Anyone making of 6-figure salary (combined or not) receiving financial aid?

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:Surrounded by the mega-wealthy AND those who put a priority on good education over second homes, really large homes, extensive college savings, and fancy vacations. Also surrounded by those who are self-reliant except when need for assistance truly exists.

I get your point, but it is undermined when you put college savings in the same category as second homes and fancy vacations. And why in the world do you prefer to have your kids surrounded by the mega-wealthy and not the upper-middle-class? Seriously don't get that.

Why does it make sense to look at college savings at all? What you are saying is that people should get financial aid throughout the K-12 years so that they don't have to get aid in college.

Incidentally, if you are paying full freight for your kids to go to private schools, you don't even need to save that much for college because you are paying close to college tuition just out of cash flow every year, so college is barely going to be a blip on the radar screen.

I don't think college savings is some untouchable holy grail, and I agree with the PPs list and his/her conclusion about who should get aid.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
Then you are missing the point of all this heated debate on the financial aid issue of late. It's partially a class issue. It's partially borne out of insecurity - why give a literal and figurative hand to those fast on the heels of our DCs. It's partially a view, masked in the argument of "self-reliance," that only those of the manor born deserve to be in the manor. It's partially a reflection of the view that the middle class is not value added, again in a literal and figurative senset - to the private school experience.

No, it's a view that only those kids who have parents who are willing to do what it takes to pay for it belong there. For some parents it is easy; for others it's harder. That's life. As for scholarships, they should go to kids who are really smart or who really excel at something but who otherwise would not be able to attend (and I mean really not able, not just that mummy and daddy will feel a little pinched). In other words, a meritocracy.

If the financial aid office wants to give out scholarships to average kids whose parents aren't willing to do what it takes to send their kid to the school, then I think that's a lazy financial aid office. They should be out there looking for the kids who deserve it on merit. That what the colleges and universities do.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:No, it's a view that only those kids who have parents who are willing to do what it takes to pay for it belong there. For some parents it is easy; for others it's harder. That's life.

Let the slaves be slaves, the elite the elite, education not for the masses

Maybe we could start doing the same with healthcare

[Anonymous]

To the PP:

You seem to think these schools are are filled with people making 10 million a year. They're not.

When I look around, I do see some very wealthy families, but actually very few. What I see is parents who have made choices -

Choices to live in a small apartment and send the kids to private school

Choices not to have a fancy car or at least not to get a new one every year or two

Choices to skimp on retirement savings, or home decor, or vacations, or summer camp

Choices to have the mom work instead of to stay home

Choices to not have full-time childcare even in large families where the mom could use a break.

I see these people making choices every day to send their kids to school with no financial aid.

The common bond among these parents is not overwhelming wealth. It is that they value their child's education over all else. They also tend to be older, but not exclusively.

I know how many families at our school got aid last year, and it was way less than 10% of the student body. So most of these people are doing what it takes to pay for it. My child attends one of the schools deemed to be "elite" on this board. The idea that these schools are populated by some ruling class that thinks everyone else are slaves is ridiculous.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:
Then you are missing the point of all this heated debate on the financial aid issue of late. It's partially a class issue. It's partially borne out of insecurity - why give a literal and figurative hand to those fast on the heels of our DCs. It's partially a view, masked in the argument of "self-reliance," that only those of the manor born deserve to be in the manor. It's partially a reflection of the view that the middle class is not value added, again in a literal and figurative senset - to the private school experience.

No, it's a view that only those kids who have parents who are willing to do what it takes to pay for it belong there. For some parents it is easy; for others it's harder. That's life. As for scholarships, they should go to kids who are really smart or who really excel at something but who otherwise would not be able to attend (and I mean really not able, not just that mummy and daddy will feel a little pinched). In other words, a meritocracy.

If the financial aid office wants to give out scholarships to average kids whose parents aren't willing to do what it takes to send their kid to the school, then I think that's a lazy financial aid office. They should be out there looking for the kids who deserve it on merit. That what the colleges and universities do.

Actually, a meritocracy would take really smart kids/kids who excel at something regardless of household income--that is what meritocracy means. "Merit" scholarships at colleges, for example, are specifically blind to household income and go solely to those who, well, merit it! That is different from financial aid. I am all in favor of a true meritocracy.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:To the PP:

You seem to think these schools are are filled with people making 10 million a year. They're not.

When I look around, I do see some very wealthy families, but actually very few. What I see is parents who have made choices -

Choices to live in a small apartment and send the kids to private school

Choices not to have a fancy car or at least not to get a new one every year or two

Choices to skimp on retirement savings, or home decor, or vacations, or summer camp

Choices to have the mom work instead of to stay home

Choices to not have full-time childcare even in large families where the mom could use a break.

I see these people making choices every day to send their kids to school with no financial aid.

The common bond among these parents is not overwhelming wealth. It is that they value their child's education over all else. They also tend to be older, but not exclusively.

I know how many families at our school got aid last year, and it was way less than 10% of the student body. So most of these people are doing what it takes to pay for it. My child attends one of the schools deemed to be "elite" on this board. The idea that these schools are populated by some ruling class that thinks everyone else are slaves is ridiculous.

This is the false assumption that is at the bottom of this whole "controversy" here. My bet would be that many of these families do in fact receive some portion of aid, however small, that helps make the difference between their child being able to attend the school or not. I mean, please, you cannot make a case for 10% of the student body of any of these schools being from families that are actually poor.

[Anonymous]

Anonymous wrote:
This is the false assumption that is at the bottom of this whole "controversy" here. My bet would be that many of these families do in fact receive some portion of aid, however small, that helps make the difference between their child being able to attend the school or not. I mean, please, you cannot make a case for 10% of the student body of any of these schools being from families that are actually poor.

My DC's whole class is populated with people like this. This year we don't have any mega-wealthy people in our class. The number of people in the class exceeds the number of families who got financial aid. That doesn't even factor in all the people I know who have kids in other classes. So, you can believe that most of these people are getting aid if you want to. But I know what I know and I see what I see.

[Anonymous]

For nonprofit schools, the number of children (although NOT their names) receiving aid and the total dollar amount of that aid is listed on the form 990, which is filed with the IRS annually. You may view that form at guidestar.org and you will see that the 10 percent figure is indeed accurate for many schools.

On a separate note, what have you people got against the mega-wealthy??? This sounds like reverse-snobbery to me. Children of the lauded upper middle class can be quite nasty ... trust me. They can also be lovely, grounded, blah, blah, blah just as well-raised children from ANY socioeconomic situtation can be.