gas, possibly mortgage, health/life insurance …

I think they meant over 18 years they were able to save enough.

What amazes me is that, it seems like the default on dcum is you either have saved or need to pay out of pocket for your kid to attend somewhere.

That in and of itself.. having that option. Is a luxury. For many families it’s either merit aid or loans or a combination of the two if the kid wants to go to college. And that’s for an in-state school too.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:These threads always get derailed by bickering. If there are state/federal funds involved, even if it's designated merit, the school will likely require the FAFSA just to complete their accounting, confirm there's no double dipping and no additional eligibility. This is a case where OP would complete the FAFSA. The FAFSA is less info than a tax return. I don't see how a fed household would find this intrusive, cumbersome or unexpected.

I thought about this. If you google “what is middle class”, it will usually be some sort of distribution for the region area and break that up into tiers. But if you search things like how much did you need to make to afford x or y back when we grew up - potentially people in that middle income range could afford a home, healthcare, and if it was a good job with a pension, they also had a retirement. I live in a neighborhood where people had 4-5 kids or more (back in the 1960’s) , sometimes one income, sent the kids to Catholic school and they could retire with a pension and healthcare. Fast forward to today and say 120K for a family of four in Alexandria is considered middle income with 49% adults in the region - what that lifestyle looks like for middle income is different now than it was when we were growing up and it’s hard to say it’s a pick 3 - do you want to buy a single family home, fund retirement, have adequate healthcare, be able to have a parent stay home, pay for college etc. This shifts that you have to be in that tier beyond middle income to afford what back is generation ago was middle class. And one more income tier to live the lifestyle that was x years ago considered upper middle class.

We have a million times more wants than families had in the 60s and 70s.

What was considered middle class back then is comparable to what is considered lower class now.

Such as 3 generations in one home, 4 to 6 kids in a 3 bedroom - 1 bathroom house with no AC, a 10x12 ft eat in kitchen, no dishwasher, 1 small TV, 1 family car, eating out only on birthdays/special occasion, no tracel sports - SAT prep - private voice lessons - dance competition team - specialized summer camps, kids getting jobs around middle school like babysitting/mowing lawns, no flying vacations...

300K is rich and everyone posting here has a far more luxurious lifestyle than any middle class family from the 60s or 70s.

Exactly! Previous generations had a lot less stuff. We lived in much smaller homes, kids shared bedrooms, homes had 1-2 bathrooms not 4+, we ate 1-2 meals per month of takeout or at the restaurant, no 10-12/week, we didn't have AC (I grew up in the Midwest--we needed it), etc.

Mowed our own lawns, cleaned our own houses, painted and did minor repairs ourselves....

[Anonymous]

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

Where do you live?

Not PP, but I agree with them. We live in MoCo, close to DC.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote: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.

I don't think UMC families are saying that they should be given aid. Just lamenting that they cannot afford it, even if some insist that they can. Many of us have 529 accounts, but those funds didn't grow that much, even putting in more than $2500 per year per account, and we have multiple kids. It's enough for in state, but not 80k per year. When we started saving college was a bit cheaper. Several years ago, when my DC was in MS, we looked at an expensive private. It was $60K/year. Now it's closer to $85k per year. Saving $240k is doable. Saving closer to $350K is much harder.

If you still have 20 working years, I could see how you think you can afford to pull back on funding retirement, and save later, but if you are 55+, you don't have that luxury.

Obviously, saving only $2500/year/kid is not going to produce enough for $80K/year schools in 18 years (which will cost way more than 80K then).

Majority of kids have to pick schools they can afford, most cannot afford 80K/year, or they could but smartly realize that saved money would be nice to have for grad school.

Read bolded.. we saved way more than $2500 per year per account. We have two accounts per child. Still not enough to cover $80K per year per child given that the 529 didn't grow that much.

So why write it that way? How much did you save per year? Why did the 529 not grow that much? If you dont have it all in the growth market, it may not. But that is on you, as there are 529s that allow you to do that. You can pick one (may not be your state's) that allows you to select the MF to invest in. American Funds in VA is an excellent example. My kid's funds earned 8-9% annual on average during the aggressive years. We didn't pull back until age 15/16 to less aggressive.

DP. Even with 8-9% growth, saving 20K year since 2007 only gets you to ~600K after you factor in expense ratios etc. Not enough to cover 2 kids at 80-90K schools (and that is not even Harvard but say Amherst/Colorado College.) And this simple calculation doesn't actually account for the real fluctuations (e.g. crash in 2008/2009 and again in 2020. Yes, there were rebounds, but plugging in actual numbers and accounting for management fees only gets you to the number I quoted above. Colllege costs are ridiculous right now. And before you jump in with state options, DC doesn't have a state university (obv) and DCTAG helps but not as much.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Oh gosh, I am so sick of people making hundreds of thousands of dollars and trying to call themselves "middle class." We earn about $150K a year (here in the DC area as well) and I hesitate to call us middle class-- I think we're upper middle class, not quite rich yet but getting there. At $300,000 you are absolutely not middle class anymore- you're in like the top 5% richest households in the area.

Look, I get that paying for college is not easy even at $300K, but haven't you been saving? Even if you only saved like $10K per child per year (which shouldn't be too hard at your income-- we manage it pretty easily at half your income) that should cover most or all of the costs, depending on investment returns.

.

Oh gosh, I am so sick of people making assumptions about what others can afford. We make $350+. We’ve never had any family help. We lived on one GS-11 to gradually 14 in the DMV when our kids were little and could hardly pay the mortgage, much less save for college. One of our kids has a disability that requires expenses beyond medical that you’d never begin to understand.

We have high incomes in the last few years and our expenses are high. We still have our own student loans. College for a kid with our kids disability (if that happens) is DOUBLE private college and they will need help their entire life.

So I’m so sick of people jumping in on DCUM and saying off of one sentence about income “of course you can afford it, you made lifestyle choices or didn’t save enough.”

You just don’t know the complexities of someone else’s situation.

We will not get aid and our DC will go to a great state school with merit. We are okay with that. But don’t tell me what I can afford based on my income when I’m in my 50’s and my kid is 18.

$300,000 is rich.

Period.

It is rich here. It is really rich an hour drive away from here.

There is no way, no how, that a $300K income is middle class... even here.

Sure 300k comp in say Arkansas is rich, but not in this area. In this area you are getting by fine but by no means is someone making that rich, especially if they have kids. 300k in this area is solidly middle class (look at the average income in McLean for example, it's 250k, or say in 22207 it's 230k). 300k in this area (especially given high cost of housing and childcare) is very much an almost paycheck to paycheck existence.

The only way I would say that 300k is fine is if its a household where only the husband/wife works while the other takes care of childcare. Then yeah 300k is great, otherwise though (especially with super young children) dual income 300k just doesn't get you far.

"In the most expensive neighborhoods full of rich people with expensive homes, my income is only a little above average! So that makes me middle-class, not rich!"

Come on, is this a joke? Just because you choose to live around other rich people does not mean you're middle class. (Nor does having to watch your budget because you have an expensive house or send your kids to private schools.) The vast majority of families with kids in the DC area get by just fine earning way, way less than $300K. If you earn $300K you're in the top 10% of households in the DC area, not near the middle, ie not middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Why do you think parents in Northern Virginia are all obsessed with getting their kids into UVA? They can afford it easily on $300k a year.

Or parents in Montgomery County with UMD.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:Many likely were not taught to save.

That is not a character flaw, but it is an obstacle.

My DH and I were not taught this either, but being married and working together we have improved our financial literacy over decades and are lucky to have DCUM UMC salaries.

We are terrible savers, but if we can automate and never see the money that works for us.

I think the “pay yourself first”, meaning savings, mentality is great but hard for many people who don’t think long term to execute. This is not something taught in school or society. People do not talk about money and people don’t like feeling as if they do not make as much as their friends and neighbors. It is hard for many to say “I cannot afford that” because of shame.

It is easier to live on a salary of $150K than to have a salary of $300K and live on a salary of $150K.

Those that are better at savings appear to balance the pain of frugality with the joy of experiencing superiority.

People feel bad that private college is expensive and they cannot afford to give that to their children. College is crazy expensive. There are less expensive options.

Our children will be better off for not getting everything they want.

No, it’s easier to live off $300k and save a lot than 150k. Your poor choices are not colleges problem. It’s yours. We talk about money in our home all the time.

[Anonymous]

A very few private schools give you merit aid to fill out the form- not sure why but they do. Otherwise total waste of time and invasive. You will get nothing.

[Anonymous]

FAFSA should be tiered based on geography. DMV people are getting nothing because we are all fabulously wealthy here despite living in small 2800 square foot houses with mortgages (that cost 1.3M)

[Anonymous]

When we applied (three kids, upper middle class), we were told our expected family contribution was $209K a year, if that tells you anything. Meaning they would give aid after we spent 209K a year on college. I will say, some colleges are attempting to get to that, but to date, I believe that still means no aid anywhere

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we applied (three kids, upper middle class), we were told our expected family contribution was $209K a year, if that tells you anything. Meaning they would give aid after we spent 209K a year on college. I will say, some colleges are attempting to get to that, but to date, I believe that still means no aid anywhere

What is your income?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we applied (three kids, upper middle class), we were told our expected family contribution was $209K a year, if that tells you anything. Meaning they would give aid after we spent 209K a year on college. I will say, some colleges are attempting to get to that, but to date, I believe that still means no aid anywhere

And you don’t know how the FAFSA works. It gave you a number, but even if your expenses were over that, there’s no federal aid attached. You’d have to find a school that will honor that number.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:When we applied (three kids, upper middle class), we were told our expected family contribution was $209K a year, if that tells you anything. Meaning they would give aid after we spent 209K a year on college. I will say, some colleges are attempting to get to that, but to date, I believe that still means no aid anywhere

I call BS. No one who's actually middle class would be expected to pay $209K because it would be impossible. If they said your EFC was $209K then you must have income and/or assets that put you well out of the middle class.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:A very few private schools give you merit aid to fill out the form- not sure why but they do. Otherwise total waste of time and invasive. You will get nothing.

What do people mean here when they say invasive? Why are they bothered by this?